What did Transcendentalists believe?: What did Transcendentalists believe?
The intuitive faculty, instead of the rational or sensical, became the means for a conscious union of the individual psyche (known in Sanskrit as Atman) with the world psyche also known as the Oversoul, life-force, prime mover and G-d (known in Sanskrit as Brahma). Basic Premise #1: Basic Premise #1 An individual is the spiritual center of the universe, and in an individual can be found the clue to nature, history and, ultimately, the cosmos itself. It is not a rejection of the existence of G-d, but a preference to explain an individual and the world in terms of an individual. Basic Premise #2: Basic Premise #2 The structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of the individual self—all knowledge, therefore, begins with self-knowledge. This is similar to Aristotle’s dictum ‘know thyself.’ Basic Premise #3: Basic Premise #3 Transcendentalists accepted the concept of nature as a living mystery, full of signs; nature is symbolic. Basic Premise #4: Basic Premise #4 The belie
