Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1694

Carbon of a letter from Heath at 312 Halesworth St., Santa Ana CA, to Mark Goldes, c/o Emerson College, Pacific Grove CA.

August 28, 1961

 

 

 

Dear Mark Goldes:

 

     Young Robert Gary Neugeboren at Emerson College was kind enough to put in my hand a copy of the book by Herbert Marcuse about which you told me so much in our long conversation at the oceanside cottage camp. It seemed as though he must have known about our talk.

 

     I have been much intrigued, but deplore that Marcuse had to arrive at his commendations of what he called “neo-Freudianism” through such a morass of negative and animalistic conceptions — and then in his very last sentence to contradict it all.

     My own thinking in that field proceeds on the premise that man as such can only be understood in terms of that which is unique in him. His uniqueness is that as his creative potential evolves by expression and not repression, then his animal instincts themselves within their limitations similarly evolve. That which was necessity is transformed into beauty. The body has its claims towards perfection no less to be respected than those of spirit and mind.

    Assuming from our conversation your very high and discriminating interest in this realm of thought, I am moved to send you a copy of my Citadel, Market and Altar, with particular reference to its third part proceeding out of the other two by dealing more specifically with the transcendent aspect of man. The scope is comprehensive, extending from quantum to cosmos. I am confident of your capacity to grasp it all.

    I hope your activities in the direction of ideally functioning education are proceeding well.

                       Cordially yours,