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Posts Tagged ‘Ralph Waldo Emerson’

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Even though Ralph Waldo Emerson died over a century ago, his work is read and consulted frequently. In 1841 he published Essays: First Series and in 1844 Essays: Second Series, both essay series are still very popular even today. He was an abolitionist and refused to obey the Fugitive Slave Law.

Name: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Birth Date: May 1803 – April 1882

Job Functions: Essayist, Poet and Lecturer

Fields: Education, Literature

Known For: Essay Series One and Two

At the age of 14, Ralph Waldo Emerson went to Harvard College on a scholarship which he made the very most of. At the age of 17 he started journaling, which he continued for over 50 years. When Emerson graduated from Harvard he taught for a while because he was unsure of what to do with himself. Emerson decided to become an ordained Christian minister and enrolled at Harvard Divinity School. In 1826, when Emerson completed his studies, he was offered a junior pastorship position at Second Church in Boston.

Emerson was a voracious reader, digesting works of Zoroaster, Confucius, Muhammad, the Neoplatonists, Jakob Boehme, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Baron de Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Edmund Burke, the Scottish philosophers, Emanuel Swedenborg, Johann Gottfried Herder, and Madame de Staël. He also devoured Thomas Carlyle’s pioneering essays on German literature, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Aids to Reflection, and Dante’s Vita Nuova.

Emerson married Ellen Louisa Tucker in 1829, a woman whom he loved dearly unfortunately she died about 18 months later from tuberculosis (Emerson later married Lydia Jackson in 1835, and had four children). He was in deep despair about his wife’s death, and organized religion could not give him what he needed during this dark period, so religious doubts arose inside of him. Though the Unitarian church is ideally suited for the questioner, Emerson could not find any solace, and in 1832, he resigned from Second Boston, but this left him with too much time on his hands.

After months of just floundering around, in 1833, Emerson decided to travel to Europe on a 10-month tour to find himself. While he was there, Emerson met with John Stuart Mill, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and Thomas Carlyle who became a lifelong friend.

When Emerson returned to the United States, he discovered that he could make a living as a lecturer. The Lyceum movement provided lectures on various topics to rabid audiences who were willing to pay for the very best lectures. Emerson had found his stride. After giving lectures using the Lyceum platform for a few seasons, Emerson decided that he would organize his own lectures as well. In 1837 – 1838, he offered a group of 10 lectures on the theme of human nature  to the Boston public. These lectures were later turned into essays and then into books. Leading themes in Emerson’s lectures and essays were man, nature and God.

Emerson looked for the essential spirit of religion. He probed into human reality and the world of nature to release men from a mechanistic view of the world. “[Emerson] believed in a reality and a knowledge that transcended the everyday reality Americans were accustomed to. He believed in the integrity of the individual.” He also believed that reality is discovered through thought and not experience, and “the purpose of life seems to be to acquaint a man with himself.” One of Emerson’s famous saying is “Trust thyself.”

In 1836, Emerson published a pamphlet titled Nature, which pulled a group of people known as transcendentalists to him. That same year, Emerson, George Putnam, and Frederick Henry Hedge founded the Transcendental Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on September 8, 1836.

In 1841 he published Essays: First Series and in 1844 Essays: Second Series, both essay series are still very popular even today. Emerson followed up with Poems (1847), Representative Men: Seven Lectures (1850), English Traits (1856), Conduct of Life (1860), May Day (1867), Society and Solitude (1870), and Letters and Social Aims (1875). Emerson became a leading transcendentalist in the United States. In addition to Emerson and those who founded the Transcendental Club, major figures in the movement were Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Margaret Fuller, and Amos Bronson Alcott.

As a transcendentalist, Emerson opposed materialism, formal religion and slavery, and spoke out against them. He was particularly incensed with the Fugitive Slave Law passed in 1850 and is quoted as saying, “I will not obey it, by God.” Even though Emerson had been apolitical, he registered as a Republican and voted for Abraham Lincoln.

After the Civil War, Emerson continued on the lecture circuit and wrote more books. Society and Solitude (1870), and Letters and Social Aims (1875) were very well received. His ideas influenced Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Sources Cited/Referenced

Encyclopedia of World Biography

UXL Encyclopedia of World Biography

Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Encyclopedia of Religion

New Catholic Encyclopedia

Transcendentalism – Encyclopedia of Philosophy

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This is what we talked about on The invisible Mentor Blog this week: Review of Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Babbage, the Father of the Computer and Interview with Phyllis Yaffe.

Mondays at the Salon

Summer is the perfect time to work on personal projects that you usually wouldn’t have time for.

What’s Your Summer Project?

Booked on Tuesdays

This week we reviewed the essay, Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Self-Reliance as used in the essay is living up to your full potential.

Review: Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wisdom Wednesdays

Charles Babbage designed a computer 150 years before one was actually built.

Charles Babbage, Father of the Computer.

Perspective Thursdays and Workshop Fridays

This week we featured Phyllis Yaffe who started in the library and ended up in the executive suite. She had a sponsor who opened doors for her and helped to chart her career path. Mentors are extremely important. Here are Part One and Part Two of Phyllis Yaffe’s interview.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

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Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson is an essay in the First Series that he wrote in 1841. His essays are freely available on the internet. When printed, the essay Self-Reliance is about 19 pages, size 14 font, but it is packed with a lot of wisdom. Even though this work is very short, to fully savour and digest what’s being said, require time for reflection. I took the time to read Self-Reliance three times to fully get what Emerson is saying.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was a transcendental philosopher from the 19^th century. In this philosophical essay, Emerson shares some big ideas, and from what I have read, self-reliance is really about being your best self.

10 Great Ideas

1. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty: How many times have you had an amazing idea that you failed to act on then later discovered that someone else did? We’ve all been there, take action today.
2. Inmost in due time becomes the outmost: What do you spend your time focusing on? Do you focus on the things that will yield the greatest benefits in your life? What you spend your time on becomes your reality.
3. Envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide…The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs: We live in a me-too culture where most conform. What would happen if you took the road less traveled and showed up as yourself? What would occur if you allowed yourself to be your extraordinary, authentic self? What would have happened if the pioneers and innovative thinkers of yesteryear, imitated each other, and suppressed their pioneering ways?
4. Trust thyself: You know what you need to do, so take action. It may be the wrong action, but you are not standing still. And if you didn’t take the correct action, that’s feedback, so try something else. Trust yourself to do the right thing. Thomas Edison found 10,000 ways that the light bulb didn’t work, but he trusted himself that sooner or later he would get it right.
5. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady….What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think…It is harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it: Do not be overly concerned about what other people think about you, trying to impress them. Live your life, and do things because they feed your soul. Live your life to the fullest.
6. A foolish consistency is the hobglobin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do…Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus and Luther… To be great is to be misunderstood: It’s okay to change your mind. As we grow and evolve, we think differently and become different people.
7. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Perfection doesn’t exist. We’ll make a lot of mistakes and take wrong turns along our journey. That’s okay, all we have to do is course correct and eventually we’ll reach our destination. As Lao-tzu says, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.”
8. If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions…. in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet… He walks abreast with his days, and feels no shame in not “studying a profession,” for he does not postpone his life, but lives already: To me, this means to be flexible. If something is not working try something else and do not worry about what others may think about you. Never put your life on hold, waiting for the perfect opportunity.
9. Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want of self-reliance: People often regret the things they didn’t do. Take risks and live your life to the fullest.
10. Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation… Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon? Every great man is a unique…. Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much: Each of us has a purpose in this life, that one thing we were born to do, so live your purpose with enthusiasm. Do not try to live another’s life.

These are some of the great ideas in Emerson’s Self-Reliance. I highly recommend this essay, and set aside an hour and a half so that you can think about what you’re reading. Gene Waddell in “Using Rare Books to Inspire Learning Part 2: Drama – Travel” recommends that we also read History, (First Series – 1841) and Nature (Second Series – 1844) by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Emerson Essays

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Summer is the time when most get caught up on their reading. And most are reading novels during this time, but what if you did something a little differently from the rest. Gene Waddell, an architectural historian and College Archivist at the College of Charleston in Charleston, SC, pulled together an extensive list of rare books that inspire learning. I have taken 10 books from his list, and as you will note, they are from a variety genres to build your general knowledge and increase your ability to strategize and solve problems.

1. Anthropology: Race, Language, Psychology, Prehistory, Kroeber
2. Antiquities of Athens by James Stuart; Nicholas Revett
3. Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen: Discovered by the late Earl of Carnarvon and Howard Carter, Howard Carter
4. Roughing It, Mark Twain
5. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, Frederick Douglas
6. Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Richard Griffin Baybrook
7. New System of Chemical Philosophy, John Dalton
8. Emerson: Essays, Ralph Waldo Emerson
9. Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa, Mungo Park
10. The Wright Brothers Aëroplane, by Orville and Wilbur Wright Century Magazine, September 1908

Over the summer, try to read a couple of the above, and I will do the same. What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed.

Some of the links to the books are for free downloads, some are Amazon affiliate links.

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The Internet has been abuzz over the past few weeks with Napoleon Hill‘s Invisible Counselors, but is this technique different from Invisible Mentors? Are people going to turn The Invisible Counselor Technique into a fad like “The Secret” movie where viewers thought they could visualize a goal and have it manifest without taking action, instead of taking the time to do things the correct way. Is there really an easy way out?

This post is my reaction to the concept of Invisible Counselors. Please refer to Vishen Lakhiani’s original post “Napoleon Hill’s Weird “Invisible Counselor Technique” and Why it Inspired (and Scared) So Many People.” It’s a great post and the video is a great complement to the written information in the post. See the video below. What critical component did Napoleon Hill omit in his technique?

If you cannot view the video click here. I got a copy of Think and Grow Rich because I wanted to go to the source to present the facts to you, and I wanted to better understand Invisible Counselors. Many people have said that Think and Grown Rich was one of the books that had a profound impact on their life. I wasn’t one of those people, and I didn’t enjoy the book when I first read it. However, I thought that Earl Nightingale did a nice summary of the book. I am at the point where I am ready to re-read Think and Grow Rich and see if my reaction is different seven years later.

The Invisible Counselor is discussed at length in Chapter 14, “The Sixth Sense: the Door to the Temple of Wisdom.” I must preface my comments by saying that I do believe in the power of the subconscious mind and the sixth sense. Here is what the book says about Invisible Counselors.

“While I was passing through the age of “hero worship” I found myself trying to imitate those whom I most admired… I followed the habit of reshaping my own character by trying to imitate the nine men whose lives and life works had been most impressive to me. These nine men were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Paine, Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, Luther Burbank, Napoleon Bonaparte, Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie. Every night, over a long period of years, I held an imaginary council meeting with this group whom I called my “Invisible Counselors.” [I added in the last name of Hill's nine Invisible Counselors]

The procedure was this. Just before going to sleep at night, I would shut my eyes and see, in my imagination, this group of men seated with me around my council table. Here I had not only an opportunity to sit among those whom I considered to be great, but I actually dominated the group by serving as the Chairman.

I had a very definite purpose in indulging my imagination through these nightly meetings. My purpose was to rebuild my own character so it would represent a composite of the characters of my imaginary counselors….

These meetings became so realistic that I started to be fearful of their consequences, and discontinued them for several months. The experiences were so uncanny. I was afraid if I continued them I would lose sight of the fact that the meetings were purely experiences of my imagination….

I began to add new members to my cabinet. Now it consists of more than 50, among them Christ, St. Paul, Galileo, Copernicus, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Homer, Voltaire, Bruno, Spinoza, Drummond, Kant, Schopenhauer, Newton, Confucius, Elbert Hubbard, Brann, Ingersol, Wilson and William James….”

In the technique, Hill called on each of his nine Invisible Counselor and was very specific about what he required from them. For example,

“Mr Darwin, I wish to acquire from you the marvelous patience and ability to study cause and effect without bias or prejudice so exemplified by you in the field of natural science.

Mr Carnegie, I am already indebted to you for my choice of a life work, which has brought me great happiness and peace of mind. I wish to acquire a thorough understanding of the principles of organized effort, which you used so effectively in the building of a great industrial enterprise.

My method of addressing the members of  the imaginary cabinet would vary according to the traits of character which I was most interested in acquiring at the time. I studied the records of their lives with painstaking care. After some months of this nightly procedure, I was astounded by the discovery that these imaginary figures became, apparently, real.”

Please click here to read Chapter 14 on page 134 of the electronic version. What Napoleon Hill refers to as Invisible Counselors are what I call Invisible Mentors. From the cited text from Think and Grow Rich, the nine Invisible Counselors are people who Hill admired, and he imitated them, which suggests that he studied them, which is exactly what I advocate for your Invisible Mentors. I suggest that you become so steeped in your Invisible Mentors that you could ask and answer “What would Invisible Mentor 1 do in this situation?” You can also find invisible mentors on The Mentors page.

Below is an Invisible Mentor slide that I created over seven months ago. After I finished viewing it today for inclusion in this blog post, I realized that I have to update it because my views have expanded, because my knowledge has grown, which is a good thing. How has your knowledge changed in the past six months?

Many people viewing the video “The Most Controversial Personal Growth Technique Ever,” may think that they can use the technique to mentally call on successful people to answer their questions, or generate great ideas without any initial work. Hill spent decades studying successful people so his subconscious mind had a place to start. From my previous posts on generating creative ideas and creative problem solving, the process is preparation, incubation, illumination and verification/implementation.

So what did Napoleon Hill Omit? Hill did not omit anything from what I have read from Think and Grow Rich, the video neglected to mention that when Hill started using the Invisible Counselor Technique he used nine people whose lives and life works had been most impressive to him. To me, that means he had studied these people. This is a major omission from the video. Also, he practiced the technique each night over a long period of years. This also suggests that Hill practiced the technique until he mastered it. Statistics floating around suggest that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill.

This is an important lesson to always go to the source if you are able to, otherwise you’ll never know what critical piece of information you are missing. What are your thoughts on Invisible Counselors? Which five of Hill’s Invisible Counselors would you choose as Invisible Mentors? Now that you are familiar with Invisible Mentors from reading this blog, would you chair an Invisible Mentor Council Meeting? And if yes, what would you hope to achieve?

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed.

For an electronic copy of Think and Grow Rich, please click here.

Further Reading

The Sixth Sense: The Door to the Temple of Wisdom – The Thirteenth Step toward Riches

Napoleon Hill Did This, And You Should Too

Napoleon Hill’s Weird “Invisible Counselor Technique” and Why it Inspired (and Scared) So Many People