The doctrine of universal restoration was least prevalent in the darkest, and prevailed most in the most enlightened, of the earliest centuries--that it was the prevailing doctrine in the Primitive Christian Church. Because free thinkers were persecuted for hundreds of years, Unitarians and a Universalist, met together and worshipped in secret.

Unitarians' or a Universalist,' Thomas Jefferson, Isaac Newton, Henry David Thoreau, Florence Nightingale, Sylvia Plath, Susan B. Anthony, and John Milton all fought for religious tolerance and social justice.

Kant, one of the greatest philosophers-- Königsberg, East Prussia, 1724, speaks of two types of discovery: empirical and priori.

An empirical proposition depends entirely on sense perception--most of the knowledge we gain through ordinary experience, or through science, which is empirical.

A priori judgments is known as "Transcendentalism" because Kant regarded the objects of the material world as fundamentally unknowable; from the point of view of reason. Objects of themselves have no existence, and space and time exist only as part of the mind which perceptions are measured and judged.

Transcendentalists, in contrast, believed in

1. a monistic universe, where God is immanent in nature.
2. God is permanently and directly present in all things.
3. The objects of nature, including people, are all equally divine.
4. The critical realization is that finding God depends on one's inner striving toward spiritual communion with the divine spirit.
5. In a mystical world, one can experience direct contact with the divinity, during a walk in the woods, or through contemplation.
6. The events of the natural world are not "removed" spiritual causes because there is no such separation;
7. all events are both material and spiritual;
8. a miracle is indeed "one with the blowing clover and the falling rain."

Truth lights her torch in the inner temple of every man's soul, whether patrician or plebeian, a shepherd or a philosopher, a Croesus or a beggar. It is only on the reality of this inner light, and on the fact, that it is universal, in all men, and in every man, that you can found a democracy, which shall have a firm basis, and which shall be able to survive the storms of human passions.

Franz Baader, Munich, (1765-1841), attempted to "reconcile" Catholic dogma with Transcendentalism. He found no satisfaction in, reason divorced from faith. Lived in England (1791-96), where he became acquainted with the mysticism of Böhme.

In the Metaphysics of Ethics (1797) Kant writes that reason is the final authority for morality. Actions of any sort must be undertaken from a sense of duty dictated by reason, and no action performed for expediency or solely in obedience to law or custom can be regarded as moral. Kant believes in the fundamental freedom of the individual, This freedom he did not regard as the lawless freedom of anarchy, but rather as the freedom of self-government, the freedom to obey consciously the laws of the universe as revealed by reason, that the welfare of each individual should properly be regarded as an end in itself.

A period of isolation,

the individual develops spiritually without social interference. This stage entails a self-imposed separation from those people, including family and friends, who have not yet made the transition from wordiness to godliness.

Personal spiritual transformation means,

the individual is reintegrated with society, but the relationship is established on grounds different from those that previously existed.

In this new relationship,
the individual identifies with a "subgroup" composed of other people with a similar religious outlook (generally those people who had gone through the same conversion experience).

The new community is seen as representing the holiness to which the larger society should aspire; with a prophetic belief that society will eventually "come around" to the spiritual truth that the individual has witnessed.

Ginny----I would love to discuss your remark in the post above about the seraphim, but I need you to clarify it.

You said, "Coleridge himself, as Maryal put here, acknowledged, "they fled to bliss or woe." OK, if the WOE were nothing more than Purgatory, I guess we can extrapolate Seraphim on them and then ourselves feel pretty confident on our own death beds."

I don't understand how purgatory got into the equation. Purgatory would not have been accepted by any of the denominations that Coleridge had personal experience with. I assume that the souls fled to Heaven (bliss) or to Hell (woe).

Seraphim are angelic beings and have never been human. They are of a completely different order. (I will spare you all the nine orders of angels. Suffice it to say that in the Christian scheme, angels are the lowest and seraphim the highest.)

(The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never passed away.)

Poetry is a disciplined, compact verbal utterance, in some more or less musical mode, dealing with aspects of internal or external reality in some meaningful way.

Metaphor is a poetic device which sits at the center of most poetic expression, in virtually all languages and in almost all historical periods mixing literal and non literal expressions. Metaphorical structue can be thousands of years old based in symbolism or using a phrase or impression underlineing aspects of truth or person, thing, condition being compared.

Like all the arts, poetry is a complex meshing of substance and manner, of thought and form, of argument and technique.

Not every poem shares the divices widely used in the tradition of poetry, which are:

1. rhyme,
2. alliteration (the use of words beginning with the same consonant or with no consonant)
3. Repetition, Refrain
4. Allusion, Acrostics (the first word in each line as a steppingstone put together says something)
5. Parody
6. Onomatopoeia (verbal symbols communicated as meaning)

During the first decade of the nineteenth century, Unitarians effectively captured Harvard with the election of Rev. Henry Ware Sr. as Hollis Professor of Divinity in 1805 and of Rev. John Thorton Kirkland as President in 1810. It was at Harvard that most of the younger generation of Transcendentalists received their education, and it was here that their rebellion against Unitarianism began. It would be misleading, however, to say that Transcendentalism entailed a rejection of Unitarianism; rather, it evolved almost as an organic consequence of its parent religion. By opening the door wide to the exercise of the intellect and free conscience, and encouraging the individual in his quest for divine meaning, Unitarians had unwittingly sowed the seeds of the Transcendentalist "revolt."

The Transcendentalists felt that something was lacking in Unitarianism. Sobriety, mildness and calm rationalism failed to satisfy that side of the Transcendentalists which yearned for a more intense spiritual experience.

For the Transcendentalists, the critical realization, or conviction, was that finding God depended on neither orthodox creedalism nor the Unitarians' sensible exercise of virtue, but on one's inner striving toward spiritual communion with the divine spirit. From this wellspring of belief would flow all the rest of their religious philosophy.

Transcendentalists, who never claimed enough members to become a significant religious movement, bequeathed an invaluable legacy to American literature and philosophy.

"For most people, poetry is a solitary affair, like meditaion or prayer. Edward Hirsch, in his fine new book on how to read a poem, describes poetry as "a passionately private communication from a soul to another soul" and the best time for reading is "the middle of the night."

...Poetry is not only a private act between consenting poet and reader, it is a public act as well. I have seen poems work their magic on thousands of people at once. The effect can be physical, like the "breathless arousal" that attended religious revivals in my native South...The effect can be intellectual, quietly opening the mind to a new way of seeing...And it can be spiritual, a moment of transcendence, like the mystery of communion in a congregation of believers.

"Poems communicate before they are understood...Let the poem work in you as a human experiece. Listen to the words, and pay attention to the feelings they evoke.""

An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man's eye! (the light of the body, the faculty of intuitive vision)
Seven (the number of the universe, completeness, totality, the first number that contains spiritual and temporal, stagnation, safety, plenty) days, (long periods of time)
seven nights,(pre-natal darkness, preceding rebirth or initiation and illumination, Hesiod said "the Mother of the Gods", chaos, death, madness, enveloping)
I saw that curse--
And yet I could not die.

he yearneth toward the journeying Moon, and the stars, that still sojourn, yet still move onward; and everywhere the
blue (truth, Intellect, revelation, wisdom, Loyalty, peace, the Holy Mother, sky powers, the Void, infinite space, containing everything) sky (transcendence, infinity, the realm of bliss, sovereignty, order in the universe, the Heavens) belongs to them, and is their native country and their own natural homes,(A wold center, protection. The center of initiation, descent into darkness before rebirth and regeneration) which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival.

Beyond the shadow (the negative principle as opposed to the positive of the sun)
of the ship, (the ship of salvation, safety from temptation, the Ark the womb, the cradle)
I watched the water-snakes:(Christ as wisdom and raised on the Tree of Life as a sacrifice, the Devil, the enemy of God, the agent of the Fall, evil that man must overcome in himself, with the Tree of Knowledge it becomes Lucifer)
Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire: (clothing particularly a cloak: ambvalent as both a symbol dignity but also a disguise, withdrawal, obscurity, darkness, secretive)

He blesseth them in his heart.(The center of being both physical and spiritual, the central wisdom of feeling as opposed the the head-wisdom of reason, both are intelligence, compassion, understanding, love, charity, contains the life-blood, courage, joy and sorrow)

The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead (the heavy sick condition of human existence or the soul, subject to the work of transforming and transmuting)
into the sea.

By grace (Three Graces, Beauty, Love, Pleasure, giving Receiving, Requiting) of the holy Mother,(Holy Mother, all enclosed places such as the Ark, the living spring. A bridge leading to heaven, the bearer of light, transforming power) the ancient Mariner is refreshed with rain.(Diving blessing, revelation, heavenly influence, beatitude, gods fertilize the earth by rain)

Sure I had drunken in my dreams,(the workshop of evolution, the workings of the unconscious)
And still my body drank. (absorbing diving life and power)

And soon I heard a roaring wind:
But with its sound it shook the sails, (the Spirit as breath or wind, inconstancy, the Holy Spirit, fertility, increasing power)

The upper air burst into life! (Spark: the vital principle, the soul, fire)
The wan stars (divine guidance and fevour) danced between.

And the coming wind did roar more loud,
And the sails did sigh like sedge, (any of numerous plants resembling grass but with solid rather than hollow stem)
And the rain (divine blessings, revelation, beatitude, heavenly influence, purification, spiritual revelation, “God fertilizes the earth with rain)
poured down from one black cloud;
The Moon was at its edge. (The waxing moon is light, growth, regeneration)

The thick black (the prince of darkness, Hell, sorrow, mourning, humiliation, spiritual darkness, despair, corruption. a Void)
cloud (the unseen God veiling the sky) was cleft, and still
The Moon (the ship of light in the sea of night. Christian: the moon with the sun represents the duel nature of Christ. )
was at its side:
Like waters (the source of all potentialities in existence, washes away the old life and sanctifies the new, renewal, cleansing, baptism. A spring depicts Christ as the fountain of life, a fountain represents the Virgin Mary)
shot from some high crag, (Water gushing from the rock signifies the waters of baptism and salvation pouring from the Church. Christ is the rock, the source of living waters and the pure river of the Gospels, strength, refuge, steadfastness the symbol of Peter)
The lightning (spiritual illumination, descent of power, sudden realization of truth cutting across time and space, the Eternal now)
fell with never a jag,
A river (the Gospels flowing from Christ, the flux of the world in manifestation, The river of life in the realm of the divinity) steep and wide.

The loud wind never reached the ship,( "Old Ship Zion" in the midst of the ocean, a storm comes on, and, as sailors say, she labors very hard and sailors jump overboard. "Old Ship Zion," symbolizes staying aboard, that there is wisdom in doing as we are all told)
Yet now the ship moved on!
Beneath the lightning and the Moon
The dead (the dead are all seeing, death to earthly life precedes spiritual rebirth) men gave a groan.

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes; (the light of the body, the faculty of intuitive vision)
It had been strange, even in a dream, (the workshop of evolution, the workings of the unconscious)
To have seen those dead men rise.

The helmsman (God is at the helm and will save all who are determined to be saved, also symbolizes a leap of faith, trust in the Lord) steered, the ship moved on;
Yet never a breeze (The Spirit, the vial breath of the universe, the power of the spirit in sustaining life and holding it together, hence the symbolic association with cords, ropes, thread) up-blew;

The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools--

The body of my brother's (conflicting powers of light and darkness, the necessity of opposites in the dualistic realm of manifestation, Cain and Able) son (The double living image, the alter ego)
Stood by me, knee to knee:(The generative force, recognition of paternity, homage to a superior, submission and inferiority)
The body and I pulled at one (unity, isolation, God the Father) rope,
But he said nought to me.

But not by the souls of the men, nor by daemons of earth or middle air, but by a blessed troupe of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the guardian saint.

'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
But a troop of spirits (angles are Messengers of God, intermediaries between God and man, heaven and this world) blest:

I heard the sky-lark sing;
Now like a lonely flute; (equated with anguish and the extemes of emotion. the Sirens as seduction and emotions)
That makes the heavens (heaven and earth represent spirit and matter, the Father and Mother principles) be mute.

It ceased; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon, (twelve - the return to chaos at the Winter Solstice)

The sails at noon left off their tune,
And the ship stood still also.

The Sun,(all seeing divinity and its power) right up above the mast, (the axis mundi signifies the tree of life)
Had fixed her to the ocean: (the sea of life, chaos, formless, the source of all life containing all potential)

Then like a pawing horse (the steeds of oceanic gods, both a life and death symbol, intellect, wisdom, reason, nobility, power, fleetness, swiftness of thoughÝ, the swift passage of life, courage) let go,
It flung the blood into my head, (intelligence and folly , honor and dishonor, the wreath of Victory are placed on the head as is the ashes of mourning and penitence. The seat of life-force)
And I fell down in a swound.

The Polar Spirit's (this has been discussed in an earlier post-- “the Pole of the Earth” the world axis, the cosmic center, stabilizing force) fellow daemons, the invisible inhabitants of the element, take part in his wrong, and two of them relate, one to the other, that penance long and heavy hath been accorded to the Polar Spirit, who returneth southward. (Noonday sun, youth, warmth, the winged lion, Summer)

How long in that same fit I lay,
But ere my living life returned,
I heard and in my soul (usually dopicted as a bird taking flight) discerned
Two (two natures of Christ, God and man) voices in the air.

'Is it he?' quoth one, 'Is this the man?
By him who died on cross, (salvation through Christ's suffering, redemption, atonement, faith, the acceptance of death or suffering and sacrifice, The cause of the fall, the tree of knowledge, becomes the instrument of redemption, mercy and judgment)
With his cruel bow (wordly power) he laid full low
The harmless Albatross.

The other was a softer voice,
Quoth he, 'The man hath penance done,
And penance more will do.'

What makes that ship (setting out on the sea of life, also crossing the waters of death, the Ark, cradle) drive on so fast?
What is the ocean (chaos, formless, endless motion, containing al potential) doing?'

The Mariner hath been cast into a trance; for the angelic power causeth the vessel to drive northward (Coldness, darkness, obscurity, the region of Lucifer, the churches work to convert the heathen, the land of the dead, night, Winter, old age) faster than human life could endure.

Fly, (Transcdence, the release of the spirit from the limitations of matter, release of the spirit of the dead, passage from one plane to another, access to a superhuman state. Travel on the Wind is spiritual release)
brother,(two sides of mans nature, day and night, celestial and primaeval, ego and alter ego) fly! more high, more high!

The supernatural motion is retarded;the Mariner awakes, and his penance begins anew.

The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never passed away:

And now this spell was snapt: once more
I viewed the ocean green, (hope, growth of Holy Spirit in man, triumph over life, Spring over Winter, The color of the Trinity)

Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And turns no more his head (intelligence and folly , honor and dishonor, the wreath of Victory are placed on the head as is the ashes of mourning and penitence. The seat of life-force)

It mingled strangely with my fears,
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze--
On me alone it blew.

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed

The light-house (source of light, manifestation of divinity, life, truth, the power of dispelling evil and forces of darkness, glory, joy, the beginning and the end, The light of the world, purification)
the kirk
mine own countree
the harbour

And on the bay (the renewal of life, immortality, resurrection, glory)
the moonlight lay,
And the shadow (the negative principle as opposed to the positive of the sun)
of the Moon. (the ship of light in the sea of night. Christian symbolism: the moon with the sun represents the duel nature of Christ. Greek: Moira, the moon goddess was above the gods and the three Fates are the power of the destiny of the moon)

Each corse (latin for a corpse) lay flat, lifeless and flat,
And, by the holy rood!

Adam being on the point of death, Eve and Seth go to Paradise to ask the guardian angel for the healing oil of life. Seth, as fallen man, is denied entrance to Paradise, and instead of the oil the angel gives him three pips of cedar, cypress and pine. When Seth returns to his father, he finds Adam already dead; he places the three pips under Adam’s tongue, and, God having given Adam’s body to Michael, it is buried by the four archangels in Paradise. The pips fructify in the ground, and from them spring three rods, which remain green until the time of Moses.

The Old English version begins at this point and tells how Moses, having led the children of Israel over the Red Sea, lies down to rest, and, in the morning, finds that three rods have sprung up, one at his head, and one at each side. With these rods he makes sweet the bitter waters, and the host continues its journey to Arabia. Hither David, whom the legend represents as contemporary with Moses, is sent to demand the rods, and it is revealed to him in a vision that they betoken the Trinity. He carries them to Jerusalem, where there is a pit of water so bitter that none can taste of it. The rods are placed in it, and they join together into a mighty tree, the growth of which is marked by silver rings.

After the death of David, Solomon attempts to use the tree for the building of the Temple; but, owing to the fact that it continually alters in length, this proves impossible, and it remains untouched within the sanctuary. Finally, when the Jews seek for a tree on which to crucify Christ, they remember this rood, and use part of it for the cross.

A man all light,(Christ the light of the world, the Father of lights with whom there is no variableness, cosmic creation, primordial intellect, life turth, direct knowledge, the source of goodness, the first thing created, the power of dispelling evil) a seraph-man (divine love, the fervour of devotion. The fire of Charity)

But soon I heard the dash of oars, (power, skill, knowledge, the spear that stirs the primordial ocean, the pole which guides the Ship of the Dead across the waters to the other shore)
I heard the Pilot's (God is called the Pilot of the soul) cheer;
The Pilot and the Pilot's boy,
Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy

I saw a third--(multiplicity, growth, creative powers, the first number with all, the power of three is universal, body, soul, spirit, three gifts of the magi, the Trinity) I heard his voice:
It is the Hermit good!
He singeth (temptation, distraction of man from his true goal, luring him to temporal attractions and spiritual death, caught in the lures of the sensual) loud his godly hymns

That he makes in the wood. (The wholeness of the primordial, paradisal state which gives shelter at birth and death in the cradle and the coffin. Wood is the prima materia of the East, hense Christ as a carpenter, using tools symbolic of divine power of bringing order out of chaos.)
He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away
The Albatross's blood. (the life principle, the soul, strength, the rejuvenating force, the life of the body symbolized with water as the life of the spirit)

Robby

...struggling with a kaleidoscope of incoherent images and sensations, memories forming, explanations coalescing in a world where ignorance is a sin, fears taking shape, frightened by the thought of looking back, thrilled by 'lights', which he takes for seraphim, wild, fluctuating mood states. This poor, simple, naive sailor, whose slender religious resources have let him down.

(#97 of 98)
Fiction Coordinator~~~New Fiction/Prized Fiction...every other month

Ginny - "Which is the most important thing about a poem?". Oh, what we get out of it through our understanding. What the poet actually MEANT to say is almost incidental and truly unimportant. All of these things: how he felt when he wrote it, why he wrote it, etc., will assuredly add to our understanding of OUR interpretation of the poem, and perhaps enrich our experience of it. But the essence of the sparseness of poetry is to allow the reader to add his own consciousness to it. The difference between poetry and prose, I think.

Charlie (still crazy after all these years)

It can be brief:--

I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of daffodils."

I don't have to analyze that. I absorb it. I feel it.

Or it can be an epic:--

This is the forest primaeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

Yes, it tells a story but I don't have to analyze (or over-analyze) that either. I immerse myself in the Canadian forest and feel Nature speaking.

And so it is with "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." This, also, tells a story but I prefer to stand back and feel: --

And now the STORM-BLAST came and he
was tyrannous and strong;
He struck with his o'ertaking wings."

And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.

Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.

Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!

The other was a softer voice,
As soft as honey-dew;
Quoth he, "the man hath penance done,
And penance more will do."

And so on, and so on, and so on. If there is a message in this poem (and I'm sure there is), I feel it more than I hear or read it. An opera may have a story which appeals to the intellect but it shares the story in an emotional manner through its music. If this were not so, people would just go to plays and ignore operas.

At least, this is how I see it.

Robby

"Ha! ha!" quoth he,"full plain I see
The Devil knows how to row."

While people generally seem to know that life and learning become richer and more meaningful when one moves beneath the surface apperarance of thing, we live and work within a social system that unwittingly, encourages fragmentation and superficiality...Even the art of reason comes to be considered a specialized skill, appropriate and useful to some and not for others.

How can we facilitate the process of transforming data into informtion, and information into knowledge?

Thinking critically is work...the push to orgainze material in terms of a larger picture. And the larger picture, of being-human-in-society.

Converting outlined notes into I'm learning statements is an effort to get to the heart of the matter, to the core of the learning that is evolving. Realizations are the result of seeing the application and relevance of material in light of the everyday world, especially our own and that represents the integration of thought and feelings.

Self-reflection is an essential component of the critical thinking process. Helpful are question "What is the point?"- "So What is the significance or the consequences of the point being made?" and "So Now What?" What or how would implement change in my life or what is my understanding of interdependent intricacies at the heart of the relationship between the individual and society.

Aristotle, On the Soul (de anima) ... in all animals, great and small, high and low ... principle of all things; ... He assigns both characteristics ...

The Lay of the Cid: Cantar II ... my lord Cid in all things will I show my favor ... In raiment of all colors are clad both great and small.

"The poem captures an age-old dilemma: man's essential apartness in his aloneness. Man is alienated from the world. Hell, according to some iconoclastic theologians, is nothing more than such isolation (i.e., it is a state of mind)

Now, we come to discover that the moments of agony
(Whether or not, due to misunderstanding,
Having hoped for the wrong things or dreaded the wrong things,
Is not in question) are likewise permanent
With such permanence as time has. We appreciate this better
In the agony of others, nearly experienced,
Involving ourselves, than in our own.
For our own past is covered by the currents of action,
But the torment of others remains an experience
Unqualified, unworn by subsequent attrition.


I have added the italics.

If the reader of "The Ancient Mariner" is involved in the poem, then the agonies of the mariner may well teach us more than our own agonies because we have a little perspective. When we suffer our own agonies, we cannot learn so clearly.

~Maryal

That moment I definitely commit myself, then Providence also moves. All sorts of things occur to help me that would never otherwise have occured. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in my favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no one could have dreamed would have come my way.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth

A sadder and a wiser man

There will be a bit of wait while those in charge decide where our next sojourn into Great Books will be.

Illusion!  Underneath there lies 
   The common life of every day; 
Only the spirit glorifies 
   With its own tints the sober grey. 

In vain we look, in vain uplift 
   Our eyes to heaven, if we are blind; 
We see but what we have the gift 
   Of seeing;  what we bring we find.

for whatever we lose  (like a you or a me) 
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

"I see a new aliveness with all the poetry slams, the cowboy poets, the feminist and gay poets, the experiments with rap. It's like the beginning of the 19th century, the Romantic movement, which started with street ballads."

"We come on the ship that sailed the moon...."