I am presenting here, a collection of transcribed lectures by May Benzenberg Mayer (MBM, 1860-1952), founder and director of The School of Applied Philosophy in New York City, which was active between the mid-1920’s and the early 1950’s. Most of the lectures were taken in shorthand by my great-aunt Gertrude Borchard (GB, 1891-1981) which she transcribed into typed form creating this 3,400+ page manuscript. Some were also recorded on tape. She and her sister, my grandmother, Alice Borchard Greene (ABG, 1893-1972), both faculty of the School, worked tirelessly on the manuscript in their later years into the 1970’s. Much of the transcribed lectures are in note form, i.e. containing incomplete sentences, but some have been edited by the two women to be complete, publishable material. Following the passing of MBM in 1953, Dr. Greene and Ms. Borchard continued to present lectures to the School in our family home in New Jersey so I started my philosophy education at a very young age.
The manuscript is broken down into lecture series, courses taking months of lectures, single one hour lectures and even index cards of quotes. Some of the lectures are directed to individuals just beginning their interest in personal development while other lectures are for more advanced students having worked on their self-development personally with MBM for years.
The original typed manuscript was Xeroxed to create five copies. The copy I have is one. I believe the others went to MBM’s son, Sandro Mayer of Fishkill, NY (deceased), Arthur Gill of Scarsdale, NY (deceased), Elizabeth Alpert of Avon-by-the-Sea, NJ (deceased) and the fifth, unknown. To see the editorial notes you would need to look at my typed paper copy which is now located at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., or you could look at the pdf of the manuscript. There will be editorial notes by either ABG, GB or MBM in the margins indicating either the lack of clarity or missing words resulting in incomplete or unclear sentences, shorthand notes or illegible, changed or inserted words. A series of dots also would indicate words or a phrase missing. There will also be editorial notes by GB where she either missed hearing certain MBM’s words or questioned her own shorthand notes during transcription. As an editor, GB added words or phrases and these are often included in parentheses. Rather than delete all those imperfect sentences, they remain so that one can glean some meaning and then just move on to the remaining material.
The Comments pane in the Pages or Word files of the manuscript will show the original page numbers and any editorial notes. There are many references to “Charts”. Look for the appropriate posters and charts in the folder titled “Posters and Charts”.
I recognized both Alice and Gertrude’s handwriting and was able to make some edits with good confidence. There are many questions which are shown in the Comments pane which are unfortunately unanswered.
-Carol Leslie (Shriner) Denick
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WESTERN ESOTERIC TRAINING
WESTERN ESOTERIC TRAINING (Two lectures by MBM) Lecture I November 7, 1944 Premises other conditions (than those of earth and 3rd dimension); increased faculties in man; continuity of individual life; responsibility for one’s own stature. Man can attain higher stature. Many names for that high goal. Every great race has its description of that Journey. […]
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