Exploring what the author calls the "shaman-poets"Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, and Emily Dickinsonthis book demonstrates how far ahead of their times these writers were in forecasting developments of our current time. It was Whitman who first wrote of "Spiritual Democracy" as a vision of transformation and global equality. Steven Herrmann delves deep into the visionary expressions of this idea of Spiritual Democracy"the realization of the oneness of humanity with the universe and all its forces"in these early American writers, showing the influence the groundbreaking work of the geologist and thinker Alexander Von Humboldt had on Whitman and others. Writing that every member of the global community regardless of color, gender, or sexual orientation can realize these freedoms, the author explores how one can tap into the vitalizing source of equalizing, vocational energy to bring a sense of purpose and peace. Although the book shines as a work of literary criticism, the author's insights as a Jungian psychotherapist take the reader ever deeper into the creative impulses of Whitman, Melville, Dickinson, and other poets in their crafting of the seminal notion of Spiritual Democracy. In addition, Herrmann offers practical methodologies for personal and global transformation in the section, "Ten Ways to Practice Spiritual Democracy."
Table of Contents
Visions of Spiritual Democracy - Introduction
Cosmos
Spiritual Democracy as a Science of God
From Humboldt to Jung
Jung on Spiritual Democracy
Healing the National Complex
Whitman's "New Bible": The Foundation of a Religious Vision
Walt Whitman's Global Vision
The Bi-Erotic as Transcendent Sexuality
Shamanism and Spiritual Democracy: A Post-Humboldtian Notion of the Cosmos
Whitman as a Preserver of the Psychic Integrity of the Community
Moby Dick: The Evolution of a New Myth for our Times
Herman Melville: The Quest for Yillah
Towards a Hypothesis of the Bi-erotic
Moby Dick and the Trickster
The Marriage of Sames: "A Bosom Friend"
Moby Dick: The Characters Behind the Names
The Fall of the Dictatorships as Portrayed in Moby Dick
Metamorphosis of the Gods
The Re-emergence of the Feminine
Afterward: A Bi-Erotic Model for The Way Forward
a) Ten Ways to Practice Spiritual Democracy