The Emerson family were descendants of a number of noteworthy New England ministers (Schulman). Like his father, William, Ralph Waldo Emerson became a minister at the local church in Boston. Even though Emerson enjoyed preaching, he did not believe that ministry was his calling. He was often thought to leave the ministry because he could not inconscience serve communion knowing the members construed the meaning differently than he did. While most of his family members practiced ministry, his paternal aunt, Mary Moody Emerson, did not. Her relentless intellectual energy and combative individualism left a permanent stamp on him as a thinker (Brewton). She knew all the thinkers of the day, taught Ralph many aphorisms, and first introduced him to Hindu scriptures and Neoplatonism (Schulman). Mary was at the same time passionately orthodox in religion and a lover of controversy, as well as an original thinker tending to a mysticism that was a precursor to her nephew’s more radical beliefs (Brewton). It is further said that Mary anticipated the Transcendentalist sensibility because of her openness to natural religion (Schulman). Ralph eventually joined the Transcendentalist movement, where people shared a key belief that each individual could transcend, or move beyond, the physical world of the senses into deeper spiritual experience through free will and intuition (“Ralph Waldo”). Also, Emerson’s spiritual thoughts
The Emerson family were descendants of a number of noteworthy New England ministers (Schulman). Like his father, William, Ralph Waldo Emerson became a minister at the local church in Boston. Even though Emerson enjoyed preaching, he did not believe that ministry was his calling. He was often thought to leave the ministry because he could not inconscience serve communion knowing the members construed the meaning differently than he did. While most of his family members practiced ministry, his paternal aunt, Mary Moody Emerson, did not. Her relentless intellectual energy and combative individualism left a permanent stamp on him as a thinker (Brewton). She knew all the thinkers of the day, taught Ralph many aphorisms, and first introduced him to Hindu scriptures and Neoplatonism (Schulman). Mary was at the same time passionately orthodox in religion and a lover of controversy, as well as an original thinker tending to a mysticism that was a precursor to her nephew’s more radical beliefs (Brewton). It is further said that Mary anticipated the Transcendentalist sensibility because of her openness to natural religion (Schulman). Ralph eventually joined the Transcendentalist movement, where people shared a key belief that each individual could transcend, or move beyond, the physical world of the senses into deeper spiritual experience through free will and intuition (“Ralph Waldo”). Also, Emerson’s spiritual thoughts