HUM 301: A BRIDGE TO THE NEW WORLD: VAN GOGH AND MODERN ART

Together with Paul Cezanne, Georges Seurat, and Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh is considered one of the founders of modern art. Van Gogh's work is of an extremely personal sort. With the exception of his countryman Rembrandt, no other great artist has produced more self-portraits (more than 40). His landscapes, figures, interiors and still lifes are in a sense self-portraits as well. It was his method to fuse what he saw, and what he felt, as quickly as possible into statements that were revelations of himself. His artistic career lasted only 10 years and yet his output was astonishing: close to 1,700 of his works survive. During his lifetime he sold only one painting but today his paintings each sell for many millions of dollars. This course helps to explain his artistic greatness in a way that will help the student to see ourselves and the world anew.

At the end of the 1870's a movement begins which survives all the contempt, ridicule and hostility directed against it and soon swells to a powerful storm that sweeps away everything in its path. The age of the "isms" begins that supplant one another in dizzying succession (Impressionism, Neo-Impressionism, Pointillism, Symbolism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Futurism, Cubism, Surrealism and so on).

This course will also help students to understand what this is all about and to appreciate Van Gogh in particular as a bridge to a new level of self-conscious awareness. Assigned reading will be Art and Human Consciousness by Gottfried Richter. Students will study Van Gogh's paintings in depth. Questions and thoughts follow the course guide which require response. This course requires no prior learning but does require the ability to think clearly and in an unprejudiced manner. [Instructor: Andrew Flaxman]

HUM 302: THINKING WITH THE HEART

Woody Allen has been quoted "It's very hard to get your heart and head together in life. In my case they're not even friendly." This course will focus on the obstacles to uniting thoughts with feelings and directions to overcome these difficulties. Deeply ingrained in our minds is that the heart is a pump. Since primary school we have been barraged with pictures and TV advertisements showing the heart as a motor acting as a pressure or suction pump. News articles show pictures of the newest portable implant with headlines such as "A Boost for a Failing Pump." This organ appears to drive the blood through a system of tubes, the hollow muscle that brings about the pressure, the valves that mechanically prevent the backflow, the streaming from places of higher pressure to places of lower pressure. All of this activity clearly seems to speak for the heart as a mechanism, the task of which is to pump blood through the body. There is an oppressive multitude of data that shows the achievements of the heart considered as such and the physiological function of the circulation seems to be no problem at all. Since the heart has such obviously mechanical devices like the valves, what is wrong with this way of thinking that has produced such amazing medical successes?

The common and accepted picture of the heart is nevertheless seriously incomplete as it pertains to healing and medical practices as well as for psychological and spiritual reasons: How can we heal ourselves or have feelings of love and courage with a purely mechanical heart? To a great extent we are what we think we are. We are missing significant truths important for our well-being when we maintain a simplistic image of anatomy and ourselves as Human Beings.

To be able to re-think the scientific world view of what the heart is students will read Meditations through the Rg Veda by Antonio T. de Nicolas and Enlivening the Chakra of the Heart by Florin Lowndes. These books are essential for anyone interested in the practice of meditation. Questions and thoughts follow the course guide which require response. This course requires no prior learning but does require the ability to think clearly and in an unprejudiced manner. [Instructor: Antonio T. de Nicolas]

HUM 303: THE PHILANTHROPY OF CARNEGIE AND TOLSTOY

In the history of the world there has never been such an enormous gulf between extravagant wealth and great poverty. What should the attitude and responsibility be of the so very fortunate to the very unfortunate? What should our estate tax policy be? What should the attitude be towards all of us to each other, regardless of our social positions and wealth? This course about philanthropy is designed to help answer these questions and to help us to realize a greater sense of purpose and meaning in our own lives. It would be difficult to find two personalities in greater contrast in their thought and feeling and in their standard of right and wrong than Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) and Leo Tolstoy (1825-1910). On the one hand is the famous influential writer and on the other the American millionaire, Carnegie. Why should these two differing personalities be compared? Just as Tolstoy, out of the depths of his soul, strives to solve the problems of life satisfactorily, even so Carnegie, in his own way, endeavors with a practical and intelligent outlook upon life, to reach guiding principles.

We all embody the way we think. By penetrating the contrasting philosophies of Leo Tolstoy's Idealism with Andrew Carnegie's Realism students will be able to expand their own scope of humanitarianism. The course requires the reading of The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie, the biography, Tolstoy by A.N. Wilson and The Kingdom of God is Within You by Tolstoy. Questions and thoughts follow the course guide which require response. This course requires no prior learning but does require the ability to think clearly and in an unprejudiced manner. [Instructor: Andrew Flaxman]

HUM 303: $100

HUM 304: EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY

No form of government is more dependent upon education than is democracy. Does it then follow that we must establish high standards and accountability for mass education? For education to remain free of governmental controls, new approaches to public education must be discovered and promoted.

Furthermore, today's children are an endangered species. As a result of reductionism (the tendency to reduce everything to its lowest denomination), and the homogenization of the stages of human life, many children seem to have lost their childhood and been thrust into the confusing and chaotic world of adults. By assuming that children can assimilate a conceptual framework that was once considered fit only for adults, we have indeed turned children into "little adults" who (it would appear) can think logically, make decisions for themselves, and express precocious sexual desires. Deprived of the boundaries that once separated the "world of childhood" from the world of adulthood, these children of today are also capable of promiscuous sexual behavior and violence toward themselves and others on a scale never seen before. Is there any way for childhood to be regained?

This course will help increase awareness of the issues involved. Students will read The Millennial Child by Eugene Schwartz, Educational Freedom for a Democratic Society by Ron Miller, ed., Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich and In Fear of Freedom by Jeffrey Kane. Questions and thoughts follow the course guide which require response This course requires no prior learning but does require the ability to think clearly and in an unprejudiced manner. [Guide by Jeffrey Kane and Andrew Flaxman]

HUM 304: $100

HUM 305: WALT WHITMAN: POET OF THE SUBLIME

What is meant by "The Sublime?" As the word, "Poetry," it is indefinable. Yet, one is able to talk about it. Involved are the essential, the eternal, the enduring. Involved are the words: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, the Divine, God, the Word, Spirit, Higher Consciousness, Vision, the Higher Self, the Virtues, Freedom, Individuality, Compassion, Love. Is it possible to find all that expressed in the poetry of Walt Whitman? Yes! Whitman is celebrated as "The Poet of Democracy," yet the democracy which he envisioned was not what existed during his lifetime, nor does it exist in our own. It was not license, violence, cruelty, obscenity, corruption. Whitman dreamed of democratic individualism mingled with divine values.

Walt Whitman was a seer and a prophet whose genius has not yet been wholly appreciated. Many of his readers are not aware that he is one of the great teachers of Humankind, nor that his poetry is an instrument for helping to bring about a transformation of consciousness in each individual, and thereby, a transformation of the whole Earth toward higher being. He recognized that in our age, which is the age striving to go beyond intellectualism, this could no longer be relegated to a special elite. The time had arrived when each single individual was capable of becoming a spiritually self conscious being. The guides on the journey to the spiritual self were to be the Poets (with a capital "P").

Students will read a biography of Whitman and a selection of his poems. Questions and thoughts follow the course guide which require response. This course requires no prior learning but does require the ability to think clearly and in an unprejudiced manner. [Guide by Daisy Alden]

HUM 306: EMERSON, SPIRITUAL TEACHER

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American transcendentalist, poet, essayist, and reformer has served as one of the founders of America's cultural heritage. But today he can also serve as a spiritual teacher, a guide to the intimate processes of awakening our slumbering organs of spiritual perception. In countless ways, including the example of his life, he showed that "the holy and mysterious sources of life" were available to anyone, at any hour of the day, who can "listen for the right word." Emerson taught that the harmony of one's own mind is the basis for inner development and self-transformation. As Emerson wrote in The Times, "There was never so great a thought laboring in the breasts of men as now. It almost seems as if what was aforetime spoken fabulously and hieroglyphaically was now spoken plainly, the doctrine, namely, of the indwelling Creator in man." It has been over one hundred and fifty years since the powerful, startling messages from his pen began to flow out of Concord, Massachusetts, to a small circle of devoted readers in America and England. After his death in 1882, American culture subsumed much of that power into the broader, pragmatic vision of individualism and expansionism, and the man who was once understood as the seer of a revolution in human self-recovery was more weakly read as America's beloved idealist. It is now way past the time to re-awaken to Emerson's great wisdom.

This course emphases Emerson's teaching that we can attain an original relation to the universe and not have to rely on only the revelations and traditions of earlier generations. Students will read Spiritual Teachings of Emerson by Richard Geldard and Essays by Emerson. Following the course guide are questions and thoughts which require response. This course requires no prior learning but does require the ability to think clearly and in an unprejudiced manner. [Guide by Richard Geldard]

HUM 307: THE ROOTS OF GENIUS: THOMAS EDISON AND HENRY FORD

In Roman mythology Genius was a guardian spirit. It was believed that every individual, family and city had its own spirit-guide. These were worshipped that they might bestow success and intellectual powers on devotees. Today we no longer pray to our Geniuses. Yet here lies the source of all the accomplishments of civilization and individuals. What is a genius? According to modern usage, a genius is a person of great natural power of mind. What are these powers specifically? This mind would have a rich imagination, great intuitive abilities and a deep source of inspiration. These attributes would be coupled with an independent, unconventional nature. The person would most likely have a wide range of interests and be open to novel, complex and ambiguous stimuli in their surroundings.

The individual would have great love for what he or she is doing, so much so that the motivation would be much more powerful than just success, important as that might be. The genius often would want to be alone because that would provide the necessary space for creative activity.

This course is intended to help us to discover the spiritual nature of our genius by looking into the insights about reincarnation of two prominent geniuses of the past century, Thomas Alva Edison and Henry Ford. Students will read Edison: Inventing the Century by Neil Baldwin, Henry Ford, Ignorant Idealist by David Nye and Reincarnation: The Phoenix Fire Mystery by Head & Cranston. Questions and thoughts follow the course guide which require response. This course requires no prior learning but does require the ability to think clearly and in an unprejudiced manner. [Instructor: Andrew Flaxman]

HUM 307: $100

HUM 308: ECONOMICS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

More than any other subject, humanity's understanding of economic life stands in need of the wide perspective that the idea of evolution affords. It is essential, for example, to understand that economic life and economic science are in process of development, and that our perception of both alters with changes in our consciousness. Thus, what Adam Smith had to say needs to be seen in terms of his experience, his form of consciousness, and his moment in time. He had much to say that was very relevant, but by extrapolating his experience into a general theory he, or more particularly his followers, made a basic mistake. Economic life does not stay unchanged. It was different before Smith and has changed since. To distinguish between a point of view, however valid, and the totality of economics is one of the most important tasks we face. Sadly, the seemingly scientific terminology and methods of economics contradict this fact, in that they tend to seek and to use generalizations, rather than to remain merely descriptive and observational. In economics, the moment one moves from observation to theory one can get easily lost, because the way we think, rather than the way things are, is forever intervening, albeit without our noticing.

This course discusses the requirements of this evolution of economic consciousness through the studying of Beyond the Market by Gaudenz Assenza, The Meaning of Work by Marjo Van Boeschoten and Rudolf Steiner, Economist by Christopher Houghton Budd.

The student will be expected to engage in a dialog with the instructor concerning new ways of thinking about economic life.

Questions and assignments that require written responses follow the lecture/guide. This course requires no prior learning but does require the ability to think clearly and in an unprejudiced manner. [Guide by Christopher Budd, et.al.]

HUM 308: $100

HUM 309: AN INTRODUCTION TO HOLISTIC EDUCATION

What is holistic education? What are the primary philosophies that distinguish it from traditional education? Who were the pioneers in holistic education? How and where are these ideas practiced today? Throughout the 200-year history of public schooling, a widely scattered group of critics have pointed out that the education of young Human Beings should involve much more than simply molding them into future workers or citizens. This course explores the ideas of Rousseau, the Swiss humanitarian Johann Pestalozzi, the American Transcendentalists Thoreau, Emerson and Alcott, the founders of "progressive" education--Francis Parker and John Dewey, and the pioneers Maria Montessori, Krishnamurti, Sri Aurobindo Ghose, Sazrat Inayat Khan, and Rudolf Steiner.

The course will attempt to demonstrate to the student that education which does not result in deep integration of thought, feeling, and outlook is useless. It will point out that many contemporary methods of teaching emphasize slavish conformity to mass values and overstress technique. For education to encourage the development of the true Human Being, the present mass education must be transformed into one that stresses self-knowledge and take place in a surrounding of freedom and love for the child.

This course will provide a penetrating inquiry into the nature and requirements of the kind of education which can lead to self-fulfillment and to world peace.

Questions and assignments that require written responses follow the lecture/guide. This course requires no prior learning but does require the ability to think clearly and in an unprejudiced manner. [Guide by Ron Miller]

HUM 309: $100

HUM 310: THINKING BEYOND DARWIN

Charles Darwin was born in England in 1809 (on the same exact day and year as Abraham Lincoln). Along with Marx, Einstein and Freud he has had a great influence on the 20th century and is one of the founders of modern biology. After the publication in 1859 of his ground-breaking book, On the Origin of Species, the thought-world of humankind changed. Darwin refuted the common belief in the individual creation of each species. Instead people began to believe that all of life descended from a common ancestor, including by extension the human being. Darwin's theory challenged the prevailing assumptions of a God-created, purposeful spiritual world. He postulated that chance variation and natural selection alone bring forth the variety of life on earth.

Darwin's theory of evolution has had an enormous influence on the modern world, not all to Humankind's benefit. This course will critically examine the theory and point out the riches that lie beyond its simplistic strictures. Students will be exposed to a Goethean approach to evolutionary phenomena by reading Thinking Beyond Darwin by Ernst Michael Kranich and One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought by Ernst Mayr. Questions and assignments that require written responses follow the lecture/guide. [Guide by Craig Holdrege]

HUM 310: $100

HUM 311: SCIENCE, VALUES AND THE FUTURE LIFE

Modern natural science has, of course, evolved from a genuine search for truth. Its pioneers strove to transcend the subjective view of the world conveyed to them through their sense. Impressed by the objective nature of mathematics, they evolved in due course the reductionistic method we have today. (Reductionism in science is the tendency to reduce things to the smallest most basic level to provide a working explanation, something that others can work with and use.) It has become natural to equate scientific understanding with successful reductionistic explanation. Beyond mere satisfaction for the intellect, such explanations have given rise to novel technologies through which practically all realms of nature can be manipulated. This power of manipulation is cited as the strongest proof of the reductionistic doctrine.

On the other hand, the growing problems of contemporary civilization have led to a call for holism. By taking the whole to be the sum of its parts, the reductionistic method has been leading humanity into chaos. Perhaps an objective science that takes the world apart only to reassemble it with the aid of ever faster computers does not lead to a rational view of the world after all?

This course entails the studying of three books about holistic science: The Marriage of Sense & Thought - Imaginative Participation in Science by Stephen Edelglass, Georg Maier, Hans Gebert, and John Davy; Genetics & the Manipulation of Life by Craig Holdrege; and Insight - Imagination, The Emancipation of Thought and the Modern World by Douglas Sloan. These well written books all require great thoughtfulness. The student thereby will be introduced to an alternative approach to the scientific reductionism prevalent in the modern world. Questions and assignments that require written responses follow the lecture/guide. This course requires no prior learning but does require the ability to think clearly and in an unprejudiced manner. [Guide by Edelglass, Maier, Gebert and Davy]

HUM 311: $100

HUM 312: EVIL AND WORLD ORDER

Is evil a natural defect in the Human Being, an imperfection which disappears by itself as the good increases? This is the position of many people who think that humans are born good and that it is the family and cultural environment that ruins this goodness. This position stems from thinkers such as Rousseau who believed that humans were naturally god and then corrupted by society. The opposing position stems from the religious conviction most pronounced in Calvin that humans are born stained with original sin and this evil has to be suppressed by strict ordinances and overcome by God's grace. There is, however, a third position that is not well known. This is that the Human Being is both good and evil and that Evil is a genuine power that controls our world by means of temptations. In order to combat it successfully, help must be obtained through a much higher degree of self-knowledge than ordinary consciousness brings. This attitude has been promoted by Gnostics throughout the ages, most recently by such educators as Krishnamurti and Rudolf Steiner.

This course will help the student answer such questions as "How is it that when we try to do good we can often end up by creating greater evil?" "How do we make the world a better place?" "Is it possible that unenlightened people can transform the world?" The answers to these questions require a transformed thinking ability. To help us are some insights about Sophia (the Being of Wisdom) from the great Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov. He prophesized over 100 years ago that there would be a great conflagration in the Mid-east in the 21st century involving all of the world's peoples. Required readings are Solovyov's War, Progress and the End of History with his story of the Anti-Christ and Thompson's Evil and World Order. This course requires no prior learning but does require the ability to think clearly and in an unprejudiced manner. [Andrew Flaxman, Instructor]

HUM 312: $100