California State University, Fullerton - Summer 2022
Graphic design 127, Chapter 1 Exam
Professor Hemmen, Section 5
January 17, 2022
As a result, Jacob Needleman (October 6, 1934 – November 28, 2022) was an American
philosopher, author, and religious scholar. Additionally, Needleman was Jewish and was
educated at Harvard University, Yale University, and the University of Freiburg, Germany.
Class Date: 6/7/2024
Professor’s Comment: Please add more depth to your historical analysis.
GENERIC CONTENT:
## Background
He was deeply involved in the Gurdjieff Work and the Gurdjieff Foundation of San Francisco.
He was a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Religion at San Francisco State University
and is said to have "popularized the term 'new religious movements'."
## Conclusion (List)
- He was a former visiting professor at the Duxx Graduate School of Business Leadership in
Monterrey, Mexico, and former director of the Center for the study of New Religions at the
Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.
- He has also served as a research associate at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical
Research, a research fellow at Union Theological Seminary, Adjunct Professor of Medical
Ethics at the University of California Medical School and guest Professor of Religious Studies
at the Sorbonne University, Paris (1992).
- Needleman was honored by the Open Center in New York City in 2006.
- Needleman also narrated classical religious texts in audiobook format, including the Taoist
Tao Te Ching and the Hindu Bhagavad Gita.
## Findings
== Commentary ==
=== On being a philosopher ===
At Talks at Google in 2007, Needleman said, "A philosopher deals with the great
unanswerable questions, which I think have answers, but not usually in the state of being
that we're asking them. In other words, these great questions that wake us up in the middle
of the night about: Why are we here? What's the meaning of it all?
## Discussion
Questions that some people make fun of. These questions are some of the kinds of questions
that sometimes the mind can ask, but the mind alone cannot answer. And since we are a
culture that has gravitated toward, the center of gravity of most of our personalities, is the
intellect, these questions seem to be intrinsically unanswerable and the response to these
questions has to be not just in words or in interesting insights, but in the movement down
from the mind to make contact with the heart and the body, which, when they work
together, are like another intelligence.
## Analysis
So that is what I think the true Philosopher tries to open to — that part which can respond
to these [questions] and actually live what we are speaking about." === On democracy ===
In a 2012 On Being interview with Krista Tippett, Needleman said, "A democratic citizen is
not a citizen who can do anything he wants; it's a citizen who has an obligation at the same
time.
## Background (List)
- And just to give you an example, if I may, the freedom of speech, what is the duty
associated with it?
- Well, if you ponder that a little bit, you'll come to the conclusion very clearly that the right
of free speech implies the duty of allowing others to speak.
- If I have the right to speak, I have the duty to let you speak.
- Now, that's not so simple.
## Conclusion (List)
- It doesn't mean just to stop my talking and wait till you're finished and then come in and
get you.
- It means I have an obligation inwardly — and that's what we're speaking about, is the
inner dimension.
- Inwardly, I have to work at listening to you.
- That means I don't have to agree with you, but I have to let your thought into my mind to
have a real democratic exchange between us.
- And that is a very interesting work of the human being, don't you think?"
## Findings (List)
- === On money ===
In a 1990 A World of Ideas Interview with Bill Moyers, Needleman said, "There's always
been greed, there's always been avarice.
- There's always been a problem with people wanting more than they need.
- That's caused more problems for the human race than almost anything else.
- But cultures have always wanted other things, too.
- They've wanted honor.
## Discussion
They've wanted power. Love.
## Analysis
Respect. Beauty. It's hard to say now, though, that our culture wants anything else as much
as it wants money."
## Background
=== On the Gurdjieff teachings ===
Needleman spoke often of Gurdjieff and his teaching. In a 1991 interview with Gnosis
magazine, Needleman said, "What Gurdjieff offers is a world view—the idea of an organic
universe, a conscious universe, a universe with a purpose. The Gurdjieff teaching said life is
a fundamental property of reality, and there is a movement toward consciousness and away
from consciousness.
## Conclusion (List)
- There is a ladder of energies going up and down, and everything is included in that in some
grand purpose.
- I found this very reasonable.
## Findings
Later scientific discoveries have more or less confirmed that there's more livingness in the
universe than was thought thirty or forty years ago." Decades later, in a 2016 interview with
Commonweal, Needleman said, "What does humanity serve? The human being is meant to
serve, is here on earth, according to Gurdjieff's teaching, to serve other human beings, to
serve the earth, and to serve a certain function in the universe.
## Discussion
That means, practically speaking we are built to serve, we are built to be able to love."
References / Works Cited:
1. Wikipedia (n.d.). Retrieved from https://wikipedia.org/
2. Random Book Title (2022). Academic Publishing House.