‘Thinking like a Mystic’: The Unacknowledged Legacy of P.D. Ouspenksy’s Tertium Organum on the Development of Leopold’s ‘Thinking Like a Mountain’

Most Aldo Leopold scholars acknowledge P.D. Ouspensky’s in?uence on both Leopold’s proto-Land Ethic of the early 1920s and insight that the earth is more than inert material and is itself a ‘living thing’. The possibility that Leopold’s later philosophical, ecological, and spiritual development were...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal for the study of religion, nature and culture
Main Author: Pryor, Ashley (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Equinox Publ. 2011
In: Journal for the study of religion, nature and culture
Year: 2011, Volume: 5, Issue: 4, Pages: 465-490
Further subjects:B Ouspensky
B Mysticism
B Thinking Like a Mountain
B Leopold
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:Most Aldo Leopold scholars acknowledge P.D. Ouspensky’s in?uence on both Leopold’s proto-Land Ethic of the early 1920s and insight that the earth is more than inert material and is itself a ‘living thing’. The possibility that Leopold’s later philosophical, ecological, and spiritual development were in?uenced by his reading of Ouspensky, however, has received little attention. A close reading of Leopold’s ‘Thinking Like a Mountain’, as well as key passages of A Sand County Almanac through the theoretical lens of Ouspensky’s analysis in Tertium Organum, suggests that Leopold’s frequent attribution of affective and psychical states, especially love, to nonhuman beings (and Leopold’s most curious and haunting suggestion that dead things too might listen) is consistent with Ouspensky’s theory if not a direct heir to it.
ISSN:1749-4915
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal for the study of religion, nature and culture
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1558/jsrnc.v5i4.465