On the Anniversary of Thoreau’s ‘Walden’ and Its Place in
American Religious HistoryPosted: August 9, 2012 Today marks the
158th anniversary of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. It couldn’t
have come at a better time. Right now I am knee deep in
Transcendentalists, Thoreau included, as I wade through my
chapter on Transcendentalist representations of Hinduism. The
combination of today’s anniversary and my current writing work
got me thinking about how Henry David Thoreau fits into American
religious history. Right now I’m working to put Thoreau into the
proper place as one of America’s earliest Orientalists. Thoreau
studied and appreciated Hindu religious texts, among other Asian
traditions, and found them inspirational for his spiritual
thought and literary prose. But he also took a view of “the
East” and “the Orient” that imagined it as an essentially
spiritual place. As New England industrialized around him,
Thoreau looked to the Orient as a counterbalance–a place of
spiritual contemplation and ancient truth t