This is Wolff's first known publication, which appeared in The Temple Artisan 16, No. 8, the monthly magazine of the Temple of the People. In this short piece, Wolff concludes that a “new and balanced humanity . . . must be one in which man and woman stand on the same level, hand in hand.” (3 pages)

This note appeared in The Temple Artisan 16, No. 12, the May 1916 issue of the monthly magazine of the Temple of the People. Wolff states that the "problem of economics is that of the adjustment of outer conditions whereby it may become become possible for the ideal or spiritual life to be realized inwardly"; the Temple of the People, he concludes, recognizes as much. (3 pages)

Pieces composed by Wolff for the monthly journal Herald of Light: Unification, Illumination, Liberation. This journal, which was edited by Edgar Conrow and Sarah A. Merrell-Wolff from 1923-24, contains articles authored by Wolff and a column he wrote titled the “Open Forum.”

This essay was originally published in the February 1923 issue of The Herald of Light; it was reprinted in The Bulletin of the Assembly of Man 20 (Spring 1964): 16-17, from which the text here was taken. The title of this composition reflects the fact that “no enrobing of . . . Truth stands above the law of change, hence only the spirit of the Wisdom Religion is eternal.” (2 pages)

In this early piece, which is broken into three parts, Wolff expounds on the three objects of the Theosophical Movement. Each part is signed “Yogagñani”; the handwritten sentence on the bottom of p. 4 has been reproduced on the page that follows. (12 pages)

In this essay, Wolff equates Gupta Vidya with “Secret Doctrine” or “Occult Knowledge,” which, he explains, is concerned with subjectivity rather than the three other interdependent factors—space, time and matter—that form the complex we speak of as “the Universe.” “The Secret Doctrine,” of course, is also the name of a book written by H.P. Blavatsky, and this piece is essentially an apology for the fundamental principles found in this book. The original subtitle of this essay, “A Correspondence Course,” was dropped when it was published in serial form in The Bulletin of the Assembly of Man 26-30 (autumn 1965): 1-8, (winter 1965-66): 9-14, (spring 1966): 4-10, (summer 1966): 6-18, and (January 1967): 5-22. The archival copy is undated, and has been assigned the date “c. 1929” based on the following grounds: First, it must have been written after 1928, since Wolff refers to Manly Palmer Hall’s The Secret Teachings of All Ages, which was published that year. Second, there are only two places where Wolff mentions the term ‘Gupta Vidya’ in the archive—in a 1929 letter to Laura Felver, and in a lecture outline titled “Squaring the Circle” that he delivered three times in 1929. So, there is evidence that Wolff used the term ‘Gupta Vidya’ during this period. Third, Wolff and his wife Sherifa founded the educational institution The Assembly of Man in December 1928, and it is likely that this essay was used as course material by this organization. Fourth, there is no mention of this course in either of the books published by Wolff in 1930, so it appears that Wolff had discontinued the use of this term by then. This is confirmed by the fact that Wolff did not include this term in the glossary of terms published with Pathways Through to Space (1936). (33 pages)

This essay was written shortly after the 1932 presidential contest between Franklin Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover, which Wolff describes as a “conflict of two utterly opposed forms of government.” Wolff asserts that the country’s endorsement of Roosevelt’s “New Deal” was tantamount to a revolution, one that “may alter the form of American destiny for many generations . . .” He goes on to explain that the changes underlying the New Deal are not only political and economic, but involve both philosophy and religion. (5 pages)

This piece, which was published in The Bulletin of the Assembly of Man 11 (February-March 1962): 1-3, was part of the Assembly of Man educational material; specifically, it was no. 2 in the Assembly of Man Public Service Series, No. 5. The document here is The Bulletin copy, which notes it is authored by “Yogagñani.” In this piece, Wolff explains that the “greatest work of the Assembly of Man” is to encourage those who have won the right to accept the Dharmakaya robe to renounce this reward and work for the salvation of humanity—that is, to take the Nirmanakaya Vesture. (3 pages)

In this essay, which is part of the Assembly of Man educational material, Wolff explains that the objective universe is called a Maya because it is not self-existent; rather, it is a projection from Consciousness. Moreover, all such projection is subject to the law of Balance—that is, every action in any direction implies its own opposite. This principle, Wolff continues, affords a means to distinguish genuine occult knowledge from pseudo-occultism. (Transcript, 2 pages)

This essay is part of the Assembly of Man educational material; specifically, it is no. 23 in the Guardian of the Flame section of the Public Series documents. It was published in The Seeker 2 (Summer 1967): 14-19, and is not dated. In this essay, Wolff notes that Robert Louis Stevenson’s story “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” portrays very effectively the great drama of the human soul: every human has an earthly or sensible nature that continually clashes with their higher or intelligent nature. The sensible nature is the outer sensuous aspect of human nature—that is, the personal nature. Wolff explains that there is no path to immortality save through conquering the lower nature and that the lower nature can never be mastered simply by indulging it. On the contrary, this causes it to gain strength. Rather, it is the spiritual nature that must be cultivated and given full freedom. (7 pages)

This essay appears to have been part of the Assembly of Man educational material. In the transcript edition here, Wolff begins by classifying Yoga into two basic types: Hatha and Raja (or Royal) Yoga; he follows with a brief discussion of this division. (1 page)

This essay appears to have been part of the Assembly of Man educational material. In the transcript edition here, Wolff explains that questions “have arisen among students as to the meaning of terms such as ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ mind, ‘intellect’, ‘intelligence’ and ‘brain’. I will endeavor in the present instruction to clarify the various meanings.” (2 pages)

This note was published in The Seeker 1 (May 1967): 9-10, where it is signed “Yogagñani.” Although undated, it is likely part of the the Assembly of Man educational material. In this piece, Wolff follows part of the lecture outline titled “Occultism of Number: Number One,” which is listed under “Lectures, Notes and Outlines/Lecture Outlines.” (2 pages)

This essay appears to have been part of the Assembly of Man educational material; a transcript edition is presented here. Wolff’s concern in this essay is the Third Fundamental from The Secret Doctrine, which asserts: “The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over-Soul, the latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root.” (3 pages)

This essay, which is signed “Yogagñani,” is part of the Assembly of Man educational material; specifically, it is one of the Degree of Priesthood documents. It is designed as a primer on Western psychology: the reader is introduced to some basic principles of science in general and of psychology in particular; the difference between psychology and philosophy is explained; and in a concluding section, Wolff warns that the materialist prejudice in science can be particularly invidious in the case of psychology. (14 pages)

This document consists of three parts: The Good, Beauty (renamed in handwriting other than Wolff’s, “The Beautiful”), and Truth (also renamed in the same hand, “The True”). A handwritten note on the first page states that these meditations were “read by students of the Youth [Section] on Easter.” Accordingly, this material would have been part of the Assembly of Man material. None of the pages are dated. (4 pages)

This essay is part of the Assembly of Man educational material; specifically, it is no. 28 in the Guardian of the Flame section of the Public Series documents. It was published in The Bulletin of the Assembly of Man 4 (December 1960). In this essay, which is signed “Yogagñani,” Wolff warns of the danger of the “overvaluation of one’s own teacher, particularly if combined with an insistence that others shall agree with him has been”—a trait, he notes, that has been “a fruitful source of evil.” Instead, he continues, one should recognize that the “central core of the message of all God-realized men is the same, and this part each student should seek out and make his own.” This is not to say that the formal statement of such messengers will remain unaltered; indeed, Wolff remarks, the changing intellectual and emotional contexts of the different cultures demands that this statement undergo complementary changes. This insight, Wolff concludes, is particularly prescient for students in the West. (6 pages)

This composition is Chapter XLIX in Pathways Through to Space, which appears here as a separate document signed “Franklin F. Wolff.” Pages 3-5 are missing from this document; it is not known why it was in the archive as a separate document.

These reflections were written a few weeks after the last entry in Pathways Through to Space, which is dated November 16, 1936. The last chapter in the latter work is numbered “89,” and the current piece is numbered “90”; this, together with the pagination and content of this document suggest that it was part of an earlier manuscript of Pathways than that which was used for the 1944 publication. In this composition, Wolff considers the question of whether feeling or thought is capable of penetrating deeper into the Beyond. With respect to the state he calls the “High Indifference”—a perfectly balanced and dispassionate state—Wolff explains that cognition has the upper hand, for “pure thought is essentially neutral and detached. Hence it is possible for thought to enter a field without introducing a quality of tension or disturbance.” (7 pages)

This essay was published in The Bulletin of the Assembly of Man 3 (October 1960): 5-10. The date of its composition suggests that it was part of Wolff’s 1936-37 journal, the bulk of which was published as Pathways Through to Space. In this piece, Wolff clarifies the meaning of ‘Nirvana’, and then explains that there are states beyond Nirvana. (6 pages)

This note starts along the lines of one of Wolff’s early (1929) lecture outlines, but quickly divergences into other musings. A graph has been added to the text for the reader’s visual reference. (3 pages)

In this short message, Wolff characterizes ordinary subject-object consciousness as a flow of consciousness from the subject to the object. Borrowing a term from mechanics, he suggests that this type of consciousness may be understood as having an “objective vector value.” Recognition or Liberation, on the other hand, is attained by an inversion of the flow of this vector of consciousness. In other words, the focus of attention must be turned toward the subjective pole and away from the objective content of consciousness; or as Wolff puts it, an “effort must be to attain a consciousness without objective content.” (4 pages)

This is a transcription of a document that contains two pieces that are in narrative form, a method of expression that Wolff rarely employed. The first story is called “The Parable of the Jewels” and the second “The Parable of Him Who Received the Great Jewel.” The original manuscript has not been found; the version here is from an audio recording Wolff made on March 15, 1970 titled “The Pearl beyond Price.” This title is also used here. In this recording, Wolff notes that “I wasn’t satisfied with its formulation because my forte is not narrative description, but the idea was important.” More commentary on these narratives can be found in this recording.

In this essay, Wolff gives a summary view of the world of experience from a new base of reference—one afforded by his transformative experiences of August 7 and September 8, 1936. The document here is a transcribed edition of this piece.

This remembrance is part of the Assembly of Man educational material; specifically, it is no. 36 in the Guardian of the Threshold section of the Public Series documents. It is signed “Yogi,” and in it Wolff evokes the song that “sang through me and enfolded me in a joy not unlike a faint undertone of the Great Joy of the Eternal.” (2 pages)

This narrative is as much about creative phantasy as it is a creative phantasy. It consists of two chapters: the first is a story of the lessons an adventurer learns from his own creation; the second is a discussion of discipline and purity. This piece is not dated, but has the hallmark of being post-1936. For the sake of expediency, it has been grouped with another of Wolff’s narratives. (17 pages)

In this essay, which is marked “a. 1937,” Wolff suggests that mystical states of consciousness may be classified according to a two-fold typology: “time-mysticism” and “space-mysticism.” The former is a “kind of inward penetration which achieves a unity with time and a sympathetic rapport with all that lies under time”; the latter “achieves a unity with space in the abstract sense, of which all particular spaces are modifications.” Wolff concludes with a brief word for the spatial mystic. (2 copies @ 2 pages)

This short piece was published in The Bulletin of the Assembly of Man 28 (Spring 1966): 19-20. In this essay, Wolff explains that “reasoning power and the individual will cannot command Initiation as the level opened by Initiation is above that currently attained by the individual.” Once, however, “Initiation on any level has been attain[ed], it supplies new material with which the individual will and reason may act.” This work is not dated, but Wolff uses the term ‘Knowledge through Identity’, which he first began to employ in Pathways Through to Space; moreover, Wolff did not use the capitalized term ‘Initiation’ much after this production. Accordingly, this piece has been dated “ca. 1937.” (2 pages)

In this discussion of the principle of contradiction, Wolff notes that every contradiction reveals that something is unreal, and that “the search for absolute coherence is tantamount to the search for ultimate Reality.” The last paragraph of this piece would seem to indicate that it is part of a larger work that addresses the “sociological problem.” (4 pages)

This piece was published in The Bulletin of the Assembly of Man 2 (August 1960): 1-2, where it is attributed to “Yogagñani.” After reviewing the tripartite division of an individual into Spirit, Soul and Body, Wolff notes that the problem of the “spiritualization of consciousness is that of attaining a state of consciousness without an object.” “This is not easily achieved,” he continues, “without preparing the way by means of intermediate steps. These steps essentially consist in focusing the interest upon objects which correspond to and are relatively more like the spiritual pole than objects in general.” Wolff concludes by listing five practices that may be helpful in achieving this end. (2 pages)

This message was published in The Bulletin of the Assembly of Man 30 (January 1967): 22-23; it is marked there as authored by Franklin Merrell-Wolff. In this piece, Wolff notes that the passage of time brings us into new relationships with objects (both human and otherwise), while old relationships vanish. The question of the effect of this passage is a matter of weighing the value of the passing relationships with those that are incoming: “If the positive value of the passing relationships is greater than that of the incoming relationships then the effect of time is tragic while, in the reverse case, the flow of time brings enrichment.” This value may differ depending on one’s psychological type, e.g. whether one is a thinking or feeling type. After suggesting that Buddha found the effect of time to be tragic, and that apparently it was primarily a problem of feeling that initiated his search, Wolff ponders whether Buddha formulated a problem felt by all, or “a problem that applies to only certain types?” In an effort to address this question, Wolff suggests the problem can be stated in the form of two questions. (2 pages)

This essay is part of the Assembly of Man educational material; specifically, it is no. 51 in the Guardian of the Flame section of the Public Series documents. It is signed “Yogagñani.” In this dense piece, Wolff describes our awareness of the world (Sangsara) as a tension in a Space that remains in a perfect equilibrium. Thus, for every tension in consciousness, there must be a counter-balancing movement that annuls this tension, so that the “Equilibrium” is never disturbed. He goes on to note that “it is possible, by the appropriate means, for a man to become conscious of the counter-movement, i.e., that which erroneously appears to his waking consciousness as the unconsciousness of dreamless sleep whether in ordinary sleep or during death.” In its highest development, this is Nirvanic consciousness, in which it is possible to become “locked-in”—a condition that is that analogous to, and is the exact counterpart of, the familiar state of Sangsaric consciousness. Wolff continues: “If an individual brings into conjunction, in his own consciousness, an awareness of both the Sangsaric and Nirvanic phases of consciousness, then he becomes aware of a powerful dissolving force which proceeds to melt away all categories, functions or forms of consciousness, resulting finally in a complete equilibrium of which no partial or differentiated predication is true.” (3 pages + 1 verso page)

In this short note, Wolff discusses his christening of a level of consciousness as the "High Indifference,” a term he meant to denote the state’s affective quality as opposed to its noetic value. He goes on to explain that this state is the culmination of human affective evolution, which “at the same time becomes the base or zero-point of another kind of evolution, where the affections stand below and therefore at the command of the individual, but the self-conscious field of the individual is not dominated by any of them. The evolution now enters a cycle that is trans-human, where consciousness functions through modes quite other than those that are understandable to human consciousness.” This document is not dated, but appears to have been written around the same time that Wolff added the appendix to Chapter 52 in Pathways Through to Space. (2 pages)

This essay was published in The Bulletin of the Assembly of Man 22 (Autumn 1964): 1-6. As the title suggests, Wolff uses the light-scale, which includes those frequencies both above and below direct human perception, to discuss human consciousness and life. (8 pages)

In this essay, which is signed “Yogagñani,” Wolff warns of the dangers of the mass of impressions that individuals encounter in modern society, particularly through the various forms of media that modern technology has made available. He explains that if one becomes too focused on impressions, the individual may lapse into the “state of dominant impressionism,” a state that corresponds to the psychological attitude of extreme extraversion. The danger here is this: the effect of over-extraversion is the loss of individuation; in Wolff’s words, the “human unit becomes less and less a self-determined individual and more and more like the flotsam that is driven hither and yon by the currents of the sea.” Moreover, “when a large proportion of the human mass is reduced to this state of extreme extraversion the threat to liberal institutions becomes very grave.” Wolff goes on to suggest several ways in which one may guard against the impact of too many impressions. (6 pages, of which the first is not part of the original document)

This essay was published in The Bulletin of the Assembly of Man 25 (Summer 1965): 1-4. In this composition, Wolff discusses the need for different means to reach the goal of Enlightenment. Specifically, he notes that the appropriate means toward this goal is both a function of an individual’s psychological constitution (or type) as well an individual’s current stage of advancement. He explains the limitations that this poses for group work, and concludes with a brief note concerning the demeanor of teachers. (4 pages)

This composition was published in The Bulletin of the Assembly of Man 17 (summer 1963): 1-3. In addition, a note at the end of the paper states that it was part of the Assembly of Man educational material; specifically, it was one of the Degree of Priesthood documents (for May 1940). In this essay, Wolff discusses the fact that Liberation is not attained; rather, it is only knowledge of Liberation that is attained. He goes on to suggest that entertaining the idea that there is nothing to be attained (because Enlightenment is an eternal fact for all creatures)—while not itself equivalent to Enlightenment—may for some individuals produce a favorable condition for the arousing of Recognition: “The entertained idea produces by suggestion a pattern for relative consciousness and thus helps to destroy the power of false ideation. Thus by entertaining the idea and acting as though it were true, meditating upon it and by unfolding its rationale, we have a method of Dhyana.” (4 pages)

This brief piece begins with a list of four axioms or aphorisms concerning the relation between Liberation and one’s attitude toward the world of experience. Wolff explains that one might judge this attitude as pessimistic, but that in the larger view, it is one that is optimistic in the highest sense. (2 pages)

This is an offprint of an article by Franklin F. Wolff that appeared in one of the most respected academic philosophy journals published in English; specifically, it was published in The Philosophical Review 48, no. 4 (July 1939): 398-414. A letter from the editor reveals that Wolff had revised his initial submission, which the journal’s reviewers found a “great improvement over the other” (see G. Watts Cunningham under the Correspondence tab). Although not published until 1939, it was submitted by Wolff in 1937. (11 pages with cover and title page).

This essay is part of the Assembly of Man educational material; specifically, it is no. 46 in the Guardian of the Flame section of the Public Series documents. It was published in The Seeker 2 (summer 1967): 1-4. In this essay, which is signed “Yogagñani,” Wolff addresses a question sent in by a student: What is thought in its essential nature? (5 pages)

In this parable, John Kainologos (Greek for a novel invention of words) laments being bound to the wheel of life, subject to a seemingly endless sequence of incarnations. He discovers that are those who have freed themselves from this condition, and that “They have left a philosophy and a science which . . . has . . . carried Their meaning with a high order of clarity and purity.” (3 pages)

This document consists of pp. 23-104 of a manuscript titled “The Problem of Individual Psychology.” Wolff’s concern in this work is the question of whether it is possible to build a society that achieves equal justice for all psychological types. Toward this end, it must be understood that there is no one system of valuation that is equally valid for all and that “there will never be a society in which peace and justice prevail until this fact is appreciated and given recognition in practical government and social relationship.”

Wolff references his book “From Point-I to Space-I” in this manuscript, which allows us to date it as after 1936 and prior to 1944 (when the title of the aforementioned book was changed to “Pathways Through to Space”). Moreover, it would appear to have been written before “The Vertical Thought Movement,” given that the latter work is not referenced anywhere in the above pages. Thus, this piece has been dated “ca. 1939.”

The above pages constitute Book I, Chapters 1-4 of this work. On the cover, a handwritten table of contents appears to be as follows:

The pages after p. 104 are missing. (88 pages including cover)

The provenance of this essay is not known; it may be part of the essay titled “The Problem of Individual Psychology,” which has not been found in its entirety. If so, it would be part of Chapter 7 of this work, the concern of which is the “Intuitive Type.” The document here is a transcript. (2 pages)

This extract, which begins on p. 20, is from a composition with an unknown title. In this portion of the essay, Wolff discusses an interpretation of Transcendental Reality, and he wishes to “drive home to the critical psychology and philosophy of our day” the point “that the Transcendent Reality understood in this sense is not touched by the Kantian criticism.” It is clearly a post-1936 document, and has been dated “ca. 1939” (9 pages)

These pages are the beginning of a chapter titled “Money Power vs. Political Power,” which is the first chapter in part 2 of a lost manuscript. Given the subject matter of this chapter, it may be the case that these pages are from the volume that Wolff references on p. 16 of “The Vertical Thought Movement.” This may also be the same document that Wolff mentions in a letter to Peter Geshell dated 25 March 1949. In this letter, Wolff states: “I have a sixty page discussion of politics which I think might make my view and its reasons clearer than anything I might say in less space.” If so, these pages were penned before “The Vertical Thought Movement,” which is dated 1940. For this reason, they have been dated “ca. 1939?” (7 pages)

In this essay, which is signed “Yogagñani,” Wolff describes a rare astronomical event that was about to occur, and then considers the esoteric significance of this event. He concludes with a few words concerning the Second World War.

Wolff wrote this manuscript in the wake of the United States presidential election of 1940, in which the New Deal Movement went virtually unopposed. It was published in installment form in The Bulletin of the Assembly of Man 13-21 (summer 1962): 1-10, (autumn 1962): 4-14, (winter 1962-63): 13-19, (spring 1963): 10-20; (summer 1963): 10-19, (fall 1963): 11-19, (winter 1963-64): 6-13, (spring 1964): 8-15, (summer 1964): 9-20. In a foreword note, the editor of this periodical (Wolff’s wife, Gertrude) states that “although written in 1940 and containing may references to topics current at that time, the ‘Vertical Thought Movement’ is even more timely today and, we believe, more urgent.” In this essay, Wolff proposes a new political association—The Vertical Thought Movement—which he sees as a “continuous crusade oriented to a principle and conviction that stands in contrapuntal relation to the Socialist Movement.” (122 pages)

Beginning on p. 16 of “The Vertical Thought Movement,” Wolff presents an extended quotation that he notes is “from a chapter on ‘The Significance of Liberalism’ that forms part of a volume I plan to publish in the near future.” In a letter to Peter Geshell dated 25 March 1949, Wolff states that “I have a sixty page discussion of politics which I think might make my view and its reasons clearer than anything I might say in less space.” Neither of these documents has been found, and it may be the case that Wolff is referring to the same manuscript in both places. For the sake of convenience, this record is used to chronicle both of these references. Assuming that these are references to the same manuscript, the record has been dated “ca. 1939” based on the fact that is referred to in “The Vertical Thought Movement,” which is dated 1940.

These pages may be from an early draft of “The Vertical Thought Movement”; they are not part of the final draft of this manuscript. In these pages, Wolff discusses the relation between religiosity (particularly in the Christian form) and the Vertical Thought Movement. (6 pages including two copies of p. 46, one with an edit)

In this note, which is from The Assembly of Man Public Service Series, No. 22 (Guardian of the Chalice), Wolff discusses the necessity for the practice of brotherhood. (3 pages)

This essay is Wolff’s response to a number of students who had questioned the authenticity of Theosophy; in particular, its composition was largely shaped by a letter from Harry Murphy. Murphy’s letter is dated July 4, 1948 and Wolff’s reply is dated November 23, 1948, so this treatise was composed sometime within this roughly four-and-a-half-month interval (these letters can be found under the Correspondence tab of the Wolff Archive). Given that the paper was part of Wolff’s response to Murphy’s inquiry, it has been given the date of Wolff’s letter of reply. This manuscript was published in installment form in The Bulletin of the Assembly of Man 6-12 (April 1961): 1-6, (June 1961): 5-9, (August-September 1961): 5-10, (October-November 1961): 4-10, (December 1961-January 1962): 8-15, (February-March 1962): 4-8, and (April-May 1962): 6-11. (57 pages)

In this essay, which has the feel of a Cartesian meditation, Wolff takes the reader from the consciousness of an infant to the birth of self-consciousness; from the quest for satisfaction in the empirical realm to the realization that objective life is pain; from the pain of objective life to the Joy that comes when consciousness has “turned about” on itself; all this followed by a lucid sketch of after-effects of this “reseating” of consciousness. This essay is also clearly part of a larger work. It begins with the note that “So far we have seen that an analysis of the human psyche reveals a structure of which the main outlines are fairly clear.” Wolff is referring to a discussion of analytic psychology here, which—given some typographic and contextual similarities—seems to be the eight-part essay, “Human Types.” This latter work is part of the Assembly of Man educational material, Degree of Priesthood Series, and so this inference would classify this essay as part of this material. Assuming it is part of this series, the essay has been dated “ca. 1948,” following the dating of the essay on human types. In the last paragraph of this essay, Wolff notes that “In the final chapter, I shall offer a plan in broad outline for social reorganization with due provision of a body of men which will occupy an extra-constitutional relationship to government.” This final chapter has not been found, but it may be in the series of priesthood papers. (19 pages)

This eight-part series of papers is part of the Assembly of Man educational material; specifically, it is one of the Degree of Priesthood documents designed for more advanced students. Each installment in the series is signed “Yogagñani.” In these papers, Wolff gives a brief exposition of modern analytic (Jungian) psychology, noting ways that he believes the theory must be supplemented or revised in order to incorporate his imperiences. This piece has been dated “ca. 1948” based on the following evidence: on p. 5 in the third installment of this series, Wolff notes that Hoover and Roosevelt were the last two presidents; this would place the document post-April 1945. Later on in this section, Wolff warns of the dangers of the “regimentation of life,” a topic that is the central to his essay, “Peace, but not at the Price of Regimentation.” The latter essay is dated “ca. 1948,” and given Wolff’s concern for this topic in both documents, it is likely that they were composed around the end of World War II. (61 pages)

In this poignant meditation, which is marked “a. 1948,” Wolff warns that the evils we associate with war must also be guarded against in peace. In particular, the principle of regimentation, or the development of like-mindedness—which is the essence of military training—is not confined to the military field. Indeed, Wolff explains, it “is also present in the mechanized processes of civil life,” and in fact, “is a tremendous force today, more nearly world-wide than ever before in known history.” The danger here is that civil mechanization and standardization work to restrict freedom, and hence, are forces acting against truth and love, for “the nature of both of these qualities is that of freedom.” To combat this evil, Wolff urges his readers to follow Einstein and Gandhi and adopt “philosophic pacifism.” (9 pages)

This document contains the first two chapters of a book in which Wolff intended to develop a “cross-understanding” between the perspectives of the East and the West. To do so, Wolff makes use of the notions of the aesthetic continuum and the theoretic continuum as developed by F.S.C. Northrop in the noteworthy 1946 tome, The Meeting of East and West. (39 pages)

In this composition, Wolff considers the question of whether there is a “middle way” of choosing God without excluding Caesar. He suggests that there is, and that this way involves a “Yoga that is integral.” The key element of this type of yoga is “Transformation”—a process that is “directed by a Power higher than the ego,” and that is supported by the dynamic principle of Ananda. Wolff’s writing in this piece has clearly been influenced by Aurobindo Ghose (note the reference to the “sun-lit way”), whose writings Wolff read and studied for a good part of the 1950s. For this reason, this essay has been dated “ca. 1950s.” This essay was published in The Seeker 1 & 2 (May 1967): 2-9 & (summer 1967): 9-13. (14 pages—last page is misnumbered)

This document consists of eight typed pages on onion skin paper; it is marked as “#2” and “Private.” The latter suggest that it was part of the Assembly of Man educational material; in particular, that it was part of the Degree of Priesthood series. The piece is an exposition of the three types of love noted in its title, and includes some specific instructions for students. The document is not dated, but does reference Aurobindo, the writings of whom Wolff studied in the 1950s. Accordingly, this document has been dated “ca. 1950s.” (8 pages)

This is Wolff’s eulogy for Sri Aurobindo. It first appeared in the New Age Interpreter 12, no. 3 (May-June 1951): 12-14, a periodical that was published by Corinne and Theodore Heline; it later appeared in Mother India, issue and date unknown. This piece was also reprinted in The Bulletin of the Assembly of Man 4 (December 1960): 7-11. (4 pages including issue cover)

In the early 1950s, Wolff began to write, lecture and muse on a program he called “The Holistic.” In this unfinished essay, he defines this program “as a Religious, a Philosophical and a Scientific orientation in which wholeness is the central value in an explicit as well in an implicit sense and a value which is to occupy this central place in conscious practice as well as in theory.” He later explains that the central problem of “the Holistic Philosophy and Movement is an effectuation of the resolution of the One and the Many.” Wolff notes that he is not seeking simply a philosophical (or theoretical) solution to this problem, but one that is practical as well. Next he explains that the notion of ‘Holistic’ has a three-fold meaning, which may be called “the Ontological, the Static and the Dynamic.” Wolff devotes several pages to an explication of the first meaning, and starts on the second, at which point the essay ends. (8 pages)

This is a difficult and obviously rough draft of an essay. Wolff obviously has an emergent account of evolution in mind—that is a continuous history of life marked by stages at which fundamentally new forms have appeared, where each new form of life, although grounded in the conditions of the previous and simpler stage, is intelligible only in terms of its own ordering principle. Wolff asks: “Cannot man, with his vaunted intelligence and his ever-increasing control over everything in nature except himself, learn how to become a better animal? His evolutionary future is in his own hands, and if they continue to be dirty and inept, he will re-infect it and himself; the prognosis would then be unfavorable.” (28 pages)

In this essay, which is part of the Holistic program, Wolff discusses in some depth the Western notion of the “Unconscious” and asserts that this domain can be investigated in mystical states of consciousness. After detailing some characteristics of such states, Wolff suggests that we visualize the Unconsciousness as a shape somewhat like a horseshoe magnet, one branch vertically above the other. The upper branch represents the “Superconscious” while the lower branch represents the “Subconscious.” After a discussion of this figure, Wolff concludes by noting that the aim of the Holistic program is more ambitious than simply the Liberation from relative consciousness: “Today we see the problem of Yoga greatly enlarged, since the presently envisaged end is Transformation of Nature as well as Liberation. This new aim imposes very serious and difficult problems that were not a part of the older Yoga.” (22 pages)

This is the second page of what appears to be a two-page composition. The problem addressed here is that of the One and the many, which Wolff states is the central issue of the Holistic Philosophy and Movement. Accordingly, it has been cataloged with this material. It is not signed, but the use of a mathematical analogy is consistent with its being authored by Wolff. Specifically, the author uses the notion of a mathematical circle with an infinite radius to explicate “the mystery of manifestation." (1 page)

Written during the period when Wolff was framing the notion of “The Holistic,” this truncated note starts out with the claim that the “correlation and convergence of the basic principles of Psycho-biology represent the initial phase of a unique process whereby science will rectify is own deviations; its essence being to supplant the ‘part’ method by the ‘whole’ system.” Wolff continues by noting that the Holistic is a “design philosophy,” noting that its second principle “is the correlation of the many facets of derived truth, the recognition of divergent hypotheses, and the reconciliation of the parts-to-whole correlation. It therefore represents a discutient or winnowing process in one aspect, and a convergence of desultory patterns of scattered truths in another, thus allowing piece-by-piece stalagmite ascent.” (3 pages)

This appears to a free-standing note in which Wolff asserts that mathematics, in its fundamental nature, “is a Way of Consciousness” that is “self-contained or self-existent with respect to perceptual, aesthetic or empiric consciousness, but not self-contained or self-existent with respect to Introceptual Consciousness,” and that “conceptual logic is its main instrument of manifestation.” Wolff notes that a “fundamental implication of the foregoing is the Mathematics is a Way to Truth, or a potential Way to Truth, that is independent of, and not inferior to, Experience, including Spiritual Experience.” The document was found among lecture notes on “The Holistic” dated 1952. (1 page)

This memorial tribute to Sherifa (Mrs. Sarah A. Merrell-Wolff) is from The Bulletin of the Assembly of Man 5 (February 1961): 1-4; it was written as the second anniversary of Sherifa’s death approached and is signed “Yogagñani 1-15-1961.”

After Wolff’s first Realization on August 7, 1936, he was advised to be on guard for a cycle involving the number thirty-three. Thirty-three days later he experienced a second Realization that he came to call the “High Indifference.” This piece was written as August 7, 1969 approached, a date that represented another completion of a cycle of thirty-three, in this case, years. Wolff states this anniversary has its own significance, “one having the most profound bearing upon that which is commonly called religion and religious philosophy. If valid, the consequences would provide a revolution in the orientation to the religious problem of far reaching import.” Unfortunately, this piece is incomplete; but the “sequel” alluded to in the last sentence may be the audio recording he made on August 10, 1969, which is titled “On the Meaning of Redemption.” (3 pages)

Wolff wrote this note before making the audio recording entitled “On Categorical Teaching and Writing” (Lone Pine, Calif.: April 5, 1970). The topic of this tape is the book authored by “Sanctilean” as The Impending Golden Age: An Analysis of the World Sickness and Its Cure (Santa Monica, CA: Upland Trails Press, 1948). In this book, the author claims to have had direct contact with entities on a "flying saucer," and predicts various sorts of impending (mostly catastrophic) events.