Book Review of "Spiritual Democracy" by Steven Herrmann, Ph.D.

As the United States descends into the final decade of “the fourth turning ”, with accelerating volatility, uncertainty, chaos, and ambiguity (AVUCA), it is high time to turn to first principles. While revisiting our founding documents is important, for many, the spiritual principles behind them remain obscure. Steven Herrmann’s book, Spiritual Democracy , brings them to light by:

1. Tracing the contours of the American soul by bringing to the fore the foundational contributions of Whitman, Melville, Dickinson and Jung, thereby defining who we are and what we must become to be Americans in the spiritual, political and economic realms,

2. Providing us with a riveting example of Spiritual Democracy - Walt Whitman -, a son/un who heard the call, who took up the bold challenge to become America enfleshed in a single body, one guided by our principles, defiantly resistant to oppression in all its forms, and a walking, talking, feeling, and erotic refuge radiating the Holy pleasure and wisdom of our bodies, Nature/Kosmos, and

3. Illuminating our nation’s hero’s journey, a pathway to become fully self-, society- and Kosmos- actualized, to integrate our nation’s shadows and prismatic soul, by following the deeper themes and character arcs of Moby Dick - a moral and psychological framework for our current and future challenges.

Ideas shape nations, and especially covenantal ones like the United States. We are not an ethnostate, but a covenantal nation consecrated upon sacred ideas: “All created equal”, “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”, and “e pluribus unum” committed to becoming a mutli-racial/ethnic/religious liberal democracy in feel, form and function. We are not first and foremost individual pleasure-seeking economic actors, but rather an agreement first - to not just uphold these ideas and expand them, but to honor and become them in our thoughts, words, and deeds.?

In this sense, Herrmann completes the task of outlining the spiritual quest of our nation, providing each soul an opportunity to take their vows, and begin the path to liberation, actualization and genuine citizenship. Unfortunately, outside of naturalization exams and ceremonies for immigrants, none of us were given the opportunity to take our vows and begin the path to self-, society- and Kosmos- realization. Even more devastating is that perhaps fewer than 1% of us even know what these ideas and vows are, much less what they mean in modern terms.

Herrmann remedies this ignorance by applying an electron microscope to the spiritual ideas and moral intuitions that led to the re-birth of the United States during and after the Civil War. As our nation finds itself in a similar moment, one brimming with progress (Suffrage, Civil Rights Act, Marriage Equality Act), and regress (white nationalism, anti-intellectualism, political entrepreneurship / populism / corruption / dysfunction, rendering us incapable of addressing the existential threats of our polycrisis - see below), people seeking personal, civic, economic and political guidance during the coming decade of accelerating chaos, social unrest and political violence, will be nourished by the guidance this book provides.

Like all works of non-fiction, it is never complete, but an abandoned draft, so below are some ideas for how to make a second edition even stronger if the author feels called:

1. Begin with an explicit treatment of our national purpose - “All Created Equal”, “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”, and “e pluribus unum”, tracing the origins of these ideas to not just the Greeks, French Enlightenment, the and Transcendentalists, but to their native sources, e.g,. The Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace, Sufism, Hinduism, and kabbalah, and updating the meaning of these words with what the last 150 years of science has offered us.
2. Offer explicit guidance on what a civic religion is, how to best effectuate it, and then illuminate the pathway provided by our poet-shamans, Whitman, Melville, Dickinson, and Jung.
3. Expand the guidance provided in Part Three for individuals, organizational leaders, and public policy to realize the promise of Spiritual Democracy.
4. Finally, make this powerful work accessible to someone with an 8th grade vocabulary, distilling it into 150 pages, so that a modern reader / listener can engage with it during their commute.

In summation, Spiritual Democracy is a gift to the nation and the world, and joins the foundational books in our civic canon, such as A Documentary History of the United States, A People’s History of the United States, An Indigenous People’s History of the United States, The 1619 Project, Healing America’s Narratives, and Become America. Leaders looking for moral guidance in our nation’s dark winter, schools looking to enliven civics and literature programs, and individuals re/examining what it means to be a citizen of the United States will be electrified by this book.

About the Reviewer

Brandon is a best-selling author, the CEO of?Unity Lab , and an expert in purpose, leadership + culture change. He's trusted as a keynote speaker, consultant and program leader by organizations such as Google, Johnson & Johnson, Stanford University, JDRF, Morgan Stanley, U.S. Marine Corps, University of California - Berkeley, LinkedIn, the U.S. Navy, Slalom Consulting, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the University of Minnesota.

He has written / co-written four books on purpose and leadership and has a new book,?Purpose Work Nation . His work has been featured by news organizations such as USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, and Forbes.

Brandon holds an MBA in Leadership from Columbia Business School, is an Imperative Certified Purpose Leader (TM), a fellow at Citizen University, and serves on the Council of the Global Purpose Leaders and the Elder Body of the ManKind Project of Northern California.