Readings and Reviews

This page introduces Franklin Merrell-Wolff's audio-recorded readings and reviews; you can also browse his Readings and Reviews directly.

Listed under this category are recordings of Wolff reading (and sometimes commenting on) various materials:

  1. The oldest recordings are from 1959 and 1960, and consist of Wolff reading his book, The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object (a twenty-five part series). Unfortunately, Wolff does not read the entire volume, leaving off in the chapter “Introceptualism” found in part 3 of this work.
  2. In 1970, Wolff’s book, The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object, was published in a mimeographed form by a group of his students in Phoenix, Arizona. At this time, Wolff recorded an epilogue to this work.
  3. In March 1960, Wolff recorded a class that he gave in Woodland Hills, California on his “Aphorisms on Consciousness-without-an-object.” These aphorisms are from the work above, and Wolff reads and then comments upon these statements.
  4. In April 1970, Wolff recorded the Mahayana Buddhist sūtra known as the Prajñā-Pāramitā-Hridaya-Sūtra (or Heart Sūtra), as translated in the book, Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines.[1] He intersperses his recitation with comments on the correlation between the conception of the Voidness (shūnyatā) found in this sūtra and his own notion of “Consciousness-without-an-object (and-without-a-subject).”
  5. Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol is an epic poem (it approaches 24,000 lines) written by Sri Aurobindo. Drawing on the story found in the Mahabharata, Aurobindo portrays humanity’s destiny as the consummation of terrestrial evolution, one that will see the emergence of an immortal, “supramental” gnostic race upon Earth. After Aurobindo’s death, his spiritual collaborator, who was known as “The Mother,” selected a number of excerpts from Savitri, and asked a young painter to realize her “meditations” on these passages. The result was 474 paintings that were published in four volumes along the excerpts from Savitri that inspired them. In 1970, one of Wolff’s students asked him to read these excerpts, which were recorded on tape and can be found here.
  6. In 1980, Wolff was recorded reading six poems from his book, Pathways Through to Space.

     

Also listed under this grouping are recorded reviews of a number of books that came across Wolff’s desk.


[1] W. Y. Evans-Wentz, ed., Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines (London: Oxford University Press, 1935), 355-359.