The Man Who Became WHAT IS

 How Franklin Merrell-Wolff Found A Pathway Through to OM

On my long path in the quest for enlightenment and psychospiritual healing, the beacon planted by Franklin Merrell-Wolff has been a great resource for me. He wrote two accounts of his attainment of the supreme liberation. I read the autobiographical version, *Pathways Through to Space*, in the mid-1970s, when, like millions of other post-acid premature illuminates, I was groping about for inside information on the whole spiritual trip. After making some painstaking but solid progress over the next three decades, I read FMW’s *The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object*, which fleshes out his spiritual discoveries in great detail. It provided exactly what I needed at that stage of my path: a crystal-clear description of the nature of ultimate reality. Now at last I knew exactly where I was headed for, with some invaluable signposts for the challenging far reaches of the route.

FMW’s incredibly cerebral treatment is not for everybody, and people who take a casual look often jump to the mistaken conclusion that it’s just an intellectual trip. In fact it renders a vital service: intellect-centered seekers have a harder job of it than emotionals or intuitives, in that there’s a hell of a lot more to get out of the way in the process of transcending everything conceptual ~ and FMW is a scintillating role model and example of how to do that. He simply could not attain THAT which lies beyond the intellect until after he understood it intellectually. Makes perfect sense to us head-trippers!

Now I’ve compiled a review and commentary on the magnum opus of Franklin Merrell-Wolff, linked here for your perusal. A key task I undertook was to *cross-translate* (to use one of his own terms) his polysyllabic elucidations into terminology that the average person can grasp. For instance, in chapter 4, Where FMW is at the threshold of his ultimate Recognition, I quoted him thus: “There remained merely the clearing up of the residual barriers to the complete identification of the self with the supersensible and substantial world, accompanied by the thorough divorcement of the self-identity with the phenomenal world.” Phew, what a mouthful, right? So I cross-translated it as: “All I had to do was totally stop being ME and start being THAT.”

If you can dig this little feat of verbal prestidigitation, you may well enjoy the story!

1. The First Eureka
2. Striking Gold
3. The NOTHING is the Real; the World is Really Nothing
4. The OM In Itself
5. Inside OM
6. The High Indifference