The Witness Teaching In 5 Steps
S1: All observation (regardless of kind) requires an observer. For example, a thought–one sort of observation–requires an observer in order for that thought to be registered, indeed in order for it to appear in the first place. S2: Necessarily, the observer is different or separate from the observed. For example, a bodily sensation is different from the observer. Or a visual perception…
The Spiritual Equivalent Of War
Gibson’s Heroics Kirk Gibson was supposed to be in the trainer’s room when millions of us saw him limp to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the ninth of Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, and the Dodgers down by a run. It’s a long, fierce at-bat against star closer Dennis…
The Spiritual Equivalent Of War
Contesting Flabby Pacifism Imagine William James–now older and, it’ll turn out, just four years before death–delivering a public lecture at Stanford in which he’s telling fellow pacifists that their position isn’t philosophically defensible. In 1906, the feeling of war–with a long build-up to hostilities that will become WWI and the Boer War (1899-1901) not long…
Where Are We Going?
When I see a homeless man walk by, I wonder where he’s going. “Hi,” he said. “Hi there,” I said. And this guy walked right past our house. Where did he come from? And where is he going? Where are any of us going? And where did any of us come from? I don’t understand…
Ramakrishna Cuts Through The Divine Mother
The Sword Of Discrimination Reaching the end of his rope, Ramakrishna said to Totapuri, his Vedantic teacher: “It is hopeless. I cannot raise my mind to the unconditioned state and come face to face with Atman.” “What?” Totapuri replied. “You can’t do it? But you have to!” Searching about excitedly, he picked up shard of…
Yogic New Thought: Problems & Directions
My wife Alexandra and I are currently writing a book entitled Yogic New Thought. New Thought is a largely American “metaphysical religion” that began in the second half of the nineteenth century and that continues, mainly in pop cultural form, today. To simplify to an extreme: the basic tenet of New Thought is a thought…
Yogic New Thought: A Reappraisal And Interpretation
John S. Haller Jr., in his book The History of New Thought: From Mind Cure to Positive Thinking and the Prosperity Gospel (2012), regrettably misses the mark. A secular humanist tasked with studying the history of American religion and medical humanities, he lacks a good ear with regard to what was actually attractive about New…
Rugged Spirituality
Have you ever wanted to be pushed—I mean really pushed, pushed really hard? I have. But not to do more pushups or to climb harder. I wanted to be pushed inward, to be directed to keep going toward the truth. I meditated and philosophized for countless hours, but I never found that pusher, that mentor,…
A Defense Of The Prosperity Gospel
John S. Haller Jr.’s treatment of “the prosperity gospel” in his book The History of New Thought: From Mind Cure to Positive Thinking and the Prosperity Gospel (2012) shows all the marks of the contemporary academy’s small-mindedness. Of course, it would be easy to say, with Haller, that the 1920s (“the roaring twenties”) effected a…
AI Anxiety & The Role Of Intuition
On Monday, a paper describing a “speculative scenario” about how AI’s great success could, ironically, entail the hollowing out of 10% of white collar work was released. The result was that software stocks fell sharply. Yesterday, Josh Barro, in “Good Things are Good,” rebutted this scenario, arguing that, if anything, AI’s massive increase in productivity…
If A Man Takes Your Goods, Do You Help Him Lift The Rest?
In the Apophthegmata Patrum, we read about Abba Macarius (c. 300-391), a Desert Father living in Egypt: Abba Macarius while he was in Egypt discovered a man who owned a beast of burden engaged in plundering Macarius’ goods. So he came up to the thief as if he was a stranger and he helped him…
The Moth & Us
The moth was fluttering its wings wildly, but it couldn’t take off. It kept trying and trying but still nothing. It couldn’t fly and, I feel, it foresaw its death. T.S. Eliot once wrote of the “objective correlative”: a writer describes a situation in such a way as to evoke a particular mood. I’d like,…
Metaphysical Commitments In Raja Yoga & Advaita Vedanta
Which metaphysical commitments draw Raja Yoga (the path of willpower and concentration) together with Advaita Vedanta (the path of knowledge)? In Meditation and Its Practices: A Definitive Guide to Techniques and Traditions of Meditation in Yoga and Vedanta, Swami Adiswarananda tells us that there are four such principles–namely, the “divinity of the individual soul, [the]…
Raja Yoga Prepares The Way For Advaita Vedanta
“The path of [Raja] Yoga,” states Swami Adiwarananda in his book Meditation and its Practices: A Definitive Guide to Techniques and Traditions of Meditation in Yoga and Vedanta (2003; 2012 ed.), “is suited to those in whom reason has not yet established its natural supremacy over the emotions and volitions” (p. 40). This is a…
Does It Matter If There’s A Lot Of AI Hype?
In her book Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting (2018), philosopher Shannon Vallor rightly points to one of the central puzzles we face today. This is that there’s, in her coinage, a stunning “epistemic opacity” with regard to how technology is and will unfold and, of course, with what…
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Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 