The Thursday, April 4, 2019 Podcast with Bob Cudmore
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14 Minutes
Friday, April 5-Episode 260-Bruce Chadwick, author of “The General and Mrs. Washington: The Untold Story of a Marriage and a Revolution,” talks about joy and tragedy in the lives of George and Martha Washington. Chadwick was a featured speaker at the recent George Washington Symposium sponsored by the Fort Plain Museum. Scroll Down for The April-May Historians Schedule Mohawk Valley Weather, Thursday, April 4, 2019-Sunny, with a high near 46. Breezy, with a west wind 14 to 22 mph, with gusts as high as 36 mph. "In Print" Thursday, April 4, 2019-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Philosopher and poet Benjamin Paul Blood. Philosopher and Poet a psychedelic pioneer: Benjamin Paul Blood advocated use of nitrous oxide to expand mind
By Bob Cudmore, Daily Gazette, October 30, 2004
Over a hundred years ago, a philosopher and poet living in Amsterdam experimented with mind-altering drugs to have mystical experiences.
Benjamin Paul Blood had been given nitrous oxide, laughing gas, during a dental operation in 1860. According to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, Blood “felt the gas opened his mind to new ideas and he continued experimenting with it.”
In 1874, Blood published a pamphlet called “The Anesthetic Revelation and the Gist of Philosophy.” The great American philosopher William James reviewed the pamphlet for The Atlantic magazine and James, too, began using nitrous oxide to have mystical experiences.
Blood sent his pamphlet far and wide and, according to a 1996 article in The Atlantic by Dmitri Tymoczko, “a tiny group of nitrous oxide philosophers” formed in America and England using the drug to create “some sort of incommunicable metaphysical illumination.”
. Of the mystical condition, Blood wrote, “Although it may have been attained otherwise, I know (it) by the use of anesthetic agents.”
Tymoczko said that the empirical James was attracted to Blood’s chemically induced mysticism because it lacked religious content. Tymoczko argued that Blood and James started the “first American psychedelic movement.” They called their concept “pluralism,” meaning that mystic experiences could be religious, drug-induced or achieved by other means. In 1910, James closed a letter to his Amsterdam friend with the phrase, “Warm regards, fellow pluralist!”
“Mr. Blood inhabits a city otherwise, I imagine, quite unvisited by the Muses, the town called Amsterdam, situated on the New York Central Railroad,” wrote James in an essay called “The Pluralistic Mystic.” “What his regular or bread-winning occupation may be I know not, but it can’t have made him super-wealthy. He is an author only when the fit strikes him, and for short spurts at a time; shy, moreover, to the point of publishing his compositions only as private tracts, or in letters to such far-from-reverberant organs of publicity as the Gazette or the Recorder of his native Amsterdam.”
“Blood could multiply large numbers in his head,” wrote Tymoczko. “He could demolish the itinerant lecturers who were a staple of nineteenth-century American popular culture. On one occasion he demonstrated to an astonished crowd how a visiting spiritualist had produced apparently ghostly occurrences.”
Born in 1832, Blood was the only son of John Blood who owned 700 acres of land on both sides of the Mohawk River. John and then Benjamin Paul Blood lived, according to the son, “in a large brick house on the south bank of the Mohawk visible as you enter Amsterdam from the east.”
In a letter to James, Blood said, “I do farming in a way, but am much idle. I have been a sort of pet of the city, and think I should be missed. In a large vote taken by one of the daily papers here a month or so ago as to who were the 12 leading citizens, I was 6th in the 12, and sole in my class.”
According to Wikipedia, Blood’s letters to area newspapers dealt with subjects ranging “from local petty politics or the tricks of spiritualist mediums to principles of industry and finance and profundities of metaphysics.” His poetry included titles such as “The Bride of the Iconoclast,” “Justice,” “Optimism,” and “The Collonades.”
He was married to Mary Sayles and after her death married Harriet Lefferts. He had a daughter from each marriage. The Blood name was well known in Amsterdam and Benjamin Paul apparently was related to the family that created the downtown Blood Building and Blood Knitting Mill.
Blood died in 1919 and his last book, Pluniverse: An Essay in the Philosophy of Pluralism was printed after his death. In 1955, Horace Kallen of New York City gave Blood’s papers to Harvard’s Houghton Library. According to a website posted by the Kronia Group, Kallen was a co-founder of the New School for Social Research, editor of William James’ unfinished works and literary executor for Benjamin Paul Blood. Amsterdam Talk Posted as a Video Podcast on The Historians Jason Subik Show, WCSS Radio Amsterdam 106.9FM and 1490AM Monday-Thursday at 9 Jason Subik Facebook Feed https://www.facebook.com/jason.subik Wednesday, April 3, 2019 Thanks to an anonymous contribution, the 2019 Historians Podcast fund drive now stands at $1,504, 38.5% of our $4,000 goal! Please make a donation this week. www.gofundme.com/2019-the-historians If you would rather donate by mail, please make out a check to Bob Cudmore and send to 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, N.Y. 12302 On Thursday, April 11, 2019, the American Revolution Round Table: Hudson/Mohawk Valleys and Siena College’s McCormick Center for the Study of the American Revolution are proud to present, Decision-Making in the British Military Justice Process by William P. Tatum III, Ph.D. The event starts at 6:30 PM with time for socializing and networking followed by the program at 7:00 PM. The event will be held at Siena College, 515 Loudon Rd, Albany, NY 12211, in the Roger Bacon Building, Room 202, also known as Key Auditorium. Parking is free and please park in Lots L, F or G. To register, please provide your names(s), telephone number in an email to arrthudsonmohawkvalleys@gmail.com or by phone at 518-774-5669. Bob Cudmore’s guest this Sunday, April 7, 2019 on Magic 590’s Talk of the Town is Carm Basile, CEO of Capital District Transportation Authority. He’ll have the latest on a possible expansion of CDTA bus service to Montgomery County, the future of electric buses and other topics. Listen Sunday at 6:30 a.m. on Magic 590 and 100.5 plus on 96.9 and 1410 in the Glens Falls area.
FORT PLAIN Interested local history lovers are encouraged to share memories, family histories, vintage photo albums, post cards, memorabilia, scrapbooks, and more during the next gathering of the Fort Plain Free Library’s Local History Round Table from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on April 17, 2019 at the library 19 Willett St. The free discussion does not require registration and meets on the third Wednesday of each month. The forum will be facilitated by town and village historians. (518) 993-4646 In honor of the Year of the Woman, The Capital Region Dance Alliance announces the return of its popular program, Dancing Through Time. The program combines movement, lecture and video, highlighting the inspiration of women and their influence in American dance. NYHB https://newyorkhistoryblog.org/2019/04/dancing-through-time-in-saratoga/ April on The Historians Friday, April 12-Episode 261-Richard Ratajak, now 87, looks back on his life as a child in Amsterdam, a soldier in the Korean War, and a priest who served at Auriesville Shrine. Ratajak left the priesthood to marry the woman he loved and held jobs in state government as he gradually lost his eyesight. He worked for the state agency that helped blind people find meaningful work and served on the board of RISE, WMHT’s radio service for the blind. Friday, April 19-Episode 262-Warren Garling tells how his career as a radio disc jockey began at a young age in his memoir, “I’ll Have to Ask My Mom: A Radio Journey.” Using the on-air name Chris Warren, he is still heard on Capital District radio. Friday, April 26-Episode 263-Victoria Riskin, a psychologist and movie/TV producer, is the author of “Fay Wray and Robert Riskin: A Hollywood Memoir” about her parents.
In May 2019: Gloversville Leader Herald history columnist Peter Betz, plus guests from the National Publicity Summit.
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