4/7/24
I think I am done with Margaret Fuller's letters, and am ready to return the six volumes to the library. But there is something which became abundantly clear to me as I was scanning them, and I want to express it. I want to express something that is invisible to everyone else, apparently.

As Mathew Franklin Whittier, I was a real philosopher and a real mystic. I am one, today. I was in that line in lifetimes before I was Mathew (though not recently, I think, because I had strayed and Abby had to bring me back).

In this lifetime, I've been a philosopher and a mystic for a little over 50 years, since I was 19 years old. As I read Margaret Fuller's letters, I can see plain as day that she's faking it. Faking it not only to others, but to herself. She has, apparently, been raised from the cradle, as an experiment, to be a female philosopher and literary genius. But she really doesn't have the native capacity for it. She wants so badly to please her father, the experimenter, that she tries to approximate it.

I can't express to you how obvious this is. Really-speaking, I can't read her writing. It's so dense--she writes and writes and writes without actually saying anything of substance. It just sounds deep. Her contemporaries thought she would sort of slip briefly into the persona of an outrageous egotist. But that was really her. The persona was the spiritual one.

Maybe I should do a little demonstration. Shall I open one of these volumes at random, and look for the nearest letter in which Fuller is waxing pseudo-philosophical? (Some of them are just chatty letters.)

Well, this could backfire, as I might get hold of something where she is actually making sense. But I have grabbed, at random, Volume IV, which is to say, 1845-47--the period in which Mathew was writing for the "Tribune" with her as his editor. I open now to page...158, where she is writing to James Nathan on Sept. 13, 1845. James Nathan was a male friend who was stringing her along, possibly to gain access to her editor, Horace Greeley (as I have read--it's not my idea). He basically teased her with a possible relationship, until he got her going at a fever pitch, then dumped her. It's sad. She did have a heart--she wasn't a sociopath like Poe or Dickens or Albert Pike (the ass).

So let me scan through this letter for some philosophy...

This has been a very happy day with me. A dear friend came about noon to announce a joyful change in his fate and has only just left me, feeling very happy in the crisis that brings a noble being liberation from many woes and perplexities, but over excited! My head throbs; it is time to go to rest, but I fear I shall not sleep and the hand trembles so I can hardly write. I feel grateful for something manifestly right and more noble, more confidence in God than usual. I blame myself for writing in the within. Let us love carefully. I ought not thus to shrink from giving or receiving pain. Yes, it is most true the fault you find in me; I am fautily sensitive. I ought to have more noble faith. I will try; we both will; will we not, loved brother, to be constantly nobler and better.

Do I need to try to analyze this? It's spiritual cotton candy--there's no substance in it. We don't know what the friend was liberated from, so we can't assess this, except that I think it's probably nonsense that he (or she?) feels "very happy" in his crisis. I'm not clear who is over excited, him or her, or why she thinks it excessive. Since it doesn't mean anything, anyway, there's not much point in trying to figure it out. I have no idea what she feels grateful for, or what it means that "something" is "manifestly right and more noble"--more noble than what?--and this businss of feeling "more confidence in God than usual," suggests she doesn't really feel much confidence in God, at all, even at the best of times. It sounds like something that comes and goes, but isn't all that strong to begin with. As for blaming herself for "writing in the within," this is as bad as the worst New Age nonsense you've ever seen in the worst Facebook meme. And, she ought not to shrink from giving or receiving pain? What? Should she be giving more pain? She is not sensitive. I'm guessing that Nathan James has been jerking her around, and then blaming her for reacting. And since when is "noble faith" the opposite of being overly sensitive? She may try, but I guarantee you he won't, because he's deliberately and sadistically pushing her buttons. He is not her "loved brother"--she wants a romantic relationship, and he is holding her at arm's length. He doesn't love her, at all.*

There, does that help to operationalize, for you, what I was talking about? My point is, if you ever see real philosophy over a signature that this person has claimed authorship of, you can instantly know she wasn't really the author of it. And the second point is, how in the world could people who have managed to obtain a Ph.D., be fooled by this stuff?

Naturally, a person who is basically bankrupt, if he wants to join the society of the rich, has to steal some cash to show them. The same is true for the society of mystics and philosophers. So she stole Mathew Franklin Whittier's work, which is to say, as his editor, she took advantage of his anonymity and falsely claimed it--not openly, but privately to her friends. Then the rumor grew, and her reputation grew, and there were enough imposters like herself that they bought it. People like James Freeman Clarke, and Julia Ward Howe. The genuine mystics, I think, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, eventually saw through her facade and backed away.

What has occurred to me, which really motivated me to write, is, "Now what?" Which is to say, should I hate her for it? Or should I feel sorry for her? I think Mathew went back and forth--but I think he felt extremely frustrated with people who practically worshipped her as a goddess, especially after her death. I have a scathing satire he wrote about her, in this vein--the kind of biting sarcasm he reserved for his plagiarists.

Today, it's just frustrating that I can't seem to shift this false myth, or the false myths upholding Mathew and Abby's other plagiarists. The last several days I've been writing individual letters--good letters--to several targeted professors and authors each day. Those few who initially responded have stopped communicating--most never write back, at all. Some of these people, I think, silently read my papers online--and these are well-written, compelling papers. As I told one of these folks today, my evidence is at least good enough to justify a debate, if it doesn't immediately convince anyone. But you'd think my papers were sheer garbage.

Trust me, they are not. If I can write a coherent blog like this once or even twice per day, I can write a paper.

I simply persist; and I try not to make it personal. This is like trying to tell people that their house is built on a sink hole. They don't want to hear it, and they're damned if they're going to hear it!

Sincerely,

Stephen Sakellarios, M.S.

*You can look up what scholars have said about this relationship, yourself.