Benjamin Paul Blood (1832–1919) was an American philosopher and poet.
Contents |
He was born in Amsterdam, New York on November 21, 1832. His father, John Blood, was a prosperous landowner. Blood was known as an intelligent man but an unfocused one. He described himself:
I was born here in Amsterdam. My father was a land holder of 700 acres [2.8 km²] here, adjoining the city on both sides of the river, and lived, as I now live, in a large brick house on the south bank of the Mohawk visible as you enter Amsterdam from the east. I was his only child, and went a good deal my own way. I ran to machinery, by fancy; patented among other devices a swathing reaper which is very successful. I was of loose and wandering ways. And was a successful gambler through the Tweed regime -- made 'bar'ls' of money, and threw it away. I was a fancy gymnast also, and have had some heavy fights, notable one of forty minutes with Ed. Mullett, whom I left senseless. This was mere fancy. I never lifted an angry hand against man, woman or child -- all fun -- for me. ....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. So you see, if Sparta has many a worthier son, I am still boss in the department I prefer.
Blood wrote prolifically but the larger portion of his writing consisted of letters, either to local newspapers or to friends such as James Hutchison Stirling, Alfred Tennyson and William James (the above quote was from a letter to James). H. M. Kallen wrote of Blood:
He was born in 1832 and lived for eighty-six years. During that time he wrote much, but unsystematically. His favorite form of publication was letters to newspapers, mainly local newspapers with a small circulation. These letters dealt with an astonishing diversity of subjects, from local petty politics or the tricks of spiritualist mediums to principles of industry and finance and profundities of metaphysics.
During his lifetime he was best known for his poetry, which included The Bride of the Iconoclast, Justice,and The Colonnades. Optimism: The Lesson of Ages (1860) is a Christian mystical vision of the pursuit of happiness from Blood's distinctly American perspective. According to Christopher Nelson, Blood was a direct influence on William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience [1] as well on James's concept of Sciousness, prime reality consciousness without a sense of self.[2]
After experiencing the anesthetic nitrous oxide during a dental operation, Blood concluded that the gas had opened his mind to new ideas and continued experimenting with it. In 1874, he published a 37-page pamphlet, The Anesthetic Revelation and the Gist of Philosophy.
He married twice; to Mary Sayles, and following her death, to Harriet Lefferts. He had a daughter from each marriage.
Blood died on January 15, 1919. His final work, Pluriverse, was published posthumously.
Bates, E.S. Blood, Benjamin Paul. In: Allen Johnson, ed. Dictionary of American Biography, volume 2. New York: Scribner's, 1957, pp 383–384
Blood, Benjamin, Paul. Optimism: The Lesson of Ages. Guilford: [Eirini Press] http://eirinipress.com, reprinted 2009, ISBN 978-0-9799989-1-1
Bricklin, Jonathan, Ed., Sciousness, Guilford, CT: [Eirini Press] http://eirinipress.com, ISBN 978-0-9799989-0-4
Marks, Robert Walter. The Philosophic Faith of Benjamin Paul Blood: A Study of the Thought and Times of an American Mystic. Ph.D. dissertation, New School for Social Research, 1953
Nelson, Christopher. The Artificial Mystic State of Mind: WJ, Benjamin Paul Blood, and the Nitrous-Oxide Variety of Religious Experience." "Streams of William James. The William James Society. Volume 4, Issue 3 (Fall 2002)
Wright, A.J. Benjamin Paul Blood: Anesthesia's Philosopher and Mystic. In: B. Raymond Fink, ed. The History of Anesthesia: Third International Symposium. Park Ridge, Ill.: Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, 1992, pp 447–456