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Who Gets to Tell the Story?

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  Who Gets to Tell the Story? In Search of the Stories We Almost Lost While reading James Baldwin's Princes and Powers, I found myself thinking about something that happened seventy years after the 1956 Conference of Negro-African Writers and Artists. In September 1956, Black writers, artists, and intellectuals gathered at the Sorbonne in Paris to discuss culture, history, colonialism, assimilation, and the political circumstances that shaped the lives of African and Black peoples. Today, I find myself asking a related question: Who gets to create the record of human knowledge? The technology has changed. The problem has not disappeared. From Paris in 1956 to Wikipedia today Baldwin described a gathering of people from many different cultures. They did not all have the same histories. They did not speak with one voice. They did not necessarily agree about the future. But they recognized that something had happened to their histories through colonialism. Their cultures had often bee...
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Princes and Powers - James Baldwin's report essay

  Princes and Powers:  James Baldwin and the 1956 Conference of Negro-African Writers and Artists On September 19, 1956, the First Congress of Negro Writers and Artists opened at the Sorbonne in Paris, in the Amphithéâtre Descartes. Among those gathered were writers, artists, intellectuals, and political thinkers from different parts of Africa, the Caribbean, and the Black world. James Baldwin later wrote about the conference in his essay Princes and Powers . What strikes me about Baldwin's account is that he did not describe the gathering simply as an intellectual conference. He saw something much larger taking place. He began by describing Paris itself—the streets, the people walking along the Seine, and the remarkable presence of Black people in the city. Then he entered the conference hall. At the front of the room was a table where eight Black men were seated. Baldwin identified several of them: Richard Wright, Alioune Diop, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Aimé Césaire, Jacques S...
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Opening the Doors to the Invisible: Manly P. Hall on the Pursuit of Inner Truth

  Opening the Doors to the Invisible: Manly P. Hall on the Pursuit of Inner Truth ​Throughout history, humanity has embarked on an unceasing pilgrimage in search of truth, meaning, and a personal experience of reality. In his lecture "Opening the Doors to the Invisible," philosopher and author Manly P. Hall reflects on more than six decades of observing this search. He examines why, despite centuries of technological and intellectual advancement, the ultimate goal—inner peace and self-realization—remains elusive for so many. ​1. The Human Search for Reality ​For centuries, individuals across every culture, race, and creed have sought answers to life’s deepest questions: Why are we here? How do we find peace? Hall compares this ongoing pursuit to medieval crusades—many set out on the journey, but only a fraction reach their destination. ​In the modern era, society has increasingly traded spiritual discovery for economic ambition and industrial expansion. Yet, despite our...
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What Happens When We Stop Listening Beyond Ourselves?

  What Happens When We Stop Listening Beyond Ourselves? I have been thinking about modern feminism lately. Not because I don't believe women should have a voice. I certainly do. Women have had their experiences dismissed, minimized, and left out of history for far too long. There is tremendous value in women telling their own stories and making sure those stories are heard. But something has been troubling me about the direction of some contemporary conversations. I sometimes wonder what happens when women are encouraged to listen primarily to women's voices and women's narratives. Something can become lost when we make identity the primary doorway through which we decide whose ideas are worth hearing. I come from an older generation, and perhaps my intellectual habits were formed differently. I was taught, in one way or another, to read widely. I read books by great thinkers who were men and women. I read people from different ethnicities, cultures, countries, religions, a...
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The Unseen Forces Within Us

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...
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Manly P. Hall’s Unseen Forces: A Chapter-by-Chapter Guide

  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 ...
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Unseen Forces — Manly P. Hall

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...
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