Aphorisms & Poetry

This page provides access to Franklin Merrell-Wolff's aphorisms and poetry; you can also read an introduction to his Aphorisms & Poetry.
Title Date File
Seventy-Two Aphorisms from 1937

This list of seventy-two aphorisms is dated from “prior to 9/12/37 to 11/26/37.” The ten aphorisms from November 26, 1937 were published in The Bulletin of the Assembly of Man 22 (Autumn 1964): 15 as “Aphorisms on Attachment.” (4 pages)

1937 read or download
Aphorisms On Consciousness without Content

The twelve aphorisms listed here on “Consciousness without Content” were published in the The Bulletin of the Assembly of Man 14 (Autumn 1962): 2-3 as “Seed Thoughts from ‘Consciousness Without Content’.” (1 page)

No date read or download
Aphorisms on Consciousness-without-an-object, First Series

This small booklet contains Wolff's fifty-six aphorisms on Consciousness-without-an-object from his book, The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object: Reflections on the Nature of Transcendental Consciousness, which was published by Julian Press in 1973. (15 pages)

1937 read or download
Aphorisms On the Thought of the Self

This excerpt from The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object (Part 3, Chapter VI: “Idealism Continued”) contains a list of eleven aphorisms on the “Thought of the Self”; in addition, Wolff briefly comments on the nature of aphoristic statements. (2 pages)

ca. 1937 read or download
Aphorisms On the Vertical Orientation

This list of aphorisms on the “vertical orientation” undoubtedly accompanied Wolff's 1940 political essay “The Vertical Thought Movement.” (1 page, 2 copies)

ca. 1940 read or download
Aphorisms On the Holistic

In 1952, Wolff—having been recently introduced to the work of Aurobindo—gave a “Holistic Lecture Series Dealing with a Method of Supramental Descent.” This list of twenty-seven aphorisms on the “Holistic” may have accompanied the content of these lectures. (3 handwritten pages + 3 pages of a typed copy)

ca. 1952 read or download
Poetry from Pathways Through to Space

Shortly after beginning the journal that would become Pathways Through to Space, Wolff began to express himself poetically, a form that he notes “broke forth spontaneously.” The file here contains all seventeen poems that were included in Pathways Through to Space, which as noted, were composed between August 26, 1936 and November 16, 1936. (28 pages)

26 August 1936–16 November 1936 read or download
To the Golden One

This is a transcription of a poem to the "Golden One,” which was penned by Wolff for an entity channeled by Wolff's first wife, Sherifa. (1 page)

20 September 1936 read or download
An Untitled Poem

This untitled poem was handwritten by Wolff on the back of the last page of the typed copy of his composition, “Reflections on the High Indifference.” This essay was dated December 29, 1936, and it is likely that the poem was written around the same time. The handwritten copy is followed by a transcribed copy of the poem. (2 pages)

ca. December 1936 read or download
An Untitled Poem

The attached file is a transcript of this untitled poem; the original, which is a handwritten draft, has has been dated c. 1937. (5 pages)

ca. 1937 read or download
An Untitled Poem

The attached file is a transcript of this untitled poem; the original is a handwritten draft. (1 page)

No date read or download
The Rising Sun

This poem was published in the first issue of The Bulletin of the Assembly of Man1 (June 1960): 4-5. The date of its composition is not known. (2 pages)

No date read or download