I do too still love you, and my silence doesn't mean a thing! I've just been waiting (too long now!) to write you at some length about the pamphlets you sent me, for which many thanks. The man does not get very far with his discussion, and I wish he had read Poetic Values carefully. In considering our scale of values from common sense, on thru science and the higher values (esthetics-religion) the vital error is in the assumption that there is only one
valid state of awareness, in which all values are conceived. My Poetic Values was written to show how the values of the
lower scale are created in consciousness in keeping with the sense-level of awareness and that the higher values (rising to religious experience) are created in consciousness in keeping with a higher (or expanded) state of consciousness. This is the source of the universal error in regarding our
sense values as real; and the higher values as imaginary.
Perhaps I should rewrite and expand Poetic Values, placing greater emphasis upon this central, fundamental idea.
I'm thru at the University. It was a very successful year. Now I'm off by air to Memphis for a visit with Alice, Lynn, and Erica.
I'll write again. If you feel like writing me within the next couple of weeks, my address will be: c/o Alice Thompson, Route 1, Box 97, Lake Cormorant, Mississippi.
John Neihardt
