Helen Keller had absolutely no hearing or eyesight from the age of two, but became one of the most inspiring and well known people to have ever lived. For a number of years she functioned, in her words, simply as "an unconscious clod of earth." Then quite suddenly, she experienced the impact of "another mind" within her own. Despite not knowing where it came from or how it got there, she awoke to a new awareness of being able to talk and listen with her hands. She learned to read and write, wrote at least ten books, and attended college. Her religion developed from living deeply within her spiritual self, cut off from normal sensation, and spending her life on a spiritual plane. She incorporated her own experiences with the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, a mystic born in 1688, and the Swedenborgian Church. Swedenborg, like Keller, had experienced other realms of spirit and transmitted deeper teachings that Helen saw with great clarity. She wrote this book after receiving many requests for her to describe her religious beliefs.
Helen Adams Keller was an American author, political activist and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. The story of how Keller's teacher, Annie Sullivan, broke through the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language, allowing the girl to blossom as she learned to communicate, has become known worldwide through the dramatic depictions of the play and film The Miracle Worker.
A prolific author, Keller was well traveled and was outspoken in her opposition to war. She campaigned for women's suffrage, workers' rights, and socialism, as well as many other progressive causes.
Keller devoted much of her later life to raising funds for the American Foundation for the Blind. On September 14, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Helen Keller the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the United States' highest two civilian honors.
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