Along the way of life, I have discovered three things you can almost always do in your darkest hour that almost never fail to recover the light:
Learn something.
Help someone.
Feel it all.
We need our sciences to learn how the universe works, to know what we don’t yet know and to comprehend it. We need our arts to learn how the heart works, to feel what we are unwilling or unable to feel and hold it without apprehension. We need both — knowledge and feeling, intelligent comprehension and emotional intelligence — to be capable of empathy, as well as self-compassion.
The damage of our time is that it pragmatizes everything, reducing the wonder of curiosity to the practical application of discoveries, reducing the symphony of feeling to the hold music of self-help, reducing human beings to data points in a log of user statistics and political polls. It is not only an insult but a violence to our humanity, the only antidote to which is a passionate defense of the irreducible things that make us human — those things useless as moonlight, unnecessary as music, as love: There is no practical value to apprehending the magnificent eye of the scallop or the mystery of the ghost pipe, no practical value to Leaves of Grass, yet these are the things that mediate the worst propensities of our kind — our capacity for despair, which is the price of consciousness, and our capacity for war, which is the cost of despair.
A century ago, as the world was recovering from its first global war, Bertrand Russell (May 18, 1872–February 2, 1970) foresaw another unless humanity could find a way to resist this dehumanizing cult of utility. We didn’t then, but maybe, just maybe, we can now with the prescription Russell offers in his wonderful essay “‘Useless Knowledge,’” later included in the altogether revelatory collection In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (public library).
Bertrand Russell
Observing that the Renaissance was so transformative because its “main motive” was delight — “the restoration of a certain richness and freedom in art and speculation which had been lost while ignorance and superstition kept the mind’s eye in blinkers” — and that the Enlightenment was so transformative because it probed the workings of the universe without expectation of practical gain, he writes:
Throughout the last hundred and fifty years, men have questioned more and more vigorously the value of “useless” knowledge, and have come increasingly to believe that the only knowledge worth having is that which is applicable to some part of the economic life of the community… Knowledge, everywhere, is coming to be regarded not as a good in itself, or as a means of creating a broad and humane outlook on life in general, but as merely an ingredient in technical skill… This is part and parcel of the same movement which has led to compulsory military service, boy scouts, the organisation of political parties, and the dissemination of political passion by the Press.
We do not like to think of anyone lazily enjoying life, however refined may be the quality of his enjoyment. We feel that everybody ought to be doing something to help on the great cause (whatever it may be), the more so as so many bad men are working against it and ought to be stopped. We have not leisure of mind, therefore, to acquire any knowledge except such as will help us in the fight for whatever it may happen to be that we think important.
But while the usefulness of “useful” knowledge in making the modern world cannot be denied — here we are, with our computers and airplanes and ever-growing life-expectancies — we need its “useless” counterpart to make life not longer, not more productive, but wider and deeper and more present. Russell writes:
There is indirect utility, of various different kinds, in the possession of knowledge which does not contribute to technical efficiency. I think some of the worst features of the modern world could be improved by a greater encouragement of such knowledge and a less ruthless pursuit of mere professional competence… When conscious activity is wholly concentrated on some one definite purpose, the ultimate result, for most people, is lack of balance accompanied by some form of nervous disorder… Narrowness of outlook has caused oblivion of some powerful counteracting force.
Several years before the Dutch art historian Johan Huizinga composed his revelatory treatise on how play made us human, Russell adds:
Men as well as children have need of play, that is to say, of periods of activity having no purpose beyond present enjoyment. But if play is to serve its purpose, it must be possible to find pleasure and interest in matters not connected with work.
And yet play is an active rather than passive form of leisure. In a prophetic sentiment anticipating the menacing mesmerism of social media, the way it would turn the human animal into a screen zombie, he observes:
The amusements of modern urban populations tend more and more to be passive and collective, and to consist of inactive observation of the skilled activities of others… If a leisured population is to be happy, it must be an educated population, and must be educated with a view to mental enjoyment as well as to the direct usefulness of technical knowledge.
Half a lifetime before he looked back to reflect on the key to growing old contentedly — “make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life” — he writes:
[Such useless] knowledge, when it is successfully assimilated, forms the character of a man’s thoughts and desires, making them concern themselves, in part at least, with large impersonal objects, not only with matters of immediate importance to himself. It has been too readily assumed that, when a man has acquired certain capacities by means of knowledge, he will use them in ways that are socially beneficial. The narrowly utilitarian conception of education ignores the necessity of training a man’s purposes as well as his skill… It must be admitted that highly educated people are sometimes cruel, I think there can be no doubt that they are less often so than people whose minds have lain fallow. The bully in a school is seldom a boy whose proficiency in learning is up to the average. When a lynching takes place, the ring-leaders are almost invariably very ignorant men. This is not because mental cultivation produces positive humanitarian feelings, though it may do so; it is rather because it gives other interests than the ill-treatment of neighbours, and other sources of self-respect than the assertion of domination.
Even Bertrand Russell did not foresee that within a century bullies and lynchers with fallow minds would take the reins of superpowers, waging wars by whims and feeding the fragile ego’s lust for power by terrorizing the powerless. But he did give us, as plainly and precisely as possible, a prescription for prevention:
Perhaps the most important advantage of “useless” knowledge is that it promotes a contemplative habit of mind. There is in the world too much readiness, not only for action without adequate previous reflection, but also for some sort of action on occasions on which wisdom would counsel inaction… Hamlet is held up as an awful warning against thought without action, but no one holds up Othello as a warning against action without thought… For my part, I think action is best when it emerges from a profound apprehension of the universe and human destiny, not from some wildly passionate impulse of romantic but disproportioned self-assertion. A habit of finding pleasure in thought rather than in action is a safeguard against unwisdom and excessive love of power, a means of preserving serenity in misfortune and peace of mind among worries.
Describing what Iris Murdoch would later term “unselfing,” which she identified as the chief reward of engaging with art and nature, he adds:
A life confined to what is personal is likely, sooner or later, to become unbearably painful; it is only by windows into a larger and less fretful cosmos that the more tragic parts of life become endurable.
These contemplative acts of unselfing, Russell notes, have “advantages ranging from the most trivial to the most profound, [from] minor vexations, such as fleas, missing trains, or cantankerous business associates [to] the difficulty of securing international co-operation.” In passage evocative of physicist Richard Feynman’s classic Ode to a Flower, he reflects:
Curious learning not only makes unpleasant things less unpleasant, but also makes pleasant things more pleasant. I have enjoyed peaches and apricots more since I have known that they were first cultivated in China in the early days of the Han dynasty; that Chinese hostages held by the great King Kaniska introduced them into India, whence they spread to Persia, reaching the Roman Empire in the first century of our era; that the word “apricot” is derived from the same Latin source as the word “precocious,” because the apricot ripens early; and that the A at the beginning was added by mistake, owing to a false etymology. All this makes the fruit taste much sweeter.
[…]
But while the trivial pleasures of culture have their place as a relief from the trivial worries of practical life, the more important merits of contemplation are in relation to the greater evils of life, death and pain and cruelty, and the blind march of nations into unnecessary disaster. For those to whom dogmatic religion can no longer bring comfort, there is need of some substitute, if life is not to become dusty and harsh and filled with trivial self-assertion.
In a passage of overwhelming prescience, he adds:
The world at present is full of angry self-centred groups, each incapable of viewing human life as a whole, each willing to destroy civilisation rather than yield an inch. To this narrowness no amount of technical instruction will provide an antidote. The antidote, in so far as it is a matter of individual psychology, is to be found in history, biology, astronomy, and all those studies which, without destroying self-respect, enable the individual to see himself in his proper perspective. What is needed is not this or that specific piece of information, but such knowledge as inspires a conception of the ends of human life as a whole: art and history, acquaintance with the lives of heroic individuals, and some understanding of the strangely accidental and ephemeral position of man in the cosmos — all this touched with an emotion of pride in what is distinctively human, the power to see and to know, to feel magnanimously and to think with understanding. It is from large perceptions combined with impersonal emotion that wisdom most readily springs.
“Every day think as you wake up, ‘Today I am fortunate to have woken up, I am alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.’”
HH the Dalai Lama (b.1940) Tibetan Spiritual Leader
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Image credit: Dibyangshu SARKAR / AFP via Getty Images
Understanding Democratic Backsliding
For the last two decades, democracy has been in retreat. Autocracies now outnumber the world’s democracies, and countries that had made impressive democratic strides have been purposefully undoing those gains. Most confounding, this global democratic recession has been driven not by traditional coups but by elected leaders themselves.
Yet we have seen bright spots—notably, last month in Hungary and, before that, in Poland in 2023. To turn the tide back toward democracy, we must first understand what is driving democratic backsliding and how it is carried out, as well as what prodemocracy leaders and citizens can do to counter these forces. The following Journal of Democracy essays, now free for a limited time, do just that.
On Democratic Backsliding Old-fashioned military coups and blatant election-day fraud are becoming mercifully rarer these days, but other, subtler forms of democratic regression are a growing problem that demands more attention. Nancy Bermeo
Why Elected Leaders Subvert Democracy Today, the principal challenge to democracy is coming not from coups but from democratic erosion driven by elected leaders. What is behind this shift, and how can prodemocracy forces push back? Susan Stokes
The Anatomy of Democratic Backsliding Can we recognize the symptoms of backsliding before it’s too late? Though the signals are sometimes faint, a new study of sixteen cases around the world reveals key dynamics common to all. Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman
Misunderstanding Democratic Backsliding If democracies did a better job “delivering” for their citizens, so the thinking goes, people would not be so ready to embrace antidemocratic alternatives. Not so. This conventional wisdom about democratic backsliding is seldom true and often not accurate at all. Thomas Carothers and Brendan Hartnett
Delivering for Democracy: Why Results Matter Voters around the world are losing faith in democracy’s ability to deliver and increasingly turning toward more authoritarian alternatives. To restore citizens’ confidence, democracies must show they can make progress without sacrificing accountability. Francis Fukuyama. Chris Dann, and Beatriz Magaloni
Why Democracies Survive Democracies are under stress, but they are not about to buckle. The erosion of norms and other woes do not spell democratic collapse. With incredibly few exceptions, affluent democracies will endure, no matter the schemes of would-be autocrats. Jason Brownlee and Kenny Miao
The Danger Is Real Analysis that subtly defines away problems is not going to help democracies survive the threats they now face. The fear is warranted. Yascha Mounk
Questioning Backsliding It is no easy feat to agree on how democratic backsliding should be measured. No surprise scholars are coming up with strikingly different results. Nancy Bermeo
The Value of “Tyrannophobia” Democratic death has been exaggerated. But fear that a democracy is going to break down may, ironically, be one of the things that protects it. Tom Ginsburg
Follow the Leader Democracies are increasingly under attack by the leaders they elect. We may not know the damage until it is too late. Susan D. Hyde and Elizabeth N. Saunders
A Quiet Consensus We welcome the common ground. The challenge ahead is to protect democracies genuinely in peril, while not losing valuable time and resources chasing authoritarian ghosts. Jason Brownlee and Kenny Miao
The End of the Backsliding Paradigm Like the “transition paradigm” before it, the concept of democratic backsliding threatens to flatten our perceptions of complex political realities. Examples from East-Central Europe illustrate the ambiguous dynamics at play in many troubled democracies. Licia Cianetti and Seán Hanley
How Much Democratic Backsliding? Democracy’s retreat is real, yet alarmist reports of a global demise or crisis of democracy are not warranted. Valeriya Mechkova, Anna Lührmann, and Staffan I. Lindberg
“It is always a danger To aspirants on the Path When they begin To believe and act As if the ten thousand idiots Who so long ruled and lived inside Have all packed their bags And skipped town Or Died.”
DENVER—In an expression of overwhelming confidence in their innate animal magnetism, the majority of men who participated is a study published Friday by researchers at the University of Colorado stated that they could seduce a bear if their life depended on it. “Nearly 70% of male respondents claimed that if they encountered an aggressive grizzly in the wild and push came to shove, they would be able to win the affection of the charging animal with nothing but their raw sex appeal,” said lead author Peter Wilmore, explaining that most study participants aged 18 to 65 admitted that it might not seem like they could slip into thigh-high stockings, throw on some cherry red lipstick, and charm the pants off of a North American brown bear, but they were nonetheless convinced that if it was absolutely necessary, they would be able to lure one of the large mammals into their embrace. “Despite any previous indication that they had any game whatsoever, these men insisted that a surge of adrenaline and a flash of their ‘just-fuck-me’ eyes would be all they would need to entice an enraged mother bear protecting her young to sleep with them.” Wilmore warned men to seek the help of park rangers when attempting to get a bear to come home with them and make love all night long.
A tree beside the sandy River-beach Holds up its topmost boughs Like fingers towards the skies They cannot reach, Earth-bound, heaven-amorous. This is the soul of man. Body and brain Hungry for earth our heavenly flight detain.
Sri Aurobindo (1872 – 1950) Indian Philosopher
AN OPPORTUNITY FOR DAILY REFLECTION BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE SCHOOL OF PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY
At some point during Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1944 train trip from Atlanta to Simsbury, Conn., the hungry, rambunctious teenager left the company of his fellow Morehouse students and went to the state-of-the-art dining car to enjoy Southern Railway’s fine dining on wheels. He had no idea what was awaiting him.
The tagline of the Southern Railway Company was “Southern serves the South.” The company motto referred to more than just geography, but also the “Southern way of life.” The Crescent offered the first dining cars on trains departing Atlanta beginning in the nineteenth century. And the company had no plans to change its nineteenth-century segregationist roots. The observation and dining cars were designed to resemble a hotel tavern-lounge, inviting passengers to relax and enjoy complimentary coffee and orange juice, or alcoholic beverages for purchase. Usually, a crew of twelve workers handled the wood-fired kitchens and table service. They served traditional Southern cuisine and traditional Southern mores. African American men often labored in these environments— as servers or cooks—but African American passengers like ML were not welcome.
Access to these spaces was heavily policed. Black passengers could procure food on board but, as Du Bois summed up for readers in The New Republic, “it is difficult.” William Pickens, the NAACP director of branches and assistant field secretary, chronicled how difficult it was even to purchase decent food and beverages during an interstate Southern train excursion. He was “gruffly informed by the trainmen” there were “no sanitary drinking cups” offered in the Jim Crow car.
It is evident, the NAACP concluded, if you are a Negro, there are “practically” no accommodations made for dining on the train.
When the car made intermittent stops at train stations so passengers who were, as Pickens noted, “too stingy to pay the dining car prices and the tips” could get food, Black passengers discovered that station lunchrooms across the South only served white passengers. “As if fate had conspired with the devil,” Pickens noted, “the Jim Crow car stopped right in front of this lunchroom, so that the starving colored traveler could see the white passengers go in and out and observe their backs as they sit at the counter and drink their hot teas and cold milk and eat their warm food.”
And worse, these white customers were nearly always “served by black hands.” Pickens noted the mind-blowing hypocrisy: White passengers could “eat food out of black hands,” but would not “eat their own food out of their own hands if a black man at the other end of the counter is eating his own food out of his own hands.” To add “indigestion to insult,” a few minutes before the train resumed its journey, without fail “a Negro servant is sent out from the lunchroom with a basketful of cold food, which could never be sold to white customers, in an endeavor to get rid of it among the colored passengers.”
Indeed, while “white passengers in the lunchroom may get a hot drink or a warm egg sandwich for a few cents,” Black passengers were offered “impenetrable” chicken that had been “fried day-before-yesterday, old bread, and a slice of musty pie actually cut days ago” for seventy-five cents. If one dared to purchase such disposable fare, there was no way to consume the offensive food with dignity. If African American passengers requested utensils or a napkin they were told “No!” Railroad employees were not permitted to “bring dishes into the Jim Crow car.” It is evident, the NAACP concluded, if you are a Negro, there are “practically” no accommodations made for dining on the train.
The violence employed to police these spaces was legendary in the national Black press, especially in ML’s hometown. Atlanta’s Reverend Martin L. Harvey, who served as Dean of Men at Atlanta’s Clark College, was severely beaten for lounging in a tavern car in 1943. As his train from Chicago approached Atlanta, the train conductor shouted at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion national youth director, “Go back to the place where you belong.” The minister told the conductor his ticket class entitled him to access. But that all changed once the train entered the South. The conductor was incensed. With all his might, he rained down curses and punches upon the minister. When that proved insufficiently destructive, he grabbed a metal ashtray stand and preceded to beat the bespectacled Harvey. Black passengers and Black citizens were horrified by the measures railroad officials were willing to employ to maintain Jim Crow.
Animals do not dine at tabletops. Human beings do.
For this very reason, many African American travelers adopted “Jim Crow travel kits.” This repertoire of items included clothes as well as food, beverages, and utensils, enabling Black travelers to approximate humane travel. For decades, Black passengers exchanged suggestions and warnings via word of mouth in barbershops, beauty parlors, train depots, churches, and even the Black press.
In 1922, Reverend Bowler took to the pages of the national ChicagoDefender to advise Black passengers to leave nothing to chance or the whims of railroad employees or law enforcement when traveling the rails. His Jim Crow traveling kit kept him prepared for anything the Jim Crow car threw at him. In addition to a pair of overalls, he also carried a miniature gas stove and tabletop. He explained, “the dining car is a closed corporation as far as our people are concerned because white people below the Mason Dixon line maintain that we are animals, virtually camels, and can go without food or water for several days.” He continued, “I cannot force myself to sneak to the back of some depot kitchen like a little poodle and ask for food; neither can I take a chance of being shot to death for attempting to invade a dining car to secure my meals.”
Therefore, Reverend Bowler stocked his luggage with salmon and canned goods, using his stove to prepare meals during his journey. Reverend Bowler’s Jim Crow traveling kit served several purposes: It helped him “ward off hunger,” while also helping him to maintain a semblance of dignity, and ultimately protect his life from the vicious vigilance of white supremacy. And the small tabletop brought a sense of dignity and propriety to the meal. Animals do not dine at tabletops. Human beings do.
In 1943, The New York Amsterdam News gave Black readers an upgraded approach: shoeboxes. Black passengers could carry their food aboard in shoeboxes, giving Black passengers the urbane appearance of a boxed lunch, the kind many railroads and train depots sold. King Hayes, a Morehouse student, recalled doing just that for his trip from Georgia to Simsbury, “ration[ing]” his food for the entire trip north. Such Jim Crow “hacks” increased the chances of survival, but did little toward achieving legal equality.
ML’s mother probably equipped him with a “shoebox” meal filled with his favorites—soul food to fill his stomach and protect his body and soul from the ravages of white supremacy.
But something led her son to try the dining car. Maybe the simple basic urge of hunger led him there; he was, after all, on a twenty-four-hour trip. Maybe curiosity led him there. It could have been a combination of desires. Whatever his reasons, as he made his way through the aisles and cars, he had no idea of the absurdity that awaited him.
In addition to violence, Southern Railway began deploying innovative ways to maintain separate and unequal dining service across its Southern routes. In 1942, Southern Railway issued new dining regulations to ensure separate and unequal dining experiences. The railroad was experiencing unprecedented demand for food as the number of train passengers swelled with the war effort. At the outbreak of war, the railroad served a total of 70,000 meals a month. When ML boarded the train in 1944, that number had increased to 350,000 meals a month, making it extremely inconvenient to host racially segregated mealtimes.
Southern’s new policy instituted segregation curtains in their dining cars. One or two tables nearest the kitchen were designated for Black passengers with a “Reserved” placard, enclosed by a heavy, thick blue curtain, while the remaining eight to ten tables were set aside for white passengers. The slim veil symbolized the gulf that existed between Black and white in America. Like the Jim Crow combination cars, these curtains kept the dining car segregated, while also thinly veiling America’s commitment to separate and unequal.
The opaque curtain was a gift to white passengers. Some claimed the sight of Black untouchable diners made them “nauseated.” The separation pampered white prejudices and soothed white conscience and stomachs. White comfort required Black dehumanization. It is easier to dehumanize flesh and bone, soul and spirit, when it is rendered invisible. Those on the outside cast their worst and wildest dreams and fantasies about the “things” dining behind the veil; while those inside the veil had to muster all their soul force not to believe what was forced upon them at every turn. The very human desire to eat required Black riders to dehumanize themselves. And if Black passengers dared to pull the curtain aside, the dining car steward would hurriedly pull the curtain closed, or worse. Protecting the sense of superiority of white passengers was the top priority.
The company’s new rules also made sure that their Southern cuisine overwhelmingly went to white passengers. Before the start of each meal, the porters pulled the curtains into “service position,” enclosing the “reserved” seats. White passengers were served first. If the white diners took all the “white” tables, “the curtain [was] pushed back, cards removed, and white passengers were served at those tables” formerly reserved for Black customers. This was inevitable on crowded war-era trains. If white travelers “fully or partially occupied” the table, “colored passengers” were “advised that they will be served just as soon as those compartments [were] vacated.”
Or, if food was available, “colored passengers” would be served at their seats “using a portable table, without the extra charge,” as soon as staff were available. This rarely happened. Southern Railway testified in court that 85 percent of the company’s white diners were served at least two helpings before Black consumers could even place their first order.
The Southern Railroad Company utilized circular logic to justify the policy. They reasoned that “relatively few Negro passengers” desired to eat in the dining car, making it pointless to reserve significant tables for the “exclusive use” of Black passengers. The proof was in the data they cooked up. Over a ten-day period, they conducted a study of 639 serving periods on all Southern Railway trains, which revealed “about 4% of the total meals served were served to Negro passengers.” The railroad did not acknowledge that their policy, not the lack of Black hunger, contributed to the low rate of Black patronage.
The company, with seemingly no federal accountability, deployed anything and everything—from violence to self-fulfilling studies—to continue to starve Black passengers of food and a sense of “somebody-ness.”
Nevertheless, in a lawsuit accusing them of discrimination, they maintained they were being falsely criticized. Southern was not racist nor lawless, they argued, but generous by reserving 10 percent of their dining-room seating (four seats out of forty) to “Negroes,” even though Black customers rarely patronized the dining car.
A few months before ML boarded the Crescent, a Black lawyer, Elmer W. Henderson, filed a complaint with the ICC regarding the train’s racist dining policies. Henderson had been denied seating in the dining car of the Crescent because white patrons were using one of the two tables “reserved” for Black patrons. Henderson was promised he would be informed when the negro table became available. He was never informed. The ICC did nothing to change the policy, declaring that Henderson was the victim of a subpar employee, not a racist dining policy. The company, with seemingly no federal accountability, deployed anything and everything—from violence to self-fulfilling studies—to continue to starve Black passengers of food and a sense of “somebody-ness.”
The policy had its intended effect on ML. He managed to get food while on board, but the cost was beyond anything he intended to pay. When the train staff issued the “negro call” for the dining car, ML began his journey from the dilapidated settees of the Jim Crow car to the plush seats of the dining car; from the stench of the Jim Crow car to the culinary aromas of the dining car. Surely keeping his parents advice in mind, ML probably kept to the racial etiquette of day: No sudden movements. Step aside for all white people. Make yourself small. Do not stare. Do not linger. Walk deliberately, but not too fast. Refer to all white people as Mr. or Mrs. Be sure to remove your hat. Don’t stand in the white line. Do not expect reciprocity. With all the boxes checked, ML arrived in the dining car.
Yet, the teenager who had been raised to believe that he was as good as any other human being was quarantined behind the veil of the dining car. “The first time that I was seated behind a curtain in a dining car,” he remembered, “I felt as if the curtain had been dropped on my self hood.”12 The system of segregation robbed him of his dignity and humanity. The curtain made him feel like he was simply a thing.
And his failure to protest the system also chipped away at his sense of self hood. ML found himself complicit with white supremacy. He endured humiliation and degradation just for a meal. No matter how good the food may have been, one can’t feel satisfied when one has to forfeit their own humanity.
It is easy to imagine the teenager, once again saying to himself, “One of these days I’m gonna put my body up there where my mind is.”
But no one, especially not Southern Railway, took note of the internal yearning of the fifteen-year-old. The train, like life, continued to roll along the tracks of Jim Crow America.
But ML did manage to lift his mind. Through the windows of the Jim Crow car and the dining car, he took note of the things that amazed him, allowing the reader to see the world through his young, astonished eyes. The Crescent took him through the Southern cotton fields his father had escaped. He found himself in awe when the train stopped in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The city had a population of only thirty thousand, much smaller than Atlanta, but as a central hub for the railroad, it bustled.
ML wrote to his parents that he was amazed by the “large” city. The train passed through the majestic haze of the Blue Ridge Mountains, covering hundreds of miles of Piedmont tobacco fields and forest, as well as Civil War battlefields where blood was shed for his supposed freedom, and then up the Eastern Seaboard. Passing through Virginia and Maryland, he marveled at “the many airplanes” he saw, and the size of the navy ships. Lost for words, he compared the military might to the massive structures he knew best. “We saw many large ships,” he wrote home, “some as large as the Bethel Church and larger.”
The next major stop was the nation’s capital, the very seat of American democracy, where an original copy of ML’s beloved US Constitution resided: A Constitution that seemed meaningless in the Jim Crow car.
But when ML and crew changed to the Pennsylvania Railroad at Washington’s Union Station, their citizenship status also changed. Once the Southern Crescent pulled into the station, all trains bound north were emancipated from Jim Crow laws. ML and crew were sprung from the soul-suffocating stench of the Jim Crow car, to await their train to New York City. The clean, fresh air of freedom invigorated their spirits, as they stretched their cramped legs and souls. “It was a different experience altogether,” ML’s classmate and Atlanta native William G. Pickens recalled, “because the Pennsylvania Railroad was not segregated and we could sit any place we wanted to on the trains.”
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Some of the students were so overjoyed, they extended their freedom excursion beyond schedule. According to The Maroon Tiger, the Morehouse student newspaper, several of the young men—the “wise guys,” the student paper noted—claimed they had “accidentally” got “lost from the group in Washington and New York City.” There is no record of whether ML “accidentally” got lost on a freedom excursion in the nation’s capital or the Big Apple. But he was in the midst of an admitted “general” rebellion.
One can only imagine the reaction of the otherwise vigilant Professor Dansby. True to form, he ordered the remaining Morehouse cohort to wait for the wanderlust contingent in DC. He wanted everyone to travel together. The delay caused the entire Morehouse cohort to miss their connecting train. Their arrival at the farm would be delayed costing everyone at least two days’ worth of wages.16 But for many on the journey, freedom from the Jim Crow car was priceless.
The Greek word “gnosis,” defined as direct spiritual knowledge or insight, has its origins in historical offshoots of Christianity in late antiquity. But the terms “Gnosticism” and “gnosis” have become widespread in many other contexts. They are common in contemporary scholarship on religion and in popular usage among magical, religious, and spiritual practitioners. And they have entered popular usage in contemporary society, with applications in numerous political, religious, and cultural contexts. Gnosis and Gnosticism have become leitmotifs in popular culture, in films such as The Matrix and Dark City , as well as in anime and other popular art forms.
In American Gnosis , Arthur Versluis explores the fascinating connection between the Gnostic tradition and contemporary American spirituality, politics, and popular media. Versluis surveys themes of Gnosticism and gnosis in American culture, both within the United States and in global contexts. Versluis shows that gnosis is key to understanding a wide spectrum of global syncretic religious and intellectual movements-some sensational, even wild, but all fascinating. American gnosis, he argues, is a defining feature of hybrid new religious forms in the twenty-first century.
Versluis provides case studies of major contemporary figures and texts that are emblematic of neo-gnosticism, offering a comprehensive framework of gnosis and an understanding of gnostic trends in modernity. He explores how neo-gnostic memes recur in social media and shows how American gnosis has manifested as spiritual independence, reflecting the ever-growing demographic category “spiritual but not religious.” In delving into the intersection of contemporary American spirituality, politics, and literature, American Gnosis uncovers the remarkable prevalence of neo-gnostic elements today.
Arthur Versluis, Professor of Religious Studies at Michigan State University, holds a doctorate from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and has published numerous books and articles.
Among his many books are Platonic Mysticism (SUNY Press 2017), American Gurus (Oxford UP, 2014), Magic and Mysticism: An Introduction to Western Esotericism (Rowman Littlefield, 2007), The New Inquisitions: Heretic-hunting and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Totalitarianism (Oxford UP, 2006), Restoring Paradise: Esoteric Transmission through Literature and Art (SUNY: 2004); The Esoteric Origins of the American Renaissance (Oxford UP: 2001); Wisdom’s Book: The Sophia Anthology, (Paragon House, 2000); Island Farm (MSU Press, 2000); Wisdom’s Children: A Christian Esoteric Tradition (SUNY: 1999); and American Transcendentalism and Asian Religions (Oxford UP, 1993).
His family has owned a commercial farm in West Michigan for several generations, and so he also published a book called Island Farm about the family farm, and about family farming in the modern era.
Versluis was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to Germany, and is the editor of JSR: Journal for the Study of Radicalism. He is the founding president of Hieros, a 501c3 nonprofit focused on spirituality and cultural renewal.
Founded by Arthur M. Young in 1972, the Institute for the Study of Consciousness (“ISC”) continues to use Young’s Theory of Process (“ToP”) as a paradigm to orient people toward the turning points of human evolution. This paradigm integrates materialist determinism in Science with free will, and thus gives a formal place for values and spiritual purpose to be recognized as part of reality, reclaiming purpose within science is our purpose. We see this integration as essential to a science of everything, and helping us live up to our full potential and fulfill our species’ name: Sapiens = wise ones.
Our Evolution of Wisdom
According to Young’s Theory of Process, as outlined in his book TheReflexive Universe, evolution is not just genetics: we are acting in the larger context of transcendent freedom leading to new creations. The Reflexive Universe view organizes and interrelates fields of inquiry with three categorically different evolutions:
genes
instinct
wisdom
Darwin’s theory of evolution predicted a mechanism of physical inheritance, which eventually was found in genes. A means of recording what is learned from experience is highly valuable for evolution. Young’s Theory of Process posits: The instincts which express what was learned are not recorded in the genes, even though associated with them; instinct is a different category of evolution. How behavioral instincts are recorded may take time to discover, just as the ongoing research and discovery of how genes work has taken generations.
Each category of evolution is symbolized in our logo by three triangles colored yellow, aqua, or white respectively, one atop the other, instinct on top of genetics, and wisdom over instinct. The three triangles point down to one point at the middle of seven points on the whole circle.
We humans are not always compulsively following our animal instincts, and we are not entirely determined by our genes; on the contrary, we can creatively use determinist laws to transcend limits. Discovering the principles operating in the universe empowers inventive creation. As Young showed with his perfection of the Bell helicopter as a vertical flying machine, we can have flight by creative leaps with clever devices, and do not need to be the wings, as animals do who evolved feathers from generations of genetic trials. And unlike other animals such as the bird, which has its wings, but cannot also have arms and hands, we can take on new abilities and new identities like clothing. This is categorically different from both genetic and instinctual evolution, and deserves recognition in any theory of the universe. Titles for this creative power are: consciousness, understanding, and wisdom. Scientific study, testing, empathy, direct recognition, and intuition all contribute to the evolution of consciousness; all these and more may be needed for Wisdom to emerge.
Arthur Young gave the title of “Dominion” to the final “Kingdom” of evolution in consciousness. He did not mean domination nor enslaving nor exploiting. He meant the more mature expressions of dominion, including comprehensive mastery and wisdom. We may all hope that learning mastery in each virtue involves fewer violations of others, and leads to more symbiosis, less domination. Therefore, some renditions of this Theory of Process may label the seventh stage as “Transcendence” or “Transcendent,” or “Attainment,” instead of “Dominion,” to be more understandable by current culture. Transcendence does not mean escapism. People will repeatedly find there is no escape from responsibility; when seeing comprehensively enough, the compassion of wisdom impels action to help all embodiments of evolution and to heal the whole.
This theory (ToP) assists in predicting jumps which break away from history and trends in any development. By seeing the patterns of similarities across all phenomena, in terms of stages and substages, each example of the pattern informs across any scale of view, from personal to global. Fractals are a visual representation of this self-mapping feature. “As above, so below” is another way this has been expressed.
Because people can exercise freedom, exact prediction of individuals and groups is not possible; however, the general nature of any process, and what qualities are available next, can be anticipated with the Theory of Process. Marshall Rosenberg, in his explanation of Non-Violent Communication, predicted for any group, the parties must first fully hear and acknowledge the validity of each person’s feelings and generic longings (ToP stage 2 “Binding”) before they can agree on plans (ToP stage 3 “Identity”). Only when the emotional level has been resolved first will the participants experience this moment of mutual acceptance as a breakthrough, or jump in progress. A recognition of sequence requirements is central to the Theory of Process, in this case the recognition that stage 2 must be complete before stage 3 can work. This is an example of the predictive usefulness of theory.
We emphasize how these 7 stages of process and the recursive sub-stages within each stage are a theory, a mental map or model, not the thing itself.This formalism distinguishes categorical types of things and non-things (such as subjective and projective realities). Arthur Young coined the use of the term “projective” to elucidate the nature of our subjective experience and mental process of modeling the universe. While we can specify these conceptual details objectively for all to see, we should always remember it is we who project theories onto more vast realities, and theory cannot be interchanged with the 3 other kinds of realities:
Objective physical sensations resulting from actions,
The apprehending of purposes, and
The experience of emotion/ motivation.
Young was inspired by the universal patterning embodied in atomic elements, he expanded on that to form a diagram he called The Grid: The entire Periodic Table of Elements is the third row of a higher order of the same periodicity. He called all the rows “Kingdoms” because the entities of the next 3 rows after the Atomic were already commonly known as belonging in the “Mineral kingdom, Plant kingdom, & Animal Kingdom” to which he added another “Kingdom” to complete the pattern and account for all the qualities we partake of. Each row (“Kingdom”) cumulatively engages in new kinds of evolution, as explained regarding the ISC logo, above. Thus this final “Kingdom” is engaged in developing wisdom for Transcendent power.
Where you come in
The powers inherent in cultural accumulation of knowledge and techniques can prove quite dangerous, especially without wisdom. The challenge represented by the atomic bomb is to ‘wise up or die out.’ The co-founder of this Institute for the Study of Consciousness, Ruth Forbes Young, was so moved by this imperative, she also co-founded what is now the International Peace Institute.
Arthur Young’s Theory of Process gives a scientifically precise map of universal processes which includes the evolution that matters most to us:
Human Consciousness
You have active roles in human evolution to live up to the wisdom implied by our taxonomic name Homo Sapiens. One role is within your self, having a drive to learn and grow your own competence. Another role is as a contributor to the collective adventure of conscious transcendence of past compulsions. It could be by freeing people from being blindly run by fears generally, or dispelling war, greed addictions, or the consequent violations against life; your help may be the tipping force for life to continue in creative diversity on Earth.
As examples, we should stop irrevocable actions such as:
Releasing genetically modified organisms into the environment, irreversibly changing gene pools; if a particular GMO is found to be harmful, it will then be too late
Fracking for oil by releasing chemicals known to be toxic solvents into our Earth;
We do know better by now, and should use the precautionary principle in handling the fundaments of life, which are millions of times older than science!
Gaining an overview and understanding of this adventure of consciousness is useful and satisfying in itself, but also leads into a journey of applying paradigms to create desired futures.
Exemplars of that journey include the famous Geodesic dome inventor Buckminster Fuller and visionary futurist Foster Gamble. Before Foster produced Thrive, he studied the Theory of Process at this ISC. He assessed that “Bucky” Fuller comprehended the fundamental structure of the universe with what Bucky coined as the “vector equilibrium.” (a geometric shape also known as the closest packing of spheres). Foster recognized Arthur Young as comprehending the process of universal unfolding with the torus model and believes the process/structure combination forms the most complete picture of the universe yet attained by cumulative systematic inquiry.
Foster’s revelations are visible in his movies Thrive 1 and Thrive II and website (12 spheres around one inside a torus), but these background theoretical models and organizing principles are not directly explained there; this is where your study and journey can take off.
Discover where you are in the adventure of consciousness!
We are open to critique and to comparing views which can add to, or revise our paradigm scientifically. Just providing us with other data to consider is appreciated. Comparing theories and the merits of various paradigms is in the Charter of this Institute for the Study of Consciousness.
The Theory of Process Poster
The ISC, with funding and support from Anodos Foundation and the editorial and graphic resources of The Grove Consultants International, has produced a 20 x 30 inch color waterproof poster that serves as a primer, introduction, summary, and graphic display of the Theory of Process (“ToP”). The Poster includes background about Arthur Young, a brief outline of the theory, and graphics of the following features: The Grid, the Learning Cycle, the Rosetta Stone of Meaning, a table of correspondences to the four levels, and several Arcs of Process illustrating diverse applications of the seven-stages of process. The Poster provides a coherent, beautiful, succinct, and accessible quick reference about ToP at your fingertips. This Poster is what you will want to have with you when you suddenly get the urge to tell someone about the Theory of Process and its power.
The Poster is available flat, or folded into a convenient hand-size of 7.5 inch x 10 inch. As it is unfolded, each of the 4 levels of the ToP is exemplified in a new modality for the page.Order the Theory of Process Poster – $15
Wholesale customers or educators wishing to use the poster for student or classroom use, please contact Jack Engstrom: engstrom@lisco.com
If you send us your email address, c/o Jack Engstrom: engstrom@lisco.com, we can keep you informed of ISC news and events. We will not distribute your email address.
May 17, 2026 Arthur Versluis is Professor of Religious Studies at Michigan State University. Among his many books are Platonic Mysticism, American Gurus, Magic and Mysticism: An Introduction to Western Esotericism, The New Inquisitions: Heretic-Hunting and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Totalitarianism, Wisdom’s Children: A Christian Esoteric Tradition, American Transcendentalism and Asian Religions, and Alchemical Lightwork: A Guide to Creating Cultures of Light and Spiritual Awakening. He is the editor of JSR: Journal for the Study of Radicalism. He is also the founding president of Hieros, a nonprofit focused on spirituality and cultural renewal. This conversation is based on his book American Gnosis: Political Religion and Transcendence. Arthur explores the two very different meanings of Gnosticism: one rooted in direct spiritual transcendence and inner awakening, and the other tied to political ideology, power structures, and cultural critique. He discusses figures such as Charles Musès, Philip K. Dick, Herman Melville, Eric Voegelin, and Miguel Serrano while examining how Gnostic themes appear in contemporary films, digital culture, virtual reality, AI systems, and modern political movements. Along the way, Versluis reflects on mysticism, nihilism, nondual awareness, and the enduring human search for truth beyond materialism. 00:00:00 Introduction 00:03:31 Charles Musès and cosmological gnosis 00:13:13 Hypernumbers, harmonics, and the lion path 00:21:19 Eric Voegelin and political Gnosticism 00:27:02 Demiurges, virtual reality, and the digital age 00:34:30 Philip K. Dick, Melville, and neo-Gnostic fiction 00:41:23 Awakening, power, and spiritual freedom 00:50:57 Miguel Serrano and esoteric Hitlerism 00:57:04 Trump charisma and political symbolism 01:03:52 Conclusion New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science. (Recorded on April 28, 2026)
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Throughout the last hundred and fifty years, men have questioned more and more vigorously the value of “useless” knowledge, and have come increasingly to believe that the only knowledge worth having is that which is applicable to some part of the economic life of the community… Knowledge, everywhere, is coming to be regarded not as a good in itself, or as a means of creating a broad and humane outlook on life in general, but as merely an ingredient in technical skill… This is part and parcel of the same movement which has led to compulsory military service, boy scouts, the organisation of political parties, and the dissemination of political passion by the Press.
