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Good evening ladies and up from the great hall of the Cooper Union in New York City. National Educational radio presents the Cooper Union forum series on peace love and creativity the hope of mankind. These programs were recorded by station WNYC. Here now is the chairman of the Cooper Union forum Dr. Johnson. The Fairchild Good evening ladies and gentlemen welcome to the forum. Was your German jobs done a fair job speaking to you from the great hall of the Cooper Union where we are continuing with our program which has to do with peace love and creativity. The segment discussion has to do with creativity. For tonight's discussion we have in Western religion and Dr. Charles Parker. Dr. Barker has a great experience in this
field. For the past 30 years he's been an active teacher. Lecturer. Writer and minister in the field of thought. His original training had to do with the unity of Christianity ordained a minister in 1940. Incidentally in Rochester New York. He later resigned from the unity movement and affiliated with the field of Religious Science. Becoming a minister of the Religious Science Church of San Francisco. 1946 you came to New York City has been in the house for a year for the last 20 years. His first congregation in New York City to start off with a small group of people and group numbers in the fall.
He is served as president of the International Association of Religious Science churches and he is served as president of the International New Thought alliance. He was lectured in every major city in the United States and many of those of Europe and those of you who follow Dr. Barker realize that the program on. Sunday Sunday morning local New York City's station which also has affiliations with several other major eastern cities has written such books as Treat yourself to life. The science of successful living. We're very pleased that he's able to come to us and talk on this. Problem and it certainly is one of creativity in Western religion. You understand we are not discussing all the orthodox religion from
top to bottom but we are discussing the possibility of some creativity and religion which we believe Dr. Barker knows a great deal about right. I thank you very much. All creativity and religion east or west had been by beatnik. It had to start with offbeat people people who could not stand tradition. People who did not fit in pattern and fit in mode. This is true whether it was a Moses a Jesus a Paul a Luther or whoever out you'd like to know. Always these have been peculiar mine. Meaning they could not fit the pattern. And so the whole history of religion is made up of a history of
peculiar people. I am using the word peculiar in its right sense. I do not mean bizarre. I do not mean fanatical as some of the more I mean people who were open to different ideas. Who could not follow the norm. I'd like to particularly discuss tonight. From around the year 1830 to the present. By the time of the year 1830 here in the United States religion had consolidated its forces all of the great European churches had set up their branches here. They were all well established they were well how their clergy were well trained in their seminary. But every religion in the United States of America in 1830 was a European religion transplanted here. America had not yet given birth to any real
religious thought. All religious ideas or systems. And so all we're going to start with the birth of creativity in religious thought in the United States. Around 18 30 to 40 the first of the great American religions was born. Born through a very unique man. And I'm speaking now of Joseph Smith and the great church of the Latter-Day say the Mormons. In 1840 this was a startling new innovation. It was a tremendous new idea. Apparently this ma'am whether we admit his golden plates or not that has nothing to do with it. This man had something and more than that he was able to communicate it to others. Because within 10 years he had a tremendous following. He had already organized a tremendous group of
people that were loyal and faithful and may I say loyal him to death. The story of the persecution of the Mormons going across the nation until they got to Utah is one of the great stories and dramas of all time. Now if you remember Joseph Smith these golden plates and Powell Mayra New York. Which is upstate between Rochester and Syracuse. And if you go there you will find the exact spot it has a very magnificent monument on it. And it's very interesting. The next great American religion to be born was born only 10 miles away from power and that the religion of spiritualism. And there it was the Fox sisters. I heard the wrappings. And began the great modern movement of spiritualism which has had its ups and down. Most people are very critical of it. Most people probably point out the fraudulent
things that have gone on in spiritualism. But remember that every religion that has ever been and had progeny and people in it. And perhaps there have been no more fraud and spiritualism than in any other church you can name anyone you want. Even today not unusual for the church clergymen to run away with the organist and leave his wife and three children behind. This is still being done. So we're not going to dwell on spiritualism it's not a field in which I have specialized You know too much about although I do know something about. Then came the next great thing which was the transcendentalists movement in New England. And while this is not classified as a religious movement. How is it a religious movement. Without EMERSON We would probably never have had the great liberal churches that we have in the United States today.
Another thing you have to appreciate Emerson in his own time. Emerson in his own time was the most widely read officer in the United States. Everyone read Emerson whenever he went on lecture tours. He had great audience. His name was in every home. He was beloved and he was understood he was appreciated. If you dig around among your grandmother's books you'll always find Emerson. Now the other transcendentalists did not give as much to the religious side as did Emerson. But Emerson gave a great new understanding of spiritual values. And as I say because of his popularity he was red. And interestingly enough he was read by all the old church people. He was read by your grandmother who might have been an ardent Presbyterian but she had read Emerson. Someone else's
grandmother was an ardent Lutheran but she read Emerson. Someone else was an ardent Roman Catholic when he read Emerson. And that was that widespread in his own day. Unfortunately not so today. Only two years ago I tried to find a and authority Emerson to give a lecture in my church. And I cowered in New York and I could not find a qualified scholar in any of the academic fields of New York City. This is amazing. Fifteen years ago I could have gotten ten men. That the decline in the interest in Emerson. I hope some day it will be revived. Now what did Emerson say in effort. He was the first the American philosopher to say that the universe was the result of a mine. He was the first as a philosopher in the United States to
depersonalize God. To take from being a man into God being a mind and a principle. He sometimes called it the over soul. He always called it by a large liberal turd. Emerson's own background had been to Harvard. In the days when Harvard was a Unitarian college and he had taken not only his regular bachelor and master degrees there he had trained at the Harvard Divinity School and had graduated had been ordained a Unitarian minister. Now in those days the Unitarian Church was the most liberal church in the United States. They had already gotten rid of hell and heaven. They'd already gotten rid of the devil and they knew. But they did cling to many of the old traditional beliefs. And
Emerson becoming a minister stayed in the ministry just as long as he could. And one day he went to the Board of Trustees of his church and had I resigned. I can't take it any longer. Even the Unitarians aren't liberal enough for me. And so then he began his writing and lecturing career with a larger liberalism than the Unitarian Church. If they back there had to offer. And again he was a popular dynamic and immense figure. Now due to his popularity especially the reading of his books he exercised a great liberalism in religious thought not in the church. The churches remained static in their theological conviction. The church is remains that until around 1910. The traditional Orthodox Church.
And Emerson influence was not in the church it was in the laymen. But here he stirred up many ideas hearing quick and many people and got them ready for the next thing that was to come along. And the next thing that was to come along was a very interesting man in the state of Maine known as Phineas Parker's Quimby. And this bam started. What is called today the metaphysical and thought movement of America and we cannot claim that he started anything out. But we can say that Mrs Mary Baker Eddy did study with him for a short time. But we cannot say that he ever started the Christian Science church because he did. He was dead for years before the Christians Last Church was ever thought of. So we make no claims on that. But Mr. Quimby left talk about
Mr. Quimby was originally a clockmaker by trade but he was interested in every new idea that came along. And about this time there came to the United States some teachers and lecturers from Europe teaching what in those days was called Mesmer ism which as you know was the original name for him. And Mr. Quimby listened to some of these lectures Bach the little she had pamphlets and track and became very much interested in so much in all that he decided to practise it. And he did he practice hypnotism. In those days they used hypnotism for the curing of sick. Not only as a vaudeville act not only as a theatrical trick. It was seriously used by 13 people for the healing of the sick
which was the original purpose which Mesmer had used and saw Quimby began healing the sick through hypnotism. However this was around 1815 they did that for about 10 years. However around 1860 when he began writing down his beliefs and the theories he said I do not need to use hypnotism. I can use direct mental suggestion without putting the client the patient as he called them the patient into an hypnotic state. And so he started doing this. He lay beside it as he never touched it again never went back and he began to talk to people and he began to give them individually because he always worked with individual clients. Suggestion. Another interesting thing that Quimby discovered. Which gave birth to
these new concepts Quimby discovered that you can give a suggestion but through your mind to a person in a distance and the person would be helped and benefited by. This set him to thinking. That he could be in Portland Maine where he did most of his work. And someone would write him from Providence Rhode Island. And say Dear Dr. Quimby I have this physical problem. I mean. When you give me a series of treatments this language goes right back to him. Maybe develop the word patient and the word treatment. Because he said that his work was as therapeutic as was the doctors of his day. And please remember that in 1860 here the medical profession was totally unlike the medical profession of today. So much so that Quimby operated this wasn't going to be.
Back in 1860 Quimby said there are only two columns. He says the one is the church and the other is the doctor. Meaning Of course the church because it taught me guilt. I am the doctor because the fear. And the doctor because of the fear of medicine in the days before there was any X-ray. The days before there were any good anesthesia of any car that now if twenty were alive today he wouldn't say that he might still have any system which increases guilt. This has always interested me because when Quimby said that guilt was the cause of disease he was saying thirty years ahead of pro-choice. What Freud was to say later in different language. Freud language is much more academic than women. But pride in Athens in his early years said all that it was
guilt that made you sick. And of course the one great means was feigning an interest in guilt has been the traditional church with its emphasis. I am a sinner I am unworthy insult. So at any rate come back when you had a very successful ministry. He taught a few people maybe no more than six. And one of these was Mrs. Mary Baker Glover as she was known then she had not yet married Dr. Reddy. And finally the day came in 1860 think and can be passed on. So. They are were they to do this little group of six or eight people that they got. No one wanted to start anything. They all said Well Dr. Quimby did it. Maybe we can do it or maybe we can. But that the other people. And so some years later
1866 or somewhere around 1875 a 73 correct this lady Mrs. Patterson our other Mrs. Clover who became Mrs. that at that time. Decided that she would start her theory and her practice. Of what she called Christian Science. I am not a Christian. I know their movement almost from a disease. But I know it from the outside looking in. I do not know it from the inside looking out. I have great respect for it. It has done a tremendous job. I do not agree with it which is why I'm not in it. But I respect. If they have not founded the Christian Science church and have not published her book in 1875. Undoubtedly this entire field of thought would have been delayed 50 to 100 years
because it had to have someone to do it. And of course Mrs. Eddy was a remarkable woman. Women involved. In 1875 were either married or they were schoolteachers or they were seamstresses and that all there was one more clarification. But I won't bring it up. A good woman involved but the housewife or a school teacher or a theme that was hit and there arose the woman that said I have something to say and I am going to say it and he immediately did so and it caught on. As I say I am not one of her followers but this woman had her and she had that money and she did a tremendous job. Being a woman of great determination there naturally were people who disagreed with her. Because anyone who was a strong
individual does disagree. And so one of her close workers disagreed with her and with his he asked her to leave. She'd been the editor of The Journal and he left and went to Chicago where she opened a school called the Illinois College Christians. And she was also an amazing woman her name was Democratic caucus. And she gathered together through her lecture tours of a tremendous organization. And she had her training school and she train her first graduating class. She trained one hundred and four fully trained clergy are all of them ordained as Christian Science ministers. Well of course Mrs. that in Boston was fit to be tied. And she kept up a series of
disagreements with Mrs. Hopkins. And finally a few years later Mrs. Hopkins. Love it. Isn't that important. I will quietly go out of business. And let Mrs. Eddy have her name of Christian Science. It means that much to which Mrs. Hopkins did. So as a result. Mrs. Hopkins worked all the other field. We have what we call new thought was cool. Now let's go back I said there were four basic creative new concepts in the field of religion which came out of America. Everything Out came from Europe. The Baptists suppressed curium the Newton's method is kept with the business begun. All of these were European religions brought over here. We gave birth in this country to the Mormon Church. The spiritualist church the Christian Science church and what we call the New Thought movement of which my church is a pop. There is a fifth but I would like to mention a
more recent date and that is the Jehovah's Witnesses. You may like them or you may dislike them. I'm in the latter corner. I have tried to like I have tried to understand. I have read a good deal of their material. These are militant people. Just as. The Mormons were militant just as Mrs Eddy was militant. And where you have this quality of being militant you gain followers. You always witnesses have had the largest single growth of any denominational body in the United States in the last 10 years. I'm going to repeat that Java's would have had the largest single growth of any single denomination in the United States in the last 10 years.
And may I add if not stop it it's going and and. These people know what they're about. They know how to do it. They have had perhaps an inner intelligence which set up the machinery to do it. Their intuition. They are strong they are powerful. They're getting rich which may be the stumbling block. Every religion becomes decadent when he becomes wealthy. Always had always will as far as I know. I don't have to worry because my church would never achieve that. This is one of the few times I give a lecture when there is not a collection received. They are gaining great crowd of people adherents and they are beginning to have money.
This may be the problem because when we have money in a church or organisation in a large a nomination group we then develop our block and when you have power block you're going to have dissension. And when you have the tension you're going to have. If you don't have enough power you're going to have if you have enough power you can control it. But usually it is. But look the church is still split into four different in this country as you know the whole Proudhon movement is a split from the crap a church and every church has the Southern Baptists still are speaking to the Northern Baptists and the southern and northern Presbyterians only got together five years ago. So it's interesting. Now you're going to say with all this rioting that mean weakness. Not at all. Not enough. You will never get anywhere with a unity of all religion. It can't be because the minute
you have a thing called doctrinal source you no longer have the riot that you no longer have previously thought you no longer have men and women inspired. You have only a single fountain of wisdom to become static and you have usually a bureaucratic system to operate it and so on and so of no never wonder why there are but in 30 years they are absolutely necessary to the creative flow of thought. Whatever is the creative mind back of all religion. Or shall we pay back of the universe. It is always operating through an infinite variety of ideas never a conformity one of our right is an Arkia that always reminds us that unity does not mean conformity. The universe the cosmos is a one in which the rich within the variety of part but the infinite variety do not need
the one they only enhance the one by expressing it exhibiting it showing it making it send the ball to the beholder. So there is no these kids rooms are not problems. These limbs are signs of a healthy attitude in people's shirred thinking.
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Series
Peace, love, creativity: Hope of mankind
Episode
Creativity in Western religion, part one
Producing Organization
WNYC (Radio station : New York, N.Y.)
Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
Contributing Organization
University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/500-j09w516k
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/500-j09w516k).
Description
Episode Description
This program features the first part of a lecture by Raymond C. Barker, D.D., Minister-Director, First Church of Religious Science, New York.
Series Description
This series presents lectures from the 1968 Cooper Union Forum. This forum's theme is Peace, Love, Creativity: The Hope of Mankind.
Date
1968-04-30
Topics
Philosophy
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:27:50
Credits
Producing Organization: WNYC (Radio station : New York, N.Y.)
Producing Organization: Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
Speaker: Fairchild, Johnson E.
Speaker: Barker, Raymond Charles
AAPB Contributor Holdings
University of Maryland
Identifier: 68-10-22 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:27:33
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Citations
Chicago: “Peace, love, creativity: Hope of mankind; Creativity in Western religion, part one,” 1968-04-30, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-j09w516k.
MLA: “Peace, love, creativity: Hope of mankind; Creativity in Western religion, part one.” 1968-04-30. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-j09w516k>.
APA: Peace, love, creativity: Hope of mankind; Creativity in Western religion, part one. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-j09w516k