Emerson's essay, Nature, proposed a new religious vision or outlook on theology. He abandoned older religious theories of heaven, hell, salvation, and the Holy Spirit. However, he did not abandon religion or Christianity; he desired spiritual growth, moral insight, and religious experiences. In Nature, he suggested to his readers that they "enjoy an original relation to the universe" (813). For Christianity, the history of the universe is dictated in the Bible. Emerson saw these accounts as a history of tradition; these theories are not our own, but someone else's. "Let us demand our own works and laws and worship" (813). This revision of religious beliefs gave people a new way to express and understand their religious hunger. Emerson's revision came to be known as Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism was greatly based on religious experience. For Emerson and other transcendentalists, direct experiences in nature were experiences of the holy. This new set of beliefs provided religious sentiment for a modern world. Religious experiences were no longer limited to churches, the Bible, or preachers. Emerson searched for these religious experiences within himself and in nature.
Emerson had a new religious theory: "the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul." (814). He offered Christians a new method for attaining a religious experience without a church or prayer. For Emerson, a religious experience was simply attained by being in nature. "I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars" (814). For Emerson, viewing the stars was like viewing the city of God. "Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part of particle of God.
