Tag: Ethics

• April 1, 2026

  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…
• March 13, 2026

  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…
• February 24, 2026

  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…
• February 23, 2026

  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,…
• February 5, 2026

  Jeffrey Epstein, Alas, Had Thought Power

  I don’t recall Swami Sivananda discussing perversions of thought power in his book Thought Power, at least not at great length. It’s clear that he’s aware of the possibility of a yogi abusing thought power, and it would have been obvious to him that ethical practices (such as the yamas and the niyamas from Raja…