The Ghost in the White House / Some suggestions as to how a hundred million people (who are supposed in a vague, helpless way to haunt the white house) can make themselves felt with a president, how they can back him up, express themselves to him, be expressed by him, and get what they want

by Gerald Stanley Lee

NATIONAL BIOLOGY

A man in being born the first time is the invention of others. Being born again is the finding of oneself, oneself,—the spiritual invention of one's own life.

Being born again is far more intelligent than being born the first time.

All one has to do to see this, is to look about and see the people who have done it.

When one is being born the first time one does not even know it. One is not especially intelligent the first time and could not really help it. And nobody else could help it.

When one is being born again it takes all one can know and all one can know and do, and all everybody around one knows, and all everybody around can do, to help one do it. In 1776 when America was being born first, America did not have the slightest idea of what was happening. It has taken one hundred and forty-four birthdays to guess.

A nation is born the first time with its eyes shut.

But in this terrible 1920 when America is being born again, she can only manage to be born again by knowing all about herself, by disrobing herself to be born again, by a supreme colossal act of self-devotion, self-discovery, self-consciousness and consciousness of the world, naked before God, reading the hearts of forty nations, a thousand years and the unborn, and knowing herself,—slipping off her old self and putting on her new self.

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