Transcendentalism is a literary and philosophical movement, associated with Henry David Thoreau and the Counterculture, which affirms the existence of an ideal spiritual reality that transcends the empirical and the scientific and it is knowable through intuition. Imagination and individuality are associated with the term. Henry David Thoreau, a prominent philosopher and poet, was a prominent transcendentalist. He compiled a novel called Walden, an essay describing his stay at Walden Pond where he truly explored nature and its transcendental quality. Similar to Thoreau, the Counterculture was a nonconformist group, who during the 1960s and 1970s went against the norms of society and became their own subculture. They too were highly regarded as transcendental. The counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s was heavily influenced by the ideas of Henry David Thoreau and shared comparable aspects of exhibiting a solid foundation of the importance of nature, along with imagination and the ideal of life pertaining to a higher spirit. , but the counterculture moved away and transformed into itself, in the sense of individualism and government relations. Henry David Thoreau's ideas influenced the counterculture and their ideas. Thoreau went into the woods, built himself a house, and basically lived off the nature around him. “All nature was toned to him” (About Thoreau). He had a great passion for the true meaning of nature. His ideal that nature had strong importance carried over into the counterculture generation. Those of the counterculture grasped the ethic of returning to the land. The counterculture focused on pollution. The importance of nature was prevalent in the counterculture of the 1960s. In the early 1970s, an Earth......in the center of the paper......vil Disobedience'" Henry Thoreau and 'Civil Disobedience' Np, nd Web. 17 April 2014."“I Love to Be Alone. I have never found a companion as sociable as solitude. We are for the most part lonelier when we go abroad among men than when we remain in our chambers." Goodreads. Np, nd Web. April 10, 2014."Lyrics to "Imagine."" LYRICS BY JOHN LENNON. Np, 21 April 2014. “The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau.” The Concord and Merrimack Rivers; Or, Life in the Woods;. 2014.