1
10
1
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/3a3eded04b27b947621db69ab9cd176d.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711672800&Signature=8XOJ%2BJYcBLWl2K%2BoNsooeoEFLp0%3D
a307fb55dffb9ae4c76084006635cd28
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-098_B.mp3
--of a certain power that he had, that in little ways of relatedness, the vision was always breaking
trough. We will call it an insight that was a derivative from this experience.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And he seemed [INAUDIBLE] something else that, in the moment of vision, one of the things
that happens is the man becomes aware of his gifts, of his particular, peculiar gifts. And one of
the gifts of which Jesus became aware was the gift of healing. And I'd like to pause now to
comment a little about this.
I think that there is a gift of healing, just as any other gift. I think a man who studies medicine
becomes a doctor. And who has the gift becomes an extraordinary person. But he can be a doctor
without the gift of healing. And he does something. But there's a magic that the git of healing has
that addresses, stimulates, calls forth a quality in the sick person of which the sick person was
not aware until it was called for by this healer.
Now, I realize that there are all kinds of focusing that turn up at the moment I mentioned this.
About 10 years ago, Margaret [INAUDIBLE] wrote a book about a woman who lived in
Minneapolis, Mrs. Somebody, who was a healer. And I live on the edge of curiosity all the time.
And I'm always sniffing things that seem to be out of my life that will throw light on my life.
After reading her biography and I found that she'd lived down in Minneapolis-- I was going there
for a weekend. And I wrote her ahead of time asking if she could give me a half hour on a
Saturday evening. I wanted to visit.
So when I got to the hotel, there was a note from her saying that the appointment was at 7:30 that
evening. And I went out to her apartment. I was met at the door by her sister, who was dressed in
a nurse's white [INAUDIBLE]. She took me into a small room, which apparently was a treatment
room.
There was [INAUDIBLE]. There was a table. And on the table was an old bible. On the wall
above the table was a print of Hofman's Head of Christ. To the left against the wall was an oldfashioned doctor's treatment-- what do you call it? Well, a table. That's the word. And then a
bright kind of [INAUDIBLE] and then a little stool.
And I was told to be seated at a chair. And presently, Mrs. Rhodes-- that's her name. Mrs.
Rhodes came in. And when she a face of [INAUDIBLE] that she had a goya that hung way down
her dress. She was a healer.
And I said to myself, even under the most overwhelming kind of insistent commitment and
passion diluted, oh, you are one of the most [? brazen ?] human beings I've ever seen.
[INAUDIBLE] healing people. So we introduced ourselves. And we began to talk.
And I said, you know, I have never met a live healer before. I said, that's why I'm here. I'm
curious. Tell me a little bit about you.
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
And she said, I'm a simple farmwoman. I think she said maybe in second or third grade-- her age
at that time was probably seven or eight-- she had been a healer maybe two or three years. And I
said, tell me what happened? How did you--
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And she said that one morning, she felt a hand on her shoulder. But there wasn't anybody there.
Nothing. And she was told that from that time on, until such time as there was a change, her life
was under the direct direction or control of a spiritual person [INAUDIBLE].
Well, I settled back into my chair. I said, well, how does it work? She says, when someone
comes to see me, they see him. "He" refers to this person. He tells me what to say. He tells me
what the disease is, where it is located, where to place my hand, and at the same time, he tells me
whether or not healing can come through me to heal the disease.
And I obey. So then some people could come, as soon as I've touched them, I'm told that no
creative energy can flow through me to touch [INAUDIBLE]. And then he won't come back.
Other times, yes.
When I got through that with my mind, Then she said, last night, a very extraordinary happened.
She said, [INAUDIBLE]. And I was shaken. And I was told to get up and go to my desk, take
my pencil and paper, and write. And I was told that I was to write a symposium on the soul. And
I said, you will have to spell "symposium" because I've never heard of the word.
And I was told that my job was to write, and not to ask. So I wrote. I wrote 10 pages. And I
looked at my watch. And my half hour was up. And knowing how I wish people who came and
talked to me would observe the time, I said, my half hour is up. And I don't want to stay a minute
longer, because this is all I asked for. And then she said, oh, stay another half hour.
So I settled back in. And we talked more about this strange energy that flowed through her, that
she could not control, but that came at a moment in her life that she was nothing but powerful.
And thus, before the half hour was up, she said, may we pray. Would you be embarrassed? I
said, oh, no. I a prayer kind of [INAUDIBLE]. So there was a silent prayer where she said-- I
don't remember anything relevant. The words aren't [INAUDIBLE]. And I realized that she had
stopped talking.
She had stopped verbalizing for some time. And when I opened my eyes, her eyes were riveted
on my hands. And she said, when I looked at your hands, all the insides of your hands are worn.
But he tells me to tell you to pay no attention to that, but to keep your hands holding firmly the
thing that they're holding. Now, I don't know what that means. Does it make any sense to you,
she said tome. I said, well, I don't know. I'll have to put it in my hopper and see what comes out
of it.
As I was leaving, I said, I'm going back to Boston tomorrow afternoon. But do you have the
things that you wrote the other night? I would like to read them. Let me keep them overnight.
And I'll return them by messenger or bring them to you by 10 o'clock in the morning.
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Now, I digress to tell you this. Because we live surrounded by the mysteries of life.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
She let me have them. My kind of strength would not let me copy them for myself. Since that
time, I think I regret that I didn't. But when I read it-- this still seems amazing to me-- here was a
detailed discussion of the platonic theory of the soul, which we'll be talking about when we get
to [INAUDIBLE]. Just a detailed, careful statement of the platonic doctrine of the origin of the
soul.
And now and then, there comes a moment in a man's life, or a person's life-- as was in the-- we
talked about the life of Jesus-- when the primary private wall, shell, skin-- whatever the word is-that marks the individual life, part from the whole, is transcended, is pulled, is wrenched, and
there flows into the light something that the individual is aware of as having always been there,
and then the wall rises again, and your private individual life becomes yours, but never the same,
quite never [INAUDIBLE].
And how it manifests itself subsequently depends upon how the person defines his location. So
that we see in the life of Jesus stripped of all of the theology, and the Christology, and all of that,
what we see in the light of Jesus is-- the thing that happens when the implications of the vision,
the experience of illumination casts shafts of light on the path that the individual will follow for
the rest of his days.
And therefore, there is a very striking innate relationship between the inner experience, the
energy, and the most radical kinds of change in social order. And the mystic experience, instead
of its being life denied, does in that way become life affirmed. And the rhythmic beat maintains
itself in what a man like Hawking called the principle of automation. [INAUDIBLE].
"And understood what it is that we are trying to work out. He was very old. And from the secret
swaying of planets to the secret decencies in human hearts, he understood. I used to watch him
watering his lawn, and scattering the food for the woodpecker, sweeping the crossing before his
house.
It was not that there was light about him visible to the eye as in the old paintings, rather an
influence tamed from you him in little breaths. When we were with him, we became other. He
saw us all as if we were that which we dreamed ourselves. He saw the town already clothed for
its tomorrow. He saw the world beating like a heart. Beating like a heart.
How may I too know, I wanted to cry to him. Instead, I only said, and how is it with you today.
But he answered both questions by the look in his eyes, for he had come to quietness. He had
come to the place where sun and moon meet, and where the spaces of the heavens opened their
doors.
He was understanding, and love, and the silence. He was the voice of leaves as he fed the
woodpecker." And then this.
"When my own life feels small and I am oppressed with it, I like to crush together and see, in an
instant, a multitude of disconnected, unliked phases of human life. A medieval monk with his
string of beads pacing the quiet orchard, and looking up from the grass at his feet to the heavy
fruit trees.
3
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Little Malay boys play naked on the shining sea beach. A Hindu philosopher, alone under his
banyon tree, thinking, thinking, thinking, so that in the thought of God he may lose himself. A
troupe of [INAUDIBLE] dressed in white with crowns of vine leaves dancing along the Roman
streets.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
An Epicurean discussing at a Roman bath to a [INAUDIBLE] of his disciples on the nature of
happiness. A martyr on the night of his death looking through the narrow window to the sky and
feeling that already, he has the wings that shall bear him up. A [INAUDIBLE] witch doctor
seeking for herbs by moonlight, while from the huts on the hillside come the sound of dogs
barking, and the voices of women and children.
A mother giving bread and milk to her children in little wooden basins, and singing the evening
song. I like to see it all. I feel it run through me, that life belongs to me. It makes my little life
larger. It breaks down the narrow walls that shut me in."
To capitulate for a minute and start moving along, you will remember that the great primal
discovery, disclosure that Jesus made in the climactic experience of the baptism was a radical
disclosure of who he was.
And you'll remember the imagery, the symbolism that he used for the heavens up there. And the
spirit of God descended upon him like a dove. Symbolism. And he heard the voice say to him,
"you are My son, My beloved. This day, have I begotten thee. Are in thee am I well pleased."
Having this experience of heightened and acute awareness of himself, of his essence, his
substance, his core, having been penetrated at what may be called in psychological terms the
nerve center of his concept-- that this experience created a radical demand upon his life.
And the question that he had to answer now as a derivative from the vision-- it was, what is the
bearing of this disclosure on my life, my journey, my function, my work, my mission. And in
order to separate settle the thing, shake it down, so that he could derive from the experience what
may be called, for lack of a better term, a working paper for his life.
A working paper that was a derivative from this experience of illumination. And the first step
taken in the carrying out of this sense of trying to discover how this awareness of himself as an
essential part of God, of the eternal-- what difference does that make in how I relate to the other
kinds of identity by which I had found my meaning? And this is very important.
Now, I've skipped the wilderness and moved to the [INAUDIBLE] for that's the journey that I
want to finish if indeed I can this afternoon. Because [INAUDIBLE] is blowing down my neck.
And I want to get rid of him. The first identity which Jesus had to heal was the identity of
belonging. And this, of course, is your first identity [INAUDIBLE]-- mine, anyway. What
bearing does the vision have on the particular meanings of mine own sources identity?
Can I hold clear and distinctly this new awareness of myself in relation to the eternal, and at the
same time, work out some sort of construct with reference to the identity belongings by which I
have defined myself by? And with him, it was very tricky, because his identity of belonging was
Jewish. He was a Jew. A Jew.
4
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
[INAUDIBLE]. How can I work out this awareness that has come to me, my self awareness
which I've discovered to be rooted and grounded in God so intimately that I am conscious of the
fact that I am his immediate offspring? What does that do with the identity by which I have
found my significant [INAUDIBLE]?
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
For instance, when as a young man and Judas of Galilee was going around the community trying
to get young Jewish men to join him in insurrection against Rome, why didn't Jesus join?
It is reasonable that he weren't in the rebuilding of the city Sepphoris, which was destroyed as a
hostile city by Rome because of his insurrection-- that young Jewish men, who were his
contemporaries, who were part of his life and with he'd participated. But he didn't go.
How could he continue living the life of a Jew in Palestine without locating his identity in his
Jewishness?
This meant at once, for instance, are the enemies of the Jewish community, with which I have
my identity-- are the enemies of the Jewish community my enemies? So then much of what we
find him doing with reference to the attitude towards enemies-- which has become a part of the
lip service doctrine of the youth in our religion-- is located in this critical problem.
How must I deal with the enemies of the Jewish community that I remain a Jew who has had this
moment that gives to him an awareness that transcends the group [INAUDIBLE]? And it's
interesting what he does.
For instance, the enemies in the Jewish community were three. One, the regular man that
everybody has-- people that you don't like, sometimes for good and sufficient reasons,
sometimes [INAUDIBLE]. But whatever your private reason-- And he says about Jesus that-[INAUDIBLE].
[INAUDIBLE]? I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
[INAUDIBLE].
Yeah?
I didn't hear what you said.
Oh. Well, I don't know what I said. But I'll start. The private enemy that everybody has-- there's
nothing unique about that, people who, for one reason or another, there's a ruptured relationship.
But he begins there. And what did he say?
That if I discover, on my way to affirm, my awareness absolves-- and the language he uses is
symbolic-- "I'm taking my gift to the [INAUDIBLE]." And then I remember that there is a
ruptured relationship between me and someone else, the person [INAUDIBLE]. Then at the
point of my remembrance, I pick it up. I go back and I find the person [INAUDIBLE] the other
day.
5
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Now, the second category was the member of the Jewish community who had rented his mind
and his know-how to the Roman government, the tax collector. For the tax collector would say to
the Romans that, I know Jewish psychology. And I can get the tribute in a way that a gentile or a
Roman can't do.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
I will rent my know-how, my idiom. You can borrow it for a price. And so that the tax collector
was despised because he was a great betrayer. Now, how does Jesus, aware now of himself, who
also is a Jew-- how does he deal with this? Because these two things must not be in permanent
conflict.
He uses a very quaint way. He says that Matthew, or whoever [INAUDIBLE], is a son of
Abraham. And he tested it by inviting himself to be a guest in the tax collector's house.
And he soon realizes-- he said something of very great psychological significance in terms of
what he was working out in the light of his vision-- this is what I'm talking about all the time-that the ultimate intimacy between human beings is to break bread together. [INAUDIBLE].
And as systems and social systems in the world, where there is a desert and a gulf between
peoples, we will do everything together-- play together, sleep together, work together,
[INAUDIBLE]. Because when-- and why-- Oh, I'm getting far too [INAUDIBLE], and then I'll
come back.
Because when you eat, when you stop to eat, a lot of things that have been trying to catch up
with you all day and you haven't had a chance to pay any attention to-- you've been too busy-when you sit down to eat, then they come around.
And that's why I have never been [? inclusive ?] of where I am now. I've never happened on any
college or university campus in my life where people who eat in dining rooms or what have you
were satisfied with the food-- not because the food's bad, but because it is the one time that all
the things that have been bugging you all day and you haven't had a chance to pay any attention
to-- when you sit down, and you say, well, here you are now, and they come, and [INAUDIBLE]
regret and-[LAUGHTER]
I made you sandwiches, and huh? And so Jesus-- now, this is the clue. If I eat with the tax
collector-- I can do it-- and then the Roman who was the great enemy-- and I just have to take a
moment to throw it into context for you.
The Jewish community at the time that Jesus lived in Palestine had lost its political freedom. It
was a vassal of Rome. They were permitted-- "they" being the Jewish people-- were permitted to
have their own private religion, but they did not have-- now, the Jewish state-- they did not have
power of veto and certification over the life of a citizen.
That's why, for instance, when Jesus was tried and condemned, the Jewish community could not
put him to death. The Romans had to do that. Because the autonomy of a state at last seems to
rest on whether or not it has power of life and death over its citizens.
6
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
How can I handle this without destroying the integrity of this awareness that came
[INAUDIBLE]?
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And you know what, how did he do it? He rejected one by one--
7
�
AudioWithTranscription
Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript
Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-098_B.html" ></iframe>
Location
The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon
University of Redlands, Redlands, California
Internal Notes
Notes for project team
Edits: brazen human; Bacchanalians; never been inclusive - GL 5/20/19
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1970s
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
394-098_B
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
On Mysticism, Part 12 (University of Redlands Course), 1973
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13042600.321303 4037296.9410534))
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1973-02
Description
An account of the resource
This recording is the eighth lecture in our collection of ten that Howard Thurman gave at the University of Redlands in 1973 on the topic of mysticism. Thurman indicates that this lecture functions as a means to point the listener towards practical approaches to mysticism through lenses of psychology, philosophy, and religious experience. In this recording, Thurman reflects upon the life of Jesus, and an encounter he had with the author Margaret Rhodes, in order to make sense of what it means to heal. Here, Thurman indicates that the primary function of healing rests in the healing of one's "identity of belonging." In other words, Thurman is arguing that to heal, and be healed, is to be fully integrated into a life of community.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Description by Dustin Mailman
baptism
calling
christology
contemplation
creative energy
gifts
goya
Head of Christ
healer
healing
Henrich Hofmann
historical Jesus
imago dei
inner experience
interelatedness
Jesus
magic
Margaret Rhodes
Minneapolis
mystic experience
Palestine
Platonic doctrine
power
principle of automation
self-awareness
social change
Stephen Hawking
symbolism
symposium of the soul
wilderness
woodpecker
working paper