Linda's Blogspot

The Unseen Forces Within Us Reflections on Manly P. Hall, Stillness, Self-Awareness, and the Inner Life Reading Manly P. Hall's Unseen Forces has made me think about something I have been observing for a long time: how much of human life is shaped by things we cannot immediately see. Hall was writing in the language of esoteric philosophy. He talked about elemental beings, thought forms, astral forces, ghosts, and the "Dweller on the Threshold." I don't necessarily have to accept every one of these ideas literally to find something meaningful in what he was asking. For me, the more interesting question is this: What unseen forces are shaping the way we live? We tend to think of forces as something physical. We can see a strong wind moving through the trees. We can see water flowing down a river. We can see a machine operating. But there are other forces that are much harder to see. A thought can be a force. A fear can be a force. A habit can be a force. A memory can b...

  Manly P. Hall’s Unseen Forces : A Chapter-by-Chapter Guide Manly P. Hall’s Unseen Forces is a short work of esoteric philosophy first published in 1924. Hall was interested in the possibility that the visible physical world is only one layer of reality and that human beings are constantly interacting with forces they cannot ordinarily see. The book moves through five broad subjects: nature spirits and the elements, the organizing principles of nature, thoughts and emotions, ghosts and other unseen remnants, and finally what Hall calls the “ Dweller on the Threshold .” Although Hall presents many of these ideas within an occult and metaphysical framework, they can also be read symbolically. In particular, his ideas about thoughts, emotions, habits, and self-development can be translated into contemporary language without necessarily accepting his claims about supernatural beings. Chapter One: The Children of the Elements Hall begins with the ancient idea that nature is alive and ...

Unseen Forces — Manly P. Hall A five-chapter work, first published in 1924, and the chapter titles in later editions preserve essentially the same progression: from nature spirits, to natural forces, to thoughts and emotions, to ghosts, and finally to the “Dweller on the Threshold.”  What makes the book interesting is that Hall is not simply telling ghost stories. He is proposing a whole model of reality in which nature, human emotions, thought, and spiritual development are interconnected. His ideas below are translated  into contemporary language keeping clear where Hall is presenting an esoteric belief rather than an established scientific fact. Unseen Forces — Manly P. Hall A Chapter-by-Chapter Guide in Contemporary Language The basic idea of the book Hall begins with a question: What if the visible world is only one layer of reality? His answer is that human beings interact constantly with forces they don't ordinarily perceive. For Hall, these include: forces operating th...

Greenland: Who Gets to Decide the Future of a Place? Sometimes a news story catches my attention because of the event itself. Other times, it opens a door into a much bigger question. The recent news about President Donald Trump and Greenland did that for me. At first, the headlines seemed to be about whether the United States might acquire Greenland. But when I began looking into the history, I discovered that the American interest in Greenland goes back much further than Donald Trump. It took me back to 1946, to President Harry Truman. And then the story became much more interesting. I began wondering: Who gets to decide the future of a place? That question is particularly interesting to me because so much of my own work has involved African history, Indigenous knowledge, ecology, community knowledge and the ways people preserve and share what they know. Greenland brings many of those questions together. Greenland Is More Than a Map Look at a map of the world and Greenland can appear...

  Greenland, Trump and the United States: An 80-Year Story When President Donald Trump began talking about acquiring Greenland, many people heard the idea as something completely new and unexpected. It wasn't. The United States has been interested in Greenland for strategic reasons for roughly 80 years. What has changed is the language, the geopolitical environment, and Greenland's own evolving political status. The story of Greenland and the United States is therefore much larger than Donald Trump. It is a story about geography, war, the Cold War, the Arctic, Indigenous self-government, military strategy and the changing balance of power in the far north. Greenland's Extraordinary Location Greenland is the world's largest island. Geographically, it sits between North America and Europe and occupies a strategic position in the Arctic and North Atlantic. That location became particularly important during World War II. In 1940, Nazi Germany occupied Denmark. Because Green...