This group of recordings includes a lecture series and four extended essays in which Wolff presents a detailed explication of his work and philosophy. Wolff held that the “office of great philosophy is to be a Way of Realization, and not solely a monitor of doing.”[1] Working toward this ideal, he based his philosophy on his mystical awakenings, in the hope that it would help people “attain the perspective and resources that come from Enlightenment.”[2]
Given Wolff’s view of philosophy as a “Way of Realization,” this category might also have been titled “Western Contribution to Yogic Method,” a designation that reflects Wolff’s own perspective on his work, which was “to do what I could do to establish a way to Fundamental Realization or Enlightenment from a Western base, a way that is indigenous to the cultural heritage of Western man.”[3] Wolff emphasizes that he is not simply making a transformation of Oriental philosophy into Western language, but that he is using the language of Western philosophy, science, and mathematics to produce a statement that reflects the meaning and the way of Realization.
Over the years, Wolff came to appreciate that the distinction between “Western” and “Oriental” cultures was anachronistic, and that his attempt to “establish a way to Fundamental Realization” might better be understood as directed toward a certain psychological type. That being said, Wolff placed a good deal of stock in F.S.C. Northrop’s characterization of Western culture as based on the recognition of the “theoretic component” of things, and Eastern culture as placing an emphasis on the “aesthetic component.” Whereas Northrop equates the method of Yoga as a technique for removing differentiation and arriving at the indeterminate aesthetic continuum, Wolff believes that the essence of his own contribution to Yoga lies in the possibility of realizing what he describes as the “indeterminate theoretic continuum.” These ideas are elaborated in the recordings below:
Mathematics, Philosophy and Yoga is a six-part lecture series that Wolff delivered in Phoenix, Arizona during November 1966.
General Discourse on the Subject of My Philosophy is a twelve-part series in which Wolff examines various motivations for formulating a philosophy and expresses his desire to formulate a rational statement of a philosophy that is meaningful to himself and available to other individuals who might find it valuable for themselves.
Three Fundamentals of the Introceptive Philosophy is a sixteen-part series that revolves around the “three fundamentals” of “Introceptualism,” the name Wolff gave to the philosophy that he based upon his mystical awakenings. These fundamentals are:
- Consciousness is original, self-existent, and constitutive of all things;
- The subject to consciousness transcends the object of consciousness; and,
- There are three and not two fundamental organs, faculties, or functions, of cognition.
Abstract of the Philosophy is a fourteen-part series in which Wolff expounds on the philosophy based on his mystical realizations.
Purpose, Method and Policy of this Work is a fifteen-part series in which Wolff addresses a number of different aspects of his work since 1936, a labor designed to facilitate, as far as possible, the redemption of all creatures. Here you will also find some recordings that include comments on, as well as an introduction to, this series; there is also a recording that predates this series in which Wolff addresses the purpose of his work.
Please note that this grouping of recordings category overlaps the category “On Yoga,” where you may find additional recordings in which Wolff addresses the details of his philosophy.
[1] Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Experience and Philosophy: A Personal Record of Transformation and a Discussion of Transcendental Consciousness (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 241.
[2] Ibid, ix.
[3] Franklin Merrell-Wolff, “Convention 1974: Preliminary Words on the Purpose of My Work” (Lone Pine, Calif.: August 11, 1974), audio recording, 2.
