Short Essays

Inclusive Psychology - Short Essays

This webpage contains short essays and additional material devoted to the topics mentioned on the site's Home page .

Sir Oliver Lodge (1851-1940), Fellow of the Royal Society, was a prominent English physicist, mathematician, researcher, theorist, teacher, and writer. He made important scientific contributions in areas of electromagnetic waves, wireless telegraphy, lightning research, voltaic cells, electrolysis, electric smoke and fog dispersal, and the possibility of radio waves from the sun. He developed the coherer radio detector, the variable tuner, the moving coil loudspeaker, and the electric spark plug (igniter) for the internal combustion engine. Lodge was one of the earliest pioneers in the development of radio, conducting wireless experiments in 1888 and making one of the first public demonstrations of wireless transmission—over a distance of 55 meters—in 1894, predating Guglielmo Marconi's work by a year (but following Nicola Tesla's work by a year).

Lodge was a contemporary of philosopher-psychologist William James (1842-1910). Like James, he had a keen interest in psychical research and served as President of the [British] Society for Psychical Research. Lodge wrote over 30 books on scientific, philosophical, and popular topics. In many of these, he argued convincingly for the importance of extending the range of sources that can inform us about our nature and the nature of the physical world, expanding these beyond the views of a narrowly conceived version of science.

Well-aligned with the spirit of Inclusive Psychology, the following excerpt presents Lodge's views on the values of literature and the humanities as complements to science, and as ways of expanding the scientist's range of what can be known and appreciated. This excerpt is from the public domain source: Lodge, Oliver. (1910). The appeal to literature. In Reason and belief (pp. 152-155). New York: George H. Doran Company.

Part III—The Scope of Science: Chapter III—The Appeal to Literature

REVIEWERS may admit the right of a student of Science to survey the facts which have come under his scrutiny, and from their contemplation to formulate a theory which to him appears most likely to be true; they may also allow him the right to state it in such a way that it can be understood, without at the same time constantly protruding technical details,— which are best left to be studied in the publications of scientific societies. All this they might admit, and yet contend that he had no right to quote poets or men of letters in support of his hypothesis.
       'You may hold an atomic theory '— such critics might be supposed to say—' but you must not quote Lucretius. You may hold a view concerning Oracles, but must not quote Virgil. Or an opinion about Immortality, but must not quote Tennyson or Wordsworth.'
       If that contention is ever urged, I demur to the conclusion, though not to the spirit in which it is conceived.
What is true is that the utterances of poets are not part of the facts that can be appealed to in support of a thesis,— except in so far as their evident reasonableness carries with them a conviction of truth. Nevertheless the intuitions of genius must not be ignored. There are facts relating to human nature, and to the relation between man and the rest of the Universe, concerning which poets and prophets — humanists, in fact, in the widest sense — are the best and indeed almost the only guides. To them seem to come whisperings which have been likened to the murmur of a shell held to the ear of a child,— reverberations and intensifications of sounds too faint for the unaided ear.
                                                               'Even such a shell the universe itself
                                                                Is to the ear of faith; and there are times
                                                               I doubt not, when to you it doth impart
                                                                Authentic tidings of invisible things.'   [Wordsworth, Excursion IV]
       The sanction for their statements and deductions is to be found in the hearer's own experience and consciousness; and the perfect form in which their utterances are enshrined is of the utmost value in securing or arousing general attention.
       Moreover, however much or little intrinsic value their opinions may possess, they at least represent the views of previous explorers in the domain of humanity. And,surely, if it be found that previous workers were on the right track, and have given utterance to statements which you subsequently find to be confirmed by your own quite different and independent investigations, it is only seemly to call attention to their rightness and inspiration. Indeed, it would be less than moral to refrain from doing so.
       If it be urged that seers are not scientific workers,— that they employ alien methods,— I agree that their methods are different, but not that they are alien. Science, in a narrow sense, is by no means the only way of arriving at truth — especially not at truth concerning human nature. To decline to be informed by the great seers and prophets of the past, and to depend solely on a limited class of workers such as have been bred chiefly within the last century or two, would savour of a pitiful narrowness, and would be truly and in the largest sense unscientific.
       The insight of great men is of the highest value; and though selection must undoubtedly be made, and though only those are quoted which agree with the thoughts of the quoter, yet that is exactly what is done with the work of all pioneers. Those who are supposed to have gone wrong are eliminated and ignored;those who appear to have gone right are selected and acclaimed. Little merit there is in that procedure, nor any shame. Truth is large, and can be explored by many avenues. All honour to those who, with insufficient experience but with the inspiration of genius, caught glimpses of a larger and higher truth than was known to the age in which they lived, and who had the felicity of recording their inspirations in musical and immortal words; — words such as the worker in science has not at his command — words at which he rejoices when he encounters them, and which he quotes because they have given him pleasure.
       Let this serve as excuse and sufficient justification for the large number of quotations already utilized.

Science and the Humanities: The Views of Sir Oliver Lodge

For this is characteristic of truth, that it may be reached by many diverse routes; and although its ultimate peaks are inaccessible, yet its strenuous disciples, however far apart they are at the start, and however roundabout their journey, may hope to meet on such intermediate and temporary summits as can be attained at the present stage of earthly existence.

~ Sir Oliver Lodge

Transpersonal psychology takes an expanded view of personality, human development, and identity, and focuses on the nature and integration of experiences such as mystical and unitive awareness, personal transformation, higher values, alternative and expanded consciousness, non-ordinary perception, and transcendence.

Transpersonal psychology assumes that these aspects of human experience are natural and healthy (they need not be pathological nor fantasy), and they can be conceptualized and researched scientifically with both conventional methods and innovative approaches. Transpersonal psychology studies these topics with open minded inquiry and with critical thinking. The field uses both quantitative and qualitative methods of research. Five peer reviewed journals are oriented toward transpersonal articles and research, and publications also appear in mainstream journals.

Transpersonal psychology accepts subjective awareness as an integral part of human reality, and subjective ways of knowing as including valid epistemologies. Transpersonal psychology is teleological, and less reductionistic compared to most psychologies. In its world view, transpersonal psychology is more organic and context oriented than most schools of psychology. It provides a bridge between psychology and spiritual traditions.

Several advantages can emerge from a conceptual conversation between parapsychologists and transpersonal psychologists. The transpersonal side can provide insights from theories and data about states of consciousness (e.g. James, Wilber, LeShan, Tart, Baruss), and qualitative methods for researching subjective states, which can inform correlations and dynamics of psi. It can inform about processes developed in spiritual psychologies for altering and deploying attention.

Transpersonal psychology suggests a wider context for psi phenomena in spiritual traditions and in some indigenous cultures.

The parapsychological side contributes objective research methods which investigate transpersonal phenomena such as direct knowing, consciousness alterations, kriyas, subtle energy, OBEs, experiential transcendence of time, and trans-sensory modes of knowing. These methods can establish the empirical reality of phenomena found in transpersonal psychology. Clinically, the two fields together offer ways to address emotional and disturbed reactions from apparent psychic phenomena, and conditions in which there are mixtures of psychotic and psychic experience. Both can bring critical thinking to these areas of human experience which are reported in science and in the popular media.

Some concerns about transpersonal psychology that may come from parapsychologists are dangers of religious true belief about spiritual claims, the ambiguities of subjective data, and the open value orientation of transpersonal perspectives. The paradigm of transpersonal psychology may appear ungrounded. From the transpersonal side, the objective methods of parapsychologists may appear to open doors of ability without values to guide them. Parapsychologists may be seen as avoiding paradigms that accept apparent spiritual experiences (however they may be interpreted) with some claim to reality. There are also differences of temperament; inevitably some individuals prefer to engage in the study of parapsychological phenomena per se, and others are drawn equally to transpersonal interests. Some professionals have found both fields to be of value in their work, and perhaps we can learn from their approaches. The goal is to enable conversation between the two fields where there can be mutual benefit.

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This is an Abstract of a paper by Arthur Hastings, presented as part of a Panel on Parapsychology and Transpersonal Psychology, at the 48^th Annual Parapsychological Association Convention, Petaluma, CA, 2005. Retrieved March 3, 2010, from http://www.parapsych.org/pa_abstracts_2005.html . Used with permission.

The cause of evils begins with putting yourself before other people.
~ Huston Smith

The world is everything that is the case, but also everything that may be the case.
~ Anton Zeilinger

Conceptual and Evidential Convergence of Parapsychology and Transpersonal Psychology

Arthur Hastings

Institute of Transpersonal Psychology

The first story, "The Other Side of the Hedge," was written by E. M. Forster and was published in his first collection of short stories, The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories, in 1911. The straight, dry, and dusty road on one side of the hedge, and the bucolic garden-like other side of the hedge provide effective metaphors for growth, progress, advancement, achievement, development, productivity, striving, purpose, competition, extrinsic values, ceaseless activity . . . and the complements of each of these.

The second story, "The Door in the Wall," was written in 1906 by H. G. Wells and was published in The Door in the Wall and Other Stories in 1911. The story contrasts the aesthetic and imaginal with the practical and logical, and describes what might be sacrificed in the pursuit of worldly affairs and success.

The third story, "A Stop in Willoughby," was written by Rod Serling and aired as an episode of his Twilight Zone TV series on May 6, 1960. Here, as in the H. G. Wells story, one finds a contrast between the hectic workaday world and a simpler, more innocent, more bucolic existence and way of being.

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their grey visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, on awaking, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however rudderless or compassless, into the vast ocean of the "light ineffable" . . . .

~Edgar Allan Poe

Escapes From the Everyday: Three Short Stories

This item provides access to three short stories that have certain aspects in common. The stories address escapes from the everyday, from the ordinary. They address longings for simpler times and simpler ways of being, for other possibilities . . . and suggest how the habits and demands of our workaday lives limit access to those possibilities.

In the second and third stories, and perhaps even in the first (according to some interpretations), the "seeker" dies. One might wonder, however, whether another kind of death might be involved—the death of ego and of the usual way of being and doing.

These three stories can be accessed via the following links:

Link to E. M. Forster's "The Other Side of the Hedge" (1911)
http://www.101bananas.com/library2/otherside.html

Links to H. G. Wells' "The Door in the Wall" (1906)
http://www.online-literature.com/wellshg/5/
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/456
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=192560&pageno=2
http://castroller.com/podcasts/TheClassicTales/1424844-Episode%20143,%20The%20Door%20in%20the%20Wall%20by%20HG%20Wells (audio version)

Link to Rod Serling's "A Stop at Willoughby" (1960)
http://www.janaedwards.com/TWIZONE/Episode30willoughby.doc (script)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrzyan-7kgw (TV episode, Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd2neJ30vf4 (TV episode, Part 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7FZa5fIhDI (TV episode, Part 3)
http://www.fancast.com/tv/The-Twilight-Zone/97525/621905526/The-Twilight-Zone-(12-hr)---A-Stop-At-Willoughby/videos (TV episode - full version)

On Silence . . . and Monkeys

I've heard that there is, in Africa, a belief that monkeys can speak; they refrain from speaking, however, to avoid having to work.

Silent monkeys are found in Japan, in the tradition of the San-en or Three Monkeys. We are familiar with the set of three joined monkeys—one covering its eyes, one covering its ears, one covering its mouth. We affectionately call these three characters

See-No-Evil, Hear-No-Evil, and Speak-No-Evil. These are worthy moral injunctions. But there is more to this tradition. In the Japanese language, "saru" or "zaru" means both "don't" and "monkey." So, what is normally rendered as monkeys that see, hear, and speak no evil could be rendered, more directly and accurately, as "don't see, don't hear, don't speak"—reminders to occasionally close or shut the doors of the conventional senses and of the conventional (verbal) mode of expression.* When we follow this more esoteric injunction, what do we encounter?

In Egypt, one sees statues of Horus in the form of an infant standing beside or seated in the lap of his mother, Isis. This form of the child Horus was known to the late Egyptians as Harpa-khruti and to the Greeks and Romans as Harpocrates. Harpocrates is invariably represented in statues with a finger of one hand on his mouth. Overtly, this gesture of a finger to the lips may signify Harpocrates' infancy. ("Heaven lies about us in our infancy!"—William Wordsworth) Covertly, this same gesture may be an injunction to silence, for those who understand. Interestingly, in these same statues, Harpocrates holds in his other arm a cornucopia. Could the latter be symbolic of the rewards in store for one who follows the admonition to silence?

Another silent one was "Harpo" of the Marx Brothers, the madcap comedy team famous for their vaudeville and feature film monkeyshines in the 1920s and 30s.One of their earliest movies was called Monkey Business (1931). It is of interest that it was Harpo who was a silent, never-speaking brother. Surely this is merely a curious coincidence; who would ever accuse the Marx Brothers of possessing esoteric knowledge?

Harpo was a mime. Monkeys, too, pantomime, mime, mimic. "Monkey see, monkey do." Via the Japanese equivalency mentioned above, this familiar phrase can become "Don't see; don't do." Could the latter be a veiled injunction to close and shut down the familiar avenues of perception and expression, opening the way for new possibilities?

Monkeys are mischievous; monkeys are fools; monkeys do not speak. "Silence is the virtue of fools," wrote Francis Bacon, and "Silence is the understanding of fools and one of the virtues of the wise," wrote Chevalier Bernard de Bonnard. There are persons who spend much of their lives in silence; they are called monks.

Monkeys are clowns. There is a pronounced clownish element in many of the wisdom traditions, especially in the art and literature of Zen. In other traditions as well, we find crazy wisdom and holy fools. The wise never take themselves too seriously; they monkey around a lot.

Don't see, don't hear, don't speak, don't do—to follow these injunctions is to enter the realm of Harpocrates, the realm of silence, the realm of the mystical. The very word "mystical" is associated with Greek words that echo these meanings—mystes (one who is close-mouthed or initiated in the mysteries), and myein (to shut the eyes). The wisdom traditions are rich in suggestions to enter fully into the realm of silence in order to encounter new ways of knowing and being:

"Darkness within darkness. The gate-way to all understanding."—Lao-tzu

"Practice not-doing, and everything will fall into place."—Lao-tzu

"Lovers put out the candles and draw the curtains when they wish to see the god and the goddess; and in the higher communion the night of thought is the light of perception."—Coventry Patmore

"Leave off doing, that you may be. Leave off analysis, that you may know."—Anonymous

"So the soul, if she would work inwardly ... must hide . . . from all images and forms . . . . [One] must be in a stillness and silence, where the Word may be heard. One cannot draw near to this Word better than by stillness and silence: then it is heard and understood in utter ignorance. When one knows nothing, it is opened and revealed."—Meister Eckhart
____________________

* "Mi-zaru" ("don't see") suggests "don't see monkey" or, if "evil" (that which is not to be seen) is implicit or understood, "don't-see-evil monkey." Similarly, "Kika-zaru" ("don't hear") becomes "don't hear monkey" or "don't-hear-evil monkey," and "Iwa-zaru" ("don't speak") becomes "don't speak monkey" or "don't-speak-evil monkey."

** Three Monkeys artwork, above, © 1995 by Winona Schroeter. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Theoretically there is a perfect possibility of happiness: believing in the indestructible element in oneself and not striving towards it.

The indestructible is one: it is each individual human being and, at the same time, it is common to all, hence the incomparably indivisible union that exists between human beings.

~Franz Kafka

On Some Curious Reversals of Word Meanings

More or less intense stimulation of one idea leads to its inhibition and, by means of the same mechanism, induces the opposite idea.
~ Ivan Petrovich Pavlov

Hidden things become manifest through opposites. But since God has no opposite, He remains hidden. Opposites are made manifest through opposites, like white and black. So you have come to know light through light's opposite: Opposites display opposites within the breast. So the locus of manifestation for a thing is the opposite, and each opposite aids its own opposite. If you write upon a black page, your script will be hidden, since both are the color of tar. No opposite can be known without its opposite: Having suffered a blow, you will know a caress. You will not know evil until you know the good: You can discern an opposite through its opposite. Every light has a fire, every rose a thorn; a serpent watches over every treasure hidden in the ruins. Look at the abasement of the earth and the exaltation of the heavens: Without these two Attributes, the heavens could not revolve, oh friend! The spirit cannot act without the body. Without the spirit, the body is withered and cold. Your body is manifest and your spirit hidden: These two put all the business of the world in order. Life is peace among opposites, death the appearance of strife among them.
~ Jelaluddin Rumi

Everything tends sooner or later to go over into its opposite.
~ Carl Gustav Jung

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Today, "empirical" is used synonymously with experimental, objective; it is often contrasted with subjective. Once, empirical meant experiential (from the Greek, empeirikos, empeiria). Note how it's been turned on its head.

Today, "intellect" is used synonymously with head-oriented thinking, with cognition; it is often contrasted with heart. Once, intellect had a much larger meaning—more like heart than head. In fact, intellect was the largest manifestation of mind, and was used synonymously with heart, as in the most complete, deepest core of one's mind and being. What we now call "intellect" (i.e., rational thinking) was, to the early Greeks, merely dianoia, which was but one part of the much larger nous. To appreciate how this word has been turned on its head, consider these definitions of terms that are significant within The Philokalia (from the Greek, love of the good, love of beauty), an important and influential collection of writings within Eastern esoteric Christianity:

"Intellect (nous): The highest faculty in humanity, through which—provided it is purified—one knows the divine or the inner essences or principles of created things by means of direct apprehension or spiritual perception. Unlike the dianoia or reason, from which it must be carefully distinguished, the intellect does not function by formulating abstract concepts and then arguing on this basis to a conclusion reached through deductive reasoning, but it understands divine truth by means of immediate experience, intuition or 'simple cognition.' The intellect dwells in the 'depths of the soul'; it constitutes the innermost aspect of the heart. The intellect is the organ of contemplation, the 'eye of the heart.' "

"Heart (kardia): Not simply the physical organ but the spiritual center of one's being, as made in the image of the divine; one's deepest and truest self or inner shrine . . . ."
~ from The Philokalia

Today, we use the term "contemplation" in the sense of just thinking about something, often contrasting it with "meditation," which we use to indicate a more profound experience. Once, the meanings of the two terms were exactly reversed. In the times of the ancient Greeks and of the medieval mystics, contemplation (theoria) was a more advanced state in which one merged with the object of one's consciousness (although "object" no longer applied, since both subject and object disappeared, replaced by another form of being). Meditation was thought to be a mere prelude to contemplation (see Plato, Bonaventure, and the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, among many, many others).

The words "consciousness" and "awareness" suggest a host of considerations. One set of these may be found in An Echo in Search of a Mountain, a wonderful collection of 1974 essays by the late Robert Ashby (edited in 1995 by Frank Tribbe and available from Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship International). The following excerpt is from Ashby's first essay, which is about the nature of awareness:

" 'Awareness' is a multi-faceted word which derives from the Anglo-Saxon meaning 'to be wary,' that is, cautious, alert, with one's senses aquiver. Webster defines 'aware' as 'apprised, cognizant, informed, or conscious,' and notes that 'aware' and all of its synonyms mean having knowledge of something that is not obvious or apparent. Self -evident sensory perception or straightforward logical deduction would not warrant 'aware' or its synonyms, therefore. Rather the term refers to disparate, oblique, even hidden aspects of reality of which one gains some consciousness and thereby some information. . . . We see, therefore, that, rather than the word 'awareness' being the apogee, the acme of sensitivity, it occupies the lowest rung upon the perceptual ladder. It is at the very bottom of the spectrum, not the top; because one goes from 'awareness,' the drawing of inferences about something which is not obvious, to 'consciousness,' attentiveness and focusing within the mind, to 'cognizance,' firsthand, specific, certain knowledge, to 'sensibility,' a psi (ESP) function, to 'aliveness,' or heightened ESP, and finally, to 'awakeness,' which is acute 'sensibility,' i.e., psi 'aliveness' aquiver to all possible impressions. What we seek, therefore, is not 'awareness' but 'awakeness.' By attaining such awakeness with reference to the non-self-evident aspects of reality, one can make these aspects evident through one's self." (Ashby, 1995, pp. 11-13)

The term yoga suggests uniting, joining, bonding, binding, linking, harnessing, yoking together; this conveys one of the two important aims of Yoga: the union of the conditioned and limited self with the true Self, of the individual soul with the Supreme Soul, the identification with purusha (pure consciousness). Curiously, the term yoga also suggests the contrary meaning of separating. For example, the commentator Bhoja described Patanjali’s yoga as “an effort to separate the Atman (the Reality) from the non-Atman (the apparent)”, and Bhoja also wrote, “Yoga is separation”. Eliade pointed out that the union that is the aim of Yoga presupposes a prior “severance of the bonds that join the spirit and the world . . . [and] . . . detachment from the material, emancipation with respect to the world”. These dual meanings of yoga as both union and separation very closely resemble the dual meanings of the English word cleave, with meanings of both clinging, sticking, firmly adhering and splitting. The double meanings of yoga are evident in the bivalent aim of Yoga: to achieve separation, independence, isolation, liberation (from the conditioned, from prakriti) in order to achieve oneness, union (with the unconditioned, with purusha).

Animals (and our animal nature) are often belittled, even in some spiritual traditions, and their actions misunderstood and misinterpreted. Overlaying these actions with human projections and distortions, we sometimes characterize animals (and our own animal nature) as dumb, brutish, and cruel. In view of this bias, it is interesting to note the meanings of words related to "animal"—words such as animate, and anima (which has to do with soul) and animus (which itself has curious double meanings of spirit, mind, and courage, but also anger, enmity, malice, and hatred). Yet, we belittle plants even more than we do animals—so much so that "vegetate" has acquired negative connotations. We tend to contrast vegetables, which just sit there, with lively animals that are always moving about. We even call humans with severely impaired mental or physical functioning "vegetables"; and consider our references to "couch potatoes." One would think that the word origins of "vegetate" would suggest these "inert" qualities. But, lo and behold, "vegetable" derives from the Latin vegetare (to animate), from vegetus (lively), from vegere (to enliven); the dictionary even suggests consulting "wake" to learn more. Another word seems to have been turned on its head.

The word upset, until the 17th Century, meant to set something up, that is, to erect something, rather than its present, opposite meaning of capsize. With, in Old English, meant against (e.g., to fight with), rather than its present meaning.

For a few days, I played the game of looking up various words that came my way, and in every case, each word once meant its opposite! Thus, theory had to do with receiving direct knowledge through contemplation, rather than abstraction. But then, abstracted also had to do with being absent-minded. Speculate had to do with looking carefully at something, rather than making wild guesses. I began to entertain the hypothesis that every word we use today might, at one time, have meant its opposite.

The nature of the mind when understood,
No human speech can compass or disclose.
Enlightenment is naught to be attained,
And he that gains it does not say he knows.

~ Huang Po (Hsi Yun)
[quoting Bodhidharma]

Translations

One of several degree options at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, in Palo Alto, CA, is a Ph.D. in Transpersonal Psychology. A consideration of the original meanings of all of the terms in that degree designation is revealing.

The original meaning of doctor is teacher, and the meaning of philosophy is love of wisdom. Psychology’s original meaning is study of the soul, and transpersonal literally means beyond the mask. So, if we substitute the original meanings of these terms, the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Transpersonal Psychology becomes Teacher of the Love of Wisdom in the Study of the Soul Beyond the Mask.

Little Psyches: A Song Parody

When I was an undergraduate psychology major, back in 1964, I wrote the following song--a parody of Malvina Reynolds' song, Little Boxes. Back then, behaviorism was the reigning paradigm within psychology. Today, cognitive psychology and neuropsychology have dethroned behaviorism and taken its place. Perhaps a new parody is in order !

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LITTLE PSYCHES

Little boxes in the psych lab,
Little rats inside of Skinner boxes,
Little men inside of lab coats,
Dressed in lab coats all the same.

They're from Yale and Minnesota,
And Stanford and Iowa,
And they all had learned teachers,
And the teachers thought the same.

There were Hullians and Guthrieans,
Tolmanians and Skinnerians,
And they all could count responses,
They could count them just the same.

They were all taught of the science
Of human be-hav-i-or,
Everyone is quite determined,
And they all work just the same.

Some believed and others doubted,
But the teachers reinforced them all,
And put them all in boxes,
With the levers all the same.

Now they all have nice assistantships,
And work at the University,
Where they all live in their boxes,
Insulated all the same.

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The original song, Little Boxes, was written in 1961 by Malvina Reynolds (1900-1978) and was popularized by Pete Seeger. The song was inspired by the look-alike houses populating the hillside of Daly City, California.

To hear Malvina Reynolds singing Little Boxes, click here.
To hear Pete Seeger's rendition, click here.
To learn more about Malvina Reynolds, click here.
To learn more about Little Boxes, click here.

May God us keep

From Single vision and Newton's sleep.

~ William Blake

A tree lives on its roots. If you change the root, you change the tree. Culture lives in human beings. If you change the human heart, the culture will follow.

~ Jane Hirshfield