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Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness
First published in 1980, Beyond Geography continues to influence and impress its readers. This new edition, prepared for the Columbus quincentennial, includes a new introduction by T. H. Watkins and a new preface by the author. As the public debates Columbus's legacy, it is important for us to learn of the spiritual background of European domination of the Americas, for the Europeans who conquered the Americas substituted history for myth as a way of understanding life.
360 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
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268 people want to read
About the author
Frederick Turner
89 books9 followersFrederick Turner is the author or editor of a dozen books, including Into the Heart of Life: Henry Miller at One Hundred. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
September 14, 2016
Frederick Turner's Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness is marketed by its publisher as American History/Geography, and the cover's rendering of one of those ancient maps of North America certainly leans the reader in the direction of New World exploration. This is not, however, what the author has in mind. Mr. Turner is far more interested in the spiritually bankrupt Western Civilization's crush of all that was native and natural to the Americas; a fresh Eden soundly plowed under by a mythological hunger for it knew not what.
Turner takes his lead from Joseph Campbell, whom he cites frequently, and turns to the dawn of civilized time to impress upon us the psychological costs incurred by the nomadic tribes who first began to experiment with settlement - who built towns, planted seeds and erected walls against the ceaselessly encroaching wilderness they'd just left. He's tackling humanity's estrangement from the natural forces of the world; the attempt to achieve mastery over what one could (through shelter, farming) and fence apart what defied control. He points to shepherds who straddled the new boundaries, the envy of neighbors, the mounting need for the protection of husbanded resources, and soon enough sails into the realm of religion.
There is a lot of powerful and thought-provoking material in this section, probably sixty pages worth, on Turner's contention that the minute the Christian religion institutionalized and began to repress its revelational aspects (declaring God spoke only through church leaders, and only slowly, rationally, over a long, calm period of time), the faith began to die. And once it began to die, its adherents needed an increasing amount of spiritual cattle-prodding. Hence the Crusades and the Inquisition. He paints a touching picture of the cults that arose around this time, and the faithful reduced to scourging themselves in a desperate attempt to reconnect with the physical blessings of Life and the teeming vitality of faith. All of this, Turner contends, set the stage for what happened during the colonization of the Americas and the wholesale destruction of the very place (and peoples) that may have remedied the Christian plight.
Unfortunately, from this point forward Turner's work turns into a diatribe on the mistreatment of the Native American - which happened, yes, and is historically relevant, yes, though I have to wonder what its doing here in an evolutionary study on the propellant force behind myth and colonization. Because, beyond the initial descry of the Christian settler's spiritual bankruptcy and resulting spiritual blindness, he gets no examination at all. He's the demon dark to the Noble Savage's pure white light - which dehumanizes both parties by the way - and the book goes on and on and on until it resembles nothing so much as the punishment that aforementioned desperate cult member was driven to deliver through the scourging of his flesh. (Western settlements are "leprous sores," the Atlantic colonies a "cancerous" growth.) I understand the outrage, yet it brings no enlightenment whatsoever.
To those interested in the mythological aspects of colonization, I might suggest sticking with Joseph Campbell. To those interested in more on the historical experience of colonists in the earliest stages of American history, you might check out Tony Horwitz's A Voyage Long and Strange. As far as this book is concerned? I'd read the first third and then move on.
Turner takes his lead from Joseph Campbell, whom he cites frequently, and turns to the dawn of civilized time to impress upon us the psychological costs incurred by the nomadic tribes who first began to experiment with settlement - who built towns, planted seeds and erected walls against the ceaselessly encroaching wilderness they'd just left. He's tackling humanity's estrangement from the natural forces of the world; the attempt to achieve mastery over what one could (through shelter, farming) and fence apart what defied control. He points to shepherds who straddled the new boundaries, the envy of neighbors, the mounting need for the protection of husbanded resources, and soon enough sails into the realm of religion.
There is a lot of powerful and thought-provoking material in this section, probably sixty pages worth, on Turner's contention that the minute the Christian religion institutionalized and began to repress its revelational aspects (declaring God spoke only through church leaders, and only slowly, rationally, over a long, calm period of time), the faith began to die. And once it began to die, its adherents needed an increasing amount of spiritual cattle-prodding. Hence the Crusades and the Inquisition. He paints a touching picture of the cults that arose around this time, and the faithful reduced to scourging themselves in a desperate attempt to reconnect with the physical blessings of Life and the teeming vitality of faith. All of this, Turner contends, set the stage for what happened during the colonization of the Americas and the wholesale destruction of the very place (and peoples) that may have remedied the Christian plight.
Unfortunately, from this point forward Turner's work turns into a diatribe on the mistreatment of the Native American - which happened, yes, and is historically relevant, yes, though I have to wonder what its doing here in an evolutionary study on the propellant force behind myth and colonization. Because, beyond the initial descry of the Christian settler's spiritual bankruptcy and resulting spiritual blindness, he gets no examination at all. He's the demon dark to the Noble Savage's pure white light - which dehumanizes both parties by the way - and the book goes on and on and on until it resembles nothing so much as the punishment that aforementioned desperate cult member was driven to deliver through the scourging of his flesh. (Western settlements are "leprous sores," the Atlantic colonies a "cancerous" growth.) I understand the outrage, yet it brings no enlightenment whatsoever.
To those interested in the mythological aspects of colonization, I might suggest sticking with Joseph Campbell. To those interested in more on the historical experience of colonists in the earliest stages of American history, you might check out Tony Horwitz's A Voyage Long and Strange. As far as this book is concerned? I'd read the first third and then move on.
December 20, 2011
Want to know why western civilization seems to have no qualms about strip mining the planet and slaughtering its flora, fauna, and native peoples? Well, this book will explain the reasons why...reasons that go back thousands of years and are rooted in the rise of monotheism in a harsh desert environment, among other things...right on through the rest of the Bible, the Inquisition, the attitudes early conquerors brought to the New World, the rise of mechanistic/rationalistic thought and our modern capitalism. A great book. I've read it a few times and will read it a few more at least. Any "environmentalist" or anyone interested in history or the roots of our civilization will enjoy this book. A bit on the dark side of course, but how could you cover such subject matter without doing so? There's no way to gloss over ecocide, genocide, industrial scaled greed backed by the full force of blind faith in God and/or free markets.
July 11, 2008
As Turner warns the reader in the preface, Beyond Geography may seem more like poetry than history at times. That sentiment encapsulates the style of the book perfectly. The substance of the book, while spanning subjects and eras as diverse as any I've ever encountered, manages somehow to tease from an awesome body of historical and other sources insights of profundity perhaps only matched in poetry. The result is a devastating, morally convincing thesis that literally strikes at the soul of Western civilization.
The theme introduced early on is the necessity of myth--that is, the ubiquity of the mythical view of the world prior to the formation of Western civilization, which has decisively supplanted myth with history, cyclical time with linear, renewal with progress, etc.
Turner begins his tour through history with the death of mythical thinking in ancient Mesopotamia where the first city walls were erected in an attempt to separate society from nature, creating the wilderness, ever-threatening to repossess the isolated new civilization. Expansion was the response to the perennial encroachment of the wild. Historical thinking is the fruition of the revolt against myth which Turner argues is first evident in the account of the Israelites seeking the Promised Land, a distant objective requiring relentless pursuit--which never seems to stop. No longer would myth and renewal be manifest in the spiritual or social lives of the People of the Book or any they would leave in their wake. Turner follows these themes through the defining moments in Western history up to the 20th century.
This is a beautifully written tragic memoir of our culture. It is intelligent and morally committed, which I strongly appreciate.
The theme introduced early on is the necessity of myth--that is, the ubiquity of the mythical view of the world prior to the formation of Western civilization, which has decisively supplanted myth with history, cyclical time with linear, renewal with progress, etc.
Turner begins his tour through history with the death of mythical thinking in ancient Mesopotamia where the first city walls were erected in an attempt to separate society from nature, creating the wilderness, ever-threatening to repossess the isolated new civilization. Expansion was the response to the perennial encroachment of the wild. Historical thinking is the fruition of the revolt against myth which Turner argues is first evident in the account of the Israelites seeking the Promised Land, a distant objective requiring relentless pursuit--which never seems to stop. No longer would myth and renewal be manifest in the spiritual or social lives of the People of the Book or any they would leave in their wake. Turner follows these themes through the defining moments in Western history up to the 20th century.
This is a beautifully written tragic memoir of our culture. It is intelligent and morally committed, which I strongly appreciate.
September 26, 2013
This is one of the most important books I ever read. Turner argues that Western culture developed as a hybrid from several different geographical and biological economic systems, to form a world view which was unique in it's linearity. The supersession of cyclic existence created both a way to cope with cultural anxiety about difference (we're going to win, we are not bound by the physical limits of the natural world) and simultaneously heightened the anxiety that westerners experienced, since every thought and action leads towards the end of time.
October 21, 2008
An engaging book that starts with a brief overview of the rise of civilization and how christianity went from a living, oppositional spirituality--connected to the earth--to a dead, institutionalized one. How this fact contributed to the colonization, first, of europe, and then Africa, the islands, and the "new" world. From the crusades to genocide in the americas, Turner takes us right into the pathology of Western Civilization--and points toward a way out of it.
December 3, 2023
Frederick Turner attended Denison University where he obtained his degree in English. He subsequently received his Master of Arts in English from Ohio State and a Ph.D. in Folklore from the University of Pennsylvania. He has written fiction and non-fiction books. He wrote Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness in 1980 and has also released the following books; Rediscovering America: John Muir in His Time and Ours, Spirit of Place: The Making of an American Literary Landscape, and Of Chiles, Cacti, and Fighting Cocks: Notes on the American West.
In Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness, Turner aims to convince the reader that the American pursuit is one inspired by the spiritual thirst of men for mystery. Turner divides his work into three parts. The first part is titled Loomings, as if something ominous is stirring within men. Part two is called Rites of Passage and details the dark things we must embrace to reach our goals. Most telling, the final part is titled Haunts, as if demons made us do what we did to acquire America.
Turner begins by recalling anecdotal stories of his American youth, contemplating the West with its cowboys. As he grew and visited the expansive sprawl of the United States, this reverence for America and its people turned to one of pity as it all seemed restless and lonely. He goes on to detail how Western Civilization simply refined the discoveries of other cultures and used them to exploit unknown lands that others had visited but largely left alone. Turner posits that the Western exploration of America is spiritual in nature due to the fact that our origins are foreign and our pursuits were that of finding identity.
Turner spends a good portion of the first few chapters providing evidence for the importance of Myth as the basic expression of the human spirit. Myth, according to Turner, teaches the lessons of trusting oneself and of the interconnectedness of all things. Myth provides an origin story, at the root of identity, when one could never be obtained. How interesting that this pursuit of knowledge of who we are might drive us to colonization, christianizing unwilling participants, and the capitalistic venture of collecting tokens that seem to give us a sense of identity. When myths are shared in a civilization, it strengthens their unity, their resolve, and ultimately their chances of survival.
In the fertile crescent, man learned to have foresight for economic gains in agriculture. This agricultural pursuit was a masculine attempt at becoming the creator of life in response to the woman’s ability to produce life. Creation myths abound from these efforts and are always works of cosmic destruction with male prevailing over female deities. Often in these early myths women are the cause of some sort of imbalance between god and mortal. When these early civilizations settled in an area, they did not displace their new neighbors but joined cultures. However, over time and after they had developed a military, they were prepared to fight for the place they called home and found their identity. This is evident in the Torah story of Abram and his semetic sect’s spiritual pursuit of a promised fertile land.
Moving further in history, Turner visits the Roman Empire which by the third century had no centralized religion, had become an amalgamation of cultures, and even celebrated a “barbarian” leader. In other words, Rome was not unified in mythology but dispersed in many individual cults of belief. In fact, many of the Roman rituals and gods had been swapped or abandoned for foreign ceremonies. Christianity, Turner argues, was instituted as a crisis cult to unify the Empire and ultimately became its state religion. Turner points to what he calls the slow starvation of the soul, which comes about due to Christianity’s refusal to allow new revelations or to adapt. This led to a rejection of other myths, specifically those of animistic cultures, as their new revelations weren’t rooted in any old doctrine and were therefore deemed heretical. This turn of Christianity being viewed as mythology to factual history as seen in The Crusades and The Spanish Inquisition constitutes evidence of the stagnation and eventual decay of the religion.
When Christianity was threatened in Spain by the occupation of the Moors beginning in the 8th century, a natural reaction was the colonization of the New World in the 17th century as mirrored by the search for the promised land in the Torah. Columbus' whole pursuit of a different route to reach “India” was based on mythology. A huge problem arose when the mythology of Christianity met with its primitive mythology surrounding nature when the Spaniards met the Native Americans. Ironically, Christopher Columbus’ name fatefully means Christ bearer. A man who would bring Christ to the New World and eradicate savage myths and rituals while simultaneously making capitalistic converts of the spoils. What’s more is that the New World is the last thing the West wanted to discover as it called into question the validity of their playbook, the Bible. Being completely rootless, the Spaniards clung to their bible in the face of new myths and legends, strengthening their resolve to eradicate its competitors. They molded the natives and the land to match their idea of civilization and identity at any cost.
The synchronicity of being an alien in an alien land that Christians believe about themselves on this earth with the experience of settlers in the New World cannot be ignored. The Puritans considered themselves equals with the Isrealites wandering in the desert to find the promised land, much like their ancestors before them. Myths of Native Americans capturing the Westerners mimicked those of the Isrealites becoming the captives of Egypt. Further syncing their pursuit to conquer the natives with a spiritual quest. Furthermore, buffalo and beaver pelts were profitable and increased expansion to the New World by cultures from all over Western Europe. These capitalistic pursuits led to the industrialization of the New World in the form of railroads and firearms. The decimation of the land and animals by Westerners was met with great resistance from the Native Americans but to no avail.
The story of the Winning of the West has become legend and has been capitalized on countless times all around the world thanks to the biased documentation of the Westerners that “won.” Westerners continued to eradicate Native mythology and culture by forcing Native American children into “education” as children to “civilize” them. Turner concludes his book with the story of Buffalo Bill Cody, whose international Wild West show employed Native Americans and brought the romanticized and mythological tale of the West to the multitude of those who saw it. Cody was someone that appreciated the damage his civilization had on the people and land of the New World, and longed for the mystery of the Great West. He felt the loss of this to a lesser degree than his Native American friends, but he felt it deeply.
Turner’s Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness resonated with me in a very real way and I’m inclined to believe every word of what he has written about man’s Western expansion being a spiritual pursuit. The book is scholarly in nature but is accessible enough for anyone interested in Western civilization and American history. I have already highly recommended it to many of my friends and family as I found myself glued to each page. It is remarkable to be able to write history in a way that resonates with the reader and keeps them on the edge of their seat at the revelations being made, that always surprise but seem obvious in hindsight. To be clear, I loved this book.
In Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness, Turner aims to convince the reader that the American pursuit is one inspired by the spiritual thirst of men for mystery. Turner divides his work into three parts. The first part is titled Loomings, as if something ominous is stirring within men. Part two is called Rites of Passage and details the dark things we must embrace to reach our goals. Most telling, the final part is titled Haunts, as if demons made us do what we did to acquire America.
Turner begins by recalling anecdotal stories of his American youth, contemplating the West with its cowboys. As he grew and visited the expansive sprawl of the United States, this reverence for America and its people turned to one of pity as it all seemed restless and lonely. He goes on to detail how Western Civilization simply refined the discoveries of other cultures and used them to exploit unknown lands that others had visited but largely left alone. Turner posits that the Western exploration of America is spiritual in nature due to the fact that our origins are foreign and our pursuits were that of finding identity.
Turner spends a good portion of the first few chapters providing evidence for the importance of Myth as the basic expression of the human spirit. Myth, according to Turner, teaches the lessons of trusting oneself and of the interconnectedness of all things. Myth provides an origin story, at the root of identity, when one could never be obtained. How interesting that this pursuit of knowledge of who we are might drive us to colonization, christianizing unwilling participants, and the capitalistic venture of collecting tokens that seem to give us a sense of identity. When myths are shared in a civilization, it strengthens their unity, their resolve, and ultimately their chances of survival.
In the fertile crescent, man learned to have foresight for economic gains in agriculture. This agricultural pursuit was a masculine attempt at becoming the creator of life in response to the woman’s ability to produce life. Creation myths abound from these efforts and are always works of cosmic destruction with male prevailing over female deities. Often in these early myths women are the cause of some sort of imbalance between god and mortal. When these early civilizations settled in an area, they did not displace their new neighbors but joined cultures. However, over time and after they had developed a military, they were prepared to fight for the place they called home and found their identity. This is evident in the Torah story of Abram and his semetic sect’s spiritual pursuit of a promised fertile land.
Moving further in history, Turner visits the Roman Empire which by the third century had no centralized religion, had become an amalgamation of cultures, and even celebrated a “barbarian” leader. In other words, Rome was not unified in mythology but dispersed in many individual cults of belief. In fact, many of the Roman rituals and gods had been swapped or abandoned for foreign ceremonies. Christianity, Turner argues, was instituted as a crisis cult to unify the Empire and ultimately became its state religion. Turner points to what he calls the slow starvation of the soul, which comes about due to Christianity’s refusal to allow new revelations or to adapt. This led to a rejection of other myths, specifically those of animistic cultures, as their new revelations weren’t rooted in any old doctrine and were therefore deemed heretical. This turn of Christianity being viewed as mythology to factual history as seen in The Crusades and The Spanish Inquisition constitutes evidence of the stagnation and eventual decay of the religion.
When Christianity was threatened in Spain by the occupation of the Moors beginning in the 8th century, a natural reaction was the colonization of the New World in the 17th century as mirrored by the search for the promised land in the Torah. Columbus' whole pursuit of a different route to reach “India” was based on mythology. A huge problem arose when the mythology of Christianity met with its primitive mythology surrounding nature when the Spaniards met the Native Americans. Ironically, Christopher Columbus’ name fatefully means Christ bearer. A man who would bring Christ to the New World and eradicate savage myths and rituals while simultaneously making capitalistic converts of the spoils. What’s more is that the New World is the last thing the West wanted to discover as it called into question the validity of their playbook, the Bible. Being completely rootless, the Spaniards clung to their bible in the face of new myths and legends, strengthening their resolve to eradicate its competitors. They molded the natives and the land to match their idea of civilization and identity at any cost.
The synchronicity of being an alien in an alien land that Christians believe about themselves on this earth with the experience of settlers in the New World cannot be ignored. The Puritans considered themselves equals with the Isrealites wandering in the desert to find the promised land, much like their ancestors before them. Myths of Native Americans capturing the Westerners mimicked those of the Isrealites becoming the captives of Egypt. Further syncing their pursuit to conquer the natives with a spiritual quest. Furthermore, buffalo and beaver pelts were profitable and increased expansion to the New World by cultures from all over Western Europe. These capitalistic pursuits led to the industrialization of the New World in the form of railroads and firearms. The decimation of the land and animals by Westerners was met with great resistance from the Native Americans but to no avail.
The story of the Winning of the West has become legend and has been capitalized on countless times all around the world thanks to the biased documentation of the Westerners that “won.” Westerners continued to eradicate Native mythology and culture by forcing Native American children into “education” as children to “civilize” them. Turner concludes his book with the story of Buffalo Bill Cody, whose international Wild West show employed Native Americans and brought the romanticized and mythological tale of the West to the multitude of those who saw it. Cody was someone that appreciated the damage his civilization had on the people and land of the New World, and longed for the mystery of the Great West. He felt the loss of this to a lesser degree than his Native American friends, but he felt it deeply.
Turner’s Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness resonated with me in a very real way and I’m inclined to believe every word of what he has written about man’s Western expansion being a spiritual pursuit. The book is scholarly in nature but is accessible enough for anyone interested in Western civilization and American history. I have already highly recommended it to many of my friends and family as I found myself glued to each page. It is remarkable to be able to write history in a way that resonates with the reader and keeps them on the edge of their seat at the revelations being made, that always surprise but seem obvious in hindsight. To be clear, I loved this book.
April 25, 2019
Profoundly good
November 19, 2018
I think I ran out of tears when I was 28 years old, but a handful of times while reading this book I thought that perhaps I would weep. I certainly shook.
I received the contents of this book, digested over a couple weeks in a few long sittings, absolutely as a revelation– a vision– but not in the sense of unfolding the contours of a history previously unknown to me. Turner describes the causes and consequences of a substitution affected by the conquerors of "western civilization:" that is the substitution of history for myth as a way of understanding life and the world. The result, originally published in 1980, is an achievement I, in turn, cannot describe. I have read hundreds of books and hundreds and hundreds of pamphlets, and this is one of the most important works I could recommend to anyone who would understand this culture and its sickness.
In Fredy Perlman's 1983 book "Against His-story, Against Leviathan!" he has the following to say about Turner's "Beyond Geography" (an appraisal I quote here at some length):
"In a wonderfully lucid book titled Beyond Geography, a book which also goes beyond history, beyond technology, beyond civilization, Frederick W. Turner (not to be confused with Frederick Jackson Turner, the frontiersman’s advocate) draws the curtain and floods the stage with light.
Others drew the curtain before Turner; they’re the ones who made the secret public: Toynbee, Drinnon, Jennings, Camatte, Debord, Zerzan among contemporaries whose lights I’ve borrowed; Melville, Thoreau, Blake, Rousseau, Montaigne, Las Casas among predecessors; Lao Tze as long ago as written memory can reach.
Turner borrows the lights of human communities beyond civilization’s ken to see beyond geography. He sees with the eyes of the dispossessed of this once beautiful world that rests on a turtle’s back, this double continent whose ponds emptied, whose banks were rent, whose forests became arid craters from the day it was named America.
...a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight …
Focusing on the image, Yeats asked,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
The vision is as clear to Turner as it was to Yeats:
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle.
Seers of old returned to share their visions with their communities, just as women shared their corn and men their hunt.
But there is no community. The very memory of community is a fogged image out of Spiritus Mundi.
The seer of now pours his vision on sheets of paper, on banks of arid craters where armored bullies stand guard and demand the password, Positive Evidence. No vision can pass by their gates. The only song that passes is a song gone as dry and cadaverous as the fossils in the sands.
Turner, himself a guard, a professor, has the courage of a Bartolomé de Las Casas. He storms the gates, refuses to give the password, and he sings, he rants, he almost dances.
The armor comes off. Even if it is not merely worn like clothes or masks, even if it is glued to face and body, even if skin and flesh must be yanked off with it, the armor does come off.
Of late, many have been storming the gates. Only recently one sang that the net of factories and mines was the Gulag Archipelago and all workers were zeks (namely conscripts, inmates, labor gang members). Another sang that the Nazis lost the war but their new order didn’t. Ranters are legion now. Is it about to rain? Is it the twilight of a new dawn? Or is it the twilight in which Minerva’s owl can see because day is all done?
* * *
Turner, Toynbee and others are focusing on the beast that is destroying the only known home of living beings.
Turner subtitles his book, “The Western Spirit against the Wilderness.” By Western Spirit he means the attitude or posture, the soul or spirit of Western Civilization, known nowadays as Civilization.
Turner defines Wilderness the same way the Western Spirit defines it, except that the term is positive for Turner, negative for the Western Spirit: Wilderness embraces all of Nature and all the human communities beyond Civilization’s ken."
Perlman wasn't shitting the bed. There are still a good number of copies of this book out in the world. Track one down. And find out about the first several genocides, the first several holocausts on which Hitler based his dreams.
And know that any resistance movement with any prospect of victory mounted against this nightmare culture will be answered with each one of our heads dashed against the rocks, our children murdered in front of us, our best and bravest locked down or sold out, and the land forever poisoned, whether in the name of God or in the name of his child Science.
Never have I been more convinced that the struggle against fascism and the struggle against civilization are iterations of the same struggle.
I received the contents of this book, digested over a couple weeks in a few long sittings, absolutely as a revelation– a vision– but not in the sense of unfolding the contours of a history previously unknown to me. Turner describes the causes and consequences of a substitution affected by the conquerors of "western civilization:" that is the substitution of history for myth as a way of understanding life and the world. The result, originally published in 1980, is an achievement I, in turn, cannot describe. I have read hundreds of books and hundreds and hundreds of pamphlets, and this is one of the most important works I could recommend to anyone who would understand this culture and its sickness.
In Fredy Perlman's 1983 book "Against His-story, Against Leviathan!" he has the following to say about Turner's "Beyond Geography" (an appraisal I quote here at some length):
"In a wonderfully lucid book titled Beyond Geography, a book which also goes beyond history, beyond technology, beyond civilization, Frederick W. Turner (not to be confused with Frederick Jackson Turner, the frontiersman’s advocate) draws the curtain and floods the stage with light.
Others drew the curtain before Turner; they’re the ones who made the secret public: Toynbee, Drinnon, Jennings, Camatte, Debord, Zerzan among contemporaries whose lights I’ve borrowed; Melville, Thoreau, Blake, Rousseau, Montaigne, Las Casas among predecessors; Lao Tze as long ago as written memory can reach.
Turner borrows the lights of human communities beyond civilization’s ken to see beyond geography. He sees with the eyes of the dispossessed of this once beautiful world that rests on a turtle’s back, this double continent whose ponds emptied, whose banks were rent, whose forests became arid craters from the day it was named America.
...a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight …
Focusing on the image, Yeats asked,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
The vision is as clear to Turner as it was to Yeats:
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle.
Seers of old returned to share their visions with their communities, just as women shared their corn and men their hunt.
But there is no community. The very memory of community is a fogged image out of Spiritus Mundi.
The seer of now pours his vision on sheets of paper, on banks of arid craters where armored bullies stand guard and demand the password, Positive Evidence. No vision can pass by their gates. The only song that passes is a song gone as dry and cadaverous as the fossils in the sands.
Turner, himself a guard, a professor, has the courage of a Bartolomé de Las Casas. He storms the gates, refuses to give the password, and he sings, he rants, he almost dances.
The armor comes off. Even if it is not merely worn like clothes or masks, even if it is glued to face and body, even if skin and flesh must be yanked off with it, the armor does come off.
Of late, many have been storming the gates. Only recently one sang that the net of factories and mines was the Gulag Archipelago and all workers were zeks (namely conscripts, inmates, labor gang members). Another sang that the Nazis lost the war but their new order didn’t. Ranters are legion now. Is it about to rain? Is it the twilight of a new dawn? Or is it the twilight in which Minerva’s owl can see because day is all done?
* * *
Turner, Toynbee and others are focusing on the beast that is destroying the only known home of living beings.
Turner subtitles his book, “The Western Spirit against the Wilderness.” By Western Spirit he means the attitude or posture, the soul or spirit of Western Civilization, known nowadays as Civilization.
Turner defines Wilderness the same way the Western Spirit defines it, except that the term is positive for Turner, negative for the Western Spirit: Wilderness embraces all of Nature and all the human communities beyond Civilization’s ken."
Perlman wasn't shitting the bed. There are still a good number of copies of this book out in the world. Track one down. And find out about the first several genocides, the first several holocausts on which Hitler based his dreams.
And know that any resistance movement with any prospect of victory mounted against this nightmare culture will be answered with each one of our heads dashed against the rocks, our children murdered in front of us, our best and bravest locked down or sold out, and the land forever poisoned, whether in the name of God or in the name of his child Science.
Never have I been more convinced that the struggle against fascism and the struggle against civilization are iterations of the same struggle.
September 15, 2022
One of the more remarkable books I've ever read. It is bold, ambitious, and has the kind of edge to it that is gained through close examination of the spirit. This was a man who knew himself, his people, and where we've possibly gone wrong.
It is a poetic history arranged into three parts: Loomings; Rites of Passage; Haunts. Stretching from the Crisis Cult of Christianity's founding to the massacre at Wounded Knee, the scope and thoughtfulness of this work are deeply enriching and inspiring.
"Here again [on the western Plains] we encounter the clash between history and myth, with the whites, driven to enormous technological ingenuity, producing a vast array of seductive items for peoples of the globe whose spiritual contentments had kept their own technologies at comparatively simple levels. Regarding this phenomenon, enacted everywhere whites invaded the wilderness, we know now that there has been no people on earth capable of resisting this seduction, for none has been able to see the hidden and devious byways that lead inevitably from the consumption of the new luxuries to the destruction of the myths that give life its meaning."
The book finished, set aside now, but the thought lingers with startling immediacy, its implications frightening: What if the Project before us is nothing less than the unwinding of the conquest of the Americas by the Christianized West?
It is a poetic history arranged into three parts: Loomings; Rites of Passage; Haunts. Stretching from the Crisis Cult of Christianity's founding to the massacre at Wounded Knee, the scope and thoughtfulness of this work are deeply enriching and inspiring.
"Here again [on the western Plains] we encounter the clash between history and myth, with the whites, driven to enormous technological ingenuity, producing a vast array of seductive items for peoples of the globe whose spiritual contentments had kept their own technologies at comparatively simple levels. Regarding this phenomenon, enacted everywhere whites invaded the wilderness, we know now that there has been no people on earth capable of resisting this seduction, for none has been able to see the hidden and devious byways that lead inevitably from the consumption of the new luxuries to the destruction of the myths that give life its meaning."
The book finished, set aside now, but the thought lingers with startling immediacy, its implications frightening: What if the Project before us is nothing less than the unwinding of the conquest of the Americas by the Christianized West?
April 7, 2024
There were some interesting ideas in this book, one being the clash of linear history with cyclical mythology. However, the writing style was such that I had trouble maintaining attention. Also, I think the books Ishmael by Daniel Quinn and The Christ Conspiracy by DM Murdock do a better job interpreting and explaining the mythologies of the Bible.
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