Journal 26, Title: The Transcendentalists

The transcendentalists are the people that think everything in the world is a reflection of the divine soul, and they think that spontaneous feelings and intuition are superior to deliberate intellectualism and rationality. Transcendentalists view the world as a doorway to the spiritual or ideal world, and people can use their intuition to behold God’s spirit. I think their beliefs are kind of weird and strange. One of the most famous Transcendentalists is called Ralph Waldo Emerson. The famous things that he said don’t mean A THING to me. I can’t figure out what he is trying to say even after I read the sentences a couple of times. One of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quotes that I do understand and agree with is: “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.” I think that quote makes perfect sense, we shouldn’t keep quoting other people’s words, we should say our own. I only agree with some of the Transcendentalists’ beliefs, mostly because I only understand some of it. I don’t really agree with their views of the world, they think EVERYTHING has something to do with the spiritual world or god. I think it’s weird to keep believing that god is in every single place.