Explores Whitman's reception among ardent followers (including George Fox, Father Taylor and Elias Hicks) in the light of Whitman's extra-literary, mystical or neo-religious impact, emphasizing the disparate, essentially incompatible perspectives of "the detached critic" as opposed to the "attached devotee"; compares Whitman's reception to that of "poet-masters" in Eastern cultural traditions.
Reads H.D.'s Tribute to the Angels in conjunction with Whitman's "Song of Myself," finding congruities that "reinforce the value of mysticism in both works"; uses James E. Miller, Jr.'s essay "'Song of Myself' as Inverted Mystical Experience" as a key into H.D.'s poems.
Employing ideas from the Upanishads, explores Whitman's mysticism in relation to themes of "song and silence" described in early notebooks; argues for a serious understanding of Whitman's "experiences of expanded awareness" in order to "shed light on his desire for simplicity, and at the same time disclose the depth and profundity of those experiences."