# Quote — Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy

> Whose American dream? The dream is a chameleon; it has changed again and again. For the first immigrants, America was a continent to explore and exploit, a haven for the unwanted and the dissenters—a new beginning. Gradually the dream became an ascetic and idealized image of democracy, bespeaking the age-old hope for justice and selfgovernance. All too quickly, that dream metamorphosed into an expansionist, materialist, nationalist, and even imperialist vision of wealth and domination—paternalism, Manifest Destiny. Yet even then, there was a competing Transcendentalist vision: excellence, spiritual riches, the unfolding of the latent gifts of the individual.

- Author: [Marilyn Ferguson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilyn-ferguson.md)
- Book: [The Aquarian Conspiracy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilyn-ferguson/the-aquarian-conspiracy.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marilyn_Ferguson#Chapter_Five,_The_American_Matrix_for_Transformation) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilyn-ferguson/the-aquarian-conspiracy/whose-american-dream

## More from this book

> The seed of God is in us, Meister Eckhart said. "Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut seeds into nut trees, and God seed into G o d .''

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilyn-ferguson/the-aquarian-conspiracy/the-seed-of-god.md)

> Spiritual or mystical experience, the subject of this chapter, is the mirror image of science—a direct perception of nature's unity, the inside of the mysteries that science tries valiantly to know from the outside. This way of understanding predates science by thousands of years. Long before humankind had tools like quantum logic to describe events that ordinary reason could not grasp, individuals moved into the realm of paradox through a shift in consciousness. And there they know that what cannot be is.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilyn-ferguson/the-aquarian-conspiracy/spiritual-or-mystical.md)

> Many old friendships and acquaintances fall away; new friendships, even a whole new support network, take their place. Based as they are on shared values and a shared journey, these new relationships are perhaps more intense.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilyn-ferguson/the-aquarian-conspiracy/many-old-friendships.md)