Hidden America

About the Book

The spirit of a nation is clearly expressed in its holidays. Here history unites with legend and collective imagination in a way that mutually reinforces each other and sheds light over the nature of the American Dream.

Who was Saint Tammany? Why was he celebrated at May Day in almost Celtic fashion? What can we learn from the froquois legend of the foundation of their League of Five Nations? W1io were Hiawatha and the Peacemaker? What spiritual tasks did Eranldin and Washington accomplish? Who was Pocahontas and why did she become a legend? These questions are used as gateways for understanding our major holidays - Presidents' Day, Fourth of July and Thanksgiving - and what they offer to the vision of a compassionate America.

The book offers an overview of the spiritual striving that accompanied the life of the Northern American continent for millennia. This spiritual path was promoted by the Native Americans, through the Algonquian ideals of Tammany and the Iroquois strivings of Hiawatha and the Peacemaker. Little known to history are the influxes of the ancient Celts, an emblematic Templar expedition to the eastern shore, and the idealistic striving of the Freemasons that added significant influences to the local tradition.

Wind your way through the many stories and legends that are woven into the historical fabric and the collective imagination of the nation. History joins forces with myth and legend to lend strength to the little understood American Dream that lies hidden from view. A compassionate America is still possible.

About the Author

Luigi Morelli was born in the US and left very early to live in South America, Africa, and for the most part Europe, then returned 22 years ago. Being both a native and a foreigner he has the interest and the detachment to look at the American spirit dispassionately.

Luigi is devoted to social activism and spirituality and has carried these interests in his professional life, first in building a business promoting the practice of ecologically sound practices in landscaping, then in working with developmentally disabled adults. He has explored alternative lifestyles (in the international organizations Camphill and L'Arche) in which service to the developmentally disabled is carried hand in hand with a free, inclusive and non-dogmatic spirituality.

This dedication to social work and social change from a spiritual perspective also permeates his writings. His interest focuses on those events in history in which change was introduced through the inspiration of the spirit, rather than simple political change. Additionally, he believes that myth and legends speak a language that offers a complement to history and hard facts. This integration of the two he achieves in Hidden America and the forthcoming Black Elk, Herald of a New Age and Spiritual Turning Points of North American History. Hidden America offers a wholly new way of understanding figures like Franklin, Washington, Pocahontas and others and the historical events they were part of.