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The Search- James Russell Lowell
"I went to seek for Christ,
And Nature seemed so fair
That first the woods and fields my youth enticed,
And I was sure to find him there" (Lowell). I think this quote represents transcendentalism because it links religion and nature together as one, saying you need one to find the other. It says that he will find Christ in the woods, which shows how they are connected.

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This podcast, by Melvyn Bragg and guests, talks about Henry David Thoreau and who he was. Thoreau was a main founder of transcendentalism, and Bragg talks about him and his contributions to this school of thought.

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In Our Time - Thoreau and the American Idyll - BBC Sounds

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Catch up on your favourite BBC radio show from your favourite DJ right here, whenever you like. Listen without limits with BBC Sounds.

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This video, by Koi Fresco, explains what it means to be a transcendentalist and what they believe in. He says things in the video, like"[without]these religious and political upbringings... societies flaws would essentially all disappear" (Fresco). This shows another aspect of what it means to follow transcendentalism.

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Transcendentalism! (The Divine Nature Within YOU)

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This photo was taken in Israel, and I think it represents transcendentalism very well. Of course, there is the reason of nature in the photo, but on a deeper level, I think it focuses more on the self reflecting part. The flower is clear and the main focus of the photo, which represents the mind. The background shows the nature and external sources that influence your self improvement.

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This photo was also taken in Israel, and i believe it also could be a good representative for transcendentalism. I think it shows that there is more beyond what you can see, which explains how the mind works and develops. Under the clouds, there are many buildings that are unseen, which shows that there is potential that is just not found yet in our minds.

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This article, found on ABC CLIO, gives a biography on who Henry David Thoreau is. It gives information from his early life to his death, and everything in between. It shows how he made his most famous book, Walden, and how it got so popular today.

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I Lived- OneRepublic
I think this song shows the spontaneous nature of transcendentalism. The lines show how you need to go many places and experience many different things in order to truely live, which is a big message in the transcendentalist thought.

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This article explains what transcendentalism really is. It tells the ins and outs of this philosophy, such as who Thoreau was and how he impacted the world with his lifestyle. The article is very short but is loaded with very good information if you want to know stuff about transcendentalism.

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(RNS) - The 'Splainer (as in "You've got some 'splaining to do") is an occasional feature in which the RNS staff gives you everything you need to know about current events to hold your own at the water cooler.
Happy 200th birthday, Henry David Thoreau! You don't look a day over 199.

The famous essayist and philosopher is being remembered Wednesday (July 12) with walks around Walden Pond, where the young Thoreau, who was born in Concord, Mass., built a nearby cabin and lived for two years, two months and two days. While there he wrote " Walden; or, Life in the Woods," considered an American classic and one of the founding documents of environmentalism.

But the famous Concordian was also a luminary of Transcendentalism, an American-born ideology that had enormous influence on literature and religion. Yet will anyone honor him by attending a Transcendentalist church? What is Transcendentalism and where did it come from? And, on the bicentennial of Thoreau's birth, where has it gone? Let us 'Splain ...

What is Transcendentalism?

Transcendentalism is more a philosophy than a religion. It blossomed out of Unitarianism, which by the early 1800s had come to America from England and been embraced at Harvard University. Unitarians hold that God is not trinitarian (as in Father, Son and Holy Ghost) but "unitarian" - a singular, supreme being.

Transcendentalism became its own thing when four Boston Unitarians, including the essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, founded the Transcendental Club in 1836. Thoreau, an Emerson protégé, was one of the first members, along with the utopian Bronson Alcott, feminist Margaret Fuller and education pioneer Elizabeth Peabody.

No traditional God was fit for the Transcendentalists. Instead, they looked to connect to an "Over-Soul," a sort of universal force of goodness that both resides in all people and "transcends" them.

"We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds," Emerson wrote of his fellow Transcendentalists. "A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men."

Transcendentalists derided society - especially organized religion and political parties - as corrupting, and upheld nature, free will, self-reliance and reason as enlightening.

Where have I heard that before?

In Eastern religions, like Hinduism. Transcendentalists were influenced by Hindu sacred texts. Thoreau writes in "Walden" of reading the Bhagavad Gita: "I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Brahmin, priest of Brahma, and Vishnu and Indra ... our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges."

Another influence was David Hume, the 18th-century Scottish philosopher and atheist who embraced skepticism and personal reason.

What happened to the first Transcendentalists?

They gave way to a second wave of Transcendentalists by the mid-1850s - just as Thoreau was traveling to Canada and Cape Cod and writing about them - that included several still-famous names, like poet Walt Whitman and writer Louisa May Alcott. But the Civil War (and links between individual Transcendentalists and the insurrectionist John Brown) sped its demise - it was hard to expound upon an Over-Soul when brothers were killing brothers.

Is there a contemporary Transcendentalism?

The most direct descendants of the Transcendentalists are the Unitarian Universalists. They were greatly influenced by Emerson's writings, and modern Unitarianism is more distant from the supernatural than it was in his time. Once an outcast among Unitarians for his radical thoughts, he is now considered something of a Unitarian saint.

Transcendentalist thinking also influenced many founders of "New Thought" philosophies and faiths - Religious Science, Unity Church and Divine Science. While they depart from Transcendentalism in their beliefs about personal health (some of these groups believe "right thinking" can cure illness), their idea of God as an "infinite intelligence" can be traced to the Transcendentalist Over-Soul.

What happened to Thoreau after Walden Pond?

Though he continued to explore nature and write, "Walden" sold only about 2,000 copies in his lifetime. He died of tuberculosis at age 44 in 1862. When he was on his deathbed, an aunt asked him if he had made peace with God. Thoreau is said to have replied, "I did not know we had ever quarreled."

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The 'Splainer: What is Transcendentalism? - Religion News Service

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(RNS) - The 'Splainer (as in "You've got some 'splaining to do") is an occasional feature in which the RNS staff gives you everything you need to know about current events to hold your own at the water cooler. Happy 200th birthday, Henry David Thoreau! You don't look a day over 199.

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Man In The Mirror- Michael Jackson
I think Man In The Mirror is a good song to show transcendental thoughts because it’s all about personal growth. Transcendentalism is all about the human mind and developing it to its full potential. These lines in the song show how you need to make a change to become a better person.

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Hakuna Matata-Jimmy Cliff
I think this song explains transcendentalism because its a very lenient philosophy and its very care free. It reminds me of going with the flow, which is the main message of this song.

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This quote said by Emerson shows a transcendental thought by showing how the universe is directly connected to us. I shows that everything happens for a reason, and no matter what you decide to do, the universe will make it happen, also known as the Law of Attraction.

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This quote incorporates nature into the self improvement aspect of transcendentalism. It is saying to go out of your comfort zone to make you learn more a better yourself.

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This quote said by Thoreau shows the main thought of transcendentalism. It shows how simplicity in life and the beauty of nature work together to create a better version of yourself if you work towards it.

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This image describes transcendentalism perfectly. It shows the connectivity between the mind and nature, which is the main message in this philosophy. It shows how the mind is one with nature.

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This quote shows the transcendentalist thought because people like Thoreau thought that nature shaped our minds. Within nature, our minds can roam free and create new thoughts. This quote states that nature is a blank canvas for out minds to fill in while being one with it.

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This picture exemplifies transcendentalism by its highlighting of the natural background. By not showing any details of the person, this photo emphasizes the transcendentalistic theme of nature over man.

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The cabin in the woods shows a transcendental theme because one of the main creators, Thoreau, learned the simplistic lifestyle in a cabin like this. He lived a minimalistic life, trying to focus more on his thoughts rather than the stuff he had.