Varieties of Religious Experience by William James

RELIGION AND NEUROLOGY

I feel quite nervous standing here before such a knowledgeable audience. In America, we are very used to learning from European scholars. We learn from them in person and through their books. At my own University, Harvard, we have lectures from Scottish, English, French, or German scholars almost every winter. These experts share their knowledge of science or literature from their home countries. We often invite them to cross the ocean to speak to us, or we meet them when they visit our country. It feels natural for us to listen while Europeans talk.

However, we Americans are not yet used to talking while Europeans listen. So, being the one to start this new pattern makes me feel like I should apologize for being so bold. This is especially true here in Edinburgh, a place that Americans deeply respect. I was very impressed by the famous philosophy professors at this university when I was a boy. Professor Fraser’s “Essays in Philosophy” was the first philosophy book I ever read. I clearly remember feeling amazed by his description of Sir William Hamilton’s classroom. Hamilton’s own lectures were the first philosophical writings I made myself study. After that, I read a lot of Dugald Stewart and Thomas Brown. You never really outgrow those feelings of respect from your youth. So, it feels like a dream, and a bit unreal, to find myself moving from my simpler background to being an official part of this place, like a colleague to these famous names.

But I was honored to be given this role, and I knew I couldn’t turn it down. An academic life also has its important duties. So, I will stand here and speak without any more apologies. I just want to say one thing: now that ideas have started to flow from west to east—from America to here and Aberdeen—I hope this continues. As time goes on, I hope many of my fellow Americans will be invited to lecture in Scottish universities. And I hope Scottish lecturers will speak in the United States. I hope our people can become like one in these important intellectual matters. I also hope that the unique way of thinking about philosophy and politics that comes with our English language will spread and influence the world more and more.

Now, about how I’ll approach these lectures: I’m not a religious expert, a scholar of religious history, or someone who studies human cultures. Psychology is the only area of learning where I have special knowledge. For a psychologist, people’s religious tendencies are just as interesting as any other part of their minds. So, as a psychologist, it seems natural for me to invite you to explore these religious tendencies with me.

If we are studying this psychologically, we won’t focus on religious organizations. Instead, we will look at religious feelings and impulses. I will limit myself to the more developed experiences that thoughtful and self-aware people have written about in books about their faith and their own lives. The origins of a subject are always interesting. But if you really want to understand its full meaning, you need to look at its most complete and developed forms.

This means the most important writings for us will be from people who were deeply religious and could clearly explain their ideas and reasons. These people are usually either fairly modern writers or older writers whose works have become religious classics. So, the personal accounts that will teach us the most are not hidden away in obscure research. They are easy to find. This fact comes naturally from the kind of problem we are looking at. It also suits me well, since I don’t have special training in religious history. I can use quotes and personal stories from books that most of you have probably already read. This will not make my conclusions any less valuable.

It’s true that a future lecturer, someone more adventurous, might find more unusual and entertaining documents in libraries. But I doubt that even with more obscure material, they would get much closer to the heart of the matter.

There are two very different kinds of questions we can ask about religion.

What are religious tendencies? (What is their nature? How did they start? What is their history?)
What is their philosophical importance? (What is their meaning or significance?)

These are logically different types of questions. If we don’t see this difference clearly, it can lead to confusion. So, I want to emphasize this point before we look at the documents and materials.

Recent books on logic talk about two ways to ask about anything.

First: What is its nature? How did it happen? What is it made of, where did it come from, and what is its history? The answer to this is a statement of fact, an existential judgment.
Second: What is its importance, meaning, or significance, now that it exists? The answer here is a statement of value, what Germans call a Werthurtheil, or what we could call a spiritual judgment.

You cannot directly get one type of judgment from the other. They come from different ways of thinking. The mind can only combine them by first making each judgment separately and then putting them together.

When we talk about religions, it’s especially easy to see these two types of questions. Every religious event or idea has a history. It comes from natural causes. For example, what’s now called the “higher criticism” of the Bible is just studying the Bible from this factual, historical point of view. The early church didn’t do this enough. What were the life circumstances of the sacred writers when they wrote their parts of the holy book? What exactly were they thinking when they said what they said? These are clearly questions of historical fact.

The answers to these historical questions don’t automatically tell us something further: What value should such a book, with its specific history, have for us as a guide to life and a source of truth? To answer this second question, we already need to have some general idea about what makes something valuable for uncovering truth. This idea itself would be what I called a spiritual judgment.

If we combine our spiritual judgment with our factual judgment, we might then make another spiritual judgment about the Bible’s worth.

For example, imagine our theory of what makes a book a true revelation says it must have been written automatically, not by the writer’s free choice. Or that it must not have any scientific or historical mistakes and must not express any local or personal feelings. If this is our theory, the Bible would probably not seem very valuable.
But imagine our theory allows a book to be a revelation even if it has errors, expresses personal feelings, and was clearly written by humans. Imagine it only needs to be a true record of the inner experiences of great people struggling with life’s big questions. In that case, our judgment of the Bible would be much more positive.

You can see that the factual details alone are not enough to decide its value. The best experts in “higher criticism” know this. They never mix up the factual questions with the spiritual questions. Even when they agree on the historical facts, some will have one view of the Bible’s value as a revelation, and others will have a different view. This depends on their different spiritual judgments about what makes something valuable.

I’m explaining these two types of judgments because many religious people—perhaps some of you here—don’t regularly use this distinction. So, you might feel a bit startled at first by the purely factual viewpoint I’ll use in these lectures when we look at religious experiences. When I discuss them from a biological and psychological perspective, as if they were just interesting facts about individual lives, some of you might think this degrades a noble subject. You might even suspect me of trying to discredit religion, at least until I explain my purpose more fully.

Of course, that is absolutely not my intention. If you were to think that, it would seriously prevent you from understanding much of what I have to share. So, I want to say a few more words on this point.

There’s no doubt that a life focused exclusively on religion tends to make a person seem unusual and eccentric. I’m not talking about ordinary religious believers who follow the common practices of their country, whether they are Buddhist, Christian, or Muslim. Their religion has been created for them by others. It’s passed down by tradition, shaped by imitation, and kept alive by habit. Studying this kind_of second-hand religious life wouldn’t teach us much.

Instead, we need to look for the original experiences. These were the experiences that set the pattern for all the feelings and actions that others later copied. We can only find these original experiences in individuals for whom religion is not just a boring habit, but more like an intense fever.

These individuals are “geniuses” in religion. Like many other geniuses whose achievements are recorded in biographies, these religious geniuses have often shown signs of an unstable nervous system. Perhaps even more than other kinds of geniuses, religious leaders have often had unusual mental experiences. They have always been people with very strong emotions. Often, they have had troubled inner lives and periods of sadness. They didn’t know moderation and were prone to obsessions and fixed ideas. Frequently, they fell into trances, heard voices, saw visions, and showed all sorts of behaviors that are usually considered signs of a mental disorder (pathological). Moreover, these unusual mental features in their lives often helped them gain their religious authority and influence.

If you want a specific example, George Fox is one of the best. The Quaker religion he founded is something truly praiseworthy. In a time of dishonesty, it was a religion of truth based on inner spiritual experience. It was a return to something more like the original truth of the Gospels than people in England had ever known. As Christian groups today become more open-minded, they are essentially returning to the ideas that Fox and the early Quakers adopted long ago. No one can claim for a moment that Fox was mentally weak in terms of his spiritual wisdom and ability. Everyone who met him, from Oliver Cromwell to local officials and jailers, seemed to recognize his superior strength.

Yet, from the point of view of his mental and nervous makeup, Fox was deeply troubled, what some might call a psychopath. His journal is full of entries like this one:

“As I was walking with several friends, I lifted up my head and saw three church spires, and they struck at my life. I asked them what place that was. They said, Lichfield. Immediately the word of the Lord came to me, that I must go there. When we arrived at the house we were going to, I asked my friends to go inside, saying nothing to them about where I was going. As soon as they were gone, I slipped away and walked, guiding myself by sight, over hedges and ditches until I came within a mile of Lichfield. There, in a large field, shepherds were watching their sheep. Then I was commanded by the Lord to take off my shoes. I hesitated, because it was winter, but the word of the Lord was like a fire in me. So I took off my shoes and left them with the shepherds. The poor shepherds trembled and were astonished. Then I walked on for about a mile. As soon as I was within the city, the word of the Lord came to me again, saying: Cry, ‘Woe to the bloody city of Lichfield!’ So I went up and down the streets, crying with a loud voice, ‘Woe to the bloody city of Lichfield!’ It being market day, I went into the market-place and walked back and forth in its different parts, and stood still, crying as before, ‘Woe to the bloody city of Lichfield!’ And no one touched me. As I went crying through the streets like this, it seemed to me that there was a channel of blood running down the streets, and the market-place appeared like a pool of blood. When I had announced what was upon me and felt clear, I went out of the town in peace. Returning to the shepherds, I gave them some money and took my shoes from them again. But the fire of the Lord was so on my feet, and all over me, that I did not care to put on my shoes again, and was unsure whether I should or not, until I felt freedom from the Lord to do so. Then, after I had washed my feet, I put on my shoes again. After this, I thought deeply about why I should be sent to cry against that city and call it ‘The bloody city!’ For although the parliament had control for a while, and then the king, and much blood had been shed in the town during the wars between them, yet it was no more than what had happened in many other places. But afterwards I came to understand that in the Emperor Diocletian’s time a thousand Christians were martyred in Lichfield. So I was to go, without my shoes, through the channel of their blood, and into the pool of their blood in the market-place, so that I might bring to memory the blood of those martyrs, which had been shed over a thousand years before, and lay cold in their streets. So the sense of this blood was upon me, and I obeyed the word of the Lord.”

Since we are focused on studying the factual conditions of religion, we cannot ignore these aspects that seem like mental disorders. We must describe and name them just as if they happened in non-religious people.

It’s true that we naturally hesitate to see something we care deeply about handled by the intellect like any other object. The first thing the intellect does with an object is to group it with something else. But any object that is infinitely important to us and inspires our devotion also feels like it must be unique and one-of-a-kind. A crab would probably feel personally offended if it could hear us classify it as a crustacean without any fuss or apology, and thus categorize it. “I am no such thing,” it would say; “I am MYSELF, MYSELF alone.”

The next thing the intellect does is to uncover the causes from which the thing originates. The philosopher Spinoza said: “I will analyze the actions and desires of men as if it were a question of lines, planes, and solids.” Elsewhere, he notes that he will look at our emotions and their characteristics with the same objectivity he uses for all other natural things. He believed that the results of our feelings follow from their nature with the same certainty that a triangle’s three angles equal two right angles.

Similarly, a historian named Taine, in the introduction to his history of English literature, wrote: “Whether facts are moral or physical, it makes no difference. They always have their causes. There are causes for ambition, courage, truthfulness, just as there are for digestion, muscle movement, and body heat. Vice and virtue are products like sulfuric acid and sugar.”

When we read such statements from thinkers determined to show the factual origins of absolutely everything, we feel threatened. This is quite apart from our understandable impatience with the somewhat arrogant way they state their goals, especially considering what they are actually able to achieve. We feel like the very sources of our deepest life are being attacked and denied. Such cold-blooded analyses seem to threaten to destroy the vital secrets of our soul. It feels as if the same explanation that reveals their origin would also explain away their importance, making them seem no more precious than the everyday groceries Taine mentions.

Perhaps the most common example of this idea—that spiritual value is destroyed if a humble origin is shown—is seen in the comments that unsentimental people often make about their more sentimental friends.

“Alfred believes so strongly in immortality because he’s very emotional.”
“Fanny’s extreme sense of duty is just a matter of overly sensitive nerves.”
“William’s sadness about the universe is due to bad digestion—his liver is probably sluggish.”
“Eliza’s joy in her church is a symptom of her hysterical nature.”
“Peter would be less troubled about his soul if he would exercise more outdoors,” and so on.

A more developed example of this same kind of reasoning is the trend, quite common now among certain writers, of criticizing religious emotions by showing a connection between them and sexual life.

Religious conversion is seen as a crisis of puberty and adolescence.
The self-denial of saints and the devotion of missionaries are seen as just examples of the parental instinct of self-sacrifice that has gone in the wrong direction.

For the nun who is overwhelmed by strong emotions and longs for a normal life, Christ might just be an imaginary replacement for a real-life partner. And there are other similar explanations.

We are all generally familiar with this way of discrediting states of mind we don’t like. We all use it somewhat when we criticize people whose feelings we think are too extreme. But when other people criticize our own deepest spiritual moments by calling them ‘nothing but’ the result of our physical makeup, we feel angry and hurt. We know that no matter our body’s quirks, our mental states have real value as insights into important truths. We wish this way of thinking, this medical materialism, would just be quiet.

Medical materialism seems like a good name for this overly simple way of thinking.

Medical materialism dismisses Saint Paul by saying his vision on the road to Damascus was just a problem with a part of his brain, because he was epileptic.
It writes off Saint Teresa as someone with hysteria.
It labels Saint Francis of Assisi as someone with an inherited mental weakness.
It treats George Fox’s unhappiness with the fakeness of his time, and his deep desire for spiritual truth, as a symptom of a digestive problem.
Carlyle’s powerful expressions of misery are explained away as a stomach and intestinal issue.

Medical materialism claims that when you get to the bottom of it, all such intense mental states are just about a person’s physical condition (most likely self-poisoning from within the body). It suggests these are due to the wrong functioning of various glands that science will discover someday. And then, medical materialism believes it has successfully destroyed the spiritual authority of all such people.

Let’s look at this matter in the broadest way possible. Modern psychology sees clear connections between mind and body. As a useful working idea, it assumes that mental states completely depend on physical conditions.

If we accept this idea, then what medical materialism says must be generally true, even if not every detail is correct:

Saint Paul certainly had a seizure similar to epilepsy, if not actual epilepsy.
George Fox likely had some inherited mental instability.
Carlyle was undoubtedly affected by toxins from some organ, it doesn’t matter which one—and so on for others.

But now, I ask you: how can such a factual account of mental history decide their spiritual importance?

According to the basic idea of psychology we just mentioned, every single one of our mental states—good or bad, healthy or unhealthy—is linked to some physical process in our body.

Scientific theories are physically conditioned just as much as religious emotions are.
If we knew enough details, we would probably see that “the liver” (or some physical cause) shapes the statements of a firm atheist just as much as it shapes those of a religious person worried about their soul.
When the body’s chemistry changes one way, we might get the mind of a religious person. When it changes another way, we might get the mind of an atheist.

This is true for all our joys and boredoms, our longings and desires, our questions and beliefs. They all have a physical basis, whether they are religious or not.

So, to argue that a religious state of mind has no superior spiritual value because it has a physical cause is illogical and random. This is true unless you have already developed a specific theory that connects spiritual values in general with certain kinds of physical changes.

Otherwise, none of our thoughts and feelings—not even our scientific theories or our disbeliefs—could have any value as revelations of truth. Why? Because every single one of them comes from the state of the person’s body at that moment.

It’s hardly necessary to say that medical materialism does not actually reach such a broadly skeptical conclusion. It is sure, just like any ordinary person is sure, that some states of mind are truly better than others and reveal more truth to us. In believing this, medical materialism is simply using an ordinary spiritual judgment. It doesn’t have a physical theory to explain how its own favorite states of mind are produced, which it could use to validate them.

So, its attempt to discredit the states it dislikes by vaguely linking them to nerves and the liver, and connecting them with names that suggest physical illness, is completely illogical and inconsistent.

Let’s be fair in this whole matter and be honest with ourselves and the facts. When we think certain states of mind are better than others, is it ever because of what we know about their physical causes? No! It is always for two completely different reasons:

We take immediate delight in them.
Or, we believe they bring us good results for our lives.

When we speak negatively of “feverish fancies,” the fever itself is not why we dismiss them. For all we know, a temperature of 103° or 104° Fahrenheit might be a much better condition for truths to grow than the ordinary body temperature of 97 or 98 degrees. We dismiss them either because the fancies themselves are unpleasant, or because they don’t hold up when we think clearly after the fever has passed.

When we praise the thoughts that come with good health, the specific chemical processes of health have nothing to do with our judgment. In fact, we know almost nothing about these processes. It is the inner happiness in the thoughts that makes them seem good. Or, it is their consistency with our other opinions and their usefulness for our needs that makes us consider them true.

Now, these two standards—inner quality and usefulness—don’t always go together. Inner happiness and practical benefit do not always agree. What immediately feels most “good” is not always most “true” when judged by the rest of our experience. The classic example is the difference between Philip drunk and Philip sober. If simply “feeling good” was the only test, drunkenness would be the ultimate human experience. But its insights, however deeply satisfying at the moment, exist in a world that doesn’t support them for long.

The result of this conflict between the two standards is the uncertainty that still surrounds many of our spiritual judgments. There are moments of sentimental and mystical experience—we will discuss these a lot later—that bring a huge sense of inner authority and clarity when they happen. But they happen rarely, and not to everyone. And the rest of life either doesn’t connect with them, or tends to contradict them more than it confirms them.

Some people follow the feeling of the moment in these cases.
Others prefer to be guided by average, long-term results. This is why people’s spiritual judgments are often sadly in disagreement. We will see this disagreement very clearly before these lectures end.

However, this disagreement can never be settled by any purely medical test. A good example of why it’s impossible to stick strictly to medical tests is the theory that genius is caused by illness, a theory promoted by recent authors.

Dr. Moreau said, “Genius is just one of the many branches of the tree of nervous system disorders.”
Dr. Lombroso says, “Genius is a symptom of inherited mental decline, related to epilepsy, and is linked to moral insanity.”
Mr. Nisbet writes, “Whenever a person’s life is famous enough and recorded in enough detail to be studied properly, that person inevitably falls into the category of having a disorder… And it’s worth noting that, as a rule, the greater the genius, the greater the mental unsoundness.”

Now, after these authors try to prove to themselves that works of genius are the products of disease, do they consistently go on to attack the value of these works? Do they create a new spiritual judgment based on their new theory of factual origins? Do they openly forbid us to admire the products of genius from now on? Do they say directly that no one with a nervous disorder can ever reveal new truth?

No! Their immediate spiritual instincts are too strong for them here. These instincts hold their ground against conclusions that medical materialism, if it truly loved logical consistency, should be happy to make. One follower of this school of thought did try to attack the value of many works of genius (specifically, contemporary artworks he couldn’t appreciate) using medical arguments. But for the most part, masterpieces are left unchallenged. The medical line of attack either limits itself to non-religious creations that everyone agrees are inherently odd, or it focuses only on religious experiences. And in the latter case, it’s because the religious experiences have already been condemned because the critic dislikes them for personal or spiritual reasons.

In the natural sciences and industrial arts, no one ever tries to disprove opinions by pointing out the author’s neurotic condition. Opinions in these fields are always tested by logic and by experiment, no matter what the author’s neurological type might be. It should be no different with religious opinions. Their value can only be determined by spiritual judgments made directly about them. These judgments are based primarily on our own immediate feeling, and secondarily on what we can learn about how they relate to our moral needs and to everything else we believe to be true.

In short, immediate clarity, philosophical reasonableness, and moral helpfulness are the only available standards. Saint Teresa could have had the nervous system of the calmest cow, and it wouldn’t save her religious ideas now if judging them by these other tests showed them to be worthless. Conversely, if her religious ideas can pass these other tests, it will make no difference how hysterical or nervously unbalanced Saint Teresa may have been when she was alive.

You see that, fundamentally, we are forced back to the general principles that empirical philosophy (philosophy based on experience and observation) has always said must guide us in our search for truth. Dogmatic philosophies (those based on rigid belief systems) have looked for tests for truth that would allow us to avoid appealing to future experience or results. They have dreamed of finding some direct sign that could immediately and absolutely protect us from all mistakes, now and forever.

It’s clear that the origin of a truth would be an excellent test of this kind, if only different origins could be clearly distinguished from this viewpoint. The history of dogmatic opinion shows that origin has always been a favorite test. Consider these “stock warrants” for truth found in religious history:

Origin in immediate intuition (a gut feeling).
Origin in official religious authority.
Origin in supernatural revelation (like a vision, hearing a voice, or an unexplainable feeling).
Origin in direct possession by a higher spirit, expressing itself in prophecy and warnings.
Origin in automatic speaking or writing generally.

The medical materialists, therefore, are just latecomers to this dogmatic approach. They cleverly turn the tables on earlier dogmatists by using the criterion of origin in a destructive way instead of a supportive one.

Their talk of pathological (disease-related) origin is effective only as long as the other side argues for a supernatural origin, and only the argument from origin is being discussed. But the argument from origin has rarely been used alone, because it is too obviously not enough.

Dr. Maudsley is perhaps the cleverest of those who try to refute supernatural religion based on origins. Yet even he finds himself forced to write: “What right do we have to believe Nature is required to do her work only through complete minds? She may find an incomplete mind a more suitable tool for a particular purpose. It is the work that is done, and the quality in the worker by which it was done, that truly matters. It may not be a big deal from a cosmic perspective if the person was severely lacking in other character qualities—even if he were a hypocrite, adulterer, eccentric, or lunatic… So, we come back again to the old and final basis of certainty—namely, the common agreement of humanity, or of those among humanity who are competent through instruction and training.”

In other words, Dr. Maudsley’s final test of a belief is not its origin, but the way it works on the whole. This is our own empiricist criterion (test based on experience and results). And even the strongest supporters of supernatural origin have also been forced to use this criterion in the end.

Among visions and messages, some have always been too obviously silly.
Among trances and convulsive seizures, some have been too unproductive for behavior and character to be considered significant, much less divine.

In the history of Christian mysticism, there has always been a difficult problem: how to tell the difference between messages and experiences that were truly divine miracles, and others that the devil, in his evil, was able to fake. Such fakes could make the religious person even more lost than before. Solving this needed all the wisdom and experience of the best spiritual advisors.

In the end, it had to come down to our empiricist criterion: By their fruits you shall know them, not by their roots. Jonathan Edwards’s book, “Treatise on Religious Affections,” is a detailed development of this idea. The roots of a person’s virtue are hidden from us. No outward appearances are absolutely certain proofs of divine grace. Our actions are the only sure evidence, even to ourselves, that we are genuinely Christian.

Edwards writes: “In forming a judgment of ourselves now, we should certainly use the evidence that our supreme Judge will mainly use when we stand before him on the last day… There is not one grace of the Spirit of God for which Christian practice is not the most decisive evidence of its existence in any religious person… The degree to which our experience leads to good practice shows the degree to which our experience is spiritual and divine.”

Catholic writers are equally strong on this point. The good attitudes and behaviors that a vision, voice, or other apparent heavenly favor leaves behind are the only signs by which we may be sure they are not possible deceptions from the tempter. Saint Teresa says:

“Like imperfect sleep which, instead of giving more strength to the head, only leaves it more tired, the result of mere operations of the imagination is only to weaken the soul. Instead of nourishment and energy, she gains only weariness and disgust. In contrast, a genuine heavenly vision gives her a harvest of indescribable spiritual riches and a wonderful renewal of bodily strength. I presented these reasons to those who so often accused my visions of being the work of the enemy of mankind and a trick of my imagination… I showed them the jewels which the divine hand had left with me: they were my actual attitudes and behaviors. All those who knew me saw that I was changed; my confessor confirmed this fact; this improvement, clear in all respects, far from being hidden, was brilliantly evident to all. As for myself, it was impossible to believe that if the devil were its author, he could have used, in order to destroy me and lead me to hell, a method so contrary to his own interests as that of removing my vices and filling me with strong courage and other virtues instead. For I saw clearly that a single one of these visions was enough to enrich me with all that wealth.”

I fear I may have gone on longer than necessary. Perhaps fewer words would have calmed the unease that may have arisen among some of you when I announced my plan to look at pathological aspects. At any rate, you must all be ready now to judge the religious life by its results alone. I shall assume that the scary idea of “morbid origin” will no longer offend your sense of piety.

Still, you may ask me: if its results are to be the basis of our final spiritual judgment of a religious phenomenon, why threaten us at all with so much study of its factual origins and conditions? Why not simply leave questions of pathology out?

To this, I reply in two ways:

First, I say, an unstoppable curiosity powerfully leads one on.
And secondly, I say that it always leads to a better understanding of a thing’s significance to consider its exaggerations and distortions, its equivalents and substitutes, and its closest relatives in other areas.

The point is not so that we can dismiss the thing entirely by lumping it in with its inferior relatives. Rather, by contrast, we may determine more precisely what its merits consist of. We do this by also learning to what particular dangers of corruption it may be exposed.

Insane conditions have this advantage: they isolate special factors of mental life. This allows us to inspect them clearly, without the usual surrounding factors masking them. They play the same role in understanding the mind that the scalpel and microscope play in understanding the body.

To understand a thing correctly, we need to see it both out of its normal setting and within it. We also need to be familiar with the whole range of its variations.

In this way, the study of hallucinations has been the key for psychologists to understand normal sensation.
The study of illusions has been the key to correctly understanding perception.
Morbid impulses and urgent thoughts, so-called “fixed ideas,” have shed much light on the psychology of the normal will.
Obsessions and delusions have done the same service for understanding the normal ability to believe.

Similarly, we can understand the nature of genius better by looking at attempts to group it with unusual mental conditions. I mentioned these attempts earlier. Terms like “borderline insanity,” “crankiness,” “insane temperament,” “loss of mental balance,” or “psychopathic degeneration” describe these conditions. These conditions have certain unique traits and vulnerabilities.

When these traits are combined with a high-quality intellect in a person, it’s more likely that this person will make a significant impact on their time. This is more probable than if their temperament were less prone to nervous excitability. Of course, there’s no special link between crankiness itself and high intelligence. Most people with such psychological traits have average intellects, and highly intelligent people more commonly have normal nervous systems.

But the “psychopathic temperament,” no matter the level of intellect it’s paired with, often brings enthusiasm and an excitable character. The “cranky” person is extraordinarily sensitive emotionally. They are prone to fixed ideas and obsessions. Their ideas tend to turn immediately into beliefs and actions. When they get a new idea, they can’t rest until they announce it or act on it in some way.

A common person might ask themselves about a difficult question, “What should I think about it?” But in a “cranky” mind, the question tends to be, “What must I do about it?” In the autobiography of the noble-spirited Mrs. Annie Besant, I read this passage: “Plenty of people wish well to any good cause, but very few care to put themselves out to help it. Even fewer will risk anything to support it. ‘Someone ought to do it, but why should I?’ is the constant excuse of well-meaning but weak people. ‘Someone ought to do it, so why not I?’ is the cry of some dedicated servant of humanity, eagerly stepping forward to face a dangerous duty. Whole centuries of moral development lie between these two sentences.”

This is very true! And between these two sentences also lie the different paths of the ordinary, lazy person and the person with a psychopathic temperament. So, when a superior intellect and a psychopathic temperament come together in the same individual—which happens often enough due to the endless variations in human abilities—we have the best possible conditions for the kind of effective genius that gets recorded in biographies. Such people don’t just remain critics and observers with their intellect. Their ideas possess them. They impose these ideas, for better or worse, upon their friends or their era. These are the people who get counted when researchers like Lombroso, Nisbet, and others use statistics to support their unusual theories about genius.

Now, let’s turn to religious experiences.

Consider the sadness that, as we will see, is a key part of every complete religious journey.
Think about the happiness that comes from a strong religious belief.
Consider the trance-like states of insight into truth that all religious mystics report.

These are all special cases of broader types of human experience.

Religious sadness, whatever unique features it has because it’s religious, is still sadness.
Religious happiness is still happiness.
Religious trance is still trance.

The moment we give up the absurd idea that something is disproven as soon as it’s grouped with other things, or as soon as its origin is shown; the moment we agree to judge value based on experimental results and inner quality—who doesn’t see the truth in this? We are likely to understand the distinct importance of religious sadness and happiness, or of religious trances, much better. We can do this by carefully comparing them with other kinds of sadness, happiness, and trance. This is far better than refusing to see their place in a more general category, and treating them as if they were completely outside of nature’s normal order.

I hope the discussions in these lectures will confirm this idea for us.

Regarding the unusual psychological origins of so many religious phenomena, that would not be surprising or upsetting at all. This would be true even if such experiences were certified by a higher power as the most precious of human experiences. No single type of person or constitution can possibly give its owner the whole body of truth. Few of us are not weak or even unwell in some way; and our very weaknesses can help us unexpectedly.

In the psychopathic temperament, we find:

The emotional sensitivity that is absolutely necessary for moral understanding.
The intensity and tendency to emphasize things, which are the core of practical moral strength.
The love of deep philosophical questions and mysticism, which pushes one’s interests beyond the surface of the everyday world.

What, then, is more natural than for this temperament to introduce a person to areas of religious truth? It might lead them to corners of the universe that your strong, practical, unimaginative type of person—always showing off their muscles, beating their chest, and thanking Heaven they don’t have a single unhealthy fiber in them—would surely keep hidden from their self-satisfied view forever.

If there were such a thing as inspiration from a higher realm, it might well be that the neurotic temperament would provide the main condition for being open to it. And having said this much, I think I can now leave the topic of religion and neuroticism.

The large amount of related phenomena, whether unhealthy or healthy, with which various religious phenomena must be compared to understand them better, forms what is called in teaching jargon “the apperceiving mass.” This is the background knowledge and experience by which we understand new things. The only new contribution I can imagine these lectures offering lies in the wideness of this apperceiving mass. I may succeed in discussing religious experiences in a broader context than has usually been done in university courses.

CIRCUMSCRIPTION OF THE TOPIC

Most books about the philosophy of religion try to start by giving a precise definition of what religion really is. We might look at some of these definitions later in this course. However, I won’t be overly academic and list them for you now. The simple fact that there are so many definitions, and they are so different from each other, proves something important. It shows that the word “religion” doesn’t stand for any single idea or core meaning. Instead, religion is more like a collective name for many related things.

The mind that tries to create theories always tends to oversimplify what it’s looking at. This is the root of all the rigid, one-sided thinking that has troubled both philosophy and religion. Let’s not immediately take a narrow view of our subject. Instead, let’s freely admit from the start that we probably won’t find one single essence of religion. We might find many characteristics that are equally important to religion at different times.

Think about trying to define “government.”

One person might say it’s about authority.
Another might say it’s about people submitting to that authority.
Others might point to the police, an army, a governing assembly, or a system of laws. The truth is, no actual government can exist without all these things. One of these aspects might be more important at one moment, and others at another. The person who understands governments best is the one who worries least about a single definition of its essence. By being familiar with all its different parts, they would naturally see an abstract, unified definition as more misleading than helpful. Why can’t religion be an equally complex idea?

Consider also the “religious sentiment” or feeling that so many books talk about, as if it were a single type of mental state. In psychology books and philosophies of religion, authors try to specify exactly what this feeling is.

One person connects it to the feeling of dependence.
Another says it comes from fear.
Others link it to sexual feelings.
Still others identify it with the feeling of endlessness or the infinite.

These different ways of thinking about it should make us doubt whether it can possibly be one specific thing. The moment we are willing to treat the term “religious sentiment” as a collective name for the many feelings that religious topics can bring up, we see something clearly. This “religious sentiment” probably doesn’t have any specific psychological nature of its own.

There is religious fear, religious love, religious awe, religious joy, and so on.

But religious love is just a person’s natural emotion of love, but directed toward a religious object or idea.
Religious fear is just ordinary fear – the common fear humans feel – when the idea of divine punishment causes it.
Religious awe is the same deep thrill we might feel in a dark forest or a mountain valley. The difference is that this feeling comes over us when we think about our connection to the supernatural. The same is true for all the various feelings that religious people experience.

Of course, specific religious emotions – made up of a feeling plus a particular kind of object or idea – are mental states that we can distinguish from other emotions. But there is no reason to assume there is a simple, abstract “religious emotion” that exists by itself as a basic mental feeling, present in every single religious experience.

So, just as there seems to be no single basic religious emotion, but only a common range of human emotions that religious topics can trigger, it’s also possible there’s no one specific and essential kind of religious object, and no one specific and essential kind of religious action.

Since the field of religion is so wide, it’s obviously impossible for me to pretend I can cover all of it. My lectures must be limited to a small part of the subject. It would be foolish to create an abstract definition of religion’s essence and then try to defend it against everyone. However, this doesn’t stop me from taking my own narrow view of what religion will mean for these lectures. Out of the many meanings of the word, I can choose the one meaning I particularly want to interest you in. I can state, for our purposes, that when I say “religion,” I mean that specific thing.

This is, in fact, what I must do. I will now try to outline the field I have chosen.

One easy way to define this field is to say what aspects of the subject we will not cover. Right away, we see a major division in the religious field.

On one side is institutional religion.
On the other side is personal religion.

As one writer, M. P. Sabatier, says, one branch of religion focuses most on God or divinity, while the other focuses most on human beings. Things like worship, sacrifice, methods for influencing God, theology, ceremonies, and church organizations are the key parts of institutional religion. If we only looked at this, we would have to define religion as an external skill – the skill of winning the favor of the gods.

In the more personal branch of religion, the focus is different. It’s on the inner state of the person: their conscience, their sense of what they deserve, their feeling of helplessness, and their feeling of being incomplete. And although gaining or losing God’s favor is still an essential part of the story, and theology plays an important role, the actions this kind of religion leads to are personal, not ritual acts. The individual handles their religious business by themselves, alone. The church organization, with its priests, sacraments, and other intermediaries, becomes much less important. The relationship is direct, from heart to heart, from soul to soul, between the person and their maker.

Now, in these lectures, I plan to ignore the institutional branch entirely. I will say nothing about church organizations. I will consider systematic theology and ideas about the gods themselves as little as possible. I will limit myself as much as I can to personal religion, pure and simple.

To some of you, personal religion, looked at so plainly, will no doubt seem too incomplete to be called “religion.” You might say, “It’s a part of religion, but only its unorganized, basic form. If we are to name it by itself, we should call it a person’s conscience or morality, rather than their religion. The name ‘religion’ should be kept for the fully organized system of feeling, thought, and institution – for the Church, in short – of which this so-called personal religion is only a small part.”

But if you say this, it only shows more clearly how much the question of definition tends to become an argument about names. Rather than continue such an argument, I am willing to accept almost any name for the personal religion I plan to discuss. Call it conscience or morality, if you prefer, and not religion. Under either name, it will be equally worthy of our study.

As for myself, I think it will turn out to contain some elements that morality, pure and simple, does not contain. I will try to point out these elements soon. So, I will continue to apply the word “religion” to it. And in the very last lecture, I will bring in theologies and church structures and say something about how personal religion relates to them.

In one sense at least, personal religion will show itself to be more fundamental than either theology or church structures. Churches, once they are established, live second-hand, based on tradition. But the founders of every church originally got their power from their direct, personal connection with the divine. This is true not only for superhuman founders like Christ, Buddha, or Mahomet, but for all the originators of Christian groups as well. So, personal religion should still seem like the original, most basic thing, even to those who continue to think of it as incomplete.

It’s true that there are other things in religion that, chronologically, are more ancient than personal religious feeling in the moral sense. Belief in magical objects (fetishism) and magic seem to have come before inner religious feeling historically—at least, our records of inner religious feeling don’t go back that far. And if fetishism and magic are seen as stages of religion, one might say that personal religion in the inner sense, and the genuinely spiritual church structures it creates, are later developments.

But, quite apart from the fact that many anthropologists—for instance, Jevons and Frazer—clearly distinguish between “religion” and “magic,” it’s certain that the whole way of thinking that leads to magic, fetishism, and lower superstitions could just as well be called primitive science as primitive religion. So, the question becomes an argument about words again. Our knowledge of all these early stages of thought and feeling is, in any case, so based on guesswork and incomplete that further discussion wouldn’t be worthwhile.

Therefore, for our purposes in these lectures, I ask you to accept this specific meaning of religion: Religion shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual people in their solitude, as they understand themselves to be in relation to whatever they may consider the divine.

Since this relationship can be moral, physical, or ritual, it’s clear that theologies, philosophies, and church organizations can grow out of religion in this sense. In these lectures, however, as I have already said, immediate personal experiences will take up all our time. We will hardly consider theology or church structures at all.

By defining our field in this specific way, we avoid many controversial topics. But, there’s still a chance for controversy over the word “divine,” if we take the definition too narrowly.

There are systems of thought that the world usually calls religious, yet they do not definitely assume a God. Buddhism is an example. Popularly, of course, the Buddha himself takes the place of a God. But strictly speaking, the Buddhist system is atheistic (it does not include a belief in God).

Modern transcendental idealism, such as Emersonianism (the ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson), also seems to let God fade into an abstract Idea. The focus of this belief is not a concrete god, not a superhuman person, but the divine presence within things, the essentially spiritual structure of the universe. In an 1838 address to the graduating class at Divinity College, which made Emerson famous, his open expression of this worship of mere abstract laws was what caused the scandal.

Emerson said that these laws carry themselves out. They are beyond time and space and not affected by circumstances.

In a person’s soul, there is a justice that brings immediate and complete consequences.
Someone who does a good deed is instantly made better.
Someone who does a mean deed is diminished by the action itself.
If a person gets rid of impurity, they gain purity.
If a person is truly just, they become, in that sense, God; the safety, immortality, and majesty of God enter that person with justice.
If a person pretends or deceives, they deceive themselves and lose touch with their own being.
Character is always known. Thefts never make one rich; giving to charity never makes one poor; murder will eventually be revealed.
The smallest amount of falsehood—like vanity or trying to make a good impression—will instantly spoil the effect.
But if you speak the truth, all things, living or not, support you. Even the roots of the grass seem to stir to bear witness for you.
All things come from the same spirit, which is called love, justice, or moderation in its different forms, just as the ocean has different names on the various shores it touches.
If a person strays from these principles, they lose power and support. Their being shrinks until absolute badness becomes absolute death.

Emerson continued that understanding this law awakens a feeling in the mind which we call the religious sentiment, and it brings our highest happiness. He described its power as wonderful, like mountain air, preserving the world, making nature sublime, and being the silent song of the stars. It is humanity’s greatest blessing, making a person limitless. When a person feels “I ought,” when love guides them, when they choose a good and great deed inspired from a higher source, then deep melodies flow through their soul from supreme wisdom. Then they can worship and be uplifted by it, because this sentiment is fundamental. All expressions of this feeling are sacred and lasting if they are pure. Old sayings that express this piety are still fresh. And the unique impact of Jesus on mankind, whose name is deeply embedded in history, proves the subtle power of this spiritual influence.

This is the Emersonian religion. The universe has a divine soul of order, and this soul is moral. It is also the soul within the human soul. But Emerson’s writings never clearly state whether this soul of the universe is just a quality (like the brightness of an eye or the softness of skin) or if it is a self-aware life (like the eye’s ability to see or the skin’s ability to feel). It seems to shift between these ideas, sometimes leaning one way, sometimes the other, to suit literary needs rather than strict philosophical ones. Whatever it is, though, it is active. As much as if it were a God, we can trust it to protect all ideal values and keep the world’s balance straight. The sentences in which Emerson, to the very end, expressed this faith are as fine as anything in literature: “If you love and serve people, you cannot by any hiding or trick escape the reward. Secret consequences are always restoring the balance of divine justice when it is disturbed. It is impossible to tilt the balance. All the tyrants and powerful owners and monopolists of the world try in vain to shift it. The mighty equator settles forever to its line, and humans and tiny particles, and stars and sun, must align with it, or be crushed by the reaction.”

Now, it would be too absurd to say that the inner experiences behind such expressions of faith are completely unworthy of being called religious experiences. The kind of appeal that Emerson’s optimism on one hand, and Buddhist pessimism on the other, make to an individual, and the kind of response the individual makes to them in their life, are in fact very similar to, and in many ways identical with, the best Christian appeal and response.

Therefore, from the viewpoint of experience, we must call these godless or almost godless belief systems “religions.” Accordingly, when in our definition of religion we speak of the individual’s relation to “what he considers the divine,” we must interpret the term “divine” very broadly. It means any object that is godlike, whether it is a concrete god or not.

But the term “godlike,” if treated this way as a general, flexible quality, becomes extremely vague. Many different gods have existed in religious history, and their characteristics have been quite different. What then is that essentially godlike quality—whether it’s found in a concrete god or not—that makes our relationship to it define us as religious people? It will be useful to seek some answer to this question before we go further.

For one thing, gods are thought of as the ultimate sources of existence and power. They are above and around everything, and there is no escape from them. What relates to them is the first and last word when it comes to truth. So, whatever is most basic, all-encompassing, and deeply true might be treated as godlike. A person’s religion might then be identified with their attitude, whatever it might be, toward what they felt to be the fundamental truth.

Such a definition would be defensible in a way. Religion, whatever it is, is a person’s total reaction to life. So why not say that any total reaction to life is a religion? Total reactions are different from casual reactions, and total attitudes are different from usual or professional attitudes. To understand them, you must go beyond the surface of existence. You must reach down to that curious sense of the entire remaining cosmos as an everlasting presence. This presence might feel familiar or foreign, terrible or amusing, lovable or hateful. Everyone possesses this sense to some degree.

This sense of the world’s presence appeals to our unique individual temperament. It makes us either energetic or careless, devout or disrespectful, gloomy or joyful, about life in general. Our reaction—often involuntary, unspoken, and even half-unconscious—is the most complete of all our answers to the question, “What is the character of this universe in which we live?” It expresses our individual sense of it in the most definite way.

Why then not call these reactions our religion, no matter what specific character they may have? Some of these reactions may seem non-religious in one sense of the word “religious.” Yet, they still belong to the general sphere of religious life. So, they should generally be classified as religious reactions.

My colleague once said about a student who showed a strong passion for atheism: “He believes in No-God, and he worships him.” Indeed, the most passionate opponents of Christian ideas have often shown a kind of intensity that, psychologically, is just like religious zeal.

However, using the word “religion” so broadly would be inconvenient, even if it could be logically defended. Some people have trivial or sneering attitudes even towards the whole of life. In some men, these attitudes are final and systematic. It would stretch the ordinary use of language too much to call such attitudes religious. This is true even though, from the viewpoint of an unbiased critical philosophy, they might be perfectly reasonable ways of looking at life.

For example, Voltaire, at the age of seventy-three, wrote to a friend: “As for myself, weak as I am, I keep fighting to the last moment. I get hit a hundred times, I hit back two hundred times, and I laugh. I see Geneva near my door, on fire with pointless quarrels, and I laugh again. And, thank God, I can look upon the world as a comedy even when it becomes as tragic as it sometimes does. Everything evens out at the end of the day, and everything evens out even more when all the days are over.”

As much as we might admire such a strong, spirited attitude in an elderly, frail person, it would be odd to call it a religious spirit. Yet, for that moment, it is Voltaire’s overall reaction to life. A common French phrase, “Je m’en fiche,” is like our English expression “Who cares?” Recently, the clever term “je m’en fichisme” was invented. It describes the systematic decision not to take anything in life too seriously. For this way of thinking, the comforting phrase in all difficult times is “All is vanity.” The brilliant writer Renan, in his later years of gentle decline, enjoyed putting this idea into playfully disrespectful forms. These remain for us as excellent expressions of the “all is vanity” state of mind.

Take the following passage from Renan, for example. He says we must hold on to duty, even if the evidence is against it. But then he continues: “There’s a good chance the world is nothing but a fairy-tale show that no God cares about. So, we must arrange our lives so that we are not completely wrong, no matter which idea is true. We must listen to the higher voices. But we should do it in such a way that if the second idea (that the world is not serious) were true, we wouldn’t have been too completely fooled. If the world is not a serious thing, then it’s the dogmatic people who will seem shallow. And the worldly-minded people, whom religious thinkers now call frivolous, will be the ones who are truly wise. So, be ready for anything—that is perhaps wisdom. Let’s give ourselves over to confidence, to skepticism, to optimism, to irony, depending on the moment. We can be sure that at certain moments, at least, we will be aligned with the truth… Good humor is a philosophical state of mind. It seems to say to Nature that we don’t take her any more seriously than she takes us. I believe one should always talk about philosophy with a smile. We owe it to the Eternal to be good. But we have the right to add our irony to this duty, as a kind of personal payback. In this way, we return joke for joke. We play the trick that has been played on us. Saint Augustine’s phrase, ‘Lord, if we are deceived, it is by you!’ is still a fine one, well-suited to our modern feelings. Only, we want the Eternal to know that if we accept the deception, we accept it knowingly and willingly. We are prepared in advance to lose the profit on our investments in virtue. But we don’t want to appear ridiculous by having counted on them too securely.”

Surely, if such a systematic attitude of irony were also called “religion,” we would have to strip away all the usual meanings of the word. For common people, “religion,” whatever more specific meanings it may have, always means a serious state of mind. If one phrase could capture its universal message, it would be: “All is not vanity in this Universe, whatever appearances might suggest.” If religion, as commonly understood, can stop anything, it can stop exactly this kind of light-hearted, dismissive talk, like Renan’s. Religion favors seriousness, not flippancy. It says “hush” to all empty chatter and clever wit.

But if religion is against light irony, it is equally against heavy grumbling and complaint. The world appears tragic enough in some religions. But in these views, the tragedy is seen as a cleansing process, and a path to liberation is believed to exist. We will see enough of religious sadness in a future lecture. But sadness, according to our ordinary use of language, loses all right to be called religious when, in Marcus Aurelius’s vivid words, the sufferer simply lies kicking and screaming like a sacrificed pig.

The mood of thinkers like Schopenhauer or Nietzsche—and to a lesser extent, sometimes our own sad Carlyle—though often a sadness that can make one feel nobler, is almost as often just irritability that has gotten out of control. The outbursts of the two German authors often sound like the sick cries of dying rats. They lack the cleansing, purifying quality that religious sadness has.

There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude we call religious.

If it is a happy attitude, it must not be a silly grin or a snicker.
If it is a sad attitude, it must not be screaming or cursing.

It is precisely as solemn experiences that I want to interest you in religious experiences. So I propose—once again, arbitrarily, if you like—to narrow our definition further. I suggest that the word “divine,” as used in our definition, shall mean for us not just what is primal, all-encompassing, and real. That meaning, if taken without limits, might be too broad. For us, the divine shall mean only such a primal reality that the individual feels driven to respond to solemnly and gravely, and neither with a curse nor a joke.

But solemnity, seriousness, and all such emotional qualities have various shades. And, no matter what we do with our definitions, we must eventually face the truth: we are dealing with a field of experience where there isn’t a single idea that can be sharply and clearly defined. To pretend, under these conditions, to be strictly “scientific” or “exact” in our terms would only show that we lack understanding of our task. Things are more or less divine. States of mind are more or less religious. Reactions are more or less total. But the boundaries are always fuzzy. It is always a question of amount and degree.

Nevertheless, when these experiences are at their most developed, there can never be any question as to what they are. The divine nature of the object of focus and the solemnity of the reaction are too clear to doubt. We might hesitate to call a state of mind “religious,” or “irreligious,” or “moral,” or “philosophical” only when the state of mind is weak or unclear. But in that case, it would hardly be worth our study at all. We don’t need to concern ourselves with states that can only be called religious by being generous. Our only useful work is with experiences that nobody could possibly be tempted to call anything else.

I said in my previous lecture that we learn most about a thing when we look at it closely, as if under a microscope, or in its most exaggerated form. This is as true of religious phenomena as of any other kind of fact. Therefore, the only cases likely to be useful enough to deserve our attention will be cases where the religious spirit is unmistakable and extreme. We can safely ignore its weaker forms.

Here, for example, is the total reaction to life of Frederick Locker Lampson. His autobiography, called “Confidences,” shows him to have been a most pleasant man. He wrote: “I am so accepting of my fate that I feel little pain at the thought of having to leave what has been called the pleasant habit of living, the sweet story of life. I would not care to live my wasted life over again, and so extend my time. Strange to say, I have little wish to be younger. I submit with a chill in my heart. I humbly submit because it is the Divine Will, and my destined fate. I dread the increase of weaknesses that will make me a burden to those around me, those dear to me. No! Let me slip away as quietly and comfortably as I can. Let the end come, if peace comes with it.” He also wrote: “I do not know that there is a great deal to be said for this world, or our time here in it; but it has pleased God to place us here, and so it must please me also. I ask you, what is human life? Is it not a damaged happiness—care and tiredness, tiredness and care, with the baseless expectation, the strange trickery of a brighter tomorrow? At best, it is just like a stubborn child, that must be played with and indulged, to keep it quiet until it falls asleep, and then the worry is over.”

This is a complex, tender, submissive, and graceful state of mind. For myself, I would have no objection to calling it, on the whole, a religious state of mind. However, I dare say that to many of you it may seem too unenthusiastic and half-hearted to deserve such a good name. But in the end, what does it matter whether we call such a state of mind religious or not? It is too insignificant to teach us much in any case. Its very owner wrote it down in terms he would not have used unless he had been thinking of more energetically religious moods in others, with which he felt he could not compete. It is with these more energetic states that our only real interest lies. We can perfectly well afford to ignore the minor expressions and the uncertain border areas.

It was the more extreme cases that I had in mind a little while ago. I said then that personal religion, even without theology or ritual, would prove to have some elements that pure and simple morality does not contain. You may remember that I promised to point out shortly what those elements were. In a general way, I can now say what I meant.

It is said that “I accept the universe” was a favorite saying of our New England thinker Margaret Fuller. When someone repeated this phrase to Thomas Carlyle, his sarcastic comment was supposedly: “Gad! She’d better!” At its core, the whole concern of both morality and religion is with how we accept the universe.

Do we accept it only in part and reluctantly, or heartily and completely?
Shall our protests against certain things in it be absolute and unforgiving? Or shall we think that, even with evil, there are ways of living that must lead to good?
If we accept the whole, shall we do so as if stunned into submission—as Carlyle would have us believe by saying, “Gad! We’d better!”—or shall we do so with enthusiastic agreement?

Morality, pure and simple, accepts the law of the whole that it finds in control. It acknowledges and obeys this law. But it may obey with the heaviest and coldest heart, and never stop feeling it as a burden, like a yoke. But for religion, in its strong and fully developed forms, serving the highest purpose is never felt as a yoke. Dull submission is left far behind. A mood of welcome, which can range anywhere from cheerful calm to enthusiastic joy, has taken its place.

It makes a huge emotional and practical difference to a person whether they accept the universe in the dull, faded way of stoic resignation to what must be, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints. The difference is as great as that between being passive and being active, or between a defensive mood and an aggressive mood. The steps by which an individual may grow from one state to the other are gradual. Many different individuals represent the intermediate stages. Yet, when you place the typical extremes side by side for comparison, you feel that you are facing two entirely separate psychological worlds. You sense that in passing from one to the other, a “critical point” has been overcome.

If we compare stoic sayings with Christian sayings, we see much more than a difference in teachings. Rather, it is a difference in emotional mood that separates them. When Marcus Aurelius thinks about the eternal reason that has ordered things, there is a frosty chill about his words. You rarely find this in Jewish religious writing, and never in Christian religious writing. The universe is “accepted” by all these writers. But how lacking in passion or joy the spirit of the Roman Emperor is! Compare his fine sentence: “If gods care not for me or my children, there is a reason for it,” with Job’s cry: “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him!” You immediately see the difference I mean. The “world soul,” to whose control of his personal destiny the Stoic agrees, is there to be respected and submitted to. But the Christian God is there to be loved. The difference in emotional atmosphere is like that between an arctic climate and the tropics. This is true even though the result, in terms of accepting actual conditions without complaint, may seem much the same in abstract terms.

Marcus Aurelius says: “It is a man’s duty to comfort himself and wait for natural death, and not to be annoyed, but to find refreshment only in these thoughts:

First, that nothing will happen to me which is not in agreement with the nature of the universe.
Secondly, that I need do nothing against the God and divine spirit within me; for there is no man who can force me to do wrong. He who withdraws and separates himself from the reason of our common nature, by being displeased with what happens, is like a disease on the universe. For the same nature produces these things, and has produced you too. So accept everything that happens, even if it seems disagreeable, because it leads to this: the health of the universe and the well-being and happiness of Zeus (the highest God). For he would not have brought upon any man what he has brought, if it were not useful for the whole. The wholeness of the universe is damaged if you cut off anything. And you do cut off, as far as it is in your power, when you are dissatisfied, and in a way try to remove anything.”

Now compare this mood with that of the old Christian author of the Theologia Germanica (German Theology): “Where men are enlightened with the true light, they give up all desire and choice. They commit and entrust themselves and all things to the eternal Goodness. So every enlightened man could say: ‘I would gladly be to the Eternal Goodness what his own hand is to a man.’ Such men are in a state of freedom. They have lost the fear of pain or hell, and the hope of reward or heaven. They are living in pure submission to the eternal Goodness, in the perfect freedom of passionate love. When a man truly sees and considers himself, who and what he is, and finds himself utterly vile and wicked and unworthy, he falls into such a deep state of humility that it seems reasonable to him that all creatures in heaven and earth should rise up against him. And therefore he will not and dare not desire any comfort or release. He is willing to be unconsoled and unreleased. He does not grieve over his sufferings, for they are right in his eyes, and he has nothing to say against them. This is what is meant by true repentance for sin. And for him who in this present time enters into this hell, no one may console him. Now God has not abandoned a man in this hell. But He is guiding him, so that the man may not desire or pay attention to anything but the eternal Good only. And then, when the man neither cares for nor desires anything but the eternal Good alone, and does not seek himself or his own things, but only the honor of God, he is made a sharer in all kinds of joy, bliss, peace, rest, and consolation. And so the man is from then on in the kingdom of heaven. This hell and this heaven are two good, safe paths for man, and happy is he who truly finds them.”

How much more active and positive is the Christian writer’s urge to accept his place in the universe! Marcus Aurelius agrees to the plan—the German theologian agrees with it. He literally overflows with agreement; he runs out to embrace the divine orders.

Occasionally, it is true, the Stoic rises to something like a Christian warmth of feeling. An often-quoted passage of Marcus Aurelius shows this: “Everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to you, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early or too late, which is in due time for you. Everything is fruit to me which your seasons bring, O Nature: from you are all things, in you are all things, to you all things return. The poet says, Dear City of Cecrops (Athens); and will you not say, Dear City of Zeus (the Universe, or Heaven)?”

But compare even such a devout passage as this with a genuine Christian expression, and it seems a little cold. Turn, for instance, to the Imitation of Christ: “Lord, you know what is best; let this or that be according to your will. Give what you will, as much as you will, when you will. Do with me as you know best, and as shall be most to your honor. Place me where you will, and freely work your will with me in all things… When could it be evil when you were near? I would rather be poor for your sake than rich without you. I choose rather to be a pilgrim upon the earth with you, than without you to possess heaven.”

Where you are, there is heaven. And where you are not, look, there is death and hell.”

It’s a good rule in the study of the body (physiology) when we want to understand an organ, to ask about its most unique and special kind of action. We should look for its purpose in the one function that no other organ can possibly perform. Surely, the same idea holds true in our current search. The essence of religious experiences—the thing by which we must finally judge them—must be that element or quality in them which we can find nowhere else. And such a quality will, of course, be most noticeable and easy to see in those religious experiences that are the most one-sided, exaggerated, and intense.

Now, when we compare these more intense experiences with the experiences of calmer minds—minds so cool and reasonable that we are tempted to call them philosophical rather than religious—we find a characteristic that is perfectly distinct. That characteristic, it seems to me, should be seen as the practically important distinguishing feature of religion for our purpose. And exactly what this feature is can easily be shown by comparing the mind of a theoretically conceived Christian with that of a moralist thought of in a similar way.

We say a life is strong, stoic, moral, or philosophical if it is less influenced by small personal matters and more by objective goals. These goals call for energy, even if that energy brings personal loss and pain. This is the good side of war, when it calls for “volunteers.” And for morality, life is a war. Serving the highest good is a kind of cosmic patriotism that also calls for volunteers.

Even a sick person, unable to fight outwardly, can carry on this moral warfare.

They can willfully turn their attention away from their own future, whether in this world or the next.
They can train themselves to be indifferent to their current problems.
They can immerse themselves in whatever objective interests are still available to them.
They can follow public news and sympathize with other people’s situations.
They can maintain cheerful manners and be silent about their own miseries.
They can think about whatever ideal aspects of life their philosophy can offer.
They can practice whatever duties, such as patience, acceptance, and trust, their ethical system requires.

Such a person lives on their highest, largest level. They are a courageous, free individual, not a complaining, trapped one. And yet, they lack something. This something is what the true Christian—the mystic and the self-denying saint, for example—has in great measure. It makes them a human being of an altogether different kind.

The Christian also rejects the complaining, miserable attitude of someone confined to a sick-room. The lives of saints are full of a kind of indifference to diseased body conditions that probably no other human records show. But there’s a key difference:

The merely moral person’s rejection of this attitude takes an effort of willpower.
The Christian’s rejection is the result of the excitement of a higher kind of emotion. In the presence of this emotion, no effort of willpower is needed.

The moralist must hold their breath and keep their muscles tense. As long as this “athletic attitude” is possible, all goes well—morality is enough. But the athletic attitude tends to break down. It inevitably does break down, even in the strongest people, when the body begins to decay, or when unhealthy fears invade the mind. To suggest using personal will and effort to someone overwhelmed by a sense of permanent powerlessness is to suggest the most impossible of things.

What such a person craves is to be comforted in their very powerlessness. They want to feel that the spirit of the universe recognizes and supports them, even as they are decaying and failing. Well, in the end, we are all such helpless failures. The healthiest and best of us are made of the same stuff as those in mental institutions and prisons. Death finally catches up with the strongest of us. And whenever we feel this, such a sense of the emptiness and temporary nature of our voluntary efforts comes over us. All our morality then seems like just a bandage hiding a wound it can never cure. All our good deeds seem like the hollowest substitute for that true well-being that our lives should be based on, but, sadly, are not.

And here, religion comes to our rescue and takes our fate into her hands. There is a state of mind, known to religious people but to no others, in which the will to assert ourselves and protect our own interests has been replaced by a willingness to be silent and be as nothing in the powerful currents of God. In this state of mind, what we most dreaded has become our place of safety. The hour of our moral death has turned into our spiritual birthday. The time for tension in our soul is over. The time of happy relaxation, of calm deep breathing, of an eternal present with no troubling future to be anxious about, has arrived. Fear is not just held back, as it is by mere morality; it is positively wiped out and washed away.

We will see many examples of this happy state of mind in later lectures. We will see how infinitely passionate a thing religion can be at its highest levels. Like love, like anger, like hope, ambition, jealousy, like every other instinctive desire and impulse, it adds a special charm to life. This charm cannot be rationally or logically figured out from anything else. This charm, coming as a gift when it does come—a gift of our physical being, scientists might say, or a gift of God’s grace, religious thinkers might say—is either there for us or it’s not. There are people who can no more become filled with it than they can fall in love with a particular person simply by being told to do so. Religious feeling is thus an absolute addition to a person’s range of life. It gives them a new area of power. When the outward battle is lost, and the outer world rejects them, religion saves and brings to life an inner world which otherwise would be an empty wasteland.

If religion is to mean anything definite for us, it seems to me that we should take it as meaning this added dimension of emotion. It is this enthusiastic spirit of commitment, in areas where morality, strictly speaking, can at best only bow its head and agree quietly. It should mean nothing less than this new reach of freedom for us, with the struggle over, the main theme of the universe sounding in our ears, and an everlasting sense of belonging spread before our eyes.

This sort of happiness in what is absolute and everlasting is what we find nowhere but in religion. It is set apart from all mere animal happiness, all mere enjoyment of the present, by that element of solemnity which I have already emphasized so much. Solemnity is a hard thing to define abstractly, but some of its signs are clear enough. A solemn state of mind is never crude or simple—it seems to contain a certain amount of its own opposite mixed within it. A solemn joy keeps a sort of bitterness in its sweetness. A solemn sorrow is one to which we deeply agree.

But there are writers who, understanding that happiness of the highest kind is a special feature of religion, forget this complexity. They call all happiness, as such, religious. Mr. Havelock Ellis, for example, identifies religion with the entire field of the soul’s liberation from depressing moods. He writes: “The simplest functions of physical life can serve religion. Everyone familiar with Persian mystics knows how wine can be seen as a tool of religion. Indeed, in all countries and all ages, some form of physical release—singing, dancing, drinking, sexual excitement—has been closely linked with worship. Even the brief expansion of the soul in laughter is, to a small extent, a religious exercise… Whenever an impulse from the world affects us, and the result is not discomfort or pain, not even the muscular effort of strong action, but a joyous expansion or longing of the whole soul—there is religion. It is the infinite that we hunger for, and we gladly ride on every little wave that promises to carry us towards it.”

But such a direct identification of religion with any and every form of happiness leaves out the essential, unique quality of religious happiness. The more common kinds of happiness we experience are “reliefs.” They happen when we momentarily escape from evils, whether those evils are actually experienced or just threatened. But in its most characteristic forms, religious happiness is no mere feeling of escape. It no longer cares to escape. It accepts evil outwardly as a form of sacrifice. Inwardly, it knows that evil is permanently overcome.

If you ask how religion thus embraces hardship and faces death, and in the very act cancels out destruction, I cannot explain the matter. It is religion’s secret. To understand it, you must yourself have been a religious person of the more extreme type. In our future examples, even of the simplest and healthiest kind of religious awareness, we will find this complex, sacrificial nature, in which a higher happiness keeps a lower unhappiness under control.

In the Louvre museum, there is a painting by Guido Reni of Saint Michael with his foot on Satan’s neck. The richness of the picture is largely due to the figure of the devil being there. The richness of its symbolic meaning is also due to his being there. That is, the world is all the richer for having a devil in it, as long as we keep our foot upon his neck. In the religious consciousness, that is exactly the position in which the devil, the negative or tragic element, is found. And for that very reason, the religious consciousness is so rich from an emotional point of view. We shall see how in certain men and women it takes on an incredibly self-denying form. There are saints who have literally fed on the negative elements—on humiliation and hardship, and the thought of suffering and death. Their souls grew in happiness just as their outward situation became more unbearable. No other emotion than religious emotion can bring a person to this peculiar state. And it is for that reason that when we ask our question about the value of religion for human life, I think we should look for the answer among these more intense examples rather than among those of a more moderate kind.

By starting with the phenomenon of our study in its sharpest possible form, we can then tone it down as much as we please later. And if in these cases—as unpleasant as they are to our ordinary worldly way of judging—we find ourselves forced to acknowledge religion’s value and treat it with respect, it will have proven its value for life in general in some way. By removing and softening the extreme aspects, we may then proceed to trace the boundaries of its legitimate influence.

To be sure, it makes our task difficult to have to deal so much with oddities and extremes. You may ask, “How can religion on the whole be the most important of all human functions, if every single expression of it has to be corrected, sobered down, and trimmed away?” Such an idea seems like a paradox, impossible to support reasonably. Yet I believe that something like it will have to be our final conclusion.

That personal attitude which the individual finds themselves driven to take towards what they understand to be the divine—and you will remember that this was our definition—will prove to be both a helpless and a sacrificial attitude. That is, we will have to admit to at least some amount of dependence on sheer mercy. We will also have to practice some amount of giving things up, great or small, to save our souls. The way the world we live in is structured requires it: A famous writer once said: “Renounce! You must renounce! That is the eternal song That rings in every ear, Which, our whole life long, Every hour sings hoarsely to us.”

For when all is said and done, we are in the end absolutely dependent on the universe. We are drawn and pressed into sacrifices and surrenders of some sort, deliberately looked at and accepted, as if they were our only permanent positions of rest. Now, in those states of mind that fall short of religion, surrender is accepted as something forced by necessity. Sacrifice is endured, at the very best, without complaint. In the religious life, on the contrary, surrender and sacrifice are positively embraced. Even unnecessary acts of giving things up are added so that happiness may increase. Religion thus makes easy and joyful what is, in any case, necessary. And if it is the only power that can achieve this result, its vital importance as a human ability is proven beyond dispute. It becomes an essential organ of our life, performing a function which no other part of our nature can so successfully fulfill.

From the merely biological point of view, so to speak, this is a conclusion to which, as far as I can now see, we shall inevitably be led. Moreover, we will be led there by following the purely experience-based method of demonstration which I outlined to you in the first lecture. I will say nothing now about the further role of religion as a source of deep, philosophical truth.

But to predict the end point of one’s investigations is one thing, and to arrive there safely is another. In the next lecture, leaving behind the extreme generalities that have occupied us so far, I propose that we begin our actual journey by addressing ourselves directly to the concrete facts.

THE REALITY OF THE UNSEEN

If someone asked us to describe the life of religion in the simplest and most general way, we might say this: Religion is the belief that there is an unseen order in the universe. And our greatest good comes from living in harmony with this unseen order. This belief and this way of living are what make up a religious attitude in a person’s soul.

In this lecture, I want to focus on some of the psychological details of having such an attitude—a belief in something we cannot see.

All our attitudes—whether moral, practical, emotional, or religious—are shaped by the “objects” of our awareness. These are the things we believe exist, either truly or as ideals, alongside ourselves. These objects might be things we can perceive with our senses. Or, they might be things present only in our thoughts. In either case, they cause a reaction in us. And the reaction caused by things we only think about is often just as strong as the reaction to things we can actually sense. Sometimes, it’s even stronger.

For example, the memory of an insult might make us angrier than the insult did when it first happened.
We are often more ashamed of our mistakes afterwards than we were at the moment we made them. In general, our whole higher life of careful planning and morality is based on this fact: ideas about distant or future things can have a weaker influence on our actions than immediate physical sensations.

The most concrete objects of most people’s religion—the gods or deities they worship—are known to them only as ideas. For example, very few Christian believers have actually seen their Savior with their own eyes. However, enough appearances of this kind have been recorded, as miraculous exceptions, to deserve our attention later. Therefore, the whole force of the Christian religion, when belief in divine figures shapes a believer’s attitude, generally works through pure ideas. These ideas often have no direct model in the individual’s past experiences.

But besides these ideas of more concrete religious objects, religion is full of abstract objects that prove to have equal power.

God’s qualities, such as His holiness, justice, mercy, absolute nature, endlessness, complete knowledge, and three-in-one nature.
The various mysteries of how salvation works.
The effects of religious ceremonies or sacraments. All these have been rich sources of inspiring meditation for Christian believers.

We will see later that experts in mystical experiences in all religions actually insist on the absence of clear, sensible images. They see this as essential for successful deep prayer or contemplation of higher divine truths. Such deep thoughts are expected to powerfully influence the believer’s later attitudes for the better. And, as we will also see, they often do.

The philosopher Immanuel Kant had a curious idea about objects of belief like God, the design of creation, the soul, its freedom, and the afterlife. He said these things are not really objects of knowledge at all. Our concepts always need some sensory information to work with. Since words like “soul,” “God,” and “immortality” don’t refer to any distinct sensory information, it follows that, theoretically, they are words without any real meaning.

Yet, strangely enough, Kant said these words have a definite meaning for how we act.

We can act as if there were a God.
We can feel as if we were free.
We can consider Nature as if it were full of special designs.
We can make plans as if we were going to live forever. When we do this, we find that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral lives. Our faith that these unclear objects actually exist proves to be a full equivalent, from the point of view of our actions (or in “praktischer Hinsicht,” as Kant called it), to actually knowing what they might be, if we were able to clearly imagine them.

So, Kant tells us, we have this strange situation: a mind believing with all its strength in the real presence of a set of things, even though it cannot form any clear idea of what any of them are.

My reason for bringing up Kant’s idea is not to give my opinion on this particularly awkward part of his philosophy. It is only to illustrate the characteristic of human nature we are considering, using a classic example known for its extremity. The feeling of reality can indeed attach itself so strongly to our object of belief that our whole life is completely oriented, so to speak, by its sense of the existence of the thing believed in. And yet, that thing, for the purpose of clear description, can hardly be said to be present to our mind at all.

It is as if a bar of iron, without any sense of touch or sight, with no ability to form mental images, might nevertheless be strongly gifted with an inner capacity for magnetic feeling. And as if, through the various awakenings of its magnetism by magnets coming and going nearby, it might be consciously led to different attitudes and tendencies. Such a bar of iron could never give you an outward description of the forces that had the power to stir it so strongly. Yet, it would be intensely aware of their presence, and of their importance for its life, through every fiber of its being.

It is not only the “Ideas of pure Reason,” as Kant called them, that have this power of making us vitally feel presences that we are unable to clearly describe. All sorts of higher abstract ideas bring with them the same kind of hard-to-grasp appeal. Remember those passages from Emerson which I read in my last lecture. The whole universe of concrete objects, as we know them, seems to float, not only for such a philosophical writer but for all of us, in a wider and higher universe of abstract ideas. These abstract ideas lend the concrete universe its significance. Just as we feel that time, space, and the invisible medium called ether fill all things, we also feel that abstract and essential goodness, beauty, strength, significance, and justice fill all things that are good, strong, significant, and just.

Such ideas, and others equally abstract, form the background for all our facts. They are the main source of all the possibilities we can imagine. They give its “nature,” as we call it, to every special thing. Everything we know is “what” it is because it shares in the nature of one of these abstractions. We can never look directly at them, because they have no body, no features, and no footing. But we grasp all other things through them. In dealing with the real world, we would be struck with helplessness if we were to lose these mental objects—these adjectives, adverbs, categories, and organizing concepts.

This absolute power of abstractions to shape our minds is one of the most fundamental facts about being human. They orient and attract us. We turn towards them and away from them. We seek them, hold them, hate them, bless them, just as if they were so many concrete beings. And beings they are—beings as real in the world they inhabit as the changing things of our senses are in the world of space.

Plato gave such a brilliant and impressive defense of this common human feeling that the doctrine of the reality of abstract objects has been known as the Platonic theory of ideas ever since. Abstract Beauty, for example, is for Plato a perfectly definite, individual being. The intellect is aware of it as something existing in addition to all the fading beauties of the earth. In a frequently quoted passage from his “Banquet,” Plato says: “The true order of going is to use the beauties of earth as steps. Along these steps, one climbs upwards for the sake of that other Beauty. One goes from one beautiful form to two, and from two to all beautiful forms. Then from beautiful forms to beautiful actions, and from beautiful actions to beautiful ideas, until from beautiful ideas, one arrives at the idea of absolute Beauty, and at last knows what the essence of Beauty is.”

In our last lecture, we briefly saw how a writer like Emerson, who thinks in a Platonic way, may treat the abstract divineness of things—the moral structure of the universe—as a fact worthy of worship. In those various modern groups that function like churches but without a God, often called ethical societies, we see a similar worship of the abstract divine—the moral law believed in as an ultimate object.

For many minds, “Science” is genuinely taking the place of a religion. When this happens, the scientist treats the “Laws of Nature” as objective facts to be deeply respected. One brilliant school of thought on Greek mythology suggests that, in their origin, the Greek gods were only partly metaphorical personifications of those great spheres of abstract law and order into which the natural world is divided—the sky, the ocean, the earth, and so on. This is similar to how even now we might speak of the smile of the morning, the kiss of the breeze, or the bite of the cold, without really meaning that these natural events actually have a human face.

Regarding the origin of the Greek gods, we don’t need to form an opinion right now. But all these examples lead to a conclusion something like this: It is as if there were in human consciousness a sense of reality, a feeling of objective presence, a perception of what we may call “something there.” This feeling seems more deep and more general than any of the special and particular “senses” by which current psychology assumes existing realities are originally revealed.

If this were true, we might suppose that our physical senses awaken our attitudes and actions, as they usually do, by first exciting this general sense of reality. But anything else—any idea, for example—that might similarly excite it would have that same power of appearing real that objects of sense normally possess. So, as long as religious ideas were able to touch this “reality-feeling,” they would be believed in despite criticism. This would be true even if they were so vague and distant as to be almost unimaginable, or even if they were, in terms of their actual substance, as empty as Kant says the objects of his moral philosophy are.

The most curious proofs of the existence of such an basic, undifferentiated sense of reality are found in experiences of hallucination. It often happens that a hallucination is not fully developed. The affected person will feel a “presence” in the room. This presence is definitely located, facing in one particular direction, and real in the strongest sense of the word. It often comes suddenly and disappears just as suddenly. Yet, it is neither seen, heard, touched, nor perceived in any of the usual “sensible” ways. Let me give you an example of this, before I move on to the objects with whose presence religion is more specifically concerned.

An intimate friend of mine, one of the sharpest minds I know, has had several experiences of this sort. He writes as follows in response to my questions:

“I have several times within the past few years felt the so-called ‘consciousness of a presence.’ The experiences I have in mind are clearly different from another kind of experience I have had very frequently, which I imagine many people would also call the ‘consciousness of a presence.’ But the difference for me between the two sets of experience is as great as the difference between feeling a slight warmth coming from I don’t know where, and standing in the middle of a huge fire with all the ordinary senses alert.

It was about September 1884 when I had the first experience. On the previous night, after getting into bed in my college rooms, I had a vivid hallucination of being touched—of my arm being grasped. This made me get up and search the room for an intruder. But the sense of presence, properly speaking, came on the next night. After I had gotten into bed and blown out the candle, I lay awake for a while thinking about the previous night’s experience. Suddenly, I felt something come into the room and stay close to my bed. It remained only a minute or two. I did not recognize it by any ordinary sense. Yet, there was a horribly unpleasant ‘sensation’ connected with it. It stirred something deeper at the core of my being than any ordinary perception. The feeling had something of the quality of a very large, tearing, vital pain spreading mainly over my chest, but inside my body—and yet the feeling was not pain so much as extreme disgust or revulsion. At any rate, something was present with me, and I knew its presence far more surely than I have ever known the presence of any physical, living creature. I was conscious of its departure just as I was of its coming: an almost instant, swift going through the door, and the ‘horrible sensation’ disappeared.

On the third night, when I went to bed, my mind was focused on some lectures I was preparing. I was still focused on these when I became aware of the actual presence (though not of the coming) of the thing that was there the night before, and of the ‘horrible sensation.’ I then mentally concentrated all my effort to order this ‘thing,’ if it was evil, to leave. If it was not evil, I ordered it to tell me who or what it was. And if it could not explain itself, I ordered it to go, saying that I would force it to go. It went as on the previous night, and my body quickly recovered its normal state.

On two other occasions in my life, I have had precisely the same ‘horrible sensation.’ Once it lasted a full quarter of an hour. In all three instances, the certainty that there in outward space stood something was indescribably stronger than the ordinary certainty of companionship when we are in the close presence of ordinary living people. The something seemed close to me, and intensely more real than any ordinary perception. Although I felt it to be like myself, so to speak—or finite, small, and troubled, as it were—I didn’t recognize it as any individual being or person.”

Of course, an experience like this does not necessarily connect with the religious sphere. Yet it may do so on occasion. The same friend informs me that at more than one other time, he had the sense of presence develop with equal intensity and suddenness. Only then, it was filled with a quality of joy.

He wrote: “There was not just a consciousness of something there. Fused in the central happiness of it was a startling awareness of some indescribable good. It was not vague either, not like the emotional effect of some poem, or scene, or flower, or music. It was the sure knowledge of the close presence of a sort of mighty person. And after it went, the memory persisted as the one perception of reality. Everything else might be a dream, but not that.”

My friend, as it oddly happens, does not interpret these joyful experiences in a religious way, as meaning the presence of God. But it would clearly not have been unnatural to interpret them as a revelation of God’s existence. When we reach the subject of mysticism, we will have much more to say about this.

Lest the strangeness of these phenomena should disturb you, I will read you a couple of similar stories, much shorter, merely to show that we are dealing with a well-defined natural kind of fact. In the first case, which I take from the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, the sense of presence developed in a few moments into a distinctly seen hallucination—but I will leave that part of the story out.

The narrator says: “I had read for about twenty minutes or so and was thoroughly absorbed in the book. My mind was perfectly quiet, and for the time being, my friends were quite forgotten. Suddenly, without a moment’s warning, my whole being seemed roused to the highest state of tension or aliveness. I was aware, with an intensity not easily imagined by those who have never experienced it, that another being or presence was not only in the room but quite close to me. I put my book down. Although my excitement was great, I felt quite calm and was not conscious of any sense of fear. Without changing my position, and looking straight at the fire, I somehow knew that my friend A. H. was standing at my left elbow, but so far behind me as to be hidden by the armchair in which I was leaning back. Moving my eyes slightly without otherwise changing my position, the lower portion of one leg became visible. I instantly recognized the gray-blue material of trousers he often wore. But the material appeared semi-transparent, reminding me of tobacco smoke in its consistency…” – and at this point, the visual hallucination began.

Another person writes: “Quite early in the night, I was awakened… I felt as if I had been aroused intentionally. At first, I thought someone was breaking into the house… I then turned on my side to go to sleep again. Immediately, I felt a consciousness of a presence in the room. And strangely, it was not the consciousness of a live person, but of a spiritual presence. This may make you smile, but I can only tell you the facts as they occurred to me. I do not know how to better describe my sensations than by simply stating that I felt a consciousness of a spiritual presence… I also felt at the same time a strong feeling of superstitious dread, as if something strange and fearful were about to happen.”

Professor Flournoy of Geneva gives me the following account from a friend of his, a lady, who has the gift of automatic or involuntary writing: “Whenever I practice automatic writing, what makes me feel that it is not due to a subconscious part of myself is the feeling I always have of a foreign presence, external to my body. It is sometimes so definitely characterized that I could point to its exact position.”

This feeling of a presence is impossible to describe. It changes in strength and clearness depending on the personality the writing seems to come from. She adds, “If it is someone I love, I feel it immediately, before any writing has come. My heart seems to recognize it.”

In one of my earlier books, I described in full detail a curious case of a presence felt by a blind man. The presence was that of a gray-bearded man dressed in a suit of mixed gray and white material. This figure seemed to be squeezing himself under the crack of the door and moving across the floor of the room towards a sofa. The blind person who had this almost-hallucination is an exceptionally intelligent observer. He has no internal visual memories and cannot imagine light or colors. He is certain that his other senses, like hearing, were not involved in this false perception. It seems to have been more of an abstract idea, but with feelings of reality and being in a specific physical space directly attached to it. In other words, it was a fully formed and seemingly external idea.

Such cases, along with others that would take too long to quote, seem to prove well enough that our minds have a sense of present reality. This sense is more widespread and general than the reality our special senses (sight, hearing, etc.) show us. For psychologists, figuring out the physical location in the brain for such a feeling would be an interesting problem. It would be quite natural to connect it with our sense of muscle movement—with the feeling that our muscles were getting ready for action. Whatever made our muscles prepare for action, or “made our flesh creep”—and our senses often do this—might then appear real and present, even if it were just an abstract idea. But we are not concerned with such vague guesses at present. Our interest is in this ability of the mind, rather than its physical basis in the body.

Like all positive feelings in our awareness, the sense of reality has its opposite: a feeling of unreality. People can be haunted by this feeling, and one sometimes hears complaints about it. Madame Ackermann says: “When I think about the fact that I have appeared by accident on a planet that is itself thrown through space like a toy of heavenly disasters; when I see myself surrounded by beings as short-lived and hard to understand as I am myself, and all of them excitedly chasing pure fantasies, I experience a strange feeling of being in a dream. It seems to me as if I have loved and suffered and that soon I shall die, all in a dream. My last word will be, ‘I have been dreaming.’ ”

In another lecture, we will see how in cases of severe sadness or melancholy, this sense of the unreality of things can become a constant, nagging pain, and even lead to suicide.

We can now state as certain that in the distinctively religious area of experience, many people (we cannot tell how many) experience the objects of their belief in a special way. They don’t experience them as mere ideas that their intellect accepts as true. Instead, they experience them as almost-sensible realities that they directly perceive. As a believer’s sense of the real presence of these objects changes, so does their faith alternate between feeling warm and engaged, and feeling cold and distant.

Other examples will make this clearer than abstract descriptions, so I will immediately share some. The first example is a negative one, where someone regrets losing this sense of reality. I have taken it from an account given to me by a scientific man I know, describing his religious life. It seems to me to show clearly that the feeling of reality may be something more like a sensation than a purely intellectual process.

He said: “Between the ages of twenty and thirty, I gradually became more and more doubtful about religion and less religious. Yet I cannot say that I ever lost that ‘indefinite awareness’ which Herbert Spencer describes so well, of an Absolute Reality behind all appearances. For me, this Reality was not the pure Unknowable of Spencer’s philosophy. Although I had stopped my childish prayers to God, and never prayed to ‘It’ in a formal way, my more recent experience shows me that I had a relationship with ‘It’ which was practically the same thing as prayer. Whenever I had any trouble, especially when I had conflicts with other people, either at home or in business, or when I was feeling down or anxious about things, I now recognize that I used to fall back for support upon this curious relationship I felt I had with this fundamental cosmic ‘It.’ ‘It’ was on my side, or I was on Its side, however you want to say it, in the particular trouble. And it always strengthened me and seemed to give me endless vitality to feel its underlying and supporting presence. In fact, it was a never-failing source of living justice, truth, and strength, to which I instinctively turned at times of weakness, and it always brought me through. I know now that it was a personal relationship I had with it, because in recent years the power of communicating with it has left me, and I am aware of a perfectly definite loss. I used to never fail to find it when I turned to it. Then came a period of years when sometimes I found it, and then again I would be wholly unable to make a connection with it. I remember many occasions when at night in bed, I would be unable to get to sleep because of worry. I turned this way and that in the darkness, and searched mentally for the familiar sense of that higher mind of my mind which had always seemed to be close by, as it were, guarding the way and giving support, but there was no connection, no ‘electric current.’ A blank was there instead of ‘It’; I couldn’t find anything. Now, at the age of nearly fifty, my power of getting into connection with it has entirely left me. I have to confess that a great help has gone out of my life. Life has become curiously dead and indifferent. I can now see that my old experience was probably exactly the same thing as the prayers of traditionally religious people, only I did not call them by that name. What I have spoken of as ‘It’ was practically not Spencer’s Unknowable, but just my own instinctive and individual God, whom I relied upon for higher sympathy, but whom somehow I have lost.”

Nothing is more common in religious biographies than descriptions of how periods of strong faith and periods of difficult faith alternate. Probably every religious person remembers particular crises in which a more direct vision of the truth, perhaps a direct perception of a living God’s existence, swept in and overwhelmed the tiredness of more ordinary belief. In James Russell Lowell’s letters, there is a brief note about an experience of this kind:

“I had a revelation last Friday evening. I was at Mary’s, and happened to say something about the presence of spirits (of whom, I said, I was often dimly aware). Mr. Putnam started an argument with me on spiritual matters. As I was speaking, the whole system of these ideas rose up before me like a vague destiny appearing from a great Abyss. I never before so clearly felt the Spirit of God in me and around me. The whole room seemed to me full of God. The air seemed to move back and forth with the presence of Something I knew not what. I spoke with the calmness and clearness of a prophet. I cannot tell you what this revelation was. I have not yet studied it enough. But I shall perfect it one day, and then you shall hear it and recognize its greatness.”

Here is a longer and more developed experience from a handwritten account by a clergyman—I take it from Professor Starbuck’s collection of such accounts:

“I remember the night, and almost the very spot on the hilltop, where my soul opened out, as it were, into the Infinite. There was a rushing together of the two worlds, the inner and the outer. It was deep calling to deep—the deep emptiness that my own struggle had opened up within me was being answered by the bottomless deep outside, reaching beyond the stars. I stood alone with Him who had made me, and all the beauty of the world, and love, and sorrow, and even temptation. I did not seek Him, but felt the perfect harmony of my spirit with His. The ordinary sense of things around me faded. For the moment, nothing but an indescribable joy and elation remained. It is impossible to fully describe the experience. It was like the effect of some great orchestra when all the separate notes have melted into one swelling harmony that leaves the listener aware of nothing except that his soul is being carried upwards, and almost bursting with its own emotion. The perfect stillness of the night was made more thrilling by a more solemn silence. The darkness held a presence that was all the more felt because it was not seen. I could not any more have doubted that He was there than that I was. Indeed, I felt myself to be, if possible, the less real of the two. My highest faith in God and truest idea of him were then born in me. I have stood upon the Mount of Vision since, and felt the Eternal all around me. But never since has there come quite the same stirring of the heart. Then, if ever, I believe, I stood face to face with God, and was born anew of his spirit. There was, as I recall it, no sudden change of thought or of belief, except that my early, simple understanding had, as it were, burst into flower. There was no destruction of the old ideas, but a rapid, wonderful unfolding of them. Since that time, no discussion that I have heard about the proofs of God’s existence has been able to shake my faith. Having once felt the presence of God’s spirit, I have never lost it again for long. My most reassuring evidence of his existence is deeply rooted in that hour of vision, in the memory of that supreme experience, and in the conviction, gained from reading and reflection, that something similar has come to all who have found God. I am aware that it may justly be called mystical. I am not familiar enough with philosophy to defend it from that or any other criticism. I feel that in writing about it, I have covered it with words rather than put it clearly to your mind. But, such as it is, I have described it as carefully as I now am able to do.”

Here is another account, even more definite in nature. The writer was Swiss, so I am translating it from the original French:

“I was in perfect health. We were on our sixth day of hiking and in good physical condition. We had come the day before from Sixt to Trient by way of the Buet mountain. I felt neither tired, hungry, nor thirsty, and my state of mind was equally healthy. I had received good news from home when I was at Forlaz. I had no worries, either immediate or distant, because we had a good guide, and there was not a shadow of uncertainty about the road we should follow. I can best describe the condition I was in by calling it a state of balance. Then, all at once, I experienced a feeling of being lifted above myself. I felt the presence of God—I am telling this just as I was aware of it—as if his goodness and his power were entering me completely. The rush of emotion was so strong that I could barely tell the boys with me to pass on and not wait for me. I then sat down on a stone, unable to stand any longer, and my eyes overflowed with tears. I thanked God that in the course of my life he had taught me to know him, that he sustained my life, and took pity both on the insignificant creature and on the sinner that I was. I begged him passionately that my life might be dedicated to doing his will. I felt his reply, which was that I should do his will from day to day in humility and poverty, leaving him, the Almighty God, to be judge of whether I should someday be called to bear witness more noticeably. Then, slowly, the intense joy left my heart; that is, I felt that God had withdrawn the close connection he had granted. I was able to walk on, but very slowly, because I was still so strongly affected by the inner emotion. Besides, I had wept without stopping for several minutes, my eyes were swollen, and I did not want my companions to see me. The state of ecstasy may have lasted four or five minutes, although it seemed at the time to last much longer. My companions waited for me for ten minutes at the cross of Barine, but I took about twenty-five or thirty minutes to join them, for as well as I can remember, they said that I had kept them waiting for about half an hour. The impression had been so profound that while climbing slowly up the slope, I asked myself if it were possible that Moses on Mount Sinai could have had a more intimate communication with God. I think it is important to add that in this ecstasy of mine, God had no form, color, smell, or taste. Moreover, the feeling of his presence was not tied to any specific location. It was rather as if my personality had been transformed by the presence of a spiritual spirit. But the more I search for words to express this intimate connection, the more I feel the impossibility of describing the experience using any of our usual images. Basically, the expression most suitable to convey what I felt is this: God was present, though invisible; he did not affect any of my senses, yet my consciousness perceived him.”

The adjective “mystical” is technically applied, most often, to states that are short-lived. Of course, such hours of intense joy as the last two people describe are mystical experiences. I will have much more to say about these in a later lecture.

Meanwhile, here is a shortened record of another mystical or semi-mystical experience, from a mind clearly designed by nature for passionate religious devotion. I found it in Professor Starbuck’s collection. The lady who gives the account is the daughter of a man well known in his time as a writer against Christianity. The suddenness of her conversion shows well how natural the sense of God’s presence must be to certain minds. She says that she was brought up completely ignorant of Christian teachings. But, when she was in Germany, after Christian friends talked to her, she read the Bible and prayed. Finally, the plan of salvation flashed upon her like a stream of light.

She writes: “To this day, I cannot understand hesitating about religion and the commands of God. The very instant I heard my Father’s cry calling to me, my heart leaped in recognition. I ran, I stretched out my arms, I cried aloud ‘Here, here I am, my Father.’ Oh, happy child, what should I do? ‘Love me,’ answered my God. ‘I do, I do,’ I cried passionately. ‘Come to me,’ called my Father. ‘I will,’ my heart panted. Did I stop to ask a single question? Not one. It never occurred to me to ask whether I was good enough, or to hesitate over my unworthiness, or to find out what I thought of his church, or… to wait until I should be satisfied. Satisfied! I was satisfied. Had I not found my God and my Father? Did he not love me? Had he not called me? Was there not a Church into which I might enter?… Since then I have had direct answers to prayer—so significant as to be almost like talking with God and hearing his answer. The idea of God’s reality has never left me for one moment.”

Here is still another case. The writer is a man aged twenty-seven. In this case, the experience, probably almost as characteristic, is less vividly described:

“I have on a number of occasions felt that I had enjoyed a period of intimate connection with the divine. These meetings came unasked and unexpected. They seemed to consist merely in the temporary disappearance of the usual routines and surface concerns that normally surround and cover my life… Once it was when from the summit of a high mountain I looked over a deeply cut and wrinkled landscape extending to a long, curved line of ocean that rose to the horizon. Another time it was from the same point when I could see nothing beneath me but a boundless expanse of white cloud. On the wind-blown surface of this cloud, a few high peaks, including the one I was on, seemed to be plunging about as if they were dragging their anchors. What I felt on these occasions was a temporary loss of my own identity, accompanied by an understanding that revealed to me a deeper significance to life than I had been used to seeing. It is in this that I find my reason for saying that I have enjoyed communication with God. Of course, the absence of such a being as this would be chaos. I cannot imagine life without its presence.”

Here is an example of the more habitual, and so to speak, ongoing sense of God’s presence, from Professor Starbuck’s collection. It may serve to give an idea. It is from a man aged forty-nine—probably thousands of humble Christians would write an almost identical account:

“God is more real to me than any thought or thing or person. I feel his presence positively, and the more so as I live in closer harmony with his laws as written in my body and mind. I feel him in the sunshine or rain; and awe mixed with a delicious restfulness most nearly describes my feelings. I talk to him as to a companion in prayer and praise, and our communication is delightful. He answers me again and again, often in words so clearly spoken that it seems my outer ear must have carried the tone, but generally in strong mental impressions. Usually, it is a passage from Scripture, unfolding some new view of him and his love for me, and care for my safety. I could give hundreds of instances, in school matters, social problems, financial difficulties, etc. That he is mine and I am his never leaves me; it is a lasting joy. Without it, life would be a blank, a desert, a shoreless, trackless waste.”

I will add some more examples from writers of different ages and sexes. They are also from Professor Starbuck’s collection, and their number could be greatly increased. The first is from a man twenty-seven years old:

“God is quite real to me. I talk to him and often get answers.”

Thoughts that are sudden and different from any I have been thinking about come to my mind after asking God for his direction. About a year ago, I was in a terrible state of confusion for some weeks. When the trouble first appeared, I was stunned. But before long (two or three hours), I could hear distinctly a passage from Scripture: ‘My grace is sufficient for you.’ Every time my thoughts turned to the trouble, I could hear this quotation. I don’t think I ever doubted the existence of God, or had him disappear from my awareness. God has frequently stepped into my affairs in very noticeable ways. I feel that he directs many little details all the time. But on two or three occasions, he has ordered paths for me that were very different from my ambitions and plans.”

Another statement (which is valuable for understanding psychology, even though it is clearly childish) is from a boy of seventeen: “Sometimes when I go to church, I sit down and join in the service. Before I go out, I feel as if God was with me, right beside me, singing and reading the Psalms with me… And then again, I feel as if I could sit beside him, put my arms around him, kiss him, etc. When I am taking Holy Communion at the altar, I try to get close to him and generally feel his presence.”

Here are a few other cases, chosen at random:

“God surrounds me like the physical atmosphere. He is closer to me than my own breath. In him, literally, I live and move and have my being.”
“There are times when I seem to stand in his very presence, to talk with him. Answers to prayer have come, sometimes direct and overwhelming in their revelation of his presence and powers. There are times when God seems far off, but this is always my own fault.”
“I have the sense of a presence that is strong, and at the same time soothing, which hovers over me. Sometimes it seems to wrap me with supporting arms.”

Such is the human imagination about existence, and such is the convincing power of what it creates. Beings that cannot be pictured are felt as real, and with an intensity almost like that of a hallucination. They shape our basic attitude towards life as strongly as the attitude of lovers is shaped by the constant sense each has of the other existing in the world. A lover clearly has this sense of their idol’s continuous being, even when their attention is on other matters and they are no longer picturing the loved one’s features. They cannot forget the loved one; she affects them through and through, without interruption.

I spoke of how convincing these feelings of reality are, and I must spend a moment longer on that point. They are as convincing to those who have them as any direct experiences from our senses can be. And, as a rule, they are much more convincing than conclusions established by mere logic ever are. It’s true that a person may be entirely without them; probably more than one of you here listening is without them in any strong way. But if you do have them, and have them at all strongly, it’s likely that you cannot help but see them as genuine perceptions of truth. You see them as revelations of a kind of reality that no opposing argument, however unanswerable by you in words, can remove from your belief.

The philosophical view opposed to mysticism is sometimes called rationalism. Rationalism insists that all our beliefs should ultimately find clear, expressible reasons for themselves. For rationalism, such reasons must consist of four things:

Clearly stated abstract principles.
Definite facts from our senses.
Definite theories based on such facts.
Definite conclusions logically drawn from these. Vague impressions of something undefinable have no place in the rationalistic system. On its positive side, rationalism is surely a splendid intellectual approach, because not only are all our philosophies its products, but physical science (among other good things) is also its result.

Nevertheless, if we look at a person’s whole mental life as it actually exists—the life that lies within people apart from their formal learning and science, the life they inwardly and privately follow—we have to admit something. The part of it that rationalism can explain is relatively superficial. It is the part that has the authority, undoubtedly, because it can speak fluently. It can challenge you for proofs, argue with logic, and defeat you with words. But it will fail to convince or convert you all the same, if your unspoken intuitions are against its conclusions.

If you have intuitions at all, they come from a deeper level of your nature than the talkative level where rationalism operates. Your whole subconscious life—your impulses, your faiths, your needs, your gut feelings—has prepared the basic ideas. Your consciousness now feels the weight of the result of these ideas. And something in you absolutely knows that that result must be truer than any logic-chopping rationalistic talk, however clever, that may contradict it.

This weakness of the rationalistic level in forming beliefs is just as clear when rationalism argues for religion as when it argues against it. That vast collection of writings proving God’s existence from the order of nature, which a century ago seemed so overwhelmingly convincing, today does little more than gather dust in libraries. The simple reason is that our generation has stopped believing in the kind of God those writings argued for. Whatever sort of being God may be, we know today that he is no longer that mere external inventor of “clever designs” intended to show his “glory,” in which our great-grandfathers found such satisfaction. However, we cannot possibly make clear in words, either to others or to ourselves, just how we know this. I challenge any of you here to fully explain your belief that if a God exists, he must be a more cosmic and tragic figure than that Being.

The truth is that in the areas of deep philosophy and religion, clearly expressed reasons are convincing for us only when our unspoken feelings of reality have already been swayed in favor of the same conclusion. Then, indeed, our intuitions and our reason work together. Great world-shaping systems, like Buddhist or Catholic philosophy, may grow up. Our impulsive belief is always what sets up the original core of truth. Our clearly worded philosophy is just its showy translation into formulas. The unreasoned and immediate certainty is the deep thing in us; the reasoned argument is just a surface display. Instinct leads; intelligence merely follows. If a person feels the presence of a living God in the way shown by my quotations, your critical arguments, no matter how superior, will try in vain to change his faith.

Please note, however, that I am not yet saying that it is better for the subconscious and non-rational parts of us to have this primary role in the religious realm. I am simply pointing out that, as a matter of fact, they do have it.

So much for our sense of the reality of religious objects. Let me now say a brief word more about the attitudes they typically awaken.

We have already agreed that these attitudes are solemn. We have also seen reason to think that the most distinctive of them is the sort of joy that may result in extreme cases from absolute self-surrender. The sense of the kind of object to which the surrender is made has much to do with shaping the precise nature of the joy. The whole phenomenon is more complex than any simple formula allows.

In writings on this subject, sadness and gladness have each been emphasized at different times. The ancient saying that the first creator of the Gods was fear finds a great deal of support from every age of religious history. But religious history also clearly shows the part that joy has always tended to play. Sometimes the joy has been primary. Sometimes it has been secondary, being the gladness of escape from fear. This latter state of things, being more complex, is also more complete. As we proceed, I think we will have plenty of reason for refusing to leave out either the sadness or the gladness, if we look at religion with the broad view it demands.

Stated in the most complete terms possible, a person’s religion involves both moods of shrinking or contraction and moods of opening up or expansion of their being. But the specific mix and order of these moods vary so much from one era of the world to another, from one system of thought to another, and from one individual to another. Because of this, you may insist either on the dread and submission, or on the peace and freedom, as the essence of the matter, and still remain largely within the limits of the truth.

The person who is naturally serious and a bit gloomy, and the person who is naturally optimistic and cheerful, are bound to emphasize opposite aspects of what they see. The naturally serious religious person makes even their religious peace a very sober thing. Danger still seems to hover in the air around it. The tendency to pull back and contract is not completely gone. It would be like a foolish sparrow, childishly exploding into chirping laughter and playful jumps right after being saved, utterly forgetting the hawk still waiting on a nearby branch. Instead, they think, “Lie low, be quiet; for you are in the hands of a living God.”

In the Book of Job, for example, the powerlessness of humans and the all-powerful nature of God is the exclusive focus of its author’s mind. “It is as high as heaven; what can you do?—deeper than hell; what can you know?” There is a sharp, bracing pleasure in the truth of this conviction which some people can feel. For them, it is as close as they can get to the feeling of religious joy. That coldly truthful writer, the author of “Mark Rutherford,” says about Job: “God reminds us that man is not the measure of his creation. The world is immense, built on no plan or theory which the human mind can grasp. It is beyond our understanding everywhere. This is the message of every verse, and is the secret, if there is one, of the poem. Whether it’s enough or not, there is nothing more… God is great; we do not know his ways. He takes from us all we have, but yet if we hold onto our souls in patience, we may pass through the valley of the shadow of death and come out in sunlight again. We may, or we may not!… What more do we have to say now than God said from the whirlwind over two thousand five hundred years ago?”

If we turn to the optimistic onlooker, on the other hand, we find that liberation is felt as incomplete unless the burden is completely overcome and the danger forgotten. Such onlookers give us definitions of religion that seem, to the serious-minded people we just discussed, to leave out all the solemnity that makes religious peace so different from merely animal joys. In the opinion of some writers, an attitude might be called religious even if it had no trace of sacrifice or submission, no tendency to pull back, no bowing of the head. Professor J. R. Seeley says, “Any habitual and regulated admiration is worthy to be called a religion.” Accordingly, he thinks that our Music, our Science, and our so-called “Civilization,” as these things are now organized and admired, form the more genuine religions of our time. Certainly, the unhesitating and unreasoning way in which we feel that we must force our civilization upon “lower” races, using powerful weapons and so on, reminds one strongly of the early spirit of Islam spreading its religion by the sword.

In my last lecture, I quoted to you the extremely radical opinion of Mr. Havelock Ellis, that laughter of any sort may be considered a religious exercise, because it shows the soul’s freedom. I quoted this opinion in order to deny that it was adequate. But we must now deal more carefully with this whole optimistic way of thinking. It is far too complex to be decided quickly. I propose, therefore, that we make religious optimism the theme of the next two lectures.

THE RELIGION OF HEALTHY-MINDEDNESS

If we asked, “What is human life’s main concern?” one answer would be: “It is happiness.” How to gain, keep, and recover happiness is, for most people at all times, the secret reason for all they do and all they are willing to endure. The philosophical school called hedonism bases all moral life on the experiences of happiness and unhappiness that different kinds of actions bring. And in religious life, even more than in moral life, happiness and unhappiness seem to be the central points around which interest turns.

We don’t need to go as far as the author I recently quoted, who said that any persistent enthusiasm is, by itself, religion. Nor do we need to call mere laughter a religious exercise. But we must admit that any lasting enjoyment can produce a sort of religion. This religion consists in a grateful admiration for the gift of such a happy existence. We must also acknowledge that the more complex ways of experiencing religion are new methods of producing happiness. They are wonderful inner paths to a kind of supernatural happiness, especially when the initial gift of natural life is unhappy, as it so often turns out to be.

With such connections between religion and happiness, it is perhaps not surprising that people come to see the happiness a religious belief provides as proof of its truth. If a set of beliefs makes a person feel happy, they almost inevitably adopt it. Such a belief ought to be true; therefore, it is true—this, rightly or wrongly, is one of the quick conclusions of the religious logic used by ordinary people.

A German writer says: “The near presence of God’s spirit can be experienced in its reality—indeed, it can only be experienced. And the sign by which the spirit’s existence and nearness are made undeniably clear to those who have ever had the experience is the utterly incomparable feeling of happiness that is connected with that nearness. This happiness is therefore not only a possible and entirely proper feeling for us to have in this life, but it is the best and most essential proof of God’s reality. No other proof is equally convincing, and therefore happiness is the point from which every effective new theology should start.”

In the time immediately before us, I will invite you to consider the simpler kinds of religious happiness. We will leave the more complex sorts to be discussed on a later day.

In many people, happiness is inborn and cannot be taken away. For them, a feeling of connection with the universe inevitably takes the form of enthusiasm and freedom. I am not just talking about those who are happy in a purely animal way. I mean those who, when unhappiness is offered or suggested to them, positively refuse to feel it, as if it were something mean and wrong.

We find such people in every age. They passionately throw themselves upon their sense of the goodness of life, despite the hardships of their own situations, and despite the dark and gloomy religious teachings they may have been born into. From the very beginning, their religion is one of union with the divine. Church writers heavily accused the religious reformers who came before the Protestant Reformation of practices that went against moral law. This is just like how the Romans accused the first Christians of indulging in wild parties. It is probable that there has never been a century in which enough people did not deliberately refuse to think badly of life. These people formed groups, open or secret, who claimed that all natural things are permitted.

Saint Augustine’s saying, Dilige et quod vis fac—meaning, “If you but love God, you may do as you please”—is, morally, one of the most profound observations. Yet for such people, it is filled with permission to go beyond the boundaries of conventional morality. Depending on their characters, these people have been either refined or crude. But their belief has always been systematic enough to form a definite religious attitude. For them, God was a giver of freedom, and the sting of evil was overcome. Saint Francis and his immediate followers were, on the whole, part of this group of spirits, of which there are, of course, endless varieties. Rousseau in his early writings, Diderot, B. de Saint Pierre, and many leaders of the eighteenth-century anti-Christian movement were of this optimistic type. They owed their influence to a certain confident authority in their feeling that Nature, if you will only trust her enough, is absolutely good.

It is to be hoped that we all have some friend, perhaps more often female than male, and young than old, whose soul has this bright, clear quality. Their connections are more with flowers, birds, and all enchanting innocent things than with dark human passions. Such a person can think no evil of humanity or God. In them, religious gladness is present from the start and needs no rescue from any earlier burden.

Francis W. Newman said, “God has two families of children on this earth: the once-born and the twice-born.” He describes the once-born as follows: “They see God, not as a strict Judge, not as a Glorious Powerful Ruler, but as the animating Spirit of a beautiful, harmonious world—Good, Kind, Merciful, and Pure. These same people generally have no deep philosophical tendencies; they do not look back into themselves. Therefore, they are not troubled by their own imperfections. Yet it would be absurd to call them self-righteous, for they hardly think of themselves at all. This childlike quality of their nature makes the beginning of religion very happy for them. They no more shrink from God than a child shrinks from an emperor, before whom the parent trembles. In fact, they have no vivid idea of any of the qualities that make up God’s sterner Majesty. To them, He is the personification of Kindness and Beauty. They read his character, not in the disordered world of humans, but in romantic and harmonious nature. Of human sin, they perhaps know little in their own hearts and not very much in the world. Human suffering only melts them to tenderness. Thus, when they approach God, no inward disturbance follows. And without being deeply spiritual yet, they have a certain contentment and perhaps a romantic sense of excitement in their simple worship.”

In the Catholic Church, such characters find a more suitable environment to grow in than in Protestantism, whose ways of feeling have been shaped by minds of a decidedly pessimistic type. But even in Protestantism, they have been quite common. And in its recent “liberal” developments, like Unitarianism and broad-minded religious views generally, minds of this type have played, and still are playing, leading and constructive roles. Emerson himself is an admirable example. Theodore Parker is another. Here are a couple of characteristic passages from Parker’s letters:

“Orthodox scholars say: ‘In the heathen classics, you find no awareness of sin.’ It is very true—God be thanked for it. They were aware of anger, cruelty, greed, drunkenness, lust, laziness, cowardice, and other actual vices. They struggled and got rid of these faults. But they were not aware of ‘hatred against God,’ and didn’t sit down and whine and groan about non-existent evil. I have done enough wrong things in my life, and still do them. I miss the mark, draw my bow, and try again. But I am not aware of hating God, or man, or right, or love. And I know there is much ‘health in me’; and in my body, even now, there lives many a good thing, despite my illness and Saint Paul.” In another letter, Parker writes: “I have swum in clear, sweet waters all my days. If sometimes they were a little cold, and the stream ran against me and was a bit rough, it was never too strong to be faced and swum through. From the days of earliest boyhood, when I went stumbling through the grass… up to the gray-bearded manhood of this time, every period has left me honey in the hive of memory, which I now feed on for present delight. When I recall the years… I am filled with a sense of sweetness and wonder that such little things can make a mortal so exceedingly rich. But I must confess that the greatest of all my delights is still the religious one.”

Another good expression of the “once-born” type of consciousness—developing straight and naturally, with no element of unhealthy guilt or crisis—is in the answer of Dr. Edward Everett Hale, the respected Unitarian preacher and writer, to one of Dr. Starbuck’s questionnaires. I quote part of it:

“I observe, with profound regret, the religious struggles that appear in many biographies, as if they were almost essential to forming the hero’s character. I ought to speak of these, to say that any man has an advantage, too great to be measured, who is born, as I was, into a family where religion is simple and rational; who is trained in the theory of such a religion, so that he never knows, for an hour, what these religious or irreligious struggles are. I always knew God loved me, and I was always grateful to him for the world he placed me in. I always liked to tell him so, and was always glad to receive his suggestions to me… I can remember perfectly that when I was becoming a man, the semi-philosophical novels of the time had a lot to say about young men and women who were facing the ‘problem of life.’ I had no idea whatsoever what the problem of life was. To live with all my might seemed easy to me; to learn, when there was so much to learn, seemed pleasant and almost natural; to lend a hand, if one had a chance, seemed natural. And if one did this, well, he enjoyed life because he could not help it, and without proving to himself that he ought to enjoy it… A child who is early taught that he is God’s child, that he may live and move and have his being in God, and that he therefore has infinite strength at hand for conquering any difficulty, will take life more easily, and probably will make more of it, than one who is told that he is born a child of wrath and wholly incapable of good.”

One can only recognize in such writers as these the presence of a temperament naturally weighted on the side of cheer. They are fatally forbidden to dwell, as those of the opposite temperament do, on the darker aspects of the universe. In some individuals, optimism may become almost like a disorder. The capacity for even a temporary sadness or a momentary humility seems cut off from them, as if by a kind of inborn lack of sensitivity to pain or negativity.

The supreme contemporary example of such an inability to feel evil is, of course, Walt Whitman. His follower, Dr. Bucke, writes: “His favorite activity seemed to be strolling or sauntering about outdoors by himself, looking at the grass, the trees, the flowers, the views of light, the changing aspects of the sky, and listening to the birds, the crickets, the tree frogs, and all the hundreds of natural sounds. It was clear that these things gave him a pleasure far beyond what they give to ordinary people. Until I knew the man,” continues Dr. Bucke, “it had not occurred to me that anyone could get so much absolute happiness from these things as he did. He was very fond of flowers, either wild or cultivated; he liked all sorts. I think he admired lilacs and sunflowers just as much as roses. Perhaps, indeed, no man who ever lived liked so many things and disliked so few as Walt Whitman. All natural objects seemed to have a charm for him. All sights and sounds seemed to please him. He appeared to like (and I believe he did like) all the men, women, and children he saw (though I never knew him to say that he liked any one specific person), but each who knew him felt that he liked him or her, and that he liked others also. I never knew him to argue or dispute, and he never spoke about money. He always justified, sometimes playfully, sometimes quite seriously, those who spoke harshly of himself or his writings, and I often thought he even took pleasure in the opposition of enemies. When I first knew him, I used to think that he watched himself, and would not allow his tongue to express irritation, dislike, complaint, or protest. It did not occur to me as possible that these mental states could be absent in him. After long observation, however, I satisfied myself that such absence or lack of awareness was entirely real. He never spoke negatively of any nationality or class of people, or any time in the world’s history, or against any trades or occupations—not even against any animals, insects, or non-living things, nor any of the laws of nature, nor any of the results of those laws, such as illness, deformity, and death. He never complained or grumbled either at the weather, pain, illness, or anything else. He never swore. He could not very well, since he never spoke in anger and apparently never was angry. He never showed fear, and I do not believe he ever felt it.”

Walt Whitman owes his importance in literature to the systematic removal from his writings of all negative or shrinking elements. The only feelings he allowed himself to express were of the expansive, open kind. And he expressed these in the first person, not as a merely monstrously conceited individual might, but as a representative for all people. As a result, a passionate and mystical feeling about existence fills his words and ends by persuading the reader that men and women, life and death, and all things are divinely good.

Thus, it has come about that many people today see Walt Whitman as the restorer of the eternal natural religion. He has infected them with his own love of companions, with his own gladness that he and they exist. Societies are actually formed for his worship; a magazine exists for spreading his ideas, in which the lines between correct and incorrect interpretations are already beginning to be drawn. Hymns are written by others in his peculiar style of poetry. And he is even explicitly compared with the founder of the Christian religion, not always to the advantage of the latter.

Whitman is often spoken of as a “pagan.” Nowadays, the word sometimes means just the natural, animal-like human without a sense of sin. Sometimes it means a Greek or Roman with their own unique religious awareness. Neither of these meanings perfectly defines this poet. He is more than your mere animal-like human who has not experienced good and evil. He is aware enough of sin for a kind of swagger to be present in his indifference towards it—a conscious pride in his freedom from negativity and inner conflict, which your genuine pagan (in the first sense of the word) would never show.

He wrote: “I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained, I stand and look at them long and long; They do not sweat and whine about their condition. They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins. Not one is dissatisfied, not one is crazy with the obsession of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.”

No natural pagan could have written these well-known lines. But on the other hand, Whitman is less than a Greek or Roman. Their awareness, even in Homeric times, was full to the brim with the sad, temporary nature of this sunlit world. And Walt Whitman firmly refuses to adopt such an awareness. When, for example, Achilles, about to kill Lycaon, Priam’s young son, hears him beg for mercy, he stops to say: “Ah, friend, you too must die: why do you cry like this? Patroclus too is dead, who was far better than you… Over me too hang death and forceful fate. There will come a morning or evening or some noonday when my life too some man shall take in battle, whether with a spear he strikes, or an arrow from his bow.” Then Achilles savagely cuts the poor boy’s neck with his sword, throws him by the foot into the Scamander river, and calls to the fishes of the river to eat the white fat of Lycaon.

Just as here the cruelty and the sympathy each sound true, and do not mix or interfere with one another, so did the Greeks and Romans keep all their sadnesses and gladnesses unmixed and complete. They did not consider instinctive good to be sin. Nor did they have any such desire to defend the universe’s reputation as to make them insist, as so many of us do, that what immediately appears as evil must be “good in the making,” or something equally clever. Good was good, and bad was just bad, for the earlier Greeks. They neither denied the ills of nature—Walt Whitman’s line, “What is called good is perfect and what is called bad is just as perfect,” would have been mere silliness to them—nor did they, in order to escape from those ills, invent “another and a better world” of the imagination, in which, along with the ills, the innocent goods of our senses would also find no place. This honesty of their instinctive reactions, this freedom from all moral trickery and strain, gives a touching dignity to ancient pagan feeling. And this quality Whitman’s writings do not have. His optimism is too forced and defiant. His message has a touch of false bravery and an unnatural twist. This lessens its effect on many readers who are otherwise well-disposed towards optimism, and who, on the whole, are quite willing to admit that in important respects Whitman comes from the genuine line of the prophets.

If, then, we give the name of healthy-mindedness to the tendency which looks on all things and sees that they are good, we find that we must distinguish between a more involuntary and a more voluntary or systematic way of being healthy-minded. In its involuntary variety, healthy-mindedness is a way of feeling happy about things immediately.

In its systematic variety, healthy-mindedness is an abstract way of thinking about things as good. Every abstract way of thinking selects one aspect of things as their main quality for the moment and ignores the other aspects. Systematic healthy-mindedness sees good as the essential and universal aspect of life. It deliberately excludes evil from its view. Although, when stated so plainly, this might seem hard to do for someone who is intellectually sincere and honest about facts, a little thought shows that the situation is too complex for such a simple criticism.

In the first place, happiness, like every other emotional state, has a kind of blindness. It is unable to see opposing facts. This is its instinctive weapon for self-protection against disturbance. When happiness is actually present, the thought of evil can no more feel real than the thought of good can feel real when sadness rules. To the person who is actively happy, for whatever reason, evil simply cannot be believed in at that moment. They must ignore it. To an observer, they may then seem to be stubbornly shutting their eyes to evil and hushing it up.

But there’s more than this. The hushing up of evil may, in a perfectly honest and sincere mind, grow into a deliberate religious policy or a chosen stance. Much of what we call evil is due entirely to the way people react to events. Evil can so often be turned into a bracing and energizing good by a simple change in the sufferer’s inner attitude—from one of fear to one of determination to fight. Its sting so often disappears and turns into something almost enjoyable when, after trying in vain to avoid it, we agree to turn around and bear it cheerfully. Because of this, a person is simply bound by honor, regarding many facts that at first seem to disturb their peace, to choose this way of escape. Refuse to admit their badness. Despise their power. Ignore their presence. Turn your attention the other way. As far as you yourself are concerned, at any rate, though the facts may still exist, their evil character no longer exists. Since you make them evil or good by your own thoughts about them, it is the control of your thoughts that proves to be your main concern.

The deliberate choice of an optimistic way of thinking thus enters philosophy. And once it’s in, it is hard to define its proper limits. Not only does the human instinct for happiness, focused on self-protection by ignoring negative things, keep working in its favor, but higher inner ideals also have strong arguments to make. The attitude of unhappiness is not only painful; it is also mean and ugly. What can be more shameful and unworthy than a whining, complaining, sulking mood, no matter what outward troubles may have caused it? What is more harmful to others? What is less helpful as a way out of the difficulty? Such a mood only fastens and continues the trouble that caused it and increases the total evil of the situation. At all costs, then, we ought to reduce the power of that mood. We ought to reject it in ourselves and others and never show it tolerance.

But it is impossible to carry on this self-discipline in our inner world without enthusiastically emphasizing the brighter aspects of the outer world and minimizing the darker aspects at the same time. And so, our decision not to give in to misery, beginning at a relatively small point within ourselves, may not stop until it has brought the entire framework of reality under a systematically optimistic view that suits its needs.

In all this, I am not talking about any mystical insight or deep conviction that the total structure of things absolutely must be good. Such mystical conviction plays a huge part in the history of religious awareness, and we must look at it later with some care. But we need not go that far at present. More ordinary, non-mystical states of joy are enough for my immediate point. All strong moral states and passionate enthusiasms make a person numb to evil in some direction. The common penalties stop deterring the patriot. The usual cautions are thrown to the winds by the lover. When passion is extreme, suffering may actually be gloried in, provided it is for the ideal cause. Death may lose its sting, the grave its victory. In these states, the ordinary contrast of good and ill seems to be swallowed up in a higher category, an all-powerful excitement that overwhelms the evil. The human being welcomes this excitement as the crowning experience of life. This, they say, is truly to live, and I rejoice in the heroic opportunity and adventure.

The systematic cultivation of healthy-mindedness as a religious attitude, therefore, fits with important currents in human nature and is anything but absurd. In fact, we all practice it more or less, even when our stated religious beliefs should, logically, forbid it. We divert our attention from disease and death as much as we can. The slaughterhouses and endless indecencies on which our life is founded are hidden out of sight and never mentioned. So, the world we officially recognize in literature and in society is a poetic fiction, far more handsome, cleaner, and better than the world that really is.

The advance of so-called liberalism in Christianity during the past fifty years may fairly be called a victory of healthy-mindedness within the church over the gloominess with which the old hell-fire theology was more closely related. We now have whole congregations whose preachers, far from increasing our awareness of sin, seem devoted instead to making little of it. They ignore, or even deny, eternal punishment. They insist on the dignity of humans rather than on their depravity. They look at the old-fashioned Christian’s constant preoccupation with saving their soul as something sickly and blameworthy rather than admirable. And a cheerful and “energetic” attitude, which to our forefathers would have seemed purely pagan, has become in their eyes an ideal element of Christian character. I am not asking whether they are right or not; I am only pointing out the change.

The people I am referring to have, for the most part, still kept their official connection with Christianity, despite getting rid of its more pessimistic religious ideas. But in that “theory of evolution” which, gaining strength for a century, has within the past twenty-five years swept so rapidly over Europe and America, we see the foundation laid for a new sort of religion of Nature. This new religion has entirely replaced Christianity in the thoughts of a large part of our generation. The idea of a universal evolution lends itself to a doctrine of general improvement and progress. This fits the religious needs of the healthy-minded so well that it seems almost as if it might have been created for their use.

Accordingly, we find “evolutionism” interpreted this optimistically and embraced as a substitute for the religion they were born into by many of our contemporaries. These are people who have either been trained scientifically or have enjoyed reading popular science, and who had already begun to be inwardly dissatisfied with what seemed to them the harshness and irrationality of the orthodox Christian system. As examples are better than descriptions, I will quote a document received in answer to Professor Starbuck’s list of questions. The writer’s state of mind may, by courtesy, be called a religion. It is his reaction to the whole nature of things; it is systematic and reflective; and it loyally binds him to certain inner ideals. I think you will recognize in him—though he is a bit rough around the edges and seemingly incapable of deep emotional wounds—a sufficiently familiar contemporary type.

Q. What does Religion mean to you? A. It means nothing. As far as I can observe, it seems useless to others. I am sixty-seven years old and have lived in X city for fifty years. I have been in business for forty-five years. Consequently, I have some little experience of life and men, and some women too. I find that the most religious and pious people are usually those most lacking in honesty and morality. The men who do not go to church or have any religious beliefs are the best. Praying, singing hymns, and listening to sermons are harmful—they teach us to rely on some supernatural power, when we ought to rely on ourselves. I totally disbelieve in a God. The God-idea was created in ignorance, fear, and a general lack of any knowledge of Nature. If I were to die now, being in a healthy condition for my age, both mentally and physically, I would just as soon—yes, rather—die with a hearty enjoyment of music, sport, or any other rational pastime. As a clock stops, we die—there is no immortality in either case.

Q. What comes before your mind corresponding to the words God, Heaven, Angels, etc.? A. Nothing whatever. I am a man without a religion. These words mean so much mythical nonsense.

Q. Have you had any experiences which appeared providential (guided by God)? A. None whatever. There is no agency of that overseeing kind. A little careful observation, as well as knowledge of scientific law, will convince anyone of this fact.

Q. What things work most strongly on your emotions? A. Lively songs and music; lighthearted shows like Pinafore instead of serious religious music like an Oratorio. I like writers like Scott, Burns, Byron, Longfellow, especially Shakespeare, etc. Of songs, I like “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “America,” “Marseillaise,” and all moral and soul-stirring songs. But sentimental, weak hymns are my disgust. I greatly enjoy nature, especially fine weather. Until a few years ago, I used to walk Sundays into the country, often twelve miles, with no tiredness, and bicycle forty or fifty miles. I have stopped bicycling. I never go to church but attend lectures when there are any good ones. All of my thoughts and reflections have been of a healthy and cheerful kind. Instead of doubts and fears, I see things as they are, because I try to adjust myself to my environment. This I regard as the deepest law. Mankind is a progressive animal. I am satisfied he will have made a great advance over his present status a thousand years from now.

Q. What is your notion of sin? A. It seems to me that sin is a condition, a disease, related to humanity’s development not being yet advanced enough. Being overly concerned about it increases the disease. We should think that a million years from now, fairness, justice, and good mental and physical order will be so fixed and organized that no one will have any idea of evil or sin.

Q. What is your temperament? A. Nervous, active, wide-awake, mentally and physically. I’m sorry that Nature forces us to sleep at all.

If we are searching for a broken and repentant heart, clearly we need not look to this fellow. His contentment with the finite world encases him like a lobster-shell and shields him from all unhealthy dissatisfaction about his distance from the infinite. We have in him an excellent example of the optimism that can be encouraged by popular science.

To my mind, a current far more important and interesting religiously than that which comes from natural science towards healthy-mindedness is one that has recently poured over America. It seems to be gathering force every day—I do not know what foothold it may have yet gained in Great Britain. For the sake of having a brief name, I will give it the title of the “Mind-cure movement.” There are various sects of this “New Thought,” to use another of the names by which it calls itself. But their agreements are so profound that their differences can be ignored for my present purpose, and I will treat the movement, without apology, as if it were a simple thing.

It is a deliberately optimistic plan for life, with both a theoretical and a practical side. In its gradual development during the last twenty-five years, it has taken into itself a number of contributing elements. It must now be considered a genuine religious power. It has reached the stage, for example, when the demand for its literature is great enough for insincere material, mechanically produced for the market, to be supplied to a certain extent by publishers. This is a phenomenon never observed, I imagine, until a religion has moved well past its earliest, insecure beginnings.

Some of the doctrinal sources of Mind-cure are:

The four Gospels of the New Testament.
Emerson’s ideas or New England transcendentalism (a philosophical and spiritual movement).
Berkeleyan idealism (the idea that reality is fundamentally mental).
Spiritism, with its messages of “law,” “progress,” and “development.”
The optimistic popular science evolutionism I recently mentioned.
Finally, Hinduism has also contributed some ideas.

But the most characteristic feature of the mind-cure movement is an inspiration that is much more direct. The leaders in this faith have had an intuitive belief in the all-saving power of healthy-minded attitudes themselves—in the conquering effectiveness of courage, hope, and trust. They also have a corresponding contempt for doubt, fear, worry, and all nervously cautious states of mind. Their belief has generally been supported by the practical experience of their followers. This experience today forms an impressively large body of evidence.

The blind have been made to see; the disabled to walk. Lifelong invalids have had their health restored. The moral results have been no less remarkable. The deliberate adoption of a healthy-minded attitude has proved possible for many who never supposed they had it in them. Regeneration of character has occurred on a large scale. Cheerfulness has been restored to countless homes.

The indirect influence of this has been great. The mind-cure principles are beginning to spread so widely that one catches their spirit indirectly. One hears of the “Gospel of Relaxation,” of the “Don’t Worry Movement,” of people who repeat to themselves, “Youth, health, vigor!” when dressing in the morning, as their motto for the day. Complaining about the weather is becoming forbidden in many households. More and more people are recognizing it to be bad manners to speak of disagreeable sensations, or to make much of the ordinary inconveniences and illnesses of life. These general energizing effects on public opinion would be good even if the more striking results did not exist. But the striking results are so common that we can afford to overlook the countless failures and self-deceptions that are mixed in with them (for in everything human, failure is a matter of course). We can also overlook the excessive wordiness of a good deal of the mind-cure literature, some of which is so overly optimistic and so vaguely expressed that an academically trained mind finds it almost impossible to read at all.

The plain fact remains that the spread of the movement has been due to practical results. The extremely practical nature of the American people has never been better shown than by the fact that this, their only decidedly original contribution to the systematic philosophy of life, should be so closely tied to concrete healing methods. The medical and clerical professions in the United States are beginning, though with much resistance and protest, to open their eyes to the importance of mind-cure. It is clearly bound to develop still further, both theoretically and practically. Its latest writers are by far the most capable of the group. It matters little that, just as there are many people who cannot pray, so there are even more who cannot possibly be influenced by the mind-curers’ ideas. For our immediate purpose, the important point is that such a large number of people do exist who can be so influenced. They form a psychological type to be studied with respect.

To come now to a little closer look at their beliefs. The fundamental pillar on which it rests is nothing more than the general basis of all religious experience: the fact that humans have a dual nature. We are connected with two spheres of thought, a shallower and a deeper sphere. We can learn to live more habitually in either one. The shallower and lower sphere is that of physical sensations, instincts, and desires, of selfishness, doubt, and lower personal interests. But whereas Christian theology has always considered willfulness or disobedience to be the essential vice of this part of human nature, the mind-curers say that the mark of negativity in it is fear. And this is what gives such an entirely new religious turn to their beliefs.

To quote a writer of this school: “Fear has had its uses in the evolutionary process, and seems to make up the whole of foresight in most animals. But that it should remain any part of the mental equipment of human civilized life is an absurdity. I find that the fear element of foresight is not stimulating to those more civilized persons for whom duty and attraction are the natural motives, but is weakening and discouraging. As soon as it becomes unnecessary, fear becomes a positive hindrance and should be entirely removed, as dead flesh is removed from living tissue. To help in the analysis of fear and in speaking out against its expressions, I have coined the word ‘fearthought’ to stand for the unprofitable element of foresight. I have defined the word ‘worry’ as fearthought, in contrast to foresight. I have also defined fearthought as the self-imposed or self-permitted suggestion of inferiority, in order to place it where it really belongs—in the category of harmful, unnecessary, and therefore not respectable things.”

The “misery-habit” and the “martyr-habit,” created by the common “fearthought,” get sharp criticism from the mind-cure writers: “Consider for a moment the habits of life into which we are born.”

There are certain social rules or customs and supposed requirements. There is a religious bias and a general view of the world. There are conservative ideas about our early training, our education, marriage, and what we do for a living. Following close upon this, there is a long series of expectations. We expect that we will suffer certain children’s diseases, diseases of middle life, and of old age. We have the thought that we will grow old, lose our abilities, and again become childlike. And on top of all this is the fear of death.

Then there is a long line of particular fears and expectations that bring trouble. For example, there are ideas associated with certain foods, the dread of the east wind, the terrors of hot weather, the aches and pains linked with cold weather, the fear of catching a cold if one sits in a draft, the coming of hay fever on August 14th in the middle of the day, and so on. This is a long list of fears, dreads, worries, anxieties, anticipations, expectations, pessimistic thoughts, unhealthy concerns, and the whole ghostly parade of fateful ideas that our fellow humans, and especially doctors, are ready to help us imagine. This array is worthy of being compared to what a philosopher called Bradley’s ‘unearthly ballet of bloodless categories’—a collection of abstract and lifeless concepts.

Yet this is not all. This vast collection of fears is increased by countless additions from daily life:

The fear of accidents.
The possibility of disaster.
The loss of property.
The chance of robbery or fire.
The outbreak of war. And it is not considered enough to fear for ourselves. When a friend gets sick, we must immediately fear the worst and expect death. If one experiences sorrow, sympathy means to enter into and increase the suffering.”

To quote another writer: “Humans often have fear stamped upon them before they even enter the outer world. They are raised in fear. All their life is spent in slavery to the fear of disease and death. Thus, their whole way of thinking becomes cramped, limited, and depressed, and their body follows this shrunken pattern and design… Think of the millions of sensitive and responsive souls among our ancestors who have lived under such a constant nightmare! Isn’t it surprising that health exists at all? Nothing but the boundless divine love, energy, and vitality, constantly poured in—even though we are not aware of it—could somewhat neutralize such an ocean of unhealthy thinking.”

Although the followers of mind-cure often use Christian terms, one sees from such quotations how widely their idea of humanity’s fall from grace differs from that of ordinary Christians. Their idea of humanity’s higher nature is hardly less different; it is decidedly pantheistic (meaning they see God in everything, or believe that God is everything). In the mind-cure philosophy, the spiritual part of a human appears partly conscious, but mostly subconscious. And through the subconscious part of it, we are already one with the Divine. No miracle of grace or sudden creation of a new inner person is needed. As this view is expressed in various ways by different writers, we find in it traces of Christian mysticism, transcendental idealism (a philosophy emphasizing intuition and the spiritual), Vedantism (a Hindu philosophy), and the modern psychology of the subconscious self. A quotation or two will get us to the central point of view:

“The great central fact of the universe is that spirit of infinite life and power that is behind all things, that shows itself in and through all things. This spirit of infinite life and power that is behind all is what I call God. I do not care what term you may use—be it Kindly Light, Providence, the Over-Soul, Omnipotence, or whatever term may be most convenient—as long as we agree on the great central fact itself. God then fills the universe alone, so that all is from Him and in Him, and there is nothing that is outside. He is the life of our life, our very life itself. We are sharers in the life of God. Though we differ from Him in that we are individualized spirits, while He is the Infinite Spirit, including us as well as all else, yet in essence, the life of God and the life of humans are identically the same, and so are one. They differ not in basic nature or quality; they differ in degree. The great central fact in human life is coming into a conscious, vital realization of our oneness with this Infinite Life, and the opening of ourselves fully to this divine inflow. To the exact degree that we come into a conscious realization of our oneness with the Infinite Life, and open ourselves to this divine inflow, do we make real in ourselves the qualities and powers of the Infinite Life. We make ourselves channels through which the Infinite Intelligence and Power can work. To the exact degree in which you realize your oneness with the Infinite Spirit, you will exchange dis-ease for ease, lack of harmony for harmony, suffering and pain for abundant health and strength. To recognize our own divinity, and our intimate relation to the Universal, is to attach the belts of our machinery to the power-house of the Universe. One need remain in hell no longer than one chooses to. We can rise to any heaven we ourselves choose. And when we choose to rise, all the higher powers of the Universe combine to help us heavenward.”

Let me now pass from these more abstract statements to some more concrete accounts of experience with the mind-cure religion. I have many answers from people who wrote to me—the only difficulty is to choose which ones to share. The first two whom I shall quote are my personal friends. One of them, a woman, writing as follows, expresses well the feeling of continuity with the Infinite Power, by which all mind-cure followers are inspired.

She wrote: “The first underlying cause of all sickness, weakness, or depression is the human sense of being separate from that Divine Energy which we call God. The soul which can feel and declare in calm but joyful confidence, as did Jesus: ‘I and my Father are one,’ has no further need of a healer, or of healing. This is the whole truth in a nutshell. No other foundation for wholeness can anyone lay than this fact of unbreakable divine union. Disease can no longer attack someone whose feet are planted on this rock, who feels hourly, moment by moment, the inflow of the Divine Breath. If one is united with Omnipotence (all-powerful God), how can tiredness enter the mind? How can illness attack that unconquerable spark of life? This possibility of forever canceling the law of fatigue has been fully proven in my own case. My earlier life includes a record of many, many years of being bedridden with my spine and lower limbs paralyzed. My thoughts were no more impure then than they are today, although my belief in the necessity of illness was strong and unenlightened. But since my ‘resurrection in the flesh’ (my physical healing), I have worked as a healer unceasingly for fourteen years without a vacation. I can truthfully say that I have never known a moment of fatigue or pain, although I constantly come in touch with excessive weakness, illness, and disease of all kinds. For how can a conscious part of God be sick?—since ‘Greater is he that is with us than all that can strive against us.’”

My second correspondent, also a woman, sends me the following statement: “Life seemed difficult to me at one time. I was always breaking down and had several attacks of what is called nervous exhaustion, with terrible insomnia, being on the verge of insanity. Besides, I had many other troubles, especially with my digestive organs. I had been sent away from home in the care of doctors, had taken all the narcotics, stopped all work, been overfed, and in fact, knew all the doctors within reach. But I never recovered permanently until this New Thought took possession of me. I think that the one thing which impressed me most was learning the fact that we must be in absolutely constant relation or mental touch (this word is very expressive to me) with that essence of life which fills everything and which we call God. This is almost unrecognizable unless we live it into ourselves actually. That is, by constantly turning to the very innermost, deepest awareness of our real selves or of God in us, for illumination from within, just as we turn to the sun for light, warmth, and energy from without. When you do this consciously, realizing that to turn inward to the light within you is to live in the presence of God or your divine self, you soon discover the unreality of the objects to which you have previously been turning and which have absorbed your attention externally. I have come to disregard the meaning of this attitude for bodily health as such, because that comes of itself, as an incidental result. It cannot be found by any special mental act or desire to have it, beyond that general attitude of mind I have referred to above. That which we usually make the object of life—those outer things we are all so wildly seeking, which we so often live and die for, but which then do not give us peace and happiness—they should all come of themselves as secondary things, and as the mere outcome or natural result of a far higher life sunk deep in the heart of the spirit. This life is the real seeking of the kingdom of God, the desire for his supremacy in our hearts, so that all else comes as that which shall be ‘added to you’—as quite incidental and as a surprise to us, perhaps. And yet it is the proof of the reality of the perfect balance in the very center of our being. When I say that we commonly make the object of our life that which we should not work for primarily, I mean many things which the world considers praiseworthy and excellent, such as success in business, fame as an author or artist, physician or lawyer, or renown in charitable efforts. Such things should be results, not objects. I would also include pleasures of many kinds which seem harmless and good at the time, and are pursued because many accept them—I mean social customs, social activities, and fashions in their various forms. These are mostly approved by the masses, although they may be unreal, and even unhealthy extras.”

Here is another case, more concrete, also from a woman. I read you these cases without comment—they express so many varieties of the state of mind we are studying. “I had been a sufferer from my childhood until my fortieth year. [Details of ill-health are given which I will skip.] I had been in Vermont for several months hoping for good from the change of air, but was steadily growing weaker. One day during the latter part of October, while resting in the afternoon, I suddenly heard, as it were, these words: ‘You will be healed and do a work you never dreamed of.’ These words were impressed upon my mind with such power that I said at once that only God could have put them there. I believed them in spite of myself and of my suffering and weakness, which continued until Christmas, when I returned to Boston. Within two days, a young friend offered to take me to a mental healer (this was January 7, 1881). The healer said: ‘There is nothing but Mind; we are expressions of the One Mind; body is only a mortal belief; as a man thinks, so is he.’ I could not accept all she said, but I translated all that was there for me in this way: ‘There is nothing but God; I am created by Him and am absolutely dependent upon Him; mind is given me to use; and by just so much of it as I will put upon the thought of right action in my body, I shall be lifted out of bondage to my ignorance and fear and past experience.’ That day, I accordingly began to take a little of every food provided for the family, constantly saying to myself: ‘The Power that created the stomach must take care of what I have eaten.’ By holding these thoughts through the evening, I went to bed and fell asleep, saying: ‘I am soul, spirit, just one with God’s Thought of me.’ I slept all night without waking, for the first time in several years [my episodes of distress had usually recurred about two o’clock in the night]. The next day, I felt like an escaped prisoner and believed I had found the secret that would in time give me perfect health. Within ten days, I was able to eat anything provided for others. After two weeks, I began to have my own positive mental affirmations of Truth, which were like stepping-stones for me. I will note a few of them; they came about two weeks apart: 1st. I am Soul, therefore it is well with me. 2nd. I am Soul, therefore I am well. 3rd. A sort of inner vision of myself as a four-footed beast with a growth on every part of my body where I had suffered, with my own face, begging me to acknowledge it as myself. I resolutely fixed my attention on being well and refused to even look at my old self in this form. 4th. Again, the vision of the beast far in the background with a faint voice. Again, I refused to acknowledge it. 5th. Once more, the vision, but only of my eyes with a longing look; and again, the refusal. Then came the conviction, the inner awareness, that I was perfectly well and always had been, for I was Soul, an expression of God’s Perfect Thought. That was, for me, the perfect and completed separation between what I truly was and what I appeared to be. I succeeded in never losing sight after this of my real being by constantly affirming this truth. By degrees (though it took me two years of hard work to get there), I expressed health continuously throughout my whole body. In my subsequent nineteen years’ experience, I have never known this Truth to fail when I applied it. Though in my ignorance I have often failed to apply it, through my failures I have learned the simplicity and trustfulness of a little child.”

But I fear that I risk tiring you by sharing so many examples, and I must lead you back to broader philosophical ideas again. You see already from such records of experience how impossible it is not to classify mind-cure as primarily a religious movement. Its teaching of the oneness of our life with God’s life is, in fact, quite indistinguishable from an interpretation of Christ’s message that has been defended in these very Gifford lectures by some of your most capable Scottish religious philosophers.

But philosophers usually claim to give a semi-logical explanation for the existence of evil. In contrast, the mind-curers, as far as I am familiar with them, do not claim to give any theoretical explanation for the general fact of evil in the world—the existence of the selfish, suffering, fearful finite mind. Evil is factually there for them, as it is for everybody. But the practical point of view is dominant. It would not fit well with the spirit of their system to spend time worrying over evil as a “mystery” or “problem,” or in “taking to heart” the lesson of its experience, as evangelical Christians might do. Don’t reason about it, as Dante says, but give it a glance and pass beyond! It is Avidhya—ignorance! It is something merely to be outgrown and left behind, risen above and forgotten.

Christian Science, the so-called sect of Mrs. Eddy, is the most radical branch of mind-cure in its dealings with evil. For Christian Science, evil is simply a lie, and anyone who mentions it is a liar. The optimistic ideal of duty forbids us to pay evil the compliment of even explicit attention. Of course, as our next lectures will show us, this is a bad theoretical omission. But it is closely linked with the practical benefits of the system we are examining. A mind-curer would ask us: Why regret a philosophy of evil, if I can put you in possession of a life of good?

After all, it is the life that counts. Mind-cure has developed a living system of mental hygiene that may well claim to have surpassed all previous writings on the “care of the soul.” This system is wholly and exclusively made up of optimism: “Pessimism leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power.” “Thoughts are things,” as one of the most energetic mind-cure writers prints in bold type at the bottom of each of his pages. If your thoughts are of health, youth, vigor, and success, before you know it, these things will also be your outward reality. No one can fail to experience the renewing influence of optimistic thinking, if pursued persistently. Every person possesses, without question, this pathway to the divine. Fear, on the contrary, and all the contracted and selfish modes of thought, are pathways to destruction. Most mind-curers here bring in a teaching that thoughts are “forces.” By virtue of a law that like attracts like, one person’s thoughts draw to themselves, as allies, all the thoughts of the same character that exist the world over. Thus, by one’s thinking, one gets reinforcements from elsewhere for achieving one’s desires. The great point in conducting one’s life is to get the heavenly forces on one’s side by opening one’s own mind to their inflow.

On the whole, one is struck by a psychological similarity between the mind-cure movement and the Lutheran and Wesleyan (early Methodist) movements. To the believer in moralism and good works, with his anxious question, “What shall I do to be saved?” Luther and Wesley replied: “You are saved now, if you would only believe it.” And the mind-curers come with precisely similar words of liberation. They speak, it is true, to people for whom the idea of salvation has lost its ancient religious meaning, but who nevertheless struggle with the same eternal human difficulty. Things are wrong with them. And “What shall I do to be clear, right, sound, whole, well?” is the form of their question. And the answer is: “You are well, sound, and clear already, if you only knew it.” “The whole matter may be summed up in one sentence,” says one of the authors whom I have already quoted: “God is well, and so are you.”

You must awaken to the knowledge of your real being.”

The power of those earlier religious messages came from how well they met the mental needs of a large number of people. The mind-cure message has exactly the same kind of power, foolish as it may sound on the surface. Seeing its rapid growth in influence, and its successes in healing, one is tempted to ask: Might it not be destined to play a part in the development of the popular religion of the future that is almost as great as those earlier movements played in their day? This could be true, perhaps, precisely because many of its expressions are crude and extravagant.

But here I fear that I may begin to annoy some of the members of this academic audience. You may think that such current, unconventional ideas should hardly take up so much space in dignified Gifford lectures. I can only ask you to have patience. The whole outcome of these lectures will, I imagine, be to emphasize to your minds the enormous variety that the spiritual lives of different people show. Their wants, their sensitivities, and their abilities all vary. They must be classified under different headings.

The result is that we really have different types of religious experience. In these lectures, we are seeking a closer acquaintance with the healthy-minded type. So, we must take it where we find it in its most extreme form. The psychology of individual types of character has hardly even begun to be sketched out yet. Our lectures may possibly serve as a tiny contribution to its structure.

The first thing to bear in mind is this: It is especially important if we ourselves belong to the religious-academic-scientific type, the officially and conventionally “correct” type, the “deadly respectable” type, for whom ignoring others is a constant temptation. Nothing can be more stupid than to refuse to notice certain phenomena, merely because we are incapable of taking part in anything like them ourselves.

Now, the history of Lutheran salvation by faith, of Methodist conversions, and of what I call the mind-cure movement seems to prove something. It proves the existence of numerous people in whom a change of character for the better will happen more successfully if the rules laid down by official moral experts are exactly reversed. This is true, at least, at a certain stage in their development. Official moral experts advise us never to relax our efforts. “Be watchful, day and night,” they urge us. “Keep your passive tendencies in check; do not shrink from any effort; keep your will like a bow always bent.” But the people I speak of find that all this conscious effort leads to nothing but failure and frustration for them. It only makes them twice as much the children of hell as they were before. The tense and voluntary attitude becomes an impossible fever and torment for them. Their inner machinery refuses to run at all when the parts are made so hot and the belts so tight.

Under these circumstances, the way to success—as confirmed by countless authentic personal stories—is by an anti-moralistic method. It is by the “surrender” of which I spoke in my second lecture. Passivity, not activity; relaxation, not intense effort, should now be the rule. Give up the feeling of responsibility. Let go of your hold. Hand over the care of your destiny to higher powers. Be genuinely indifferent as to what happens to it all. You will find not only that you gain perfect inward relief, but often also, in addition, the particular good things you sincerely thought you were giving up.

This is the salvation through self-despair, the dying to be truly born, of Lutheran theology. It is the passage into nothingness of which the mystic Jacob Boehme writes. To get to it, a critical point must usually be passed, a corner turned within oneself. Something must give way; a natural hardness must break down and become fluid. This event (as we shall see many examples of later) is frequently sudden and automatic. It leaves on the person an impression that they have been worked on by an external power.

Whatever its ultimate meaning may prove to be, this is certainly one fundamental form of human experience. Some say that the ability or inability to experience it is what divides the religious character from the merely moralistic one. With those who undergo it in its fullness, no criticism can make them doubt its reality. They know, because they have actually felt the higher powers, in giving up the tension of their personal will.

A story that revivalist preachers often tell is that of a man who found himself at night slipping down the side of a cliff. At last, he caught a branch which stopped his fall. He remained clinging to it in misery for hours. But finally, his fingers had to let go. With a despairing farewell to life, he let himself drop. He fell just six inches. If he had given up the struggle earlier, his agony would have been spared. As the mother earth received him, so, the preachers tell us, will the everlasting arms receive us if we trust absolutely in them. We must give up the inherited habit of relying on our personal strength, with its precautions that cannot protect and safeguards that never save.

The mind-curers have given the widest application to this sort of experience. They have shown that a form of regeneration by relaxing, by letting go, is within the reach of people who have no conviction of sin and care nothing for Lutheran theology. This form of regeneration is psychologically identical to the Lutheran idea of justification by faith and the Wesleyan (Methodist) acceptance of free grace. It is just giving your little, private, agitated self a rest, and finding that a greater Self is there. The results—slow or sudden, great or small—of the combined optimism and expectancy, the renewing phenomena that follow the abandonment of effort, remain firm facts of human nature. This is true no matter whether we adopt a religious (theistic), a pantheistic-idealistic (God is in everything and is ideal), or a medical-materialistic (purely physical) view of their ultimate cause.

When we take up the phenomena of revivalistic conversion, we shall learn something more about all this. Meanwhile, I will say a brief word about the mind-curer’s methods.

They are, of course, largely based on suggestion. The suggestive influence of the environment plays an enormous part in all spiritual education. But the word “suggestion,” having gained official status, is unfortunately already beginning to act in many quarters like a wet blanket on investigation. It is used to fend off all inquiry into the varying sensitivities of individual cases. “Suggestion” is only another name for the power of ideas, insofar as they prove effective over belief and conduct. Ideas effective for some people prove ineffective for others. Ideas effective at some times and in some human surroundings are not so at other times and elsewhere. The ideas of Christian churches are not effective in healing today, whatever they may have been in earlier centuries. And when the whole question is why the “salt has lost its flavor” here or gained it there, merely waving the word “suggestion” around as if it were a banner gives no light. Dr. Goddard, whose honest psychological essay on Faith Cures attributes them to nothing but ordinary suggestion, concludes by saying that “Religion [and by this he seems to mean popular Christianity] has in it all there is in mental healing methods, and has it in its best form. Living up to [our religious] ideas will do anything for us that can be done.” And this is despite the actual fact that popular Christianity does absolutely nothing in this area, or did nothing until mind-cure came to the rescue.

An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of a revelation. The mind-cure, with its gospel of healthy-mindedness, has come as a revelation to many whose hearts church Christianity had left hardened. It has let loose their springs of higher life. What can the originality of any religious movement consist of, except in finding a channel, until then sealed up, through which those springs may be set free in some group of human beings?

The force of personal faith, enthusiasm, and example, and above all the force of novelty, are always the prime suggestive agencies in this kind of success. If mind-cure should ever become official, respectable, and firmly established, these elements of suggestive power will be lost. In its most intense stages, every religion must be like a homeless wanderer in the desert. The church knows this well enough, with its everlasting inner struggle of the intense religion of the few against the routine religion of the many. This routine religion can become hardened into an obstacle worse than that which irreligion opposes to the movements of the Spirit. Jonathan Edwards, a religious writer, said we may pray “concerning all those saints that are not lively Christians, that they may either be enlivened, or taken away.” He added that if it’s true, as some said in his day, that “these cold dead saints do more hurt than natural men, and lead more souls to hell… it would be well for mankind if they were all dead.”

The next condition for success is the apparent existence, in large numbers, of minds who combine healthy-mindedness with a readiness for regeneration by letting go. Protestantism has been too pessimistic about natural human goodness, and Catholicism has been too focused on laws and morals, for either one to appeal in any generous way to the type of character formed by this peculiar mix of elements. However few of us here present may belong to such a type, it is now evident that it forms a specific moral combination well represented in the world.

Finally, mind-cure has made what in our Protestant countries is an unprecedentedly great use of the subconscious life. To their reasoned advice and firm assertions, its founders have added systematic exercises in passive relaxation, concentration, and meditation. They have even used something like hypnotic practice. I quote some passages at random:

One writer says: “The value, the power of ideals is the great practical truth on which the New Thought most strongly insists—namely, development from within outward, from small to great. Consequently, one’s thought should be centered on the ideal outcome, even though this trust may literally be like a step in the dark. To gain the ability to effectively direct the mind in this way, the New Thought advises the practice of concentration, or in other words, achieving self-control. One is to learn to organize the tendencies of the mind, so that they may be held together as a unit by the chosen ideal. To this end, one should set apart times for silent meditation, by oneself, preferably in a room where the surroundings are favorable to spiritual thought. In New Thought terms, this is called ‘entering the silence.’ ”

Another writes: “The time will come when in the busy office or on the noisy street you can enter into the silence by simply drawing the cloak of your own thoughts about you. You will realize that there and everywhere the Spirit of Infinite Life, Love, Wisdom, Peace, Power, and Plenty is guiding, keeping, protecting, and leading you. This is the spirit of continual prayer. One of the most intuitive men we ever met had a desk at a city office where several other gentlemen were constantly doing business, and often talking loudly. Entirely undisturbed by the many various sounds about him, this self-centered, faithful man would, in any moment of confusion, draw the curtains of privacy so completely about him that he would be as fully enclosed in his own psychic aura. He would thereby be as effectively removed from all distractions as though he were alone in some ancient forest. Taking his difficulty with him into the mystic silence in the form of a direct question, to which he expected a certain answer, he would remain utterly passive until the reply came. And never once through many years’ experience did he find himself disappointed or misled.”

Wherein, I should like to know, does this essentially differ from the practice of “recollection” which plays so great a part in Catholic discipline? It is also called the practice of the presence of God (and is known among us by writers like Jeremy Taylor). The eminent teacher Alvarez de Paz, in his work on Contemplation, defines it this way: “It is the recollection of God, the thought of God, which in all places and circumstances makes us see him present, lets us communicate respectfully and lovingly with him, and fills us with desire and affection for him… Would you escape from every ill? Never lose this recollection of God, neither in good times nor in bad times, nor on any occasion whatsoever. Do not use, to excuse yourself from this duty, either the difficulty or the importance of your business, for you can always remember that God sees you, that you are under his eye. If a thousand times an hour you forget him, revive the recollection a thousand times. If you cannot practice this exercise continuously, at least make yourself as familiar with it as possible. And, like those who in a harsh winter draw near the fire as often as they can, go as often as you can to that burning fire which will warm your soul.”

All the external practices of the Catholic discipline are, of course, unlike anything in mind-cure thought. But the purely spiritual part of the exercise is identical in both traditions. And in both traditions, those who recommend it write with authority, for they have clearly experienced in their own lives what they write about. Compare again some mind-cure statements:

“High, healthful, pure thinking can be encouraged, promoted, and strengthened. Its current can be turned upon grand ideals until it forms a habit and wears a channel. By means of such discipline, the mental horizon can be flooded with the sunshine of beauty, wholeness, and harmony. To begin pure and lofty thinking may at first seem difficult, even almost mechanical, but perseverance will eventually make it easy, then pleasant, and finally delightful. The soul’s real world is that which it has built of its thoughts, mental states, and imaginations. If we will, we can turn our backs upon the lower and physical plane, and lift ourselves into the realm of the spiritual and Real, and there make our home. Assuming states of expectancy and openness will attract spiritual sunshine, and it will flow in as naturally as air rushes into a vacuum… Whenever our thought is not occupied with our daily duty or profession, it should be sent upward into the spiritual atmosphere. There are quiet leisure moments by day, and wakeful hours at night, when this wholesome and delightful exercise may be engaged in to great advantage. If someone who has never made any systematic effort to lift and control their thought-forces will, for a single month, earnestly follow the course suggested here, they will be surprised and delighted at the result. Nothing will induce them to go back to careless, aimless, and superficial thinking. At such favorable times, the outside world, with all its current of daily events, is barred out. One goes into the silent sanctuary of the inner temple of the soul to communicate with the divine and to aspire to higher things. The spiritual hearing becomes delicately sensitive, so that the ‘still, small voice’ is audible. The chaotic waves of external senses are hushed, and there is a great calm. The self gradually becomes conscious that it is face to face with the Divine Presence—that mighty, healing, loving, Fatherly life which is nearer to us than we are to ourselves. There is soul contact with the Parent-Soul, and an inflow of life, love, virtue, health, and happiness from the Inexhaustible Fountain.”

When we reach the subject of mysticism, you will undergo so deep an immersion into these uplifted states of consciousness as to be completely soaked, if I may put it that way. And the cold shiver of doubt with which this little sprinkling of examples may affect you will have long since passed away. I mean doubt as to whether all such writing is not mere abstract talk and fancy words set down just to encourage others. You will then be convinced, I trust, that these states of consciousness of “union” form a perfectly definite class of experiences. The soul may occasionally partake in them, and certain people may live by them in a deeper sense than they live by anything else they know.

This brings me to a general philosophical reflection with which I should like to move on from the subject of healthy-mindedness and close a topic which I fear is already too long. It concerns the relation of all this systematized healthy-mindedness and mind-cure religion to scientific method and the scientific life.

In a later lecture, I shall have to deal explicitly with the relation of religion to science on the one hand, and to ancient, primitive thought on the other. There are plenty of people today—“scientists” or “positivists,” as they like to call themselves—who will tell you that religious thought is a mere leftover from the past. They see it as an atavistic return to a type of consciousness that humanity, in its more enlightened examples, has long since left behind and outgrown. If you ask them to explain themselves more fully, they will probably say that for primitive thought, everything is understood in terms of personality. The savage thinks that things operate by personal forces and for the sake of individual goals. For him, even external nature obeys individual needs and demands, just as if these were basic powers themselves.

THE SICK SOUL

At our last meeting, we talked about the healthy-minded temperament. This is a personality type that has a natural inability to suffer for long periods. For these people, the tendency to see things optimistically is a core part of their character, like a crystal forming around a central pattern. We saw how this temperament can become the basis for a particular type of religion. In this religion, good things—even the good things of this world’s life—are seen as the essential focus for a rational person.

This religion directs such a person to deal with the more evil aspects of the universe in a specific way. They do this by systematically choosing not to take evil to heart or make a big deal of it. They ignore evil in their thoughts and plans, or even, at times, deny outright that evil exists. Evil is seen as a disease. Worrying about disease is itself another form of disease, which only adds to the original problem. Even feelings like repentance (regret for wrongdoing) and remorse (deep guilt)—which seem like they should lead to good—can be unhealthy and weakening impulses for the healthy-minded. The best way to repent, they believe, is to get up, act righteously, and forget that you ever had anything to do with sin.

Spinoza’s philosophy has this sort of healthy-mindedness woven into its very heart, and this has been one secret of its appeal. According to Spinoza, a person led by Reason is guided entirely by the influence of good things on their mind. Knowledge of evil is an “inadequate” or incomplete knowledge, fit only for minds that are enslaved by negativity. So, Spinoza strongly condemns repentance. When people make mistakes, he says: “One might perhaps expect that feelings of guilt and repentance would help to bring them onto the right path. One might then conclude (as everyone does conclude) that these feelings are good things. Yet when we look at the matter closely, we shall find that not only are they not good, but on the contrary, they are harmful and evil passions. For it is clear that we can always get along better by reason and love of truth than by worry of conscience and remorse. These feelings are harmful and evil because they are a particular kind of sadness. And the disadvantages of sadness,” he continues, “I have already proved. I have shown that we should try to keep it from our life. Just so, since an uneasy conscience and remorse are this kind of feeling, we should try to flee and avoid these states of mind.”

Within the Christian faith, where repentance for sins has been the critical religious act from the beginning, healthy-mindedness has always offered its milder interpretation. According to such healthy-minded Christians, repentance means getting away from the sin, not groaning and agonizing over having committed it. The Catholic practice of confession and absolution (being formally forgiven) is, in one of its aspects, little more than a systematic method of keeping healthy-mindedness on top. Through it, a person’s accounts with evil are regularly settled and checked, so that they may start with a clean page, with no old debts written down. Any Catholic will tell us how clean, fresh, and free they feel after this cleansing process.

Martin Luther, the Protestant reformer, did not belong to the healthy-minded type in the extreme sense we have discussed. He rejected the idea that priests could forgive sins. Yet, on this matter of repentance, he had some very healthy-minded ideas. These were mainly due to his broad and generous understanding of God. Luther says: “When I was a monk, I thought that I was utterly lost if at any time I felt the desires of the flesh: that is, if I felt any evil impulse, physical desire, anger, hatred, or envy against any brother monk. I tried many ways to help quiet my conscience, but it would not work; for the strong desires of my flesh always returned. I could not rest but was continually troubled with these thoughts: You have committed this or that sin; you are infected with envy, with impatience, and such other sins. Therefore, you have entered this holy order in vain, and all your good works are useless. But if I had then rightly understood these sentences of Paul: ‘The flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh; and these two are opposed to each other, so that you do not do the things that you want to do,’ I would not have so miserably tormented myself. I would have thought and said to myself, as I commonly do now, ‘Martin, you will not be utterly without sin, for you have flesh; therefore, you will feel its battle.’ I remember that Staupitz (Luther’s superior) used to say, ‘I have vowed to God more than a thousand times that I would become a better man, but I never performed what I vowed. From now on, I will make no such vow, for I have now learned by experience that I am not able to perform it. Unless, therefore, God is favorable and merciful to me for Christ’s sake, I shall not be able, with all my vows and all my good deeds, to stand before him.’ This statement of Staupitz’s was not only true but also a godly and holy kind of desperation. And all who want to be saved must confess this, both with their mouth and heart. For godly people do not trust in their own righteousness. They look to Christ their reconciler, who gave his life for their sins. Moreover, they know that the sin remaining in their flesh is not held against them but is freely pardoned. Nevertheless, in the meantime, they fight in spirit against the flesh, so they do not fulfill its desires. And although they feel the flesh rage and rebel, and they themselves also sometimes fall into sin through weakness, yet they are not discouraged. They do not therefore think that their state and kind of life, and the works which are done according to their calling, displease God. Instead, they raise themselves up by faith.”

One of the “heresies” (unorthodox beliefs) for which the Jesuits got that spiritual genius, Molinos, the founder of Quietism (a form of mysticism emphasizing passivity), so horribly condemned was his healthy-minded opinion about repentance: Molinos taught: “When you fall into a fault, no matter what it is, do not trouble or distress yourself about it. For these faults are effects of our frail Nature, stained by Original Sin. The common enemy (the devil) will try to make you believe, as soon as you fall into any fault, that you are walking in error. He will suggest that therefore you are separated from God and his favor. With this, he would make you distrust God’s Grace, telling you about your misery and making a giant out of it. He will put it into your head that every day your soul grows worse instead of better, while it so often repeats these failings. O blessed Soul, open your eyes! Shut the gate against these diabolical suggestions. Know your misery, and trust in divine mercy. Wouldn’t he be a mere fool who, while competing in a tournament, falls in the best part of the race and then lies weeping on the ground, distressing himself with thoughts about his fall? People would tell him, ‘Man, lose no time, get up and continue the race, for he that rises again quickly and continues his race is as if he had never fallen.’ If you see yourself fallen once and a thousand times, you should use the remedy which I have given you: that is, a loving confidence in divine mercy. These are the weapons with which you must fight and conquer cowardice and vain thoughts. This is the method you should use—not to lose time, not to disturb yourself, and gain no good from it.”

Now, in contrast with such healthy-minded views as these—if we see them as a way of deliberately minimizing evil—stands a radically opposite view. This is a way of maximizing evil, if you want to call it that. It is based on the belief that the evil aspects of our life are part of its very essence, and that the world’s meaning comes home to us most when we take these evil aspects most to heart. We now have to turn our attention to this more morbid, or unhealthy, way of looking at the situation.

But as I closed our last hour with a general philosophical thought on the healthy-minded way of taking life, I should like at this point to make another philosophical thought about it before turning to that heavier task. You will excuse the brief delay.

If we admit that evil is an essential part of our being and the key to understanding our life, we load ourselves down with a difficulty that has always proved troublesome in philosophies of religion. Theism (belief in God), whenever it has set itself up as a systematic philosophy of the universe, has been reluctant to let God be anything less than everything—the All-in-All. In other words, philosophic theism has always tended to become pantheistic (God is identical with the universe) and monistic (reality is one single, unified substance or principle). It tends to consider the world as one unit of absolute fact. This has disagreed with popular or practical theism. Popular theism has always been more or less openly pluralistic (reality consists of many kinds of things or principles), not to say polytheistic (belief in many gods). It has shown itself perfectly well satisfied with a universe made up of many original principles, as long as we are allowed to believe that the divine principle remains supreme and that the others are secondary.

In this pluralistic case, God is not necessarily responsible for the existence of evil. He would only be responsible if evil were not finally overcome. But on the monistic or pantheistic view, evil, like everything else, must have its foundation in God. The difficulty is to see how this can possibly be the case if God is absolutely good. This difficulty faces us in every form of philosophy in which the world appears as one flawless unit of fact. Such a unit is an Individual. In it, the worst parts must be as essential as the best; they must be as necessary to make the individual what he is. This is because if any part whatever in an individual were to disappear or change, it would no longer be that individual at all. The philosophy of absolute idealism, so strongly represented both in Scotland and America today, has to struggle with this difficulty just as much as older forms of theism struggled in their time. And although it would be too early to say that there is no theoretical solution whatever to the puzzle, it is perfectly fair to say that there is no clear or easy solution. The only obvious escape from paradox here is to cut loose from the monistic assumption altogether. We must allow the world to have existed from its origin in a pluralistic form—as a collection of higher and lower things and principles, rather than an absolutely unified fact. For then evil would not need to be essential. It might be, and may always have been, an independent part that had no rational or absolute right to live with the rest. We might then conceivably hope to see it gotten rid of at last.

Now, the gospel of healthy-mindedness, as we have described it, clearly supports this pluralistic view. The monistic philosopher finds himself more or less bound to say, as Hegel said, that everything actual is rational. They might say that evil, as a logically required element, must be accepted, kept, made sacred, and given a function in the final system of truth. Healthy-mindedness refuses to say anything of the sort. Evil, it says, is definitely irrational. It is not to be accepted, preserved, or made sacred in any final system of truth. It is a pure disgusting thing to the Lord, an alien unreality, a waste element, to be discarded and rejected. The very memory of it, if possible, should be wiped out and forgotten. The ideal, far from being as extensive as the whole actual world, is merely a selected part of the actual world. It is marked by its freedom from all contact with this diseased, inferior, and waste-like stuff.

Here we have an interesting idea clearly presented to us: that there might be elements of the universe which do not form a rational whole when combined with the other elements. From the point of view of any system that those other elements make up, these can only be considered so much irrelevance and accident—so much “dirt,” as it were, and matter out of place. I ask you now not to forget this idea. Although most philosophers seem either to forget it or to look down on it too much to ever mention it, I believe that we shall have to admit in the end that it contains an element of truth. The mind-cure gospel thus once more appears to us as having dignity and importance. We have seen it to be a genuine religion, and not merely a silly appeal to imagination to cure disease. We have seen its method of experimental verification to be not unlike the method of all science. And now here we find mind-cure as the champion of a perfectly definite idea about the fundamental structure of the world. I hope that, in view of all this, you will not regret my having pressed it upon your attention at such length.

Let us now say goodbye for a while to all this way of thinking. Let us turn towards those people who cannot so quickly throw off the burden of the awareness of evil, but are by their nature fated to suffer from its presence. Just as we saw that in healthy-mindedness there are shallower and deeper levels—happiness like that of a mere animal, and more spiritually renewed sorts of happiness—so also are there different levels of the morbid, or unhealthy, mind. And one level is much more serious than the other.

There are people for whom evil means only a poor adjustment with things, a wrong relationship between one’s life and the environment. Such evil as this is curable, in principle at least, on the natural level. Merely by changing either the self or the things, or both at once, the two parts may be made to fit, and all can go happily again, like a wedding celebration.

But there are others for whom evil is not just a relationship of the person to particular outer things. For them, evil is something more radical and general, a wrongness or vice in their essential nature. No change in the environment, or any superficial rearrangement of the inner self, can cure this. It requires a supernatural remedy.

On the whole, the Latin races (like French, Italian, Spanish) have leaned more towards the first way of looking at evil—as made up of many separate illnesses and sins, removable one by one. In contrast, the Germanic races (like German, English, Scandinavian) have tended rather to think of Sin in the singular, and with a capital S. They see it as something deeply and permanently ingrained in our natural being, never to be removed by any superficial, piecemeal efforts. These comparisons of races are always open to exceptions. But undoubtedly, the northern European tone in religion has inclined towards the more deeply pessimistic view. And this way of feeling, being the more extreme, we shall find by far the more instructive for our study.

Recent psychology has found great use for the word “threshold.” It is a symbolic name for the point at which one state of mind passes into another. Thus, we speak of the threshold of a person’s consciousness in general. This indicates the amount of noise, pressure, or other outer stimulus it takes to arouse their attention at all. Someone with a high threshold will doze through an amount of noise by which someone with a low threshold would be immediately awakened. Similarly, when someone is sensitive to small differences in any kind of sensation, we say they have a low “difference-threshold.” Their mind easily steps over it into the awareness of the differences in question. And just so, we might speak of a “pain-threshold,” a “fear-threshold,” or a “misery-threshold.” We might find it quickly crossed by the awareness of some individuals, but lying too high in others to be often reached by their awareness.

The cheerful and healthy-minded live usually on the sunny side of their misery-line. The depressed and melancholy live beyond it, in darkness and fear. There are people who seem to have started in life with a “bottle or two of champagne” credited to their account, meaning they are naturally happy. Others seem to have been born close to the pain-threshold, which the slightest irritations fatally send them over.

Does it not appear as if someone who lived more usually on one side of the pain-threshold might need a different sort of religion from someone who usually lived on the other? This question, about how different types of religion relate to different types of need, arises naturally at this point. It will become a serious problem before we are done.

But before we face it in general terms, we must address ourselves to the unpleasant task of hearing what the sick souls, as we may call them in contrast to the healthy-minded, have to say about the secrets of their inner prison. We must listen to their own peculiar form of consciousness. Let us then resolutely turn our backs on the once-born and their bright, optimistic beliefs. Let us not simply cry out, in spite of all appearances, “Hurrah for the Universe!—God’s in his Heaven, all’s right with the world.” Let us see instead whether pity, pain, fear, and the feeling of human helplessness may not open a deeper view and put into our hands a more complicated key to the meaning of the situation.

To begin with, how can things so insecure as the successful experiences of this world provide a stable foundation? A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is, after all, a chain. In the healthiest and most prosperous existence, how many links of illness, danger, and disaster are always present? Unexpectedly, from the bottom of every fountain of pleasure, as the old poet said, something bitter rises up: a touch of nausea, a sudden end to delight, a whiff of sadness. These things sound a death knell. Fleeting as they may be, they bring a feeling of coming from a deeper region and often have an appalling power to convince. The buzz of life ceases at their touch, as a piano string stops sounding when the damper falls upon it.

Of course, the music can begin again—and again and again—at intervals.

But with this, the healthy-minded awareness is left with a permanent sense of insecurity. It is like a bell with a crack; it takes its breaths by chance and through accident.

Even if we imagine a person so full of healthy-mindedness that they have never experienced any of these sobering moments themselves, still, if they are a thinking person, they must compare their own situation with that of others. In doing so, they must see that their escape from suffering is just a lucky chance and not due to any fundamental difference in their nature. They might just as well have been born to an entirely different fate. And then, indeed, what a hollow security that is! What kind of world is it if the best you can say about it is, “Thank God, it has let me off without trouble this time!” Isn’t its blessedness a fragile illusion? Isn’t your joy in it a very crude kind of glee, not much different from the snicker of any scoundrel at his success?

If indeed it were all success, even on such terms as that! But take the happiest person, the one most envied by the world. In nine cases out of ten, their innermost feeling is one of failure. Either their ideals in what they have achieved are set far higher than the achievements themselves, or else they have secret ideals that the world knows nothing about. Regarding these secret ideals, they inwardly know themselves to be lacking.

When such a conquering optimist as Goethe can express himself in this way, how must it be with less successful people? Goethe wrote in 1824: “I will say nothing against the course of my existence. But at bottom, it has been nothing but pain and burden. I can state that during the whole of my 75 years, I have not had four weeks of genuine well-being. It is just the perpetual rolling of a rock that must be pushed up again forever.”

What single person was ever, on the whole, as successful as Luther? Yet when he had grown old, he looked back on his life as if it were an absolute failure. He said: “I am utterly weary of life. I pray the Lord will come immediately and take me from here. Let him come, above all, with his last Judgment: I will stretch out my neck, the thunder will burst forth, and I shall be at rest.” Holding a necklace of white agates in his hand at the time, he added: “O God, grant that it may come without delay. I would readily eat up this necklace today, for the Judgment to come tomorrow.” The Electress Dowager, a noblewoman, one day when Luther was dining with her, said to him: “Doctor, I wish you may live forty years to come.” “Madam,” he replied, “rather than live forty years more, I would give up my chance of Paradise.”

Failure, then, failure! So the world stamps us at every turn. We fill it with our blunders, our misdeeds, our lost opportunities, with all the reminders of our inability to meet our calling. And with what a condemning emphasis does it then erase us! No easy fine, no mere apology or formal act of atonement, will satisfy the world’s demands. Every pound of flesh demanded is soaked with all its blood. The most subtle forms of suffering known to humans are connected with the poisonous humiliations that come with these results.

And these are pivotal human experiences. A process so common and everlasting is clearly an essential part of life. Robert Louis Stevenson writes, “There is indeed one element in human destiny that not even blindness itself can deny. Whatever else we are intended to do, we are not intended to succeed; failure is the fate given to us.” And our nature being thus rooted in failure, is it any wonder that religious thinkers should have held failure to be essential? Is it any wonder they thought that only through the personal experience of humiliation that failure brings can the deeper sense of life’s meaning be reached?

But this is only the first stage of the world-sickness. Make a human being’s sensitivity a little greater. Carry them a little farther over the misery-threshold. And the good quality of the successful moments themselves, when they occur, is spoiled and ruined. All natural goods pass away. Riches fly away; fame is a breath; love is a cheat; youth, health, and pleasure vanish. Can things whose end is always dust and disappointment be the real goods that our souls require? Behind everything is the great ghost of universal death, the all-encompassing blackness:

A writer in the Bible says: “What profit does a man have from all his labor which he does under the Sun? I looked on all the works that my hands had done, and behold, all was emptiness and a troubling of the spirit. For what happens to the sons of men also happens to beasts; as one dies, so dies the other; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again… The dead know nothing, neither do they have any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love and their hatred and their envy have now perished; neither do they have any more a share forever in anything that is done under the Sun… Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the Sun: but if a man lives many years and rejoices in them all, yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many.”

In short, life and its opposite (death or ending) are hopelessly mixed together. But if life is good, its ending must be bad. Yet the two are equally essential facts of existence. All natural happiness thus seems infected with a contradiction. The breath of the grave surrounds it.

To a mind attentive to this state of things, and rightly affected by the joy-destroying chill that such a thought brings, the only relief that healthy-mindedness can give is by saying: “Stuff and nonsense, get out into the open air!” or “Cheer up, old fellow, you’ll be all right soon enough, if you will only drop your gloomy thoughts!” But in all seriousness, can such crude, animal-like talk be treated as a rational answer? To give religious value to mere happy-go-lucky contentment with one’s brief chance at natural good is just to make sacred forgetfulness and superficiality. Our troubles lie indeed too deep for that cure. The fact that we can die, that we can be ill at all, is what confuses us. The fact that we now, for a moment, live and are well is irrelevant to that confusion. We need a life not linked with death, a health not subject to illness, a kind of good that will not perish—a good, in fact, that flies beyond the good things of nature.

It all depends on how sensitive the soul may become to these unsettling truths. “The trouble with me is that I believe too much in common happiness and goodness,” said a friend of mine whose awareness was of this sort, “and nothing can console me for their temporary nature. I am appalled and disconcerted that it is possible for them to end.” And so with most of us: a little cooling down of animal excitement and instinct, a little loss of animal toughness, a little irritable weakness and lowering of the pain-threshold, will bring the “worm at the core” of all our usual sources of delight into full view. It will turn us into melancholy deep thinkers. The pride of life and glory of work will shrivel. It is, after all, just the ongoing quarrel between passionate youth and weary old age. Old age has the last word: the purely naturalistic look at life, however enthusiastically it may begin, is sure to end in sadness.

This sadness lies at the heart of every merely positivistic (fact-based), agnostic (doubting God’s existence), or naturalistic (world-based) system of philosophy. Let cheerful healthy-mindedness do its best with its strange power of living in the moment and ignoring and forgetting. Still, the evil background is really there to be thought of, and the skull will grin at the banquet. In the practical life of the individual, we know how his whole gloom or glee about any present fact depends on the more distant plans and hopes with which it is connected. Its meaning and the way it is framed give it the chief part of its value. Let it be known to lead nowhere, and however agreeable it may be in its immediacy, its glow and shine vanish. The old man, sick with a stealthy internal disease, may laugh and drink his wine at first as well as ever. But he knows his fate now, for the doctors have revealed it. And that knowledge knocks the satisfaction out of all these functions. They are partners of death, and the worm is their brother, and they turn to mere flatness.

The brightness of the present hour is always borrowed from the background of possibilities it goes with. Let our common experiences be surrounded by an eternal moral order. Let our suffering have an immortal meaning. Let Heaven smile upon the earth, and divine beings pay their visits. Let faith and hope be the atmosphere that humans breathe in. Then their days pass by with enthusiasm; they stir with prospects; they thrill with more distant values. Place around them, on the contrary, the chilling cold and gloom and absence of all permanent meaning—which for pure naturalism and the popular science-based evolutionism of our time are all that is ultimately visible—and the thrill stops short, or turns instead to an anxious trembling.

For naturalism, fed on recent theories about the cosmos, mankind is in a position similar to that of a group of people living on a frozen lake. They are surrounded by cliffs over which there is no escape. Yet they know that little by little the ice is melting, and the inevitable day is drawing near when the last thin layer of it will disappear. To be drowned without dignity will then be the human creature’s fate. The merrier the skating, the warmer and more sparkling the sun by day, and the redder the bonfires at night, the more deeply sad one must feel when taking in the meaning of the total situation.

The early Greeks are continually held up to us in literary works as models of the healthy-minded joyfulness that the religion of nature may create. There was indeed much joyfulness among the Greeks—Homer’s flow of enthusiasm for most things that the sun shines upon is steady. But even in Homer, the thoughtful passages are cheerless. The moment the Greeks grew systematically reflective and thought of ultimate things, they became absolute pessimists. The jealousy of the gods, the divine punishment (nemesis) that follows too much happiness, the all-encompassing death, fate’s dark obscurity, the ultimate and unintelligible cruelty—these were the fixed background of their imagination. The beautiful joyousness of their belief in many gods (polytheism) is only a poetic modern fiction. They knew no joys comparable in quality of preciousness to those which we shall soon see that Brahmans, Buddhists, Christians, and Mohammedans—twice-born people whose religion is non-naturalistic—get from their various beliefs in mysticism and renunciation.

Stoic lack of feeling and Epicurean acceptance of fate were the farthest advances the Greek mind made in that direction.

The Epicurean said: “Seek not to be happy, but rather to escape unhappiness. Strong happiness is always linked with pain. Therefore, hug the safe shore, and do not risk the deeper joys. Avoid disappointment by expecting little and by aiming low. And above all, do not fret.”
The Stoic said: “The only genuine good that life can offer a person is the free possession of their own soul; all other goods are lies.” Each of these philosophies is, in its way, a philosophy of despair about nature’s gifts. Trustful self-abandonment to the joys that freely offer themselves has entirely departed from both Epicurean and Stoic thought. What each proposes is a way of rescue from the resulting “dust-and-ashes” state of mind (a feeling of emptiness and disillusionment). The Epicurean still awaits results from limiting indulgence and suppressing desire. The Stoic hopes for no results and gives up natural good altogether.

There is dignity in both these forms of resignation. They represent distinct stages in the sobering process that humanity’s primitive intoxication with sense-happiness is sure to undergo. In one, the hot blood has grown cool; in the other, it has become quite cold. And although I have spoken of them in the past tense, as if they were merely historic, Stoicism and Epicureanism will probably be typical attitudes for all time. They mark a certain definite stage reached in the evolution of the world-sick soul. They mark the conclusion of what we call the once-born period. They represent the highest achievements of what a twice-born religion would call the purely natural person—Epicureanism (which can only by great courtesy be called a religion) showing his refinement, and Stoicism showing his moral will. They leave the world in the shape of an unresolved contradiction and seek no higher unity. Compared with the complex ecstasies which the supernaturally regenerated Christian may enjoy, or the oriental pantheist may indulge in, their recipes for calmness of mind are methods that seem almost crude in their simplicity.

Please observe, however, that I am not yet pretending to finally judge any of these attitudes. I am only describing their variety.

The surest way to the intensely joyful sorts of happiness that the twice-born report has, as a historical fact, been through a more radical pessimism than anything we have yet considered. We have seen how the shine and enchantment may be rubbed off from the good things of nature. But there is a level of unhappiness so great that the good things of nature may be entirely forgotten, and all feeling of their existence may vanish from the mental field. For this extremity of pessimism to be reached, something more is needed than observation of life and reflection upon death. The individual must, in their own person, become the victim of a pathological melancholy—an unhealthy, deep sadness.

Just as the healthy-minded enthusiast succeeds in ignoring evil’s very existence, so the person suffering from melancholy is forced, in spite of himself, to ignore the existence of all good whatever. For him, good may no longer have the least reality. Such sensitivity and susceptibility to mental pain is a rare occurrence where a person’s nervous system is entirely normal. One seldom finds it in a healthy person, even when they are the victim of the most atrocious cruelties of outward fortune. So, we note here the neurotic constitution—the type of nervous system prone to anxiety and emotional distress, of which I said so much in my first lecture—making its active entrance on our scene. It is destined to play a part in much that follows.

Since these experiences of melancholy are, in the first instance, absolutely private and individual, I can now help myself by using personal documents. They will indeed be painful to listen to, and there is almost something improper in handling them in public. Yet they lie right in the middle of our path. If we are to touch the psychology of religion at all seriously, we must be willing to forget social conventions and dive below the smooth and often misleading official surface of conversation.

One can distinguish many kinds of pathological depression. Sometimes it is mere passive joylessness and dreariness, discouragement, dejection, and a lack of taste, enthusiasm, and energy. Professor Ribot has proposed the name anhedonia to describe this condition (an inability to feel pleasure). He writes: “The state of anhedonia, if I may coin a new word to pair off with analgesia (inability to feel pain), has been very little studied, but it exists. A young girl was struck with a liver disease which for some time altered her constitution. She no longer felt any affection for her father and mother. She would have played with her doll, but it was impossible to find the least pleasure in the act. The same things which formerly made her shake with laughter entirely failed to interest her now. Esquirol observed the case of a very intelligent judge who was also a victim of liver disease. Every emotion appeared dead within him. He showed neither perversion nor violence, but a complete absence of emotional reaction. If he went to the theatre, which he did out of habit, he could find no pleasure there. The thought of his house, of his home, of his wife, and of his absent children moved him as little, he said, as a theorem of Euclid (a mathematical principle).”

Prolonged seasickness will, in most people, produce a temporary condition of anhedonia. Every good thing, whether on earth or in heaven, is imagined only to be turned from with disgust. A temporary condition of this sort, connected with the religious development of a singularly noble character, both intellectual and moral, is well described by the Catholic philosopher Father Gratry in his autobiographical recollections. As a result of mental isolation and excessive study at the Polytechnic school (a prestigious engineering school), young Gratry fell into a state of nervous exhaustion with symptoms which he describes as follows:

“I had such a universal terror that I woke at night with a start, thinking that the Pantheon (a famous building) was tumbling on the Polytechnic school, or that the school was in flames, or that the River Seine was pouring into the Catacombs (underground tunnels), and that Paris was being swallowed up. And when these impressions were past, all day long without rest, I suffered an incurable and intolerable desolation, close to despair. I thought myself, in fact, rejected by God, lost, damned! I felt something like the suffering of hell. Before that, I had never even thought of hell. My mind had never turned in that direction. Neither sermons nor personal reflections had impressed me in that way. I took no account of hell. Now, all at once, I suffered to some extent what is suffered there. But what was perhaps still more dreadful is that every idea of heaven was taken away from me. I could no longer imagine anything of the sort. Heaven did not seem to me worth going to. It was like a vacuum, a mythological paradise, a home of shadows less real than the earth. I could imagine no joy, no pleasure in living there. Happiness, joy, light, affection, love—all these words were now devoid of meaning. Without doubt, I could still have talked about all these things, but I had become incapable of feeling anything in them, of understanding anything about them, of hoping anything from them, or of believing them to exist. That was my great and inconsolable grief!”

I no longer perceived or even imagined that happiness or perfection existed. An abstract heaven over a naked rock—that was my home for eternity.”

So much for melancholy when it means an inability to feel joy. A much worse form of it is a positive and active torment, a sort of mental nerve pain completely unknown in healthy life. Such anguish can take on various characteristics.

Sometimes it’s more like a feeling of disgust.
Sometimes it’s like irritation and frustration.
Or it can be self-doubt and self-despair.
Or suspicion, anxiety, nervousness, and fear. The person suffering may rebel or give in. They may accuse themselves, or they may accuse outside powers. And they may or may not be tormented by the theoretical mystery of why they should have to suffer so much. Most cases are a mix of these things, and we should not treat our classifications with too much respect. Moreover, it is only a relatively small number of cases that connect with religious experience at all. For instance, cases of extreme frustration usually do not.

I will now quote directly from the first case of melancholy I found. It is a letter from a patient in a French mental hospital:

“I suffer too much in this hospital, both physically and mentally. Besides the burning sensations and the sleeplessness (for I no longer sleep since I was shut up here, and the little rest I get is broken by bad dreams, and I am woken with a jump by nightmares, dreadful visions, lightning, thunder, and the rest), fear, horrible fear, presses me down. It holds me without a break and never lets me go. Where is the justice in it all! What have I done to deserve this extreme severity? In what form will this fear crush me? What would I not owe to anyone who would rid me of my life! To eat, drink, lie awake all night, suffer without interruption—such is the fine inheritance I have received from my mother! What I fail to understand is this abuse of power. There are limits to everything; there is a middle way. But God knows neither a middle way nor limits. I say God, but why? All I have known so far has been the devil. After all, I am afraid of God as much as of the devil. So I drift along, thinking of nothing but suicide, but I have neither the courage nor the means here to do it. As you read this, it will easily prove to you my insanity. The style and the ideas are confused enough—I can see that myself. But I cannot keep myself from being either crazy or an idiot. And, as things are, from whom should I ask for pity? I am defenseless against the invisible enemy who is tightening his grip around me. I would be no better armed against him even if I saw him, or had seen him. Oh, if he would only kill me, devil take him! Death, death, once and for all! But I stop. I have raved to you long enough. I say raved, for I can write no other way, having neither brain nor thoughts left. O God! What a misfortune to be born! Born like a mushroom, no doubt between an evening and a morning. And how true and right I was when in our philosophy year in college I dwelled on bitterness with the pessimists. Yes, indeed, there is more pain in life than gladness—it is one long agony until the grave. Think how cheerful it makes me to remember that this horrible misery of mine, coupled with this unspeakable fear, may last fifty, one hundred, who knows how many more years!”

This letter shows two things. First, you see how the entire awareness of the poor man is so choked with the feeling of evil that the sense of there being any good in the world is lost for him altogether. His attention excludes it, cannot admit it: the sun has left his sky. And secondly, you see how the complaining nature of his misery keeps his mind from taking a religious direction. A complaining state of mind, in fact, tends rather towards a lack of religion. As far as I know, it has played no part whatsoever in the development of religious systems.

Religious melancholy must be of a softer, more yielding kind. Leo Tolstoy, in his book called My Confession, has left us a wonderful account of the attack of melancholy that led him to his own religious conclusions. His conclusions are peculiar in some respects. But the melancholy itself shows two characteristics that make it a typical example for our present purpose. First, it is a clear case of anhedonia—a passive loss of appetite for all of life’s values. Second, it shows how the altered and unfamiliar way the world looked as a result of this condition stimulated Tolstoy’s intellect. It led him to a gnawing, persistent questioning and an effort to find philosophical relief. I plan to quote Tolstoy at some length. But before doing so, I will make a general remark on each of these two points.

First, let’s consider our spiritual judgments and our sense of value in general. It is well known that facts can be accompanied by opposite emotional comments. The same fact will inspire entirely different feelings in different people, and at different times in the same person. There is no logically provable connection between any outer fact and the feelings it may happen to cause. These feelings have their source in another area of existence altogether—in the animal and spiritual part of the person’s being.

Imagine, if you can, suddenly being stripped of all the emotion with which your world now inspires you. Try to imagine the world as it exists, purely by itself, without your favorable or unfavorable, hopeful or fearful comments. It will be almost impossible for you to realize such a condition of negativity and deadness. No one part of the universe would then have importance beyond another. The whole collection of its things and series of its events would be without meaning, character, expression, or perspective. Whatever value, interest, or meaning our respective worlds may seem to possess are thus pure gifts from the mind of the person experiencing them.

The passion of love is the most familiar and extreme example of this fact. If it comes, it comes; if it does not come, no process of reasoning can force it. Yet it transforms the value of the person loved as utterly as the sunrise transforms Mont Blanc from a corpse-like gray to a rosy enchantment. It sets the whole world to a new tune for the lover and gives a new direction to his life. The same is true with fear, with indignation, jealousy, ambition, and worship. If they are there, life changes. And whether they shall be there or not depends almost always upon non-logical, often on physical, conditions. And just as the excited interest which these passions put into the world is our gift to the world, so are the passions themselves gifts—gifts to us, from sources sometimes low and sometimes high. But they are almost always non-logical and beyond our control. How can the dying old man reason back into himself the romance, the mystery, the sense of great things about to happen with which our old earth thrilled him in the days when he was young and well? These are gifts, either of the body or of the spirit. And the spirit moves where it wishes. The world’s materials passively lend their surface to all the gifts alike, just as a stage setting indifferently receives whatever alternating colored lights may be shone upon it from the lighting equipment.

Meanwhile, the practically real world for each one of us—the effective world of the individual—is the combined world: physical facts and emotional values mixed indistinguishably. Withdraw or distort either part of this complex result, and the kind of experience we call pathological, or unhealthy, follows.

In Tolstoy’s case, the sense that life had any meaning whatever was, for a time, completely withdrawn. The result was a transformation in the whole appearance of reality. When we come to study the phenomenon of conversion or religious regeneration, we shall see that a common consequence of the change that occurs in the person is a transformation of the face of nature in their eyes. A new heaven seems to shine upon a new earth. In people suffering from melancholy, there is usually a similar change, only it is in the reverse direction. The world now looks remote, strange, sinister, and uncanny. Its color is gone, its breath is cold, there is no life in the eyes it glares with.

“It is as if I lived in another century,” says one asylum patient.
“I see everything through a cloud,” says another, “things are not as they were, and I am changed.”
“I see,” says a third, “I touch, but the things do not come near me; a thick veil alters the color and look of everything.”
“Persons move like shadows, and sounds seem to come from a distant world.”
“There is no longer any past for me; people appear so strange. It is as if I could not see any reality, as if I were in a theatre, as if people were actors, and everything were scenery. I can no longer find myself; I walk, but why? Everything floats before my eyes but leaves no impression.”
“I weep false tears; I have unreal hands. The things I see are not real things.” Such are expressions that naturally come to the lips of melancholy people describing their changed state.

Now, there are some individuals whom all this leaves in the deepest astonishment. The strangeness is wrong. The unreality cannot be. A mystery is hidden, and a philosophical solution must exist. If the natural world is so two-faced and unhomelike, what world, what thing is real? An urgent wondering and questioning begins, a deep theoretical activity. In the desperate effort to get into right relations with the matter, the sufferer is often led to what becomes for him a satisfying religious solution.

Tolstoy says that at about the age of fifty, he began to have moments of confusion, of what he calls an “arrest,” as if he did not know “how to live” or what to do. It is obvious that these were moments in which the excitement and interest that our usual activities naturally bring had ceased. Life had been enchanting; it was now flatly sober—more than sober, dead. Things were meaningless whose meaning had always been self-evident. The questions “Why?” and “What next?” began to trouble him more and more frequently. At first, it seemed as if such questions must be answerable, and as if he could easily find the answers if he would take the time. But as they became ever more urgent, he realized that it was like those first discomforts of a sick man, to which he pays little attention until they run into one continuous suffering. Then he realizes that what he took for a passing disorder means the most momentous thing in the world for him—it means his death.

These questions—“Why?” “For what reason?” “What for?”—found no response. Tolstoy says: “I felt that something had broken within me on which my life had always rested, that I had nothing left to hold on to, and that morally my life had stopped. An unbeatable force pushed me to get rid of my existence, in one way or another. It cannot be said exactly that I wished to kill myself, for the force which drew me away from life was fuller, more powerful, more general than any mere desire. It was a force like my old desire to live, only it pushed me in the opposite direction. It was a desire of my whole being to get out of life. Behold me then, a man happy and in good health, hiding the rope in order not to hang myself from the rafters of the room where every night I went to sleep alone. Behold me no longer going shooting, lest I should give in to the too easy temptation of putting an end to myself with my gun. I did not know what I wanted. I was afraid of life; I was driven to leave it; and in spite of that, I still hoped something from it. All this took place at a time when, as far as all my outer circumstances went, I ought to have been completely happy. I had a good wife who loved me and whom I loved; good children and a large property which was increasing with no effort on my part. I was more respected by my relatives and acquaintances than I had ever been. I was loaded with praise by strangers. And without exaggeration, I could believe my name was already famous. Moreover, I was neither insane nor ill. On the contrary, I possessed a physical and mental strength which I have rarely met in persons of my age. I could mow grass as well as the peasants; I could work with my brain for eight hours without stopping and feel no bad effects. And yet I could give no reasonable meaning to any actions of my life. And I was surprised that I had not understood this from the very beginning. My state of mind was as if some wicked and stupid joke was being played on me by someone. One can live only so long as one is intoxicated, drunk with life. But when one grows sober, one cannot fail to see that it is all a stupid cheat. What is truest about it is that there is nothing even funny or silly in it; it is cruel and stupid, purely and simply.”

Tolstoy then tells an old Eastern fable: “A traveler in the desert is surprised by a wild beast. Seeking to save himself from the fierce animal, the traveler jumps into a well with no water in it. But at the bottom of this well, he sees a dragon waiting with open mouth to devour him. And the unhappy man, not daring to go out lest he should be the prey of the beast, not daring to jump to the bottom lest he should be devoured by the dragon, clings to the branches of a wild bush which grows out of one of the cracks of the well. His hands weaken, and he feels that he must soon give way to certain fate. But still he clings, and then he sees two mice, one white, the other black, evenly moving around the bush to which he hangs, and gnawing off its roots. The traveler sees this and knows that he must inevitably die. But while thus hanging, he looks about him and finds on the leaves of the bush some drops of honey. These he reaches with his tongue and licks them off with delight. Thus I hang upon the branches of life, knowing that the inevitable dragon of death is waiting ready to tear me, and I cannot understand why I am thus made a martyr. I try to suck the honey which formerly consoled me, but the honey pleases me no longer. Day and night, the white mouse and the black mouse gnaw the branch to which I cling. I can see but one thing: the inevitable dragon and the mice—I cannot turn my gaze away from them. This is no fable, but the literal, undeniable truth which everyone may understand. What will be the outcome of what I do today? Of what I shall do tomorrow? What will be the outcome of all my life? Why should I live? Why should I do anything? Is there in life any purpose which the inevitable death that awaits me does not undo and destroy? These questions are the simplest in the world. From the foolish child to the wisest old man, they are in the soul of every human being. Without an answer to them, it is impossible, as I experienced, for life to go on. ‘But perhaps,’ I often said to myself, ‘there may be something I have failed to notice or to understand. It is not possible that this condition of despair should be natural to mankind.’ And I searched for an explanation in all the branches of knowledge acquired by men. I questioned painfully and for a long time, and with no idle curiosity. I searched, not lazily, but laboriously and stubbornly for days and nights together. I searched like a man who is lost and seeks to save himself—and I found nothing. I became convinced, moreover, that all those who before me had searched for an answer in the sciences have also found nothing. And not only this, but that they have recognized that the very thing which was leading me to despair—the meaningless absurdity of life—is the only undeniable knowledge accessible to man.”

To prove this point, Tolstoy quotes the Buddha, Solomon, and Schopenhauer. And he finds only four ways in which people of his own class and society usually deal with the situation:

Mere animal blindness: sucking the honey without seeing the dragon or the mice. Tolstoy says, “From such a way, I can learn nothing, after what I now know.”
Reflective Epicureanism: snatching what pleasure one can while life lasts. This is only a more deliberate sort of numbness than the first.
Manly suicide.
Seeing the mice and dragon and yet weakly and complainingly clinging to the bush of life.

Suicide was naturally the consistent course of action dictated by logical thought. Tolstoy continues: “Yet, while my intellect was working, something else in me was working too, and kept me from the deed—a consciousness of life, as I may call it, which was like a force that obliged my mind to fix itself in another direction and draw me out of my situation of despair… During the whole course of this year, when I almost unceasingly kept asking myself how to end the business, whether by the rope or by the bullet, during all that time, alongside all those movements of my ideas and observations, my heart kept longing with another pining emotion. I can call this by no other name than that of a thirst for God. This craving for God had nothing to do with the movement of my ideas—in fact, it was the direct contrary of that movement—but it came from my heart. It was like a feeling of dread that made me seem like an orphan and isolated in the midst of all these things that were so foreign. And this feeling of dread was lessened by the hope of finding the assistance of someone.”

Of the process, both intellectual and emotional, which, starting from this idea of God, led to Tolstoy’s recovery, I will say nothing in this lecture. I will save it for a later time. The only thing that needs to interest us now is the phenomenon of his absolute disenchantment with ordinary life. We should also note the fact that the whole range of habitual values could, to a man as powerful and full of abilities as he was, come to appear such a ghastly mockery.

THE DIVIDED SELF, AND THE PROCESS OF ITS UNIFICATION

The last lecture was a painful one. It dealt with evil as a widespread element of the world we live in. At the end of it, we clearly saw the contrast between two ways of looking at life. These two ways are characteristic of what we called the healthy-minded people, who need to be born only once, and of the sick souls, who must be “twice-born” in order to be happy.

The result is two different understandings of the universe we experience.

In the religion of the once-born, the world is a straightforward, one-level affair. Its accounts are kept in simple terms of good and bad. Its parts have just the values they naturally seem to have. A simple addition of pluses and minuses will give its total worth. Happiness and religious peace consist in living on the plus side of this account.
In the religion of the twice-born, on the other hand, the world is a two-level mystery. Peace cannot be reached by simply adding good things and removing bad things from life. Natural good is not just insufficient in amount and temporary; there is a falseness in its very being. Since it is all canceled out by death, if not by earlier problems, it gives no final positive balance. It can never be the thing intended for our lasting worship. Instead, it keeps us from our real good. Giving up on it and despairing of it are our first steps in the direction of truth. There are two lives, the natural and the spiritual. We must lose the one before we can take part in the other.

In their extreme forms—of pure naturalism (focusing only on the natural world) and pure salvationism (focusing only on being saved from evil)—the two types are sharply contrasted. However, here, as in most other common classifications, the extreme forms are somewhat ideal, abstract ideas. The actual human beings we most often meet are in-between types and mixtures.

Practically, however, you all recognize the difference. You understand, for example, the disdain a Methodist convert might feel for a merely optimistic, healthy-minded moralist. And you can also understand the aversion the moralist feels towards what seems to him the diseased self-focus of the Methodist. The Methodist, as he calls it, is “dying to live,” making paradox and the turning upside down of natural appearances the essence of God’s truth.

The psychological basis of the twice-born character seems to be a certain lack of harmony or a mixed nature in the person’s inborn temperament. It’s an incompletely unified moral and intellectual makeup.

“Homo duplex, homo duplex!” (Man is double, man is double!) writes Alphonse Daudet. “The first time I realized I was two people was at the death of my brother Henri. My father cried out so dramatically, ‘He is dead, he is dead!’ While my first self wept, my second self thought, ‘How truly that cry was delivered, how fine it would be in the theatre.’ I was then fourteen years old. This horrible duality has often given me much to think about. Oh, this terrible second me! It is always seated while the other is on its feet, acting, living, suffering, busying itself. This second me that I have never been able to make drunk, to make shed tears, or to put to sleep. And how it sees into things, and how it mocks!”

Recent works on the psychology of character have had much to say on this point. Some people are born with an inner makeup that is harmonious and well-balanced from the start. Their impulses are consistent with one another. Their will follows the guidance of their intellect without trouble. Their passions are not excessive, and their lives are little troubled by regrets.

Others are constituted differently. The degree of difference can vary. It might be something so slight that it only results in an odd or whimsical inconsistency. Or it might be a lack of harmony so severe that its consequences are extremely inconvenient. I find a good example of the more innocent kinds of mixed nature in Mrs. Annie Besant’s autobiography.

She wrote: “I have always been the strangest mixture of weakness and strength, and have paid heavily for the weakness. As a child, I used to suffer tortures of shyness. If my shoelace was untied, I would feel shamefacedly that every eye was fixed on the unlucky string. As a girl, I would shrink away from strangers and think myself unwanted and unliked, so that I was full of eager gratitude to anyone who noticed me kindly. As the young mistress of a house, I was afraid of my servants and would let careless work pass rather than bear the pain of scolding the wrongdoer. When I have been lecturing and debating with no lack of spirit on the platform, I have preferred to go without what I wanted at the hotel rather than to ring and make the waiter fetch it. Though I am combative on the platform in defense of any cause I cared for, I shrink from quarrels or disapproval in the house. I am a coward at heart in private life, while a good fighter in public. How often have I passed unhappy fifteen-minute periods screwing up my courage to find fault with some subordinate whom my duty compelled me to scold? And how often have I jeered at myself for being a fraud—the brave platform fighter shrinking from blaming some young man or woman for doing their work badly? An unkind look or word has been enough to make me shrink into myself like a snail into its shell. Yet, on the platform, opposition makes me speak my best.”

This amount of inconsistency will only count as a charming weakness. But a stronger degree of mixed nature may wreak havoc on the person’s life. There are people whose existence is little more than a series of zig-zags, as now one tendency and now another gets the upper hand. Their spirit wars with their flesh. They wish for things that are incompatible. Unpredictable impulses interrupt their most deliberate plans. Their lives are one long drama of repentance and of effort to repair misdeeds and mistakes.

A heterogeneous, or mixed, personality has been explained as the result of inheritance. The traits of character from incompatible and conflicting ancestors are supposed to be preserved alongside each other. This explanation can be taken for what it’s worth—it certainly needs more proof. But whatever the cause of a mixed personality may be, we find the extreme examples of it in the psychopathic temperament (a temperament prone to mental or emotional instability), of which I spoke in my first lecture. All writers about that temperament make the inner inconsistency prominent in their descriptions. Frequently, indeed, it is only this trait that leads us to describe a man as having that temperament at all. A “dégénéré supérieur” (a superior degenerate, a term used at the time) is simply a person of great sensitivity in many directions. They find more difficulty than is common in keeping their spiritual house in order and moving straight ahead in life because their feelings and impulses are too keen and too conflicting.

In the haunting and insistent ideas, in the irrational impulses, the unhealthy self-reproach, dreads, and inhibitions that trouble the psychopathic temperament when it is strongly pronounced, we have perfect examples of a mixed personality. Bunyan (author of The Pilgrim’s Progress) had an obsession with the words, “Sell Christ for this, sell him for that, sell him, sell him!” These words would run through his mind a hundred times together. One day, out of breath from arguing back, “I will not, I will not,” he impulsively said, “Let him go if he will.” This loss of the inner battle kept him in despair for over a year. The lives of the saints are full of such blasphemous obsessions, always attributed to the direct action of Satan. This phenomenon connects with the life of the subconscious self, so-called, of which we must soon speak more directly.

Now, in all of us, however we are constituted, the normal development of character chiefly consists in straightening out and unifying the inner self. This is true to a greater degree if we are intense, sensitive, and subject to varied temptations. It is true to the greatest possible degree if we are decidedly psychopathic. The higher and lower feelings, the useful and the mistaken impulses, begin by being a relative chaos within us. They must end by forming a stable system of functions, with each part in its proper place and order. Unhappiness often characterizes the period of creating this order and inner struggle.

If the individual has a tender conscience and is religiously awakened, the unhappiness will take the form of moral remorse and self-reproach. They will feel inwardly vile and wrong, and feel that they are in a false relationship with the author of their being and the one who determines their spiritual fate. This is the religious melancholy and “conviction of sin” that have played so large a part in the history of Protestant Christianity. The person’s inner world is a battleground for what they feel to be two deadly hostile selves, one actual and the other ideal. As Victor Hugo makes his character Mahomet say: “I am the wretched field of noble fights: Sometimes the man from up high, sometimes the man from down low; And evil in my mouth with good alternates, Like in the desert the sand and the water-hole.”

This involves wrong living and powerless ambitions. “What I want to do, that I do not do; but what I hate, that I do,” as Saint Paul says. It involves self-loathing, self-despair, and an unintelligible and intolerable burden to which one is mysteriously heir.

Let me quote from some typical cases of a discordant personality, where melancholy takes the form of self-condemnation and a sense of sin. Saint Augustine’s case is a classic example. You all remember his half-pagan, half-Christian upbringing in Carthage, his move to Rome and Milan, his adoption of Manichaeism (a religion believing in a struggle between good and evil principles) and later skepticism, and his restless search for truth and purity of life. Finally, you recall how he was distracted by the struggle between the two souls in his breast and ashamed of his own weakness of will. This was especially true when so many others whom he knew, or knew of, had thrown off the chains of sensuality and dedicated themselves to chastity and the higher life. He then heard a voice in the garden say, “Sume, lege” (take and read). Opening the Bible at random, he saw the text, “not in immorality and promiscuity,” etc., which seemed directly sent to him and calmed his inner storm forever. Augustine’s psychological genius has given an account of the trouble of having a divided self which has never been surpassed.

He wrote: “The new will which I began to have was not yet strong enough to overcome that other will, which was strengthened by long indulgence. So these two wills, one old, one new, one carnal (fleshly), the other spiritual, fought with each other and disturbed my soul. I understood by my own experience what I had read, ‘the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh.’ It was myself indeed in both the wills, yet more myself in that which I approved in myself than in that which I disapproved in myself. Yet it was through myself that habit had gained such fierce mastery over me, because I had willingly come to a place I did not truly want to be. Still bound to earth, I refused, O God, to fight on your side. I was as much afraid to be freed from all bonds, as I ought to have feared being trapped by them. Thus the thoughts by which I meditated on you were like the efforts of someone who wants to wake up, but being overpowered with sleepiness, soon falls asleep again. Often a man, when heavy sleepiness is on his limbs, puts off shaking it off, and though not approving it, encourages it. Even so, I was sure it was better to surrender to your love than to yield to my own lusts. Yet, though the first course convinced me, the latter pleased me and held me bound. There was nothing in me to answer your call ‘Awake, you sleeper,’ but only drawling, drowsy words: ‘Presently; yes, presently; wait a little while.’ But the ‘presently’ never came, and the ‘little while’ grew long… For I was afraid you would hear me too soon and heal me at once of my disease of lust, which I wished to satisfy rather than to see extinguished. With what lashes of words did I not whip my own soul! Yet it shrank back; it refused, though it had no excuse to offer… I said within myself: ‘Come, let it be done now,’ and as I said it, I was on the point of deciding. I almost did it, yet I did not do it. And I made another effort, and almost succeeded, yet I did not reach it, and did not grasp it—hesitating to die to death, and live to life. And the evil to which I was so accustomed held me more than the better life I had not tried.”

There could be no more perfect description of the divided will. This happens when the higher wishes lack just that last bit of sharpness, that touch of explosive intensity, of dynamogenic quality (to use the slang of psychologists, meaning power-generating), that enables them to burst their shell and break through effectively into life and conquer the lower tendencies forever. In a later lecture, we shall have much to say about this higher excitability.

I find another good description of the divided will in the autobiography of Henry Alline, the Nova Scotian evangelist. I read a brief account of his melancholy in my last lecture. The poor youth’s sins were, as you will see, of the most harmless kind. Yet they interfered with what proved to be his truest calling, so they gave him great distress.

Alline wrote: “I was now very moral in my life but found no rest for my conscience. I now began to be respected in young company, who knew nothing of my inner thoughts all this while. Their respect began to be a trap for my soul, for I soon began to be fond of worldly fun. Though I still flattered myself that if I did not get drunk, nor curse, nor swear, there would be no sin in fun and worldly pleasure, and I thought God would allow young people some (what I called simple or civil) recreation. I still kept up a routine of duties and would not allow myself to run into any open vices. So I got along very well in times of health and prosperity. But when I was distressed or threatened by sickness, death, or heavy thunderstorms, my religion would not do. I found there was something missing and would begin to regret going so much to parties. But when the distress was over, the devil and my own wicked heart, along with the invitations of my friends and my fondness for young company, were such strong temptations that I would again give way. Thus, I got to be very wild and rude. At the same time, I kept up my routines of secret prayer and reading. But God, not willing that I should destroy myself, still followed me with his calls and moved with such power upon my conscience that I could not satisfy myself with my amusements. In the midst of my fun, I sometimes would have such a sense of my lost and undone condition that I would wish myself away from the company. After it was over, when I went home, I would make many promises that I would attend no more of these parties and would beg forgiveness for hours and hours. But when I faced the temptation again, I would give way. No sooner would I hear the music and drink a glass of wine, than I would find my mind elevated and soon proceed to any sort of merriment or amusement that I thought was not immoral or openly vicious. But when I returned from my worldly fun, I felt as guilty as ever and could sometimes not close my eyes for some hours after I had gone to bed. I was one of the most unhappy creatures on earth. Sometimes I would leave the company (often asking the fiddler to stop playing, as if I were tired) and go out and walk about crying and praying, as if my very heart would break. I would beg God that he would not cut me off nor give me up to hardness of heart. Oh, what unhappy hours and nights I thus wore away! When I sometimes met with merry companions, and my heart was ready to sink, I would try hard to put on as cheerful a face as possible, so they might not suspect anything. Sometimes I would start some conversation with young men or young women on purpose, or propose a merry song, lest the distress of my soul would be discovered or suspected. At the same time, I would then rather have been in a wilderness in exile than with them or any of their pleasures or enjoyments. Thus for many months when I was in company, I would act the hypocrite and pretend to have a merry heart. But at the same time, I would try as much as I could to avoid their company. Oh, wretched and unhappy mortal that I was! Everything I did, and wherever I went, I was still in a storm. And yet I continued to be the chief organizer and ringleader of the parties for many months after, though it was a chore and a torment to attend them. But the devil and my own wicked heart drove me about like a slave, telling me that I must do this and do that, and bear this and bear that, and turn here and turn there, to keep my reputation up and keep the respect of my friends. And all this while, I continued as strict as possible in my duties and left no stone unturned to quiet my conscience, watching even against my thoughts and praying continually wherever I went. For I did not think there was any sin in my conduct when I was among worldly company, because I did not take any satisfaction there, but only followed it, I thought, for sufficient reasons. But still, all that I did or could do, my conscience would roar night and day.”

Saint Augustine and Alline both emerged into the smooth waters of inner unity and peace. I shall next ask you to consider more closely some of the peculiarities of the process of unification, when it occurs.

THE DIVIDED SELF, AND THE PROCESS OF ITS UNIFICATION

The last lecture was a painful one. We talked about evil as a widespread part of the world we live in. At the end, we clearly saw the difference between two ways of looking at life. These two ways belong to what we called the healthy-minded people, who need to be born only once, and the sick souls, who must be “twice-born” in order to be happy.

This results in two different understandings of the universe we experience.

In the religion of the once-born, the world is like a straightforward, one-story building. Its good and bad points are clear and simple. Things have the values they naturally seem to have. A simple adding of pluses and minuses will show its total worth. For them, happiness and religious peace mean living on the plus side of life’s account.
In the religion of the twice-born, however, the world is like a two-story mystery. Peace cannot be reached by simply adding good things and removing bad things from life. Natural good things are not just insufficient in amount and temporary; there is a basic falseness in their very nature. Since they are all canceled out by death, if not by earlier problems, they offer no final positive balance. They can never be the things we are meant to worship permanently. In fact, they keep us from our real good. Giving up on them and despairing of them are our first steps toward truth. There are two lives: the natural life and the spiritual life. We must lose the first one before we can truly live the other.

In their extreme forms—pure naturalism (focusing only on the material world) and pure salvationism (focusing only on being saved from evil)—these two types are sharply different. However, here, as in most other general categories, the extreme forms are somewhat ideal ideas. The actual people we most often meet are in-between types and mixtures.

Practically, however, you all recognize the difference. You understand, for example, why a Methodist convert might look down on a simply optimistic, healthy-minded moral person. And you can also understand why the moral person dislikes what seems to them the unhealthy self-obsession of the Methodist. The Methodist, as the moralist sees it, is “dying to live,” making paradoxes and turning natural appearances upside down to find God’s truth.

The psychological basis of the twice-born character seems to be a certain lack of harmony or a mixed quality in the person’s inborn temperament. It’s like having a moral and intellectual makeup that isn’t completely unified.

“A double man, a double man!” writes Alphonse Daudet. “The first time I realized I was two people was at the death of my brother Henri. My father cried out so dramatically, ‘He is dead, he is dead!’ While my first self wept, my second self thought, ‘How genuinely that cry was expressed, how fine it would be in a theatre.’ I was then fourteen years old. This horrible duality has often given me much to think about. Oh, this terrible second me! It is always sitting down while the other self is on its feet, acting, living, suffering, and busying itself. This second me that I have never been able to make drunk, or make cry, or put to sleep. And how it sees into things, and how it mocks!”

Recent books on the psychology of character have had much to say on this point. Some people are born with an inner makeup that is harmonious and well-balanced from the start. Their impulses are consistent with each other. Their will follows the guidance of their intellect without trouble. Their passions are not excessive, and their lives are not much troubled by regrets.

Others are made differently. The degree of difference can vary. It might be something so slight that it only results in an odd or whimsical inconsistency. Or it might be such a deep lack of harmony that its consequences are extremely inconvenient. I find a good example of the more innocent kinds of mixed nature in Mrs. Annie Besant’s autobiography.

She wrote: “I have always been the strangest mixture of weakness and strength, and have paid heavily for the weakness. As a child, I used to suffer terribly from shyness. If my shoelace was untied, I would feel ashamed, thinking every eye was fixed on it. As a girl, I would shrink away from strangers and think myself unwanted and unliked, so I was full of eager gratitude to anyone who noticed me kindly. As the young mistress of a house, I was afraid of my servants. I would let careless work pass rather than bear the pain of correcting the person who did it wrong. When I have been lecturing and debating with plenty of spirit on stage, I have preferred to go without something I wanted at the hotel rather than to ring the bell and make the waiter fetch it. Though I am combative on stage in defense of any cause I cared for, I shrink from quarrels or disapproval at home. I am a coward at heart in private life, while a good fighter in public. How often have I spent unhappy fifteen-minute periods trying to gather my courage to find fault with some employee whom my duty forced me to scold? And how often have I mocked myself for being a fraud—the brave stage fighter shrinking from blaming some young person for doing their work badly? An unkind look or word has been enough to make me shrink into myself like a snail into its shell. Yet, on stage, opposition makes me speak my best.”

This amount of inconsistency will only be seen as a charming weakness. But a stronger degree of mixed nature can create chaos in a person’s life. There are people whose lives are little more than a series of zig-zags, as first one tendency and then another gets the upper hand. Their spirit fights with their desires. They wish for things that cannot exist together. Unpredictable impulses interrupt their most carefully made plans. Their lives are one long drama of regret and of trying to fix misdeeds and mistakes.

A mixed personality has been explained as the result of inheritance. The character traits of incompatible and conflicting ancestors are thought to be preserved side-by-side in a person. This explanation can be taken for what it’s worth—it certainly needs more proof.

But whatever the cause of a mixed personality, we find the extreme examples of it in the psychopathic temperament (a temperament prone to mental or emotional instability), which I mentioned in my first lecture. All writers about that temperament emphasize inner inconsistency in their descriptions. Often, it is only this trait that leads us to describe someone as having that temperament at all. A “dégénéré supérieur” (a term used at the time, meaning a “superior” but unstable individual) is simply a person with great sensitivity in many areas. They find it harder than usual to keep their inner life in order and to live consistently, because their feelings and impulses are too strong and too conflicting.

The haunting and persistent ideas, the irrational impulses, the unhealthy self-doubts, dreads, and inhibitions that trouble the psychopathic temperament when it is very pronounced are perfect examples of a mixed personality. Bunyan (author of The Pilgrim’s Progress) was obsessed with the words, “Sell Christ for this, sell him for that, sell him, sell him!” These words would run through his mind hundreds of times. One day, tired from arguing back, “I will not, I will not,” he impulsively said, “Let him go if he will.” Losing this inner battle kept him in despair for over a year. The lives of saints are full of such blasphemous obsessions, which they always attributed to the direct action of Satan. This phenomenon is connected with the life of the subconscious self, which we must soon discuss more directly.

Now, in all of us—no matter how we are made up—the normal development of character mainly consists in straightening out and unifying the inner self. This is especially true if we are intense, sensitive, and subject to many temptations. It is truest of all if we are decidedly psychopathic. The higher and lower feelings, the useful and the mistaken impulses, begin as a relative chaos within us. They must eventually form a stable system, with each part working in proper order. Unhappiness often marks the period of creating this inner order and struggle.

If the individual has a tender conscience and is religiously awakened, this unhappiness will take the form of moral remorse and self-reproach. They will feel inwardly vile and wrong. They will feel they are in a false relationship with God, the creator of their being and the decider of their spiritual fate. This is the religious melancholy and “conviction of sin” that has played such a large part in the history of Protestant Christianity. The person’s inner world is a battleground for what they feel to be two deadly hostile selves: one actual (how they are) and the other ideal (how they want to be). As Victor Hugo makes his character Mahomet say: “I am the wretched field of noble fights: Sometimes the man from up high, sometimes the man from down low; And evil in my mouth alternates with good, Like sand and water-holes in the desert.”

This involves wrong living and unfulfilled desires. “What I want to do, that I do not do; but what I hate, that I do,” as Saint Paul says. It involves self-loathing, self-despair, and an incomprehensible and unbearable burden that one has mysteriously inherited.

Let me quote from some typical cases of a discordant, or conflicted, personality, where melancholy takes the form of self-condemnation and a sense of sin. Saint Augustine’s case is a classic example. You all remember his half-pagan, half-Christian upbringing, his move to Rome and Milan, his adoption of Manichaeism (a religion believing in a cosmic struggle between good and evil) and later skepticism, and his restless search for truth and a pure life. Finally, you recall how he was torn by the struggle between the two souls within him and ashamed of his own weak will. This was especially so when many others he knew, or knew of, had thrown off the chains of worldly desires and dedicated themselves to chastity and a higher life. He then heard a voice in a garden say, “Sume, lege” (Take and read). Opening the Bible at random, he saw a passage condemning immorality, which seemed directly addressed to him and instantly calmed his inner storm forever. Augustine’s psychological genius has given an account of the trouble of having a divided self that has never been surpassed.

He wrote: “The new will I began to have was not yet strong enough to overcome my other will, which was strengthened by long habit. So these two wills—one old, one new; one worldly, the other spiritual—fought with each other and disturbed my soul. I understood from my own experience what I had read: ‘the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh.’ It was truly myself in both wills. Yet I felt more myself in what I approved of in myself than in what I disapproved of. However, it was through my own actions that habit had gained such a fierce hold over me, because I had willingly gone where I did not truly want to go. Still bound to earthly things, I refused, O God, to fight on your side. I was as much afraid to be freed from all bonds as I should have feared being trapped by them. Thus, the thoughts with which I meditated on You were like the efforts of someone trying to wake up but, being overpowered by sleepiness, soon falls asleep again. Often, when heavy sleepiness is on his limbs, a man puts off shaking it off. Though he doesn’t approve of it, he encourages it. Even so, I was sure it was better to surrender to Your love than to yield to my own desires. Yet, though the first course convinced me, the latter pleased me and held me bound. There was nothing in me to answer Your call, ‘Awake, you sleeper,’ but only drawling, drowsy words: ‘Soon; yes, soon; wait a little while.’ But the ‘soon’ never came, and the ‘little while’ grew long… For I was afraid You would hear me too soon and heal me at once of my disease of lust, which I wished to satisfy rather than to see ended. With what lashes of words did I not whip my own soul! Yet it shrank back; it refused, though it had no excuse to offer… I said within myself: ‘Come, let it be done now.’ And as I said it, I was on the point of making the decision. I almost did it, yet I did not do it. And I made another effort, and almost succeeded, yet I did not reach it and did not grasp it—hesitating to die to death and live to life. And the evil to which I was so accustomed held me more strongly than the better life I had not tried.”

There could be no more perfect description of the divided will. This happens when the higher wishes lack just that final sharpness, that touch of explosive intensity, of dynamogenic quality (power-generating quality, to use psychologists’ slang), that enables them to break through their shell, enter life effectively, and conquer the lower tendencies forever. In a later lecture, we will have much to say about this higher level of inner excitability.

I find another good description of the divided will in the autobiography of Henry Alline, the evangelist from Nova Scotia. I read a brief account of his melancholy in my last lecture. The poor youth’s sins were, as you will see, of the most harmless kind. Yet they interfered with what proved to be his truest calling in life, so they caused him great distress.

Alline wrote: “I was now very moral in my life but found no peace for my conscience. Young people began to respect me, though they knew nothing of my inner thoughts all this time. Their respect started to become a trap for my soul, because I soon became fond of worldly fun. I still told myself that if I didn’t get drunk, or curse, or swear, there would be no sin in having fun and worldly pleasure, and I thought God would allow young people some (what I called simple or innocent) recreation. I still kept up a routine of religious duties and wouldn’t let myself fall into any obvious vices. So I got along very well when I was healthy and things were going well. But when I was distressed or threatened by sickness, death, or heavy thunderstorms, my religion wasn’t enough. I found something was missing and would begin to regret going to so many parties. But when the distress was over, the devil and my own wicked heart, along with the invitations of my friends and my fondness for young company, were such strong temptations that I would give way again. So, I became very wild and rude. At the same time, I kept up my routines of secret prayer and reading. But God, not wanting me to destroy myself, still followed me with his calls and moved my conscience with such power that I couldn’t find satisfaction in my amusements. In the midst of my fun, I would sometimes have such a sense of my lost and hopeless condition that I would wish myself away from the company. After it was over, when I went home, I would make many promises that I would not go to these parties anymore and would beg for forgiveness for hours. But when I faced the temptation again, I would give way. No sooner would I hear the music and drink a glass of wine than I would find my spirits lifted and soon join in any sort of merriment or amusement that I thought wasn’t immoral or openly wicked. But when I returned from my worldly fun, I felt as guilty as ever and sometimes couldn’t close my eyes for hours after I had gone to bed. I was one of the most unhappy creatures on earth. Sometimes I would leave the company (often asking the fiddler to stop playing, as if I were tired) and go out and walk about crying and praying, as if my very heart would break. I would beg God not to cut me off or let me become hard-hearted. Oh, what unhappy hours and nights I spent this way! When I sometimes met with merry companions, and my heart was ready to sink, I would try hard to put on as cheerful a face as possible so they might not suspect anything. Sometimes I would start a conversation with young men or women on purpose, or suggest a merry song, so that the distress of my soul wouldn’t be discovered or suspected. At the same time, I would then rather have been in an exiled wilderness than with them or any of their pleasures or enjoyments. So for many months when I was in company, I would act like a hypocrite and pretend to have a merry heart. But at the same time, I would try as much as I could to avoid their company. Oh, what a wretched and unhappy person I was! Everything I did, and wherever I went, I was still in a storm. And yet I continued to be the chief organizer and ringleader of the parties for many months after, though it was a chore and a torment to attend them. But the devil and my own wicked heart drove me about like a slave, telling me that I must do this and do that, and bear this and bear that, and turn here and turn there, to keep my reputation up and keep the respect of my friends. And all this while, I continued as strict as possible in my duties and left no stone unturned to quiet my conscience, watching even against my thoughts and praying continually wherever I went. For I did not think there was any sin in my conduct when I was among worldly company, because I did not take any satisfaction there, but only followed it, I thought, for good enough reasons. But still, despite all that I did or could do, my conscience would roar night and day.”

Saint Augustine and Alline both eventually found their way to the calm waters of inner unity and peace. Next, I will ask you to consider more closely some of the specific features of the process of unification, when it happens. It may come gradually, or it may occur suddenly. It may come through changed feelings, or through changed abilities to act. Or it may come through new intellectual insights, or through experiences which we shall later have to call ‘mystical.’ However it comes, it brings a characteristic sort of relief. And this relief is never so extreme as when it is in a religious form. Happiness! Happiness! Religion is only one of the ways in which people gain that gift. Easily, permanently, and successfully, it often transforms the most unbearable misery into the deepest and most lasting happiness.

But finding religion is only one out of many ways of reaching unity. The process of fixing inner incompleteness and reducing inner conflict is a general psychological process. This process can take place with any sort of mental material and does not necessarily have to take a religious form. In judging the religious types of regeneration (or rebirth) which we are about to study, it is important to recognize that they are only one kind within a larger group that contains other types as well. For example, the new birth may be away from religion into disbelief. Or it may be from being overly strict morally into freedom and even license. Or it may be produced by some new stimulus or passion bursting into the individual’s life, such as love, ambition, greed, revenge, or patriotic devotion. In all these instances, we see precisely the same psychological pattern of events: a firmness, stability, and balance following a period of storm, stress, and inconsistency. In these non-religious cases, the “new person” may also be born either gradually or suddenly.

The French philosopher Jouffroy has left an eloquent account of his own “counter-conversion,” as the transition from religious orthodoxy to disbelief has been well described by Mr. Starbuck. Jouffroy’s doubts had troubled him for a long time. But he dates his final crisis from a certain night when his disbelief became fixed and stable. The immediate result was sadness at the illusions he had lost.

Jouffroy writes: “I shall never forget that night of December in which the veil that hid my own disbelief from me was torn away. I hear again my steps in that narrow, bare chamber where, long after the hour of sleep had come, I used to walk up and down. I see again that moon, half-hidden by clouds, which now and then lit up the cold window-panes. The hours of the night flowed on, and I did not notice their passage. Anxiously, I followed my thoughts, as from layer to layer they descended towards the foundation of my consciousness. One by one, they scattered all the illusions which until then had hidden its twists and turns from my view, making them clearer every moment. Vainly I clung to these last beliefs as a shipwrecked sailor clings to the fragments of his ship. Vainly, frightened at the unknown emptiness in which I was about to float, I turned with them towards my childhood, my family, my country—all that was dear and sacred to me. The unbending current of my thought was too strong: parents, family, memory, beliefs—it forced me to let go of everything. The investigation went on more stubbornly and more severely as it drew near its end, and did not stop until the end was reached. I knew then that in the depth of my mind, nothing was left that stood upright. This moment was a frightful one. When, towards morning, I threw myself exhausted on my bed, I seemed to feel my earlier life, so smiling and so full, go out like a fire. Before me, another life opened—dark and empty—where in the future I must live alone, alone with my fatal thought which had exiled me there, and which I was tempted to curse. The days which followed this discovery were the saddest of my life.”

In John Foster’s Essay on Decision of Character, there is an account of a case of sudden conversion to extreme greed (avarice), which is illustrative enough to quote: A young man, it appears, “wasted, in two or three years, a large inheritance in reckless partying with a number of worthless companions who called themselves his friends. When his last money was gone, they, of course, treated him with neglect or contempt. Reduced to absolute poverty, he one day went out of the house intending to end his life. But wandering for a while almost unconsciously, he came to the top of a hill which overlooked what were recently his estates. Here he sat down and remained lost in thought for a number of hours. At the end of this time, he sprang from the ground with a strong, triumphant emotion. He had made his decision, which was that all these estates should be his again. He had also formed his plan, which he instantly began to carry out. He walked quickly forward, determined to seize the first opportunity, however humble, to gain any money, even if it were a very small amount. He resolved absolutely not to spend, if he could help it, a single penny of whatever he might obtain. The first thing that drew his attention was a heap of coals unloaded from carts onto the pavement before a house. He offered himself to shovel or wheel them into the place where they were to be stored and was hired. He received a few pence for the labor. Then, following the saving part of his plan, he requested a small gratuity of food and drink, which was given to him. He then looked out for the next thing that might come his way. He went, with tireless industry, through a series of menial jobs in different places, some long, some short, still carefully avoiding, as far as possible, the expense of even a penny. He promptly seized every opportunity that could advance his goal, without worrying about how lowly the job or his appearance might seem. By this method, after a considerable time, he had gained enough money to purchase, in order to sell again, a few cattle, whose value he had taken pains to understand. He quickly but cautiously turned his first profits into second advantages, maintained his extreme thriftiness without a single deviation, and thus advanced by degrees into larger transactions and initial wealth. I did not hear, or have forgotten, the continued course of his life. But the final result was that he more than recovered his lost possessions and died an incurable miser, worth £60,000.”

Let me turn now to the kind of case—the religious case—that immediately concerns us. Here is one of the simplest possible types: an account of the conversion to the systematic religion of healthy-mindedness of a man who must already have been naturally of the healthy-minded type. It shows how, when the fruit is ripe, a touch will make it fall. Mr. Horace Fletcher, in his little book called Menticulture, tells of a conversation with a friend about the self-control achieved by the Japanese through their practice of Buddhist discipline. The friend said: “‘You must first get rid of anger and worry.’ ‘But,’ said I, ‘is that possible?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied; ‘it is possible for the Japanese, and it ought to be possible for us.’ On my way back, I could think of nothing else but the words ‘get rid, get rid.’ The idea must have continued to possess me during my sleeping hours, for the first thought in the morning brought back the same idea, with the revelation of a discovery. This framed itself into the reasoning: ‘If it is possible to get rid of anger and worry, why is it necessary to have them at all?’ I felt the strength of the argument and at once accepted the reasoning. The baby had discovered that it could walk. It would scorn to creep any longer. From the instant I realized that these cancer-like spots of worry and anger were removable, they left me. With the discovery of their weakness, they were driven out. From that time, life has had an entirely different look. Although from that moment the possibility and desirability of freedom from depressing passions has been a reality to me, it took me some months to feel absolute security in my new position. But, as the usual occasions for worry and anger have presented themselves over and over again, and I have been unable to feel them in the slightest degree, I no longer dread or guard against them. I am amazed at my increased energy and mental vigor, at my strength to meet all kinds of situations, and at my tendency to love and appreciate everything. I have had occasion to travel more than ten thousand miles by rail since that morning. The same train porter, conductor, hotel waiter, peddler, book agent, cab driver, and others who were formerly a source of annoyance and irritation have been met, but I am not aware of a single instance of rudeness. All at once, the whole world has turned good to me. I have become, as it were, sensitive only to the rays of good. I could tell many experiences which prove a brand-new condition of mind, but one will be enough. Without the slightest feeling of annoyance or impatience, I have seen a train that I had planned to take with a good deal of interested and pleasurable anticipation pull out of the station without me, because my baggage did not arrive. The porter from the hotel came running and panting into the station just as the train disappeared from sight. When he saw me, he looked as if he feared a scolding and began to tell of being blocked in a crowded street and unable to get out. When he had finished, I said to him: ‘It doesn’t matter at all, you couldn’t help it, so we will try again tomorrow. Here is your fee; I am sorry you had all this trouble in earning it.’ The look of surprise that came over his face was so filled with pleasure that I was repaid on the spot for the delay in my departure. The next day, he would not accept a cent for the service, and he and I are friends for life. During the first weeks of my experience, I was on guard only against worry and anger. But, in the meantime, having noticed the absence of the other depressing and limiting passions, I began to trace a relationship, until I was convinced that they all grow from the two roots I have specified. I have felt the freedom now for so long a time that I am sure of my relationship with it. I could no more harbor any of the thieving and depressing influences that I once nursed as a heritage of humanity than a well-dressed man would voluntarily wallow in a filthy gutter. There is no doubt in my mind that pure Christianity and pure Buddhism, and the Mental Sciences and all Religions, fundamentally teach what has been a discovery to me. But none of them have presented it in the light of a simple and easy process of elimination. At one time, I wondered if the elimination would not lead to indifference and laziness. In my experience, the contrary is the result. I feel such an increased desire to do something useful that it seems as if I were a boy again and the energy for play had returned. I could fight as readily as (and better than) ever, if there were an occasion for it. It does not make one a coward. It can’t, since fear is one of the things eliminated. I notice the absence of timidity in the presence of any audience. When I was a boy, I was standing under a tree which was struck by lightning and received a shock from whose effects I never knew freedom until I had ended my partnership with worry. Since then, lightning and thunder have been encountered under conditions which would formerly have caused great depression and discomfort, without my experiencing a trace of either. Surprise is also greatly modified, and one is less likely to become startled by unexpected sights or noises. As far as I am individually concerned, I am not bothering myself at present as to what the results of this liberated condition may be. I have no doubt that the perfect health aimed at by Christian Science may be one of the possibilities, for I note a marked improvement in the way my stomach does its duty in digesting the food I give it to handle. I am sure it works better to the sound of a song than under the friction of a frown. Neither am I wasting any of this precious time forming an idea of a future existence or a future Heaven. The Heaven that I have within myself is as attractive as any that has been promised or that I can imagine. And I am willing to let the growth lead where it will, as long as anger and its related feelings have no part in misguiding it.”

The older medicine used to speak of two ways, lysis (a gradual recovery) and crisis (an abrupt recovery), in which one might recover from a bodily disease. In the spiritual realm, there are also two ways, one gradual, the other sudden, in which inner unification may occur. Tolstoy and Bunyan may again serve us as examples—examples, as it happens, of the gradual way. However, it must be admitted at the outset that it is hard to follow these inner journeys of others, and one feels that their words do not reveal their total secret.

However this may be, Tolstoy, pursuing his unending questioning, seemed to come to one insight after another. First, he realized that his conviction that life was meaningless only took this finite, earthly life into account. He was looking for the value of one limited thing in terms of another limited thing. The whole result could only be one of those indeterminate equations in mathematics which end with 0=0. Yet this is as far as the reasoning intellect by itself can go, unless irrational feeling or faith brings in the idea of the infinite. Believe in the infinite as common people do, and life becomes possible again.

Tolstoy wrote: “Since mankind has existed, wherever life has been, there also has been the faith that gave the possibility of living. Faith is the sense of life, that sense by which a person does not destroy himself but continues to live on. It is the force by which we live. If a person did not believe that they must live for something, they would not live at all. The idea of an infinite God, of the divinity of the soul, of the union of people’s actions with God—these are ideas developed in the infinite secret depths of human thought. They are ideas without which there would be no life, without which I myself,” said Tolstoy, “would not exist. I began to see that I had no right to rely on my individual reasoning and neglect these answers given by faith, for they are the only answers to the question.”

Yet how could he believe as the common people believe, steeped as they are in the crudest superstitions? It seemed impossible—but yet their life! Their life! It is normal. It is happy! It is an answer to the question! Little by little, Tolstoy came to the settled conviction—he says it took him two years to arrive there—that his trouble had not been with life in general, not with the common life of ordinary people, but with the life of the upper, intellectual, artistic classes. This was the life which he had personally always led—the life of the mind, the life of social convention, artificiality, and personal ambition. He had been living wrongly and must change. To work for basic animal needs, to reject lies and vanities, to relieve common wants, to be simple, to believe in God—therein lay happiness again.

He says: “I remember one day in early spring, I was alone in the forest, listening to its mysterious noises. I listened, and my thought went back to what for these three years it was always busy with—the quest for God. But the idea of him, I said, how did I ever come by that idea? And again, there arose in me, with this thought, glad desires for life. Everything in me awoke and received a meaning… Why do I look farther? a voice within me asked. He is there: He, without whom one cannot live. To acknowledge God and to live are one and the same thing. God is what life is. Well, then! Live, seek God, and there will be no life without him… After this, things cleared up within me and around me better than ever, and the light has never wholly died away. I was saved from suicide. Just how or when the change took place I cannot tell. But as unnoticeably and gradually as the force of life had been canceled within me, and I had reached my moral death-bed, just as gradually and unnoticeably did the energy of life come back. And what was strange was that this energy that came back was nothing new. It was my ancient youthful force of faith, the belief that the sole purpose of my life was to be better. I gave up the life of the conventional world, recognizing it to be no life, but a parody of life, which its excesses simply keep us from understanding.” And Tolstoy thereupon embraced the life of the peasants and has felt right and happy, or at least relatively so, ever since.

As I interpret his melancholy, then, it was not merely an accidental imbalance in his moods, though it was doubtless also that. It was logically called for by the clash between his inner character and his outer activities and goals. Although a literary artist, Tolstoy was one of those strong, primitive “oak tree” types of men. For such men, the excesses and insincerities, the greed, complications, and cruelties of our polite civilization are deeply unsatisfying. For them, the eternal truths lie with more natural and animal things. His crisis was the process of getting his soul in order, the discovery of its genuine place and purpose, the escape from falsehoods into what, for him, were ways of truth. It was a case of a mixed personality slowly and late finding its unity and its proper level. And though not many of us can imitate Tolstoy—not having enough, perhaps, of that original human core in our bones—most of us may at least feel as if it might be better for us if we could.

Bunyan’s recovery seems to have been even slower.

For years, he was haunted by passages from the Bible, sometimes feeling hopeful, sometimes despairing. But eventually, he found ever-growing relief in his belief that he was saved through the blood of Christ.

His peace would come and go “twenty times a day.” One moment he felt comfort, the next, trouble. He would feel peace, and then, before he could walk a short distance, he would be as full of guilt and fear as his heart could hold. When a good Bible passage resonated with him, “This,” he writes, “gave me good encouragement for about two or three hours.” Or, “This was a good day for me; I hope I shall not forget it.” Or, “The glory of these words was then so heavy on me that I was ready to faint as I sat; yet, not with grief and trouble, but with solid joy and peace.” Or, “This had a strange effect on my spirit; it brought light with it and commanded a silence in my heart, stilling all those chaotic thoughts that before used to roar and bellow like uncontrolled hounds from hell, making a hideous noise within me. It showed me that Jesus Christ had not quite forsaken and rejected my Soul.”

Such periods of peace grew more frequent until he could write: “And now only the tail end of the storm remained, for the thunder had passed beyond me; only some drops would still remain, that now and then would fall upon me.” And at last: “Now my chains truly fell off my legs; I was freed from my afflictions and irons; my temptations also fled away. From that time, those dreadful Scriptures of God stopped troubling me. Now I also went home rejoicing, for the grace and love of God… Now I could see myself in Heaven and Earth at once: in Heaven through my Christ, my Head, my Righteousness, and Life, though on Earth in my body or person… Christ was a precious Christ to my soul that night; I could scarcely lie in my bed for joy and peace and triumph through Christ.”

Bunyan became a minister of the gospel. In spite of his naturally anxious temperament and the twelve years he spent in prison for not conforming to the official church, his life was turned to active use. He was a peacemaker and a doer of good. The immortal allegory which he wrote, The Pilgrim’s Progress, has brought the very spirit of religious patience home to English hearts.

But neither Bunyan nor Tolstoy could become what we have called healthy-minded. They had drunk too deeply from the cup of bitterness ever to forget its taste. Their redemption is into a universe that has “two stories”—one of natural life with its evils, and another, higher spiritual one. Each of them realized a good that dulled the sharp edge of his sadness. Yet the sadness was preserved as a minor ingredient in the heart of the faith by which it was overcome.

The interesting fact for us is that, as a matter of fact, they could and did find something welling up from the inner depths of their consciousness by which such extreme sadness could be overcome. Tolstoy does well to talk of it as “that by which men live.” For that is exactly what it is: a stimulus, an excitement, a faith, a force that re-infuses the positive willingness to live, even in the full presence of the evil perceptions that earlier made life seem unbearable. For Tolstoy’s perceptions of evil, within their own sphere, appear to have remained unchanged. His later works show him unforgiving towards the whole system of official values: the cheapness of fashionable life, the wickedness of empires, the falseness of the church, the vain conceit of the professions, the meannesses and cruelties that go with great success, and every other pompous crime and lying institution of this world. His experience had made him permanently unable to be patient with such things.

Bunyan also leaves this world to the enemy. He says: “I must first pass a sentence of death upon everything that can properly be called a thing of this life. I must even count myself, my wife, my children, my health, my enjoyments, and all, as dead to me, and myself as dead to them. I must trust in God through Christ concerning the world to come. And concerning this world, I must count the grave my house, make my bed in darkness, and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘You are my mother and sister.’ … The parting with my wife and my poor children has often been to me like the pulling of my flesh from my bones, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer my heart than all I had besides. Poor child, I thought, what sorrow are you likely to have for your share in this world! You must be beaten, must beg, suffer hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand calamities, though I cannot now endure that the wind should blow upon you. But yet I must risk you all with God, though it cuts me to the core to leave you.”

The “color of resolution” is there in Bunyan’s words, but the full flood of ecstatic liberation seems never to have poured over poor John Bunyan’s soul.

These examples may be enough to acquaint us in a general way with the phenomenon technically called “Conversion.” In the next lecture, I shall invite you to study its peculiarities and accompanying features in some detail.

CONVERSION

Phrases like “to be converted,” “to be reborn,” “to receive grace,” “to experience religion,” or “to gain assurance” all describe a process. This process can be gradual or sudden. Through it, a self that was previously divided, and felt wrong, inferior, and unhappy, becomes unified. This unified self then feels right, superior, and happy because it has a stronger hold on religious realities. This, at least, is what conversion generally means, whether or not we believe that a direct action from God is needed to bring about such a moral change.

Before we study this process in more detail, let me help you understand the definition better with a real-life example. I have chosen the interesting case of an uneducated man, Stephen H. Bradley. His experience is told in a rare American booklet. I selected this case because it shows how, in these inner changes, one may find one unexpected depth below another. It is as if the possibilities of a person’s character lie in a series of layers or shells, and we often have no advance knowledge of their existence.

Mr. Bradley thought he had already been fully converted at the age of fourteen. He said: “I thought I saw the Savior, by faith, in human form, for about one second in the room. His arms were extended, and he seemed to be saying to me, ‘Come.’ The next day, I rejoiced with trembling. Soon after, my happiness was so great that I said I wanted to die. This world had no place in my affections, as far as I knew. Every day appeared as solemn to me as the Sabbath. I had a strong desire that all mankind might feel as I did. I wanted them all to love God completely. Before this time, I was very selfish and self-righteous. But now, I desired the well-being of all mankind. I could, with a feeling heart, forgive my worst enemies. I felt as if I should be willing to bear the scoffs and sneers of any person, and suffer anything for His sake, if I could be the means, in God’s hands, of the conversion of one soul.”

Nine years later, in 1829, Mr. Bradley heard of a religious revival that had begun in his neighborhood. He says: “Many of the young converts would come to me when I was in meetings and ask me if I had religion. My reply generally was, ‘I hope I have.’ This did not seem to satisfy them; they said they knew they had it. I asked them to pray for me. I thought to myself that if I had not gotten religion by now, after professing to be a Christian for so long, then it was time I had. I hoped their prayers would be answered for me.

One Sunday, I went to hear the Methodist preacher at the Academy. He spoke of the coming of the day of general judgment. He described it in such a solemn and terrible manner as I had never heard before. The scene of that day appeared to be actually happening. All the powers of my mind were so awakened that, like Felix in the Bible, I trembled involuntarily on the bench where I was sitting, though I felt nothing in my heart. The next evening, I went to hear him again. He took his text from the Book of Revelation: ‘And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God.’ He represented the terrors of that day in such a manner that it seemed as if it would melt a heart of stone. When he finished his talk, an old gentleman turned to me and said, ‘This is what I call preaching.’ I thought the same. But my feelings were still unmoved by what he said, and I did not enjoy religion, though I believe he did.

I will now tell of my experience of the power of the Holy Spirit, which took place on the same night. If any person had told me before this that I could have experienced the power of the Holy Spirit in the way I did, I could not have believed it. I would have thought the person telling me so was deluded. I went directly home after the meeting. When I got home, I wondered what made me feel so dull. I went to bed soon after I got home and felt indifferent to religious matters until I began to be affected by the Holy Spirit. This began about five minutes later, in the following way:

At first, I began to feel my heart beat very quickly all of a sudden. This made me think at first that perhaps something was going to be wrong with me, though I was not alarmed, for I felt no pain. My heart increased its beating, which soon convinced me that it was the Holy Spirit because of the effect it had on me. I began to feel exceedingly happy and humble, and such a sense of unworthiness as I had never felt before. I could not very well help speaking out loud, which I did. I said, ‘Lord, I do not deserve this happiness,’ or words to that effect. At the same time, a stream (feeling like air) came into my mouth and heart in a more noticeable way than drinking anything. This continued, as near as I could judge, for five minutes or more, and it appeared to be the cause of my heart beating so fast. It took complete possession of my soul. I am certain that while it was happening, I asked the Lord not to give me any more happiness, for it seemed as if I could not contain what I already had. My heart felt as if it would burst, but the feeling did not stop until I felt as if I was indescribably full of the love and grace of God. In the meantime, while I was experiencing this, a thought arose in my mind: what can it mean? And all at once, as if to answer it, my memory became exceedingly clear. It appeared to me just as if the New Testament was placed open before me, at the eighth chapter of Romans. It was as light as if some candle was held for me to read the 26th and 27th verses of that chapter. And I read these words: ‘The Spirit helps our weaknesses with groanings which cannot be uttered.’ And all the time that my heart was beating, it made me groan like a person in distress. This groaning was not very easy to stop, though I was in no pain at all. My brother, who was in bed in another room, came and opened the door and asked me if I had a toothache. I told him no and that he might go back to sleep. I tried to stop groaning. I felt unwilling to go to sleep myself, I was so happy, fearing I should lose the feeling. I was thinking to myself a line from a hymn: ‘My willing soul would stay In such a state as this.’

And while I lay thinking, after my heart stopped beating fast, feeling as if my soul was full of the Holy Spirit, I thought that perhaps there might be angels hovering around my bed. I felt just as if I wanted to talk with them. Finally, I spoke, saying, ‘Oh, you affectionate angels! How is it that you can take so much interest in our well-being, and we take so little interest in our own?’ After this, I had difficulty getting to sleep. When I woke in the morning, my first thoughts were: What has become of my happiness? And, feeling some of it in my heart, I asked for more, which was given to me as quick as a thought. I then got up to dress myself and found to my surprise that I could only just stand. It appeared to me as if it was a little heaven on earth. My soul felt as completely raised above the fears of death as it was above the fear of going to sleep. Like a bird in a cage, I had a desire, if it was God’s will, to get released from my body and to live with Christ, though I was willing to live to do good to others and to warn sinners to repent. I went downstairs feeling as solemn as if I had lost all my friends. I was thinking to myself that I would not let my parents know about it until I had first looked into the Testament. I went directly to the shelf and looked into it, at the eighth chapter of Romans. Every verse seemed to almost speak and to confirm that it was truly the Word of God, and it felt as if my feelings matched the meaning of the words. I then told my parents about it. I told them that I thought they must see that when I spoke, it was not my own voice, for it appeared so to me. My speech seemed entirely under the control of the Spirit within me. I do not mean that the words which I spoke were not my own, for they were. I thought that I was influenced similarly to the Apostles on the day of Pentecost (except for having the power to give it to others and doing what they did). After breakfast, I went around to talk with my neighbors about religion, which I could not have been hired to do before this. At their request, I prayed with them, though I had never prayed in public before. I now feel as if I have done my duty by telling the truth. I hope, by the blessing of God, it may do some good to all who shall read it. He has fulfilled his promise in sending the Holy Spirit down into our hearts, or mine at least. And I now defy all the Deists (those who believe in God based on reason but not revelation) and Atheists in the world to shake my faith in Christ.”

So much for Mr. Bradley and his conversion. We don’t have information about how this experience affected his later life. Now, let’s take a closer look at the different parts of the conversion process.

If you open the chapter on “Association” in any psychology textbook, you will read that a person’s ideas, goals, and objects of interest form different internal groups and systems. These groups are relatively independent of one another. Each ‘goal’ a person follows awakens a certain specific kind of interested excitement. It gathers a certain group of ideas together under its influence as its associates. If the goals and excitements are different in kind, their groups of ideas may have little in common. When one group is present and captures all the interest, all the ideas connected with other groups may be excluded from the mind.

Think of the President of the United States. When he goes camping in the wilderness for a vacation with a paddle, gun, and fishing rod, his system of ideas changes from top to bottom. The worries of the presidency have faded entirely into the background. His official habits are replaced by the habits of someone close to nature. Those who knew the man only as the hardworking leader would not “know him for the same person” if they saw him as the camper.

If he should never go back to his old life, and never again let political interests control him, he would be, for all practical purposes, a permanently transformed person. Our ordinary changes in character, as we pass from one of our goals to another, are not usually called transformations. This is because each change is so quickly followed by another in the reverse direction. But whenever one goal becomes so stable that it permanently pushes its previous rivals out of an individual’s life, we tend to speak of the event as a “transformation,” and perhaps to wonder at it.

These alternations between different sets of interests are the most complete ways in which a self can be divided. A less complete way is when two or more different groups of goals exist at the same time. One group practically holds the main influence and drives activity, while the others are only wishful thoughts and never really lead to anything. Saint Augustine’s desires for a purer life, which we discussed in our last lecture, were an example of this for a while. Another example would be the President, in his full pride of office, wondering whether it were not all meaningless, and whether the life of a wood-chopper were not a healthier destiny. Such fleeting desires are mere “velleities”—passing fancies or whims. They exist on the distant edges of the mind. The real self of the person, the center of their energies, is occupied with an entirely different system of thoughts and goals.

As life goes on, there is a constant change in our interests. Consequently, there is a change of place in our systems of ideas. Some move from more central to more peripheral (outer) parts of our awareness, and others move from more peripheral to more central parts. I remember, for instance, one evening when I was young. My father read aloud from a Boston newspaper about the part of Lord Gifford’s will that established these four lectureships. At that time, I did not think of being a teacher of philosophy. What I listened to was as remote from my own life as if it related to the planet Mars. Yet here I am, with the Gifford system now a core part of my very self. All my energies, for the time being, are devoted to successfully identifying myself with it. My soul is now rooted in what once was for it a practically unreal object. It now speaks from this new center as from its proper home.

When I say “Soul,” you need not take me in the philosophical sense of a separate spiritual entity unless you prefer to. Although such language is instinctive in these matters, Buddhists or followers of Hume (who doubted a permanent self) can perfectly well describe the facts in terms of experience, which they prefer. For them, the soul is only a succession of fields of consciousness. Yet, in each field, there is a part, or sub-field, which acts as the focus and contains the excitement. From this focal part, as from a center, the person’s aim or purpose seems to be taken.

Talking about this focal part, we instinctively use words that create perspective to distinguish it from the rest. We use words like “here,” “this,” “now,” “mine,” or “me.” We assign to the other parts positions like “there,” “then,” “that,” “his” or “yours,” “it,” or “not me.” But a “here” can change to a “there,” and a “there” can become a “here.” What was “mine” and what was “not mine” can change their places.

What brings such changes about is the way in which emotional excitement alters. Things that are hot and vital to us today are cold tomorrow. It is as if we see other parts of our mental field from these hot parts. And from these hot parts, personal desire and willpower make their moves. In short, these hot parts are the centers of our dynamic energy. The cold parts, in contrast, leave us indifferent and passive in proportion to their coldness.

Whether such language is strictly exact is not important for now. It is exact enough if you recognize from your own experience the facts I am trying to describe with it.

Now, there may be great shifts in emotional interest. The hot places in our mind may change almost as rapidly as the sparks that run through burnt paper. Then we have the wavering and divided self we heard so much about in the previous lecture. Or, the focus of excitement and heat—the point of view from which our aim is taken—may come to rest permanently within a certain system of ideas. If this change is a religious one, we call it a conversion, especially if it happens through a crisis, or suddenly.

Let us hereafter, when speaking of the hot place in a person’s consciousness—the group of ideas to which they devote themselves and from which they operate—call it the habitual centre of their personal energy. It makes a great difference to a person whether one set of their ideas, or another, is the center of their energy. And it makes a great difference, regarding any set of ideas they may possess, whether those ideas become central or remain on the periphery of their mind. To say that a person is “converted” means, in these terms, that religious ideas, previously on the edge of their consciousness, now take a central place. It means that religious aims now form the habitual center of their energy.

Now, if you ask psychology just how the excitement shifts in a person’s mental system, and why aims that were peripheral become central at a certain moment, psychology has to reply with some limitations. Although it can give a general description of what happens, it is unable in a specific case to account accurately for all the individual forces at work. Neither an outside observer nor the person who undergoes the process can explain fully how particular experiences are able to change one’s center of energy so decisively, or why they so often have to wait for the right moment to do so. We have a thought, or we perform an act, repeatedly. But on a certain day, the real meaning of the thought rings through us for the first time, or the act suddenly becomes a moral impossibility.

All we know is that there are dead feelings, dead ideas, and cold beliefs, and there are hot and live ones. When one grows hot and alive within us, everything has to re-organize around it. We may say that the heat and liveliness only mean the “power to cause action,” long delayed but now active, of the idea. But such talk itself is just a roundabout way of speaking, for where does the sudden power to cause action come from? And our explanations then get so vague and general that one realizes all the more the intense individuality of the whole phenomenon.

In the end, we fall back on the well-worn symbol of a mechanical balance. A mind is a system of ideas. Each idea has the excitement it arouses and tendencies that push or pull, which mutually check or reinforce one another. The collection of ideas changes by subtraction or by addition in the course of experience. The tendencies change as the person gets older. A mental system may be undermined or weakened by this internal alteration, just as a building is. Yet, for a time, it may keep upright by old habit. But a new perception, a sudden emotional shock, or an event that reveals the underlying change will make the whole structure fall together. Then the center of gravity sinks into a more stable attitude. The new ideas that reach the center in the rearrangement seem now to be locked there, and the new structure remains permanent.

Formed associations of ideas and habits are usually factors that slow down such changes in balance. New information, however acquired, plays a part in speeding up the changes. The slow change of our instincts and natural inclinations, under the “unimaginable touch of time,” has an enormous influence. Moreover, all these influences may work subconsciously or half-consciously. And when you have a person in whom the subconscious life—which I must speak more fully about soon—is largely developed, and in whom motives habitually develop in silence, you get a case which you can never fully explain. In such cases, both to the person themselves and to onlookers, there may appear an element of marvel or mystery.

Strong Emotions Can Cause Big Mental Changes

Strong emotions, especially intense ones, can powerfully trigger changes in our minds. Everyone knows how feelings like love, jealousy, guilt, fear, regret, or anger can suddenly take over. Emotions common in religious conversion, such as hope, happiness, a sense of security, and determination, can also be just as explosive. When emotions hit us this powerfully, they usually change us in lasting ways.

Teen Conversion and Normal Growth: A Close Link

Professor Starbuck, in his work on the Psychology of Religion, studied conversion. He found that the common “conversion” experiences of young people in evangelical communities are very similar to the normal spiritual growth that all teenagers go through.

Age: This usually happens between ages fourteen and seventeen.
Symptoms: The feelings are also alike. These include:
- A sense of being incomplete or not good enough.
- Sadness, deep and often gloomy thinking about oneself.
- A feeling of sinfulness.
- Worry about what happens after death.
- Upset over doubts.
Outcome: The result is also the same for both groups. They feel happy, relieved, and more objective. Their self-confidence grows as they adjust to a broader view of life.

Even outside of religious revivals, young people can have sudden mystical experiences. This can happen during spontaneous religious awakenings or just during the usual ups and downs of teenage years. These experiences can be surprising and sudden, much like in revival conversions.

The similarity is perfect. Starbuck concluded that these common youthful conversions are basically a normal part of growing up. They happen as a young person moves from a child’s limited world to the broader thinking and spiritual life of an adult.

How Theology Uses Teenage Changes

Dr. Starbuck explains that theology uses these natural teenage tendencies. It recognizes that the main point of adolescent growth is to help young people move from childhood to a more mature life with personal understanding. So, theology uses methods that make these normal tendencies stronger. This process actually makes the difficult “storm and stress” period of adolescence shorter.

According to Starbuck’s research, feelings of “conviction of sin” during conversion don’t last as long as typical teenage emotional struggles. They last about one-fifth of the time. However, these conversion feelings are much more intense. Physical symptoms, like losing sleep or not wanting to eat, are also more common during conversion.

Starbuck says the key difference is this: Conversion makes the difficult period more intense but also shorter, because it pushes the person to a clear turning point.

The Influence of Culture and Teaching on Conversion

The conversions Dr. Starbuck described mostly happen to ordinary people. Their experiences often follow a set pattern. This pattern is shaped by what they are taught, by emotional appeals, and by the examples they see around them. The specific way their conversion looks is due to suggestion and copying others.

If these young people grew up in different religions or countries, their experience would look different on the surface. However, the basic nature of the change would be the same, because this kind of growth is largely unavoidable.

For instance, in Catholic countries or in Episcopalian groups, intense anxiety and a strong sense of sin are not as common as in religious groups that promote revivals. Churches that emphasize sacraments rely more on these rituals. So, there’s less need to heavily emphasize an individual’s personal, dramatic acceptance of salvation.

Looking at Original, First-Hand Experiences

But if people are imitating something, there must have been an original version of it. So, it’s better to focus on more direct, original experiences of conversion. These are more often found in scattered cases of conversion in adults, rather than in the more common teenage experiences.

Professor Leuba: Conversion as a Moral Change

Professor Leuba, writing about the psychology of conversion, sees the religious life as mostly about morality, not theology. He defines the religious sense as:

A feeling of not being whole.
A sense of moral imperfection or, in religious terms, “sin.”
A deep desire for the peace that comes from feeling whole and unified.

Leuba says the word “religion” increasingly means the mix of desires and emotions that come from feeling sinful and then finding release from that feeling. He provides many examples. These examples show that the feeling of sin—whether it’s about issues like drunkenness or about spiritual pride—can trouble a person deeply. People can want relief from this feeling as badly as they want relief from physical pain or illness.

Leuba’s idea certainly explains a great many conversion experiences. The story of Mr. S. H. Hadley is a good example. After his own conversion, Hadley became well-known for helping people struggling with alcoholism in New York. Here is his experience:

Mr. Hadley’s Story: Rock Bottom

“One Tuesday evening, I was in a bar in Harlem. I was homeless, without friends, and dying from alcoholism. I had sold or pawned everything I owned for alcohol. I couldn’t sleep unless I was completely drunk. I hadn’t eaten in days. For the four nights before, I had terrifying hallucinations from alcohol withdrawal, from midnight until morning.”

“I had often told myself, ‘I will never become a homeless wanderer. I’ll never let myself get trapped like that. If that day ever comes, I’ll end my life in the river.’ But when that time actually arrived, God had other plans. I was so weak I couldn’t even walk a quarter of the way to the river.”

“As I sat there thinking, I felt a great and powerful presence. At the time, I didn’t know what it was. Later, I realized it was Jesus, the friend of sinners. I walked up to the bar and slammed my fist on it so hard the glasses shook. The other people drinking there looked at me with disdain and curiosity.”

“I declared I would never take another drink, even if I died on the street. And I truly felt like I might die before morning. Then, a thought came to me: ‘If you want to keep this promise, go and get yourself locked up.’ So, I went to the nearest police station and asked them to lock me in a cell.”

A Glimmer of Hope and a Difficult Struggle

“They put me in a small cell. It felt like every demon imaginable was in there with me. But I wasn’t entirely alone. No, praise God; that kind Spirit I had felt in the bar was also there. It told me to pray. So I prayed. Even though I didn’t feel much help at first, I kept praying.”

“When I was allowed to leave my cell, I was taken to police court, and then sent back to the cell. Eventually, I was released. I made my way to my brother’s house, where they took good care of me. As I lay in bed, the guiding Spirit stayed with me. When I got up the next Sunday morning, I felt that day would determine my future. Towards evening, I had the idea to go to Jerry M’Auley’s Mission.”

The Mission and the Turning Point

“I went to the mission. The place was crowded, but I managed to get near the front. There I saw Jerry M’Auley, a man of God known for helping alcoholics and outcasts. He stood up and, in complete silence, shared his own story. He was so sincere that I was convinced. I found myself thinking, ‘I wonder if God can save me?’”

“I listened to twenty-five or thirty people share their stories. Every one of them had been saved from alcohol. I decided then and there that I would either be saved or die trying. When they gave an invitation to come forward, I knelt with a crowd of others struggling with alcohol. Jerry prayed first. Then Mrs. M’Auley prayed passionately for us.”

“Oh, my soul was in such turmoil! A gentle voice whispered, ‘Come.’ But the devil said, ‘Be careful.’ I hesitated for only a moment. Then, with a broken heart, I cried out, ‘Dear Jesus, can you help me?’”

A New Beginning

“I can never fully describe what happened next. Until that moment, my soul had been filled with an awful darkness. Suddenly, I felt the brilliant light of the midday sun shine into my heart. I felt like I was a free man. Oh, the wonderful feeling of safety, of freedom, of relying on Jesus! I felt that Christ, with all his light and power, had entered my life. Truly, the old life was gone, and everything had become new.”

“From that moment on, I have never craved whiskey. No amount of money could make me take a drink. That night, I promised God that if He would take away my desire for alcohol, I would dedicate my life to working for Him. He has kept His promise, and I have been trying to keep mine.”

Beyond Just Moral Change: Other Factors in Conversion

Dr. Leuba correctly points out that Hadley’s experience doesn’t involve much complex religious theory. It begins with a desperate need for help from a higher power. It ends with the feeling that this higher power has provided help. Leuba mentions other conversions of alcoholics that are purely about changing behavior. These stories, as they are told, don’t include any specific theological beliefs. For example, Dr. Leuba says John B. Gough’s conversion was like that of an atheist, with no mention of God or Jesus.

However, while this type of change—focused on behavior without much change in thinking—is important, Leuba might be focusing on it too much. This type of conversion is similar to a very personal, inward kind of deep sadness, like the experiences of Bunyan and Alline.

But there are also other kinds of deep sadness. These are more about the outside world. People with this sadness feel burdened because life and the universe seem to lack any logical meaning. Tolstoy’s experience was an example of this.

So, conversion involves different elements. We need to carefully distinguish how these elements relate to different people’s lives.

Why Some People Don’t Experience Conversion

Some people, for example, never experience conversion. Perhaps they never could, under any circumstances. For them, religious ideas don’t become the main focus of their inner energy.

These individuals might be very good people. They might even serve God through their actions. But they don’t feel like part of God’s “kingdom” in a spiritual sense. This might be because:

They find it hard to imagine things that cannot be seen.
Or, as religious language puts it, they always experience spiritual “emptiness” or “dryness.”

Sometimes, this inability to have religious faith comes from their way of thinking. Their natural religious feelings might be blocked by certain beliefs about the world. For instance, pessimistic or materialistic beliefs can have this effect. Many good people today are “frozen” by these beliefs. In the past, they might have freely explored their religious feelings.

Another block can be agnostic views that dismiss faith as weak or embarrassing. Many people today feel pressured by these views and are afraid to trust their instincts.

For many individuals, these blocks are never removed. They may refuse to believe for their entire lives. Their personal energy never connects with a religious center, so that part of them remains inactive forever.

Lack of Religious Feeling and Late-Life Changes

For some people, the issue is deeper. They seem to lack any natural religious feeling, as if they are “numb” on that side.

Think of it like this: someone with very low energy, no matter how much they want to, can’t achieve the lively “animal spirits” of a naturally cheerful person. Similarly, someone who is spiritually “empty” might admire or envy the faith of others. But they can never experience the enthusiasm and peace that people naturally inclined to faith feel.

However, this situation might not be permanent. It could just be a temporary blockage. Even late in life, a change can happen. Something can unlock, and a person’s hardened heart might soften and open up to religious feelings. These cases, more than any others, make sudden conversion seem like a miracle. Because such changes are possible, we shouldn’t think of people as being permanently fixed in their ability (or inability) to experience faith.

Two Ways the Mind Works: Effort and Letting Go

Professor Starbuck pointed out two different ways our minds work. These differences affect how conversion happens.

You know what it’s like when you try to remember a forgotten name. Usually, you try to recall it by thinking hard. You might go over places, people, and things connected to the name.

But sometimes, this hard work fails. It can feel like the harder you try, the less likely you are to remember. The name seems stuck, and trying to force it only makes it harder to surface.

In these situations, the opposite approach often works. Stop trying completely. Think about something else entirely. Then, maybe half an hour later, the lost name just pops into your head. As the writer Emerson said, it arrives as if it were never even asked for.

Your initial effort started a hidden mental process. This process continued even after you stopped trying. It eventually brought the name to mind, seemingly on its own.

Dr. Starbuck mentions a music teacher who tells her students something similar. After explaining a task and seeing them struggle, she says, “Stop trying and it will do itself!”

So, our minds can achieve results in two ways:

A conscious and voluntary way (through deliberate effort).
An involuntary and unconscious way (without direct effort, more spontaneous).

We see both these ways in stories of conversion. This leads to two types of conversion, which Starbuck named:

The volitional type (based on will or effort).
The self-surrender type (based on letting go).

Two Types of Conversion: Willpower vs. Letting Go

1. Conversion by Willpower (Volitional Type)

In the volitional type of conversion, the change for the better is usually slow and steady. It involves building new moral and spiritual habits step by step. However, even in this gradual process, there are key moments when progress seems to speed up.

Dr. Starbuck provides many examples of this psychological fact. Learning any practical skill seems to happen in bursts, much like how our physical bodies grow in spurts.

Dr. Starbuck gives these examples:

“An athlete might suddenly understand the finer details of their sport and start to truly enjoy it. This is like how a convert awakens to a deeper appreciation of religion. If the athlete continues playing, a day might come when they perform effortlessly, as if the game is playing itself through them. They might lose themselves completely in an important competition.”
“Similarly, a musician might suddenly reach a point where the effort of technique disappears. In a moment of inspiration, they become like a channel through which music flows.”
“I have heard two different married couples, whose marriages were happy from the start, say something interesting. They said it wasn’t until a year or more after getting married that they fully realized the deep joy of married life.” Starbuck concludes: “The religious experiences of the people we are studying are like this too.”

The Role of the Subconscious Mind

We will soon see even more striking examples of how processes develop in our subconscious mind. These processes eventually lead to results that suddenly enter our conscious awareness.

Sir William Hamilton and Professor Laycock of Edinburgh were some of the first to notice these kinds of effects. However, Dr. Carpenter was likely the first to use the term “unconscious cerebration” (unconscious brain activity). This phrase became a popular way to explain these experiences.

Today, we know much more about these facts than Dr. Carpenter did. The word “unconscious” is probably not accurate for many of these experiences. It’s better to use vaguer terms like “subconscious” (below conscious awareness) or “subliminal” (below the threshold of conscious perception).

2. Conversion by Letting Go (Self-Surrender Type)

It would be easy to give examples of the volitional type of conversion (conversion by willpower). However, these are generally less interesting than examples of the self-surrender type. In self-surrender conversions, the effects of the subconscious mind are more plentiful and often surprising.

So, we will focus more on the self-surrender type. Besides, the difference between the two types isn’t actually that fundamental. Even when a person tries very hard to change through willpower, there are often moments where they partially let go.

In most cases, even when someone has tried their absolute best to achieve the complete inner unity they desire, the final step seems to require other forces. It happens without their active effort. In other words, self-surrender becomes essential at that point.

Dr. Starbuck says, “The personal will must be given up. In many cases, relief will not come until the person stops resisting, or stops trying so hard to move in the direction they want to go.”

Here are some personal accounts from Dr. Starbuck’s studies:

One person wrote: “I had told myself I would not give up. But when my own willpower was finally broken, the struggle was over.”
Another said: “I simply said, ‘Lord, I have done all I can. I leave the whole situation to You.’ And right away, a great peace came over me.”
Someone else reported: “Suddenly, it occurred to me that I could be saved too, if I would stop trying to do it all by myself and just follow Jesus. Somehow, my burden disappeared.”
Another account: “I finally stopped resisting and gave myself up, even though it was a hard fight. Slowly, the feeling came to me that I had done my part, and God was willing to do His.”

John Nelson, exhausted from desperately trying to escape damnation, cried out, “Lord, Your will be done; whether I am damned or saved!” At that very moment, his soul was filled with peace.

Why Letting Go is Essential

Dr. Starbuck offers an interesting explanation for why letting go (self-surrender) is so crucial at the final moment of conversion. His explanation seems true, as much as any simplified model can be.

Here’s his reasoning: A person seeking conversion usually has two main things on their mind:

Their current feeling of being incomplete or wrong – the “sin” they desperately want to escape.
The positive goal or ideal state they want to achieve.

For most people, the awareness of their current wrongness is much clearer and more distinct in their minds than any idea of a positive goal they are aiming for. In fact, in most cases, the “sin” takes up almost all their attention.

Because of this, conversion often becomes more about struggling to get away from sin than about actively trying to achieve righteousness.

When a person uses their conscious mind and willpower to strive for an ideal, they are often aiming at something they can only imagine vaguely and imprecisely.

How Trying Too Hard Can Block Change

Even as someone consciously tries to change, natural internal processes are also at work. These hidden processes are moving towards their own built-in outcome. Sometimes, a person’s conscious efforts can trigger helpful subconscious processes. These work behind the scenes to bring about a new mental arrangement.

However, the new arrangement that these deeper forces are aiming for is usually quite specific. It’s often different from what the person consciously plans or wants. Because of this, their deliberate efforts can sometimes get in the way. If their efforts are not aligned with this deeper direction, they can “jam” the process. This is like when you try too hard to remember a lost word, and it just won’t come.

Focusing on the Self vs. Letting Go

Professor Starbuck gets to the heart of the issue. He says that when we rely only on our personal willpower, we stay focused on our imperfect self. This imperfect self becomes the main thing we notice.

But when subconscious forces take over, it’s more likely that our potential better self is guiding the change. Instead of us clumsily trying to reach this better self from the outside, it becomes the very center of the new organization within us.

So, what should a person do? Dr. Starbuck advises:

“He must relax.” This means relying on the greater Power that works for good. This Power has already been growing within him. He should let this Power complete the work it started, in its own way.
Yielding is key. From this perspective, to yield means to give oneself completely to the new life. It means making this new life the core of a new personality. It means experiencing its truth from the inside, rather than just observing it from the outside.

Different Ways to Describe Letting Go

There are different ways to describe this need for self-surrender:

The theological view says: “Man’s crisis is God’s opportunity.”
A physiological view might say: “Do everything you can, and your nervous system will handle the rest.” Both of these statements recognize the same basic truth about the importance of letting go.

In simpler terms: imagine a new core of personal energy has been quietly developing in the subconscious. When it’s finally ready to bloom, the best approach is “hands off.” It needs to emerge on its own, without interference.

Self-Surrender: The Core of Spiritual Life

We’ve been using somewhat abstract psychological terms. But, simply put, the critical moment of conversion involves surrendering our conscious selves. We rely on powers that are, whatever their nature, more perfect than our current selves. These powers help bring about our positive transformation or “redemption.”

This is why self-surrender is, and always will be, seen as the crucial turning point in religious life. This is true when religious life is about inner spiritual experience, not just outward actions, rituals, or sacraments.

In fact, much of the development of inner Christianity has been about placing more and more importance on this crisis of self-surrender. We can see a historical progression:

From Catholicism to Lutheranism, then to Calvinism.
From Calvinism to Wesleyanism.
Beyond formal Christianity, to pure “liberalism” or transcendental idealism (including ideas like mind-cure). This progression includes medieval mystics, quietists, pietists, and Quakers. All these stages show a move towards the idea of direct spiritual help. This help is experienced by the individual when they feel lost and alone. It doesn’t necessarily require complex doctrines or formal religious procedures.

Where Psychology and Religion Agree and Disagree

So, psychology and religion agree on one key point: forces that seem to be outside our conscious awareness can bring positive change (or redemption) to our lives.

However, they differ on the nature of these forces:

Psychology describes these forces as “subconscious.” It explains their effects using terms like “incubation” (a period of development) or “cerebration” (brain activity). This implies these forces are part of the individual’s own mind, even if not fully conscious.
Christian theology, on the other hand, insists these forces are direct, supernatural actions of God.

The author suggests we don’t treat this disagreement as final. Instead, we should set the question aside for now. Further investigation might help resolve some of these apparent differences.

Let’s return for a moment to the psychology of self-surrender.

Why Simple Advice Often Fails

Imagine someone who is barely coping. They feel trapped by their mistakes, needs, and feelings of not being good enough. They are deeply unhappy. If you simply tell this person that everything is fine, or that they should just stop worrying, get rid of their dissatisfaction, and let go of their anxiety, your words will sound ridiculous to them.

Their direct experience—the only thing they feel sure of—tells them that things are not fine. The “better way” you suggest sounds like you’re asking them to lie to themselves. The “will to believe” something doesn’t work like that. We can strengthen a belief if we already have some basis for it. But we can’t force ourselves to believe something completely new when our own senses and experiences tell us the exact opposite is true.

In such a situation, the “better mind” you’re offering seems like a complete denial of the only reality they know. And people cannot actively choose to believe in a complete denial of their own experience.

How Negative Feelings Can Disappear

There are generally two ways people get rid of strong negative feelings like anger, worry, fear, or despair:

An opposite positive feeling suddenly overwhelms them.
They become so exhausted by the struggle that they simply have to stop. They give up and no longer care. It’s like their emotional centers in the brain go on strike, and they fall into a temporary state of not feeling much at all (apathy).

There’s evidence that this state of temporary exhaustion is often part of the conversion crisis.

As long as the self-centered worry of a troubled person is in control, the broader confidence of a faith-filled state can’t emerge. But if that worry fades, even for a short time, the more positive state can take hold. Once it gains a foothold, it might stay.

The writer Carlyle described a character, Teufelsdröckh, who moves from a state of complete negativity (“the everlasting No”) to complete positivity (“the everlasting Yes”) by passing through a “Center of Indifference” – a state of not caring.

Here is a good example of this aspect of the conversion process. David Brainerd, considered a true saint by many, describes his own crisis like this:

David Brainerd’s Experience: Realizing His Efforts Were Useless

“One morning, I was walking alone as I usually did. Suddenly, I realized that all my plans and efforts to achieve salvation for myself were completely useless. I felt completely stuck, totally lost. I saw it was impossible for me to do anything to help or save myself. I had made every argument I possibly could, and all my arguments were pointless.”

“I realized that self-interest had been my motive for praying. I had never prayed once out of true respect for God’s glory. I saw that there was no guaranteed link between my prayers and God showing me mercy. My prayers didn’t force God to give me His grace. They had no more spiritual value than stirring water with my hand.”

“I saw that I had been piling up my religious acts before God – fasting, praying, and so on. I pretended, and sometimes even truly believed, that I was aiming for God’s glory. But in reality, I had never truly intended that; I only wanted my own happiness. I understood that since I had never done anything purely for God, I deserved nothing from Him but punishment for my hypocrisy and for making a mockery of religion. When I clearly saw that I was only concerned with myself, all my religious duties seemed like a disgusting charade and a constant lie. It was all just self-worship and a terrible misuse of God.”

Despair Followed by an Overwhelming Experience

“I stayed in this state of mind, as I recall, from Friday morning until the following Sunday evening (July 12, 1739). I was walking alone again in the same place. I felt sad and dejected and tried to pray, but I had no motivation for prayer or any other religious duty. My previous concerns, efforts, and religious feelings were all gone. I thought God’s Spirit had completely left me. Yet, I wasn’t deeply distressed, just downcast, as if nothing in the world could make me happy.”

“I had been trying to pray like this – though it felt dull and meaningless – for about half an hour. Then, as I was walking in a dense part of the woods, an indescribable glory seemed to open up to my soul. I don’t mean an external light or an image of brightness. It was a new, inner understanding or vision of God, unlike anything I had ever experienced or imagined before. I didn’t have a specific vision of any one person of the Trinity (Father, Son, or Holy Spirit); it was simply Divine glory.”

“My soul was filled with unspeakable joy to see such a God, such a glorious Divine Being. I was inwardly happy and content that He should be God over everything, forever. My soul was so captivated and thrilled by God’s excellence that I felt completely absorbed in Him. I had no thought about my own salvation and barely remembered that I even existed as a person.”

A New World and Understanding

“I remained in this state of inner joy, peace, and amazement until nearly dark, without it fading. Then I started to think about and examine what I had experienced. I felt a sweet calmness in my mind all that evening. I felt like I was in a new world. Everything around me looked different than it used to.”

“At that moment, the path to salvation became clear to me. It seemed so infinitely wise, fitting, and excellent that I wondered how I could have ever thought of any other way to be saved. I was amazed that I hadn’t given up my own efforts and accepted this wonderful, blessed, and perfect way before. If I could have been saved by my own religious acts or any other method I had previously devised, my whole soul would now reject it. I wondered why the whole world didn’t see and accept this way of salvation, which is based entirely on the righteousness of Christ.”

The author of this book highlights a key part of Brainerd’s account: the part where Brainerd describes his usual anxious feelings disappearing.

In many similar personal stories, perhaps most of them, people describe it as if the fading of negative feelings and the arrival of positive feelings happen at the same time. Other times, they say the positive feeling actively pushes out the negative one. This is certainly true in many cases.

But often, it seems clear that two things must happen together to cause the change:

The new, positive feeling has been growing subconsciously.
The old, negative feeling has become exhausted.

Another Example: T. W. B.

T. W. B., who converted under the preacher Nettleton, experienced an intense crisis of feeling sinful. He didn’t eat all day. In the evening, he locked himself in his room in total despair, crying out, “How long, O Lord, how long?”

He said, “After repeating this and similar phrases several times, I seemed to drift into a state where I felt nothing. When I became aware again, I was on my knees. I was praying not for myself, but for others. I felt I had submitted to God’s will. I was willing for God to do whatever He thought was best for me. My worries about myself seemed to have completely disappeared, replaced by concern for others.”

Finney’s Experience: Peace Instead of Worry

The famous American revival preacher Finney wrote about his own experience:

“I said to myself: ‘What is this? I must have driven the Holy Spirit completely away. I’ve lost all my feelings of guilt. I don’t have the slightest worry about my soul. The Spirit must have left me.’ I thought, ‘Wow, I’ve never been less concerned about my own salvation in my entire life!’”

“I tried to bring back my feelings of guilt, to feel the burden of sin I had been struggling with. I tried and failed to make myself anxious. I was so calm and peaceful that I actually tried to worry about this peacefulness. I feared it might mean I had pushed the Spirit away.”

Sudden Conversions Without Prior Struggle

However, there are definitely people who experience conversion differently. For them, the change doesn’t seem to depend on their feelings being exhausted. It can even happen without any strong prior feelings of distress.

In these cases, the new, higher spiritual state seems to build up energy. Then, it suddenly breaks through all barriers and rushes in like a flood. These are the most dramatic and unforgettable experiences of instantaneous conversion. The idea of divine grace is often closely linked to these types of conversions.

The author mentions he has already described one such case in detail, that of Mr. Bradley. He plans to discuss other cases and offer more comments on the topic in the next lecture.

My inner self held back. My heart just wouldn’t reach out to God. I kept thinking about the bold promise I had made: to give my heart to God that day or die trying. This promise felt like a heavy weight on my soul, yet I felt I was about to break it.

A deep sense of despair and discouragement washed over me. I felt almost too weak to even stay on my knees. At that very moment, I thought I heard someone approaching again. I opened my eyes to check.

But right then, something became crystal clear to me. I saw that my own pride was the main problem, the big obstacle in my way. I was suddenly hit by an overwhelming feeling of how wrong it was to be ashamed of someone seeing me on my knees before God. This feeling took such a strong hold of me that I shouted out loud. I declared that I would not move from that spot, even if every person on earth and every devil in hell surrounded me.

I thought, ‘What?! Here I am, such a sinful person, on my knees confessing my sins to the great and holy God. And I’m ashamed if another human—a sinner just like me—finds me trying to make peace with the God I’ve offended!’ This sin of pride seemed terrible, enormous. It completely humbled me before the Lord.”

CONVERSION—Concluded

In this lecture, we will finish our discussion on conversion. We’ll start by looking at dramatic, instantaneous conversions. Saint Paul’s conversion is the most famous example.

In these cases, a person often experiences:

Intense emotional excitement.
Or, a major shake-up of their senses. Then, in a flash, a complete break occurs between their old life and their new one. This type of sudden conversion is a significant part of religious experience. It has played a large role in Protestant Christian thought, so it’s important to study it carefully.

The Importance of Specific Examples

Before giving a general overview, I think it’s best to share two or three specific stories. We need to understand concrete examples first. As Professor Agassiz often said, you can only understand a general idea as much as your knowledge of specific examples allows.

So, let’s return to the story of Henry Alline. I will share his account from March 26, 1775, the day his troubled and divided mind finally found lasting peace.

Henry Alline’s Conversion Story

Alline wrote: “Around sunset, I was wandering in the fields. I was grieving my miserable, lost, and hopeless situation, almost collapsing under my burden. I felt more miserable than anyone had ever been. I walked back to the house. As I reached the door and was about to step inside, strong thoughts entered my mind. They came like a powerful, yet quiet, small voice.”

The voice seemed to ask:

“You have been searching, praying, trying to change, working hard, reading, listening, and thinking deeply.”
“But what have all these efforts done for your salvation?”
“Are you any closer to conversion now than when you first started?”
“Are you any more ready for heaven, or better prepared to face God’s fair judgment, than when you first began your search?”

“This hit me so hard that I had to admit the truth. I didn’t think I was even one step closer than when I began. I felt just as guilty, just as vulnerable, and just as miserable as before.”

“I cried out silently, ‘O Lord God, I am lost! If You, Lord, don’t show me a new way—a way I don’t know—I will never be saved. All the methods I’ve tried on my own have failed me. And I am willing for them to fail. O Lord, have mercy! O Lord, have mercy!’”

“These realizations continued as I went inside and sat down. I was completely confused, like a drowning man about to give up and sink. I was in agony. Suddenly, I spun around in my chair. I saw part of an old Bible lying on another chair. I quickly grabbed it. Without thinking, I opened it and my eyes fell on Psalm 38. It felt like the first time I had ever truly seen God’s word. It struck me with such power, it seemed to pierce my entire soul. It felt as if God Himself was praying in me, with me, and for me.”

“Around then, my father called the family for prayers. I joined them, but I didn’t pay attention to his words. I kept praying the words from the Psalm. ‘Oh, help me, help me!’ I cried. ‘You who save souls, save me, or I am lost forever! Tonight, if You wish, just one drop of Your blood can make up for my sins and calm the anger of an offended God.’”

“In that very moment, I completely surrendered everything to Him. I was willing for Him to do whatever He wanted with me. I was willing for God to rule over me as He pleased. At that instant, redeeming love flooded my soul. Bible verses came to me with such power that my whole being seemed to melt with love.”

“The weight of guilt and condemnation vanished. Darkness disappeared. My heart was humbled and filled with thankfulness. Just minutes before, my soul had been groaning under a crushing weight of spiritual death, crying out to a God I didn’t know. Now, it was filled with undying love. It felt like it was soaring on the wings of faith, free from the chains of death and darkness. I cried out, ‘My Lord and my God! You are my rock and my fortress, my shield and my strong tower! You are my life, my joy, my everything, now and forever!’”

“Looking up, I thought I saw the same bright light I had seen before on other occasions, though it looked different this time. As soon as I saw it, God’s plan for me was revealed, as He had promised. I had to cry out, ‘Enough, enough, O blessed God!’ This work of conversion, this change, and how it showed itself, are as real as the light I see, or anything I have ever seen.”

“Amidst all my joy, less than half an hour after my soul was freed, the Lord showed me my future work. He called me to preach the gospel. I cried out, ‘Amen, Lord, I’ll go! Send me, send me!’”

“I spent most of the night in overwhelming joy, praising and worshipping God for His free and limitless grace. After being in this state of bliss for so long, my body needed sleep. I decided to close my eyes for a few moments. Then, a doubting thought came – like the devil trying to interfere. It told me that if I went to sleep, I would lose everything. It said that when I woke up in the morning, I would find it was all just a dream or a trick of my mind. I immediately cried out, ‘O Lord God, if I am being deceived, please show me the truth!’”

“Then I closed my eyes for a few minutes and felt refreshed by sleep. When I woke up, my first thought was, ‘Where is my God?’ Instantly, my soul felt awake in God and with God, surrounded by His everlasting love.”

“Around sunrise, I got up joyfully to tell my parents what God had done for me. I described the miracle of God’s limitless grace. I picked up a Bible to show them the words that God had pressed upon my soul the evening before. But when I opened the Bible, it all seemed completely new to me.”

“I longed so much to be useful to Christ by preaching the gospel. It felt like I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to go and tell others about the wonders of His redeeming love. I lost all interest in worldly pleasures and worldly company. I was able to give them up.”

Alline’s Life After Conversion

Young Mr. Alline quickly became a Christian minister. He had no formal education beyond his Bible and no training other than his own experience. From then on, his life was so disciplined and focused that it could be compared to the lives of the most dedicated saints.

But even though he found happiness in his demanding new life, he never regained his taste for even the most innocent worldly pleasures. Like Bunyan and Tolstoy, a deep sadness seemed to leave a permanent mark on his soul. His salvation was like entering a different universe, not just this ordinary natural world. For him, life continued to be a sad and patient struggle.

Years later, he wrote this in his diary: “On Wednesday the 12th, I preached at a wedding. I was happy that, by doing so, I helped to prevent worldly, frivolous fun.”

Story of an Oxford Graduate

The next story comes from someone who wrote to Professor Leuba. It was published in Leuba’s article in the American Journal of Psychology. This person was an Oxford University graduate and the son of a clergyman. His story is similar in many ways to the well-known case of Colonel Gardiner. Here is his account, shortened slightly:

The graduate wrote: “After leaving Oxford and before my conversion, I never went to my father’s church. This was even though I lived with him for eight years. I earned money through journalism and spent it on wild parties, drinking with anyone who would join me. I lived like this for years. Sometimes I’d be drunk for a whole week. Then, I’d feel terrible regret and wouldn’t drink anything for a month.”

“During this time, up until I was thirty-three, I never wanted to change for religious reasons. My pain came from a terrible remorse I felt after heavy drinking. It wasn’t religious guilt, but regret for foolishly wasting my life. I was a man of good talents and education, and I was throwing it away.”

“This awful remorse once turned my hair gray overnight. Whenever it hit me, I looked noticeably grayer the next morning. The suffering I went through is impossible to describe. It was like the worst tortures of hell. Many times, I promised myself that if I just got through ‘this time,’ I would change. Unfortunately, after about three days, I’d feel fine again and be as happy as ever. This cycle continued for years. I had a strong constitution, so I always recovered. And as long as I stayed away from alcohol, no one enjoyed life more than I did.”

The Day of Change

“I was converted in my bedroom at my father’s house. It was exactly three o’clock on a hot afternoon, July 13, 1886. I was perfectly healthy and hadn’t had a drink for nearly a month. I wasn’t worried about my soul at all. In fact, God wasn’t on my mind that day.”

“A young woman I knew sent me a book: Professor Drummond’s Natural Law in the Spiritual World. She asked for my opinion of it purely as a piece of writing. I was proud of my ability to critique literature and wanted to impress my new friend. So, I took the book to my bedroom to study it thoroughly in private. Then I planned to write her my thoughts.”

“It was there that God met me face to face. I will never forget that meeting. A Bible verse came to my mind: ‘Whoever has the Son has eternal life; whoever does not have the Son does not have life.’ I had read this verse many times before, but this time it was completely different. I felt I was in God’s presence. My attention was absolutely fixed on this verse. I felt I couldn’t continue reading until I had truly thought about what these words meant. Only then did I feel I could go on. All this time, I sensed another being in the room with me, even though I couldn’t see anyone. The quietness was amazing, and I felt extremely happy.”

“In a single second, it was shown to me without any doubt that I had never connected with anything eternal. If I died right then, I would definitely be lost. I was ruined. I knew this as clearly as I now know I am saved. God’s Spirit showed this to me with incredible love. There was no fear involved. I felt God’s love so strongly that a deep sorrow came over me – sorrow that I had lost everything through my own foolishness.”

“What was I to do? What could I do? I didn’t even repent in the usual sense; God didn’t ask me to. All I felt was, ‘I am ruined, and God cannot change it, even though He loves me.’ It wasn’t God’s fault. Throughout this, I was extremely happy. I felt like a little child with his father. I had done wrong, but my Father wasn’t scolding me; instead, He loved me wonderfully. Still, my fate seemed sealed. I was definitely lost. Being naturally brave, I didn’t shrink from this, but a deep sorrow for my past, mixed with regret for what I had lost, took hold of me. My soul trembled to think it was all over.”

“Then, a way of escape came to me – so gently, so lovingly, so clearly. And what was it? It was the same old story, told in the simplest way: ‘There is no other name under heaven by which you can be saved except that of the Lord Jesus Christ.’ No actual words were spoken to me. My soul seemed to see my Savior in a spiritual sense. From that moment until now, nearly nine years later, I have never had a single doubt. I know that the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father both worked on me that July afternoon. They worked in different ways, but both with the most perfect love imaginable. I rejoiced right then and there in a conversion so amazing that the entire village heard about it in less than twenty-four hours.”

A Setback and Deeper Commitment

“But more trouble was to come. The day after my conversion, I went to help with the hay harvest. I hadn’t made any promise to God to stop drinking or only drink a little. I drank too much and came home drunk. My poor sister was heartbroken. I felt ashamed of myself and went straight to my bedroom. She followed me, crying a lot. She said I had been converted and had fallen away immediately.”

“Even though I had drunk a lot (but my mind was clear), I knew that the work God had started in me wasn’t going to be wasted. Around noon, I knelt and prayed to God for the first time in twenty years. I didn’t ask for forgiveness; I felt that wouldn’t help, because I was sure I would fall again. So, what did I do? I completely gave myself over to Him. I deeply believed that my old self was going to be destroyed, that He would take everything from me, and I was willing for that to happen.”

“Such total surrender is the secret to a holy life. From that moment on, alcohol has had no power over me. I never touch it; I never want it. The same thing happened with my pipe. I had been a regular smoker since I was twelve, but the desire for it disappeared instantly and has never come back. This happened with every sin I knew. In each case, the freedom was permanent and complete. I have had no temptation for those things since my conversion. It seems God has blocked Satan from tempting me in those ways. Satan may have influence in other areas, but not with sins involving physical desires. Since I gave God complete ownership of my life, He has guided me in a thousand ways. He has opened up my path in a way that’s almost unbelievable to those who haven’t experienced the blessing of a truly surrendered life.”

That was the story of the Oxford graduate. You can see that one result of his conversion was the complete disappearance of an old, strong craving.

The Surprising Conversion of Alphonse Ratisbonne

The most unusual story of sudden conversion I know is that of Alphonse Ratisbonne. He was a French Jew who didn’t believe in organized religion. He converted to Catholicism in Rome in 1842. A few months later, in a letter to a priest friend, Ratisbonne gave a thrilling account of what happened.

There seemed to be few things leading up to it:

He had an older brother who had converted and become a Catholic priest.
Ratisbonne himself was not religious. He disliked his converted brother and priests in general.

When he was twenty-nine and visiting Rome, he met a French man. This man tried to convert him. After two or three conversations, the only progress was that Ratisbonne:

Agreed (mostly as a joke) to wear a religious medal around his neck.
Accepted and read a short prayer to the Virgin Mary.

Ratisbonne said he treated these conversations lightly and jokingly. However, he did mention that for several days, he couldn’t get the words of the prayer out of his mind. The night before his conversion, he had a kind of nightmare. In it, he saw a black cross without Christ on it. Despite this, he was clear-headed until noon the next day, passing the time in casual conversation.

Now, I will share his own words. Ratisbonne wrote: “If someone had come up to me at that time and said: ‘Alphonse, in fifteen minutes you will be worshipping Jesus Christ as your God and Savior. You will be lying face down on the ground in a simple church. You will be striking your chest in sorrow before a priest. You will spend the Carnival season in a Jesuit college preparing for baptism, ready to give your life for the Catholic faith. You will give up the world, its showiness, and its pleasures. You will give up your money, your hopes, and if necessary, your fiancée. You will give up the love of your family, the respect of your friends, and your connection to the Jewish people. Your only desire will be to follow Christ and carry his cross until you die.’

If a prophet had told me that, I would have thought only one person could be crazier than him: anyone who believed such a ridiculous prediction could actually come true. And yet, that ‘ridiculous’ idea is now my only wisdom and my only happiness.”

“As I was leaving a café, I ran into the carriage of Monsieur B. (my friend who was trying to convert me). He stopped and invited me for a drive. But first, he asked me to wait a few minutes while he took care of something at the church of San Andrea delle Fratte. Instead of waiting in the carriage, I went into the church myself to have a look.”

“The church of San Andrea was plain, small, and empty. I think I was almost the only one there. No artwork caught my eye. I glanced around the inside without any particular thought. All I remember is a completely black dog trotting and turning in front of me as I was thinking. In an instant, the dog was gone, the whole church disappeared, and I couldn’t see anything anymore… or rather, I saw, O my God, only one thing.”

“Heavens, how can I describe it? Oh no! Human words cannot express what is beyond expression. Any description, no matter how grand, would only dishonor the sacred truth.”

“I found myself lying face down on the ground, soaked in my tears, my heart overwhelmed. It was then that Monsieur B. came and brought me back to my senses. I couldn’t answer his rapid questions. But finally, I took the medal I was wearing. With all the feeling in my soul, I kissed the image of the Virgin, shining with grace, that was on it. Oh, it truly was Her! It truly was Her!”

“I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know if I was Alphonse or someone else. I just felt changed and believed I was a new person. I searched for my old self within me but couldn’t find him. Deep in my soul, I felt an explosion of the most intense joy. I couldn’t speak. I didn’t want to tell anyone what had happened. But I felt something solemn and sacred inside me that made me ask for a priest.”

I was taken to a priest. Alone with him, after he firmly instructed me, I knelt and spoke as best I could, my heart still trembling. I couldn’t explain to myself the truth I now knew and believed. All I can say is that in an instant, a blindfold fell from my eyes. Not just one blindfold, but all the many layers of them that I had grown up with. One by one, they quickly vanished, like mud and ice melting under a hot sun.

I came out as if from a tomb, from a deep pit of darkness. And I was alive, truly alive. But I cried. I cried because, looking back into that pit, I saw the extreme misery from which an infinite mercy had saved me. I trembled at the sight of my past wrongs. I was stunned, softened, and overwhelmed with wonder and gratitude.

You might ask how I gained this new understanding. Truly, I had never opened a religious book or even read a single page of the Bible. The concept of original sin is either completely rejected or forgotten by Jewish people today. So, I had thought so little about it that I doubt I even knew its name. How, then, did I come to understand it? I can only say this: when I entered that church, I was in total darkness. When I came out, I saw the fullness of light.

I can’t explain the change any better than comparing it to waking from a deep sleep. Or, imagine someone born blind who suddenly opens their eyes to the daylight. They see, but they can’t define the light that surrounds them and allows them to see the objects that amaze them. If we can’t explain physical light, how can we explain the light that is truth itself?

I believe I am being truthful when I say that without knowing the specific details of religious teachings, I now instinctively understood their meaning and spirit. I felt those hidden truths more deeply than if I had seen them with my eyes. I felt them through the unexplainable effects they had on me. It all happened inside my mind. These impressions, quicker than thought, shook my soul. They turned it around, so to speak, in a new direction, towards new goals, by new paths. I am not expressing myself well. But Lord, do You really want me to try to capture, in poor, inadequate words, feelings that only the heart can truly understand?

The Reality of Sudden Conversion

I could share many more stories like these, but these few are enough to show how real, clear, and unforgettable a sudden conversion can be for the person who experiences it.

During the most intense part of the experience, the person undoubtedly feels like a passive observer. They feel they are undergoing an amazing process done to them by a power from above. There is so much evidence for this feeling that we cannot doubt it happens.

Theological Explanations

Theology has taken this fact, along with ideas about God’s choice (election) and divine help (grace), and drawn a conclusion. It suggests that God’s spirit is present with us during these dramatic moments in a uniquely miraculous way. This is different from anything that happens at other times in our lives. Theology believes that at that moment, a completely new nature is given to us. We become sharers in the very being of God.

This theological view seems to require conversion to be instantaneous. The Moravian Protestants were apparently the first to see this logical connection. The Methodists soon adopted a similar stance in practice, even if not formally in their doctrines. Shortly before his death, John Wesley wrote:

“In London alone, I found 652 members of our group whose experiences were very clear. I had no reason to doubt what they said. Every single one of them stated that their freedom from sin was instantaneous. The change happened in a moment. If half of them, or a third, or even one in twenty, had said the change happened gradually, I would have believed them. I would have thought that some people are made holy gradually and others instantly. But since I haven’t found a single person in all this time who described it as gradual, I must believe that becoming holy (sanctification) is usually, if not always, an instantaneous event.”

Meanwhile, other mainstream Protestant groups have not emphasized instantaneous conversion as much. For them, much like for the Catholic Church, salvation is generally thought to come through:

Christ’s sacrifice.
The sacraments (religious rituals).
The individual’s regular religious duties. This is considered enough, even if the person doesn’t go through an intense crisis of despair and surrender followed by relief.

Methodism, however, sees it differently. For Methodists, unless such a crisis occurs, salvation is merely offered but not truly received. Christ’s sacrifice is, in a way, incomplete for that person. Methodism here seems to follow a deeper spiritual understanding, even if some might not see it as the most “healthy-minded” approach. The examples of conversion that Methodism presents as ideal are not only more dramatic but also seem more complete from a psychological standpoint.

Revivalism and Its Model

The highly developed Revivalism seen in Great Britain and America represents a kind of standardized process based on this way of thinking.

Revivalism holds that its specific type of religious experience is the only perfect one. This is despite:

The clear fact that some saintly people (the “once-born” type) exist who achieve holiness through gradual growth, without a dramatic crisis.
The obvious truth that much natural human goodness also plays a part in people’s spiritual lives. According to revivalism, you must first experience deep natural despair and suffering. Then, in an instant, you must be miraculously set free.

It’s understandable why people who go through such an experience feel it was a miracle, not just a natural process. During these conversions:

People often report hearing voices, seeing lights, or having visions.
Uncontrolled physical movements can occur.
After surrendering their personal will, it always feels as if an outside, higher power has rushed in and taken control. Furthermore, the feelings of renewal, safety, purity, and being right with the world can be so wonderful and joyful. These feelings strongly support the belief that one has received a fundamentally new and different nature.

The New England Puritan, Joseph Alleine, wrote: “Conversion is not like adding a patch of holiness. For a true convert, holiness is woven into all their abilities, beliefs, and actions. A sincere Christian is like a completely new cloth, from the bottom thread to the top. He is a new man, a new creation.”

Jonathan Edwards expressed a similar idea: “The good influences that come from God’s Spirit are entirely supernatural. They are completely different from anything non-religious people experience. No amount of self-improvement or combination of natural qualities can produce them. This is because they don’t just differ in degree or circumstance from natural experiences; they differ in their very kind and are far superior.” Edwards continued: “From this, it follows that when people experience God’s grace, they have new perceptions and sensations. These are entirely different in nature from anything the same people experienced before they were made holy… The understanding that holy people have of God’s loveliness, and the kind of joy they feel in it, are unique. They are completely different from anything a natural person can have or even properly imagine.”

Edwards also explained why such a glorious change must necessarily be preceded by despair: “Surely it is reasonable,” he said, “that before God saves us from a state of sin and the possibility of eternal suffering, He should make us feel the seriousness of the evil He is saving us from. This is so we can know and feel how important salvation is. It helps us appreciate the value of what God does for us. Since saved people go through two very different states—first condemnation, then justification and blessedness—and since God treats people as rational beings, it makes sense for Him to make them aware of being in these two different states. First, they should be aware of their state of condemnation. Afterwards, they should be aware of their state of deliverance and happiness.”

These quotes clearly show the traditional religious explanation for these changes. Even if suggestion and imitation played a part in these experiences, especially in excited group settings, in countless individual cases they have been original and deeply personal. If we were studying the mind purely from a scientific, non-religious viewpoint, we would still have to list sudden, complete conversion as one of humanity’s most interesting characteristics.

Understanding Conversion: Miracle or Natural Process?

So, what should we make of all this?

Is an instantaneous conversion a miracle where God is present in a way He isn’t in less dramatic changes of heart?
Even among people who seem to have been transformed, are there two types: one that truly shares Christ’s nature and another that only appears to?
Or, could it be that the entire process of spiritual rebirth, even in these shocking, instant cases, is actually a natural process? Its results might be divine, of course – sometimes more so, sometimes less. But perhaps its causes and mechanisms are no more or less divine than any other internal human experience, whether profound or ordinary.

A Psychological Perspective

Before trying to answer these questions, I need to share some more psychological observations.

In our last lecture, I talked about how people’s centers of personal energy can shift. I also discussed how new emotional crises can suddenly appear. I explained that these events are partly due to conscious thoughts and choices. But they are also largely due to subconscious processes – like motives from life experiences slowly developing and maturing beneath the surface. When these developments are ready, the results emerge, like a chick hatching or a flower blooming.

Now, I want to talk more clearly about this subconscious area where such “flowering” can happen. I only wish I had more time to discuss it fully.

The “Field of Consciousness”

The term “field of consciousness” is a relatively new one in psychology books. Until recently, the basic unit of mental life was thought to be the single “idea.” This “idea” was imagined as something clearly defined.

But now, psychologists are starting to agree on two things:

The actual basic unit is more likely the total mental state at any given moment – the entire wave of awareness or range of things a person is thinking about.
It’s impossible to draw a clear, definite boundary around this wave or field.

As different mental fields pass through our awareness, each one has a center of interest. Around this center, the things we are less focused on fade into a margin. This margin is so faint that it’s impossible to say exactly where it ends.

Some mental fields are narrow, and some are wide. We usually feel good when we have a wide field. This is because we can see many truths at once. We often get hints of connections that we sense more than see clearly. These connections seem to stretch beyond our current field into even more distant areas of reality – areas we feel we are about to perceive, rather than actually perceiving.

At other times, like when we are drowsy, sick, or tired, our mental fields can shrink almost to a single point. When this happens, we feel correspondingly down and limited.

People naturally differ in the width of their mental fields. Great organizers and geniuses often have very broad fields of mental vision. They can see an entire plan of future actions laid out at once, with ideas extending far ahead in clear directions.

Ordinary people rarely have such a grand, all-encompassing view of a subject. They tend to move forward step-by-step, as if feeling their way, and they often get stuck. In certain illnesses, consciousness can become just a tiny spark. It might have no memory of the past or thought of the future. The present moment might shrink to include only a single simple emotion or physical sensation.

The key point about this “field” idea is that the margin is not clearly defined. Even though we don’t pay close attention to what’s in the margin, it’s still there. It helps guide our actions and influences where our attention will go next.

This margin is like a “magnetic field” around us. Our center of energy turns within it, like a compass needle, as one phase of our consciousness changes into the next.

All our past memories exist beyond this margin, ready to enter our awareness at any moment. The entire collection of our remaining abilities, urges, and knowledge – everything that makes up our everyday self – also extends continuously beyond it. The lines between what is currently in our awareness and what is only potentially there are so blurry. Because of this, it’s often hard to tell if we are truly conscious of certain mental elements or not.

Traditional psychology fully admits it’s hard to define the edge of this margin. However, it has generally assumed two things:

All the consciousness a person has at any moment—whether it’s in focus or in the margin, whether attended to or not—is contained within that moment’s “field.” This is true even if the field’s edges are vague and hard to pinpoint.
Anything completely outside this margin (extra-marginal) simply does not exist as a conscious fact.

Beyond the Margin: A New Discovery

Now, I need to ask you to remember what I said in the last lecture about subconscious life. I mentioned that the early researchers who emphasized these phenomena didn’t know the facts as we understand them today. My first task now is to explain what I meant by that.

I believe the most important advance in psychology since I began studying it was a discovery made in 1886. This discovery showed that, at least in some people, there is more than just the ordinary field of consciousness with its usual center and margin. There is also an additional set of memories, thoughts, and feelings. These are extra-marginal – they exist outside the primary, everyday consciousness altogether. Yet, they must be considered conscious in some way, because they can show their presence through clear signs.

I call this the most important step forward because, unlike other psychological advances, this one has shown us a completely unexpected feature of human nature. No other psychological discovery can make such a claim.

This discovery of a consciousness existing beyond the main field (or subliminally, as Mr. Myers calls it) is particularly important. It helps explain many experiences described in religious life stories. That’s why I must mention it now, even though I can’t go into detail here about the evidence for it. You can find this evidence in many recent books; Binet’s Alterations of Personality is a good one to read.

So far, the research demonstrating this wider consciousness has been based on a somewhat limited group of people. Some of these individuals were unusual, such as highly suggestible hypnotic subjects and patients with hysteria. However, the basic workings of human life are likely so consistent that what is clearly true for some people is probably true to some extent for everyone. And for a few individuals, it might be true to an exceptionally high degree.

Effects of a Wider Consciousness

The most significant result of having a highly developed “ultra-marginal” life (this consciousness beyond the usual field) is that a person’s ordinary awareness can be invaded by it. The person often doesn’t know where these intrusions come from. Therefore, they experience them as:

Unexplainable urges to act.
Or, unexplainable reasons not to act.
Obsessive thoughts.
Or even hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that aren’t there).

These urges might lead to automatic speech or writing. The person might not even understand the meaning of what they are saying or writing. Mr. Myers uses the term automatism to describe all these effects. These can be sensory (related to senses), motor (related to movement), emotional, or intellectual. He explains them as “uprushes” of energy from the subliminal (beyond the threshold of consciousness) parts of the mind into ordinary awareness.

The simplest example of an automatism is post-hypnotic suggestion. Here’s how it works: You hypnotize someone who is receptive. You give them an order to do something specific after they wake up – it doesn’t matter if the act is ordinary or unusual.

Exactly when the signal is given or the set time passes, the person performs the act. However, they have no memory of your suggestion. If the act is strange, they will always invent a reason on the spot to explain their behavior.

You can even suggest to a hypnotized person that they will have a vision or hear a voice at a certain time after waking. When that time comes, the vision appears or the voice is heard. The person has no idea where it came from.

Exploring the Subconscious Mind

Remarkable studies by researchers like Binet, Janet, Breuer, Freud, Mason, and Prince have explored the subconscious minds of patients with hysteria. These studies have uncovered entire hidden systems of mental life.

These hidden systems often involve painful memories. These memories exist like parasites, buried outside the person’s normal awareness. However, they can burst into the main consciousness, causing:

Hallucinations
Pains
Convulsions
Paralysis of feelings or movement
And many other symptoms of hysterical illness, both in body and mind.

If these subconscious memories are changed or removed through suggestion, the patient often gets well immediately. Their symptoms were automatisms – actions or experiences not consciously controlled – as Mr. Myers defined them.

When you first read these medical records, they can sound like fairy tales. Yet, their accuracy is hard to doubt. Once these early researchers opened the way, similar findings have been reported by others. As I mentioned, these discoveries shed a completely new light on how human beings are naturally structured.

Looking for Subconscious Sources

These findings seem to point to an unavoidable next step in our thinking. When we try to understand unknown things by comparing them to what we already know, it seems logical that in the future, whenever we encounter an automatism – be it:

Uncontrolled physical urges
Obsessive thoughts
Unexplainable whims
Delusions
Or hallucinations – we must first investigate if it’s an explosion into normal consciousness of ideas developed in subconscious parts of the mind.

Therefore, we should look for the source of these phenomena in the person’s subconscious life.

In hypnosis cases, we create the source ourselves through suggestion, so we know it directly.
In hysteria cases, the lost memories that are the source must be drawn out from the patient’s subconscious using various clever methods. (You can read about these methods in psychology books.)
In other conditions, like delusions in mental illness or psychological obsessions, the source is still unknown. However, based on analogy, it likely also lies in subconscious regions. Future improvements in our methods might allow us to access these regions.

This is the logical mechanism to assume. But this assumption requires a huge amount of research to confirm it. The study of human religious experiences must be part of this research.

Instantaneous Conversions and Automatism

This brings me back to our main topic: instantaneous conversions. You recall the stories of Alline, Bradley, Brainerd, and the Oxford graduate who converted at three in the afternoon. Many similar events occur. Some involve seeing lights or visions, while others don’t. All include a sense of amazed happiness and feeling influenced by a higher power.

If we set aside the question of their value for a person’s future spiritual life and look at them only psychologically, many features remind us of things we see outside of conversion. This tempts us to group them with other automatisms.

It makes us suspect that the difference between a sudden convert and a gradual one isn’t necessarily a divine miracle in one case and something less divine in the other. Instead, it might be a simple psychological difference. The person who experiences a more instantaneous conversion might be someone who has a large subconscious area where mental work can happen. From this area, “invasive experiences” can burst forth, suddenly upsetting the balance of their normal consciousness.

A Psychological View and Religious Belief

I don’t see why Methodists, for example, should disagree with this psychological perspective. Please think back to one of the points I made in my very first lecture. You might remember I argued against judging the value of something based on where it comes from.

I said that our spiritual judgment – our opinion about the meaning and value of any human experience or condition – must be based only on observable evidence.

If the results (or “fruits”) of conversion for a person’s life are good, we should value and respect it, even if it’s a natural psychological process.
If the results are not good, we should dismiss it quickly, no matter what supernatural power might have caused it.

What are the Results of Conversion?

So, what about these results? If we put aside the very famous saints whose names are known throughout history, and instead consider ordinary “saints” – like everyday church-going business owners, or young or middle-aged people who experience instantaneous conversion (either at revivals or through their own Methodist-style growth) – you would probably agree on something. These individuals don’t typically radiate a special splendor that you would expect from a completely supernatural being. Nothing obviously sets them apart from people who have never had such an experience.

If it were true, as Jonathan Edwards suggested, that a suddenly converted person is entirely different from a “natural” (unconverted) person because they directly share in Christ’s nature, then there should be some clear, special mark. Even the humblest converted person should have a distinctive “radiance” that everyone could see. This radiance should prove them to be better than even the most talented natural person.

But, as everyone knows, there is no such obvious radiance. As a group, converted people are often indistinguishable from unconverted people. Some unconverted people even show better life results than some converted people. Someone who doesn’t know religious doctrines couldn’t tell, just by looking at the everyday characteristics of the two groups, that their fundamental nature differed as much as divine nature differs from human nature.

Even those who believe that sudden conversion is supernatural have had to admit there’s no single, unmistakable sign that identifies all true converts. The extraordinary events – like hearing voices, seeing visions, suddenly understanding Bible verses, or experiencing intense emotions during the conversion crisis – could all happen naturally. Worse, they could even be faked by evil forces.

The true evidence of a spiritual rebirth, they say, is found only in the character of a genuine “child of God”: a consistently patient heart and the absence of self-centered love. And it must be acknowledged that these qualities are also found in people who never experience a dramatic crisis. They can even be found in people outside of Christianity entirely.

Jonathan Edwards, in his wonderfully detailed book Treatise on Religious Affections, describes the state of being supernaturally filled with grace. Yet, in his entire description, there isn’t one single, clear characteristic that definitely separates it from what might simply be an unusually high level of natural goodness. In fact, his book unintentionally makes a strong case that there is no huge gap between different levels of human excellence. Instead, it suggests that, as in other areas of life, nature shows a continuous range of differences. Becoming a good person (“generation”) and spiritual rebirth (“regeneration”) are matters of degree, not of absolute, separate categories.

Conversion’s Personal Importance

Saying there aren’t two objectively separate types of human beings (converted and unconverted) shouldn’t make us ignore how incredibly important the experience of conversion is to the person who goes through it.

Each person’s life has higher and lower limits of what’s possible for them. If a flood is over your head, it doesn’t much matter exactly how high the water is. Similarly, when we reach our own highest potential and live from our own greatest source of energy, we can consider ourselves “saved.” This is true no matter how much higher someone else’s potential might be.

A “small” person’s salvation will always be a great salvation and the most important event in their life. We should remember this when the results of everyday religious efforts seem disappointing. Who knows how much worse the lives of some ordinary, perhaps unimpressive, people might have been if the small amount of grace they received had never touched them at all?

Psychological Factors in Conversion

If we group people into classes based on their level of spiritual quality, I believe we would find both unconverted people and converts (both sudden and gradual ones) in all these classes. This suggests that the way a spiritual change happens doesn’t have a universal spiritual meaning, but rather a psychological one.

We saw how Professor Starbuck’s detailed statistical research tends to view conversion as similar to ordinary spiritual growth. Another American psychologist, Professor George A. Coe, analyzed seventy-seven cases of converts or people who had sought conversion. His findings strongly support the idea that sudden conversion is linked to having an active subconscious self.

Professor Coe studied his subjects for:

How easily they could be hypnotized.
Experiences of automatisms (like hallucinations when falling asleep, odd urges, or religious dreams around the time of their conversion). He found these were much more common in the group whose conversions had been “striking.” A “striking” conversion was defined as a change that, even if not instant, felt clearly different to the person than a process of gradual growth.

As you know, people trying to convert at revivals are often disappointed if nothing dramatic happens. Professor Coe included several such people in his study. When tested with hypnotism, almost all of them turned out to belong to a group he called “spontaneous.” This means they were good at generating their own internal suggestions. This was different from a “passive” group, to which most of the people with striking conversions belonged.

Coe guessed that for the “spontaneous” group, their own self-suggestion that nothing would happen had blocked the effect of the revival environment. This same environment easily produced the expected effects in the more “passive” individuals.

It’s hard to make clear distinctions in these areas, and Coe’s study group was small. But his methods were careful, and his results fit what one might expect. Overall, they seem to support his practical conclusion: If you expose someone to a converting influence, and that person has three characteristics:

Strong emotional sensitivity,
A tendency towards automatisms, and
A passive type of suggestibility (easily influenced by external suggestions), then you could safely predict a sudden, striking conversion.

Does the fact that temperament plays a role lessen the importance of a sudden conversion? Professor Coe says not at all. He argues that “the ultimate test of religious values is not psychological – it’s not about how it happens. It’s ethical – it’s about what is achieved.”

The Outcome: A New Level of Life

As we continue our study, we will see that what is achieved is often a completely new level of spiritual energy. It can be a relatively heroic level, where things once thought impossible become possible. New strengths and abilities to endure hardship emerge. The personality changes; the person is, in a sense, born again. This happens whether or not their specific psychological traits shaped the exact form of their transformation. “Sanctification” is the technical term for this outcome. I will share examples of this soon.

For now, in this lecture, I just have a few more things to say about the feelings of certainty and peace that often fill the moment of the conversion experience itself.

Subconscious Activity and Divine Presence: Not Mutually Exclusive

Before I discuss those feelings, one more point, so my explanation of suddenness through subconscious activity isn’t misunderstood.

I do believe that if a person isn’t prone to such subconscious activity, or if their conscious mind has a strong barrier against influences from beyond its margin, their conversion, if it happens, will likely be gradual. It will resemble any simple development of new habits. So, having a developed subconscious self and a “leaky” or open margin in their consciousness is a necessary condition for someone to experience an instantaneous conversion.

But if you, as orthodox Christians, ask me as a psychologist if explaining a phenomenon through the subconscious self automatically rules out the direct presence of God, I must be frank. As a psychologist, I don’t see why it necessarily should.

Simpler subconscious activities clearly come from the person’s own resources. Ordinary sensory information, taken in without full attention and then subconsciously remembered and combined, can explain most common automatisms.

However, just as our normal waking consciousness opens our senses to the physical world, it’s logically possible that if there are higher spiritual forces that can directly affect us, they might need a subconscious region in us to gain access. The noise and busyness of everyday waking life might close a door that, in the quieter, dream-like subconscious, could remain partly or fully open.

So, the feeling of external control, which is such a key part of conversion, could sometimes be interpreted as traditional believers do. Forces beyond the individual might influence them, provided they are what we might call a “subliminal human type” (meaning, open to subconscious influences).

But in any case, the value of these forces would have to be judged by their results. The mere fact that they are “transcendent” (beyond the ordinary) wouldn’t by itself prove they were more divine than, say, demonic.

I admit this is how I’d prefer to leave this topic with you for now. I hope to return to these ideas in a much later lecture and draw more definite conclusions. At this stage of our discussion, the idea of a subconscious self should certainly not be seen as ruling out the possibility of a higher, spiritual influence. If there are higher powers capable of affecting us, they might only be able to reach us through this “subliminal door.”

Feelings During Conversion: Higher Control

Let’s now turn to the feelings that immediately fill the hour of the conversion experience. The first to note is this sense of higher control. It’s not always present, but it very often is. We saw examples in the stories of Alline, Bradley, Brainerd, and others.

The need for such a higher, controlling power is well described in a brief account by the respected French Protestant Adolphe Monod about his own conversion crisis. This happened in Naples when he was a young man, in the summer of 1827.

Monod said: “My sadness was endless. It had completely taken over me. It filled every part of my life, from the most minor daily actions to my most secret thoughts. It poisoned my feelings, my judgment, and my happiness at their very source.”

“It was then I realized that trying to stop this problem with my own reason and willpower – which were themselves sick – would be like a blind man trying to fix one of his blind eyes using the other, equally blind eye. I had no option left but to seek some influence from outside myself. I remembered the promise of the Holy Spirit. What the clear statements of the Gospel had never managed to make me understand, I finally learned out of sheer necessity. For the first time in my life, I believed in this promise. I believed in it in the only way that met the needs of my soul: as a real, external, supernatural action. This action could give me thoughts and take them away. It was performed on me by a God who was as truly in charge of my heart as He is of the rest of nature.”

“So, giving up any claim to worthiness or strength, abandoning all my personal efforts, and admitting my utter misery as my only claim to His mercy, I went home. I threw myself on my knees and prayed as I had never prayed before. From that day on, a new inner life began for me. My sadness hadn’t disappeared, but it had lost its painful power. Hope had entered my heart. Once I was on that path, the God of Jesus Christ, to whom I had learned to surrender, gradually did the rest.”

Theology and Human Experience

It’s worth noting again how well Protestant theology matches the way the mind seems to work in these experiences. In extreme sadness or depression, the conscious self can do absolutely nothing. It is completely broke, with no resources. No actions it can perform will help. Escape from such inner states must be a free gift, or it won’t happen at all. Grace, through Christ’s completed sacrifice, is understood as such a gift.

Martin Luther said: “God is the God of the humble, the miserable, the oppressed, and the desperate – those who are brought to nothing. His nature is to give sight to the blind, comfort the broken-hearted, declare sinners righteous, and save the truly desperate and damned. Now, that harmful and destructive idea of human self-righteousness – the idea that a person is not a sinner, not unclean, miserable, and deserving of condemnation, but is instead righteous and holy – this idea prevents God from doing His natural and proper work. Therefore, God must use a heavy hammer (I mean, the law) to smash this beast of vain self-confidence to pieces. This is so that, through its own misery, it may finally learn it is utterly lost and condemned. But here is the difficulty: when a man is terrified and beaten down, he is rarely able to lift himself up again and say, ‘Now I am hurt and afflicted enough; now is the time for grace; now is the time to listen to Christ.’ Human foolishness is so great that, at such times, a person often looks for more rules to try to soothe their conscience instead.”

Some people might say, “If I live, I will change my life. I will do this good thing, and I will do that good thing.” But this way of thinking won’t lead to salvation. Instead, you need to do the opposite. You have to let go of trying to follow all the old rules (like the law of Moses). When you are feeling terrified and distressed, you must grab onto Christ, who died for your sins.

What good are your religious clothes, your shaved head, your promises of chastity or obedience, your poverty, or all your good works and merits? What good can the law of Moses do for you?

Think about it: If I, a miserable sinner, could have earned God’s love and come to Him through my own efforts or good deeds, why would Christ have needed to sacrifice himself for me? If I could be saved by any other means, why would the Son of God have to be given?

But there was no other way. That’s why God didn’t offer a sheep, an ox, gold, or silver. He offered himself, completely and totally, “for me”—yes, “for me,” a wretched sinner. So now, I find comfort in this, and I apply it to myself. Believing and applying this truth personally is the real power of faith. Christ didn’t die to make good people righteous, but to make unrighteous people righteous and to make them children of God.

Luther’s Message: Salvation for the Lost

What this means is, the more lost you feel, the more you are exactly the kind of person Christ’s sacrifice has already saved. It’s likely that no idea in Catholic teachings has ever spoken as directly to people feeling spiritually unwell or deeply troubled as this personal message from Luther.

Of course, not all Protestants are “sick souls.” So, in their religion, there has been a return to relying on what Luther called the “dung” of one’s own good deeds—the “filthy puddle” of one’s own righteousness. However, Luther’s view of Christianity truly fits the deeper needs of the human mind. This is clear from how quickly his ideas spread, like wildfire, when they were new and inspiring.

Two Parts of Luther’s Faith

According to Luther, faith involved believing that Christ genuinely completed his work of salvation. This is faith in an idea that you understand with your mind. But this is only one part of Luther’s concept of faith.

The other part is much more important. This part isn’t about thinking; it’s a direct and immediate feeling. It’s the personal assurance that “I, this very person, just as I am, without any excuses or pleas, am saved now and forever.”

The Core of Faith: Joyful Assurance

Professor Leuba rightly argues that the belief about Christ’s work, while often helpful and coming first, is actually secondary and not essential. The “joyous conviction”—that deep feeling of assurance that everything is okay with you—can come through many different ways, not just this specific belief. Leuba would say that this joyous conviction itself, this assurance, is the truest and highest form of faith.

Leuba on the “Faith-State”

Professor Leuba describes it like this:

When the feeling of being separate and closed off in your own little world breaks down, you feel “at one with all creation.”
You feel part of a universal life; you, other people, nature, and God become one.
This feeling of confidence, trust, and unity with everything, which often follows a sense of inner moral peace, is what he calls the Faith-state.

When someone enters this Faith-state:

Various religious beliefs can suddenly seem absolutely certain and real. They become things the person has faith in.
This certainty doesn’t come from logic, so arguments don’t matter.
It’s a mistake to think the main practical value of the Faith-state is just to make certain theological ideas feel real.

Instead, Leuba says the true value of the Faith-state is that:

It’s the mental experience that goes along with a natural psychological development. This development helps to focus conflicting desires in one positive direction.
This growth shows itself in new, positive emotions and new ways of reacting to things. It leads to bigger, nobler, more Christ-like actions.
So, the strong feeling of certainty about religious ideas comes from this emotional experience.
The things a person has faith in might even seem absurd or illogical. But the powerful flow of emotion will carry these ideas along and make them feel completely certain.
The more surprising and unexplainable the emotional experience feels, the easier it becomes for that experience to support ideas that have no logical proof.

The State of Assurance: Key Features

To avoid confusion, I think it’s better to call this emotional experience the state of assurance rather than the Faith-state. Its characteristics are easy to list, though it’s probably hard to truly understand how intense they are unless you’ve experienced it yourself.

1. Loss of Worry and a Sense of Peace The most central feature is:

The disappearance of all worry.
A deep sense that everything is ultimately okay with you.
A feeling of peace and harmony.
A willingness to simply be, even if your external circumstances don’t change.

For Christians, this change often comes with a belief in God’s “grace,” “justification,” or “salvation.” However, this specific belief can be missing, and the feeling of peace can still be there. You might remember the example of the Oxford graduate. There are many cases where the assurance of personal salvation only came later. The core of this state of mind is a passionate willingness, acceptance, and admiration.

2. Perceiving New Truths The second feature is the feeling of understanding truths you didn’t know before. As Professor Leuba says, life’s mysteries become clear. Often, this understanding is very difficult, or even impossible, to put into words. We can talk more about these intellectual aspects when we discuss mysticism.

3. The World Appears New A third characteristic of the state of assurance is that the world itself often seems to change. Objects appear new and beautiful. This is the exact opposite of that other kind of newness—the dreadful, unreal, and strange feeling about the world that people with depression sometimes experience. (You might recall I shared some examples of this earlier.) This sense of clean, beautiful newness, both inside and out, is one of the most common things people write about in their conversion stories.

Jonathan Edwards described his experience like this: “After this, my awareness of divine things gradually grew. It became more alive and had more of an inner sweetness. Everything looked different. There seemed to be a calm, sweet quality, or an appearance of divine glory, in almost everything. God’s excellence, his wisdom, his purity, and his love seemed to show in everything: in the sun, moon, and stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, and trees; in the water and all of nature. These things used to capture my attention greatly. And hardly anything in all of nature was as sweet to me as thunder and lightning; before, nothing had been so terrible to me. I used to be unusually terrified of thunder and would be struck with terror when I saw a thunderstorm approaching. But now, on the contrary, it makes me happy.”

Billy Bray, a remarkable but uneducated English preacher, described his sense of newness this way: “I said to the Lord: ‘You have said, those who ask will receive, those who seek will find, and to those who knock, the door will be opened, and I have faith to believe it.’ In an instant, the Lord made me so happy that I cannot describe what I felt. I shouted for joy. I praised God with my whole heart… I think this was in November 1823, but I don’t know the exact day. I remember that everything looked new to me: the people, the fields, the cattle, the trees. I was like a new man in a new world. I spent most of my time praising the Lord.”

More Examples of the “Sense of Newness”

Researchers Starbuck and Leuba also provide quotes to show this sense of newness. Here are two from Starbuck’s collection.

The first is from a woman: “I was taken to a camp meeting. My mother and religious friends were seeking and praying for my conversion. My emotions were deeply stirred. Confessing my failings and pleading with God for salvation from sin made me unaware of everything around me. I begged for mercy and had a powerful realization of forgiveness and a renewal of my very being. When I got up from my knees, I exclaimed, ‘Old things have passed away, all things have become new.’ It was like entering another world, a new state of being. Natural objects seemed glorious. My spiritual vision became so clear that I saw beauty in every physical object in the universe. The woods seemed filled with heavenly music. My soul rejoiced in God’s love, and I wanted everyone to share my joy.”

The next account is from a man: “I don’t know how I got back to the main camp area. I found myself stumbling towards a religious tent. It was full of people seeking religious experiences, and there was a lot of noise inside—some groaning, some laughing, and some shouting. Near a large oak tree, about ten feet from the tent, I fell on my face by a bench and tried to pray. Every time I called on God, something like a man’s hand would seem to strangle me by choking me. I don’t know if anyone was near me. I thought I would surely die if I didn’t get help. But whenever I prayed, that unseen hand would press on my throat, and my breath would be cut off.

Finally, something seemed to say: ‘Take a chance on God’s forgiveness (the atonement), because you will die anyway if you don’t.’ So, I made one last struggle to call on God for mercy. The choking and strangling continued, but I was determined to finish my prayer for mercy, even if I strangled and died. The last thing I remember from that time was falling back on the ground with the same unseen hand on my throat. I don’t know how long I lay there or what was happening. None of my family were there.

When I regained consciousness, a crowd was around me, praising God. The very heavens seemed to open and pour down rays of light and glory. This didn’t last for just a moment; all day and night, floods of light and glory seemed to pour through my soul. Oh, how I was changed, and everything became new! My horses, my pigs, and even everybody seemed changed.”

Automatisms: Involuntary Experiences in Conversion

This man’s story brings up the topic of automatisms. These are involuntary actions or experiences that can be a startling part of religious revivals, especially for people who are easily influenced or “suggestible.” Since the time of preachers like Edwards, Wesley, and Whitfield, these experiences became a regular part of spreading religious messages.

Initial Interpretation: At first, these automatisms were thought to be almost miraculous signs of the Holy Spirit’s power.
Controversy: However, people quickly developed very different opinions about them. Edwards, in his writings about religious revivals in New England, had to defend these experiences against critics. Even within religious groups that held revivals, the value of these automatisms has long been debated.
Spiritual Significance: These experiences undoubtedly have no essential spiritual meaning. Although they might make the conversion more memorable for the person, it has never been proven that people who have these dramatic experiences are more dedicated or do more good deeds than those whose change of heart happened more quietly.
Psychological Explanation: Generally, experiences like losing consciousness, convulsions, visions, speaking without meaning to, and feelings of suffocation are likely due to the person having a very active subconscious mind (a “large subliminal region”) and a sensitive or unstable nervous system.

This is often how the person themselves sees it later. For instance, one of Starbuck’s contacts wrote: “I have been through the experience known as conversion. My explanation is this: the person works their emotions up to a breaking point, while at the same time resisting the physical signs of these emotions, like a faster pulse. Then, suddenly, they let the emotions completely take over their body. The relief is wonderful, and the pleasurable effects of the emotions are felt to the highest degree.”

Photisms: Visions of Light

One type of involuntary sensory experience that occurs frequently and deserves special attention is seeing lights. Psychologists call these photisms, which are hallucinatory or near-hallucinatory experiences of light.

Saint Paul’s blinding vision from heaven seems to have been this kind of event.
Constantine’s vision of a cross in the sky also fits this description.
The man whose story we just heard mentioned “floods of light and glory.”
Henry Alline mentioned a light but was unsure if it was truly external.
Colonel Gardiner saw a blazing light.

President Finney wrote about his experience with light: “All at once, the glory of God shone upon and around me in an almost marvelous way… A light so brilliant it’s impossible to describe shone in my soul, and it almost knocked me to the ground… This light seemed like the brightness of the sun in every direction. It was too intense for my eyes… I think I truly experienced then something of the light that struck Paul down on the way to Damascus. It was certainly a light that I could not have endured for long.”

Reports of such light visions are actually quite common. Here’s another from Starbuck’s collection, where the light clearly seemed to be external: “I had been attending a series of revival services for about two weeks, on and off. I had been invited to the altar several times and was feeling more and more deeply affected. Finally, I decided I had to go, or I would be lost. The realization of my conversion was very vivid. It felt like a ton’s weight being lifted from my heart. There was a strange light that seemed to light up the whole room (which was dark). I felt a conscious, supreme happiness that made me repeat ‘Glory to God’ for a long time. I decided to be God’s child for life and to give up my main ambitions: wealth and social position. My old habits slowed my spiritual growth somewhat, but I worked on overcoming them systematically. In one year, my whole nature was changed; that is, my ambitions were completely different.”

Here is another of Starbuck’s cases that involved a luminous element: “I had been clearly converted twenty-three years before, or perhaps it’s better to say I was reclaimed, as I had strayed. My initial experience of spiritual renewal was clear, and I hadn’t fallen back into old ways. But I experienced what is called ‘entire sanctification’ on March 15, 1893, around eleven in the morning. The specific things that happened during this experience were completely unexpected. I was quietly sitting at home, singing hymns. Suddenly, something seemed to sweep into me and fill my entire being—a sensation I had never felt before. When this happened, I seemed to be led around a large, spacious, well-lit room. As I walked with my invisible guide and looked around, a clear thought formed in my mind: ‘They are not here, they are gone.’ As soon as this thought was definite, even though no words were spoken, the Holy Spirit impressed upon me that I was looking at my own soul. Then, for the first time in my life, I knew that I was cleansed from all sin and filled with the fullness of God.”

Leuba shares the case of a Mr. Peek, whose experience of light sounds similar to the colorful hallucinations caused by mescal, the intoxicating cactus buds used by Mexicans: “When I went into the fields to work in the morning, the glory of God appeared in everything I saw in creation. I remember well that we were harvesting oats, and every straw and head of the oats seemed to be dressed in a kind of rainbow glory, or to glow, if I can put it that way, in the glory of God.”

The Peak of Conversion: Ecstasy and Happiness

The most characteristic element of the conversion crisis, and the last one I will discuss, is the extreme happiness it produces. We’ve already heard several descriptions of it, but I will add a couple more. President Finney’s account is so vivid that I will share it in full.

President Finney described his experience: “All my feelings seemed to rise up and flow out of me. The cry of my heart was, ‘I want to pour my whole soul out to God.’ This rising feeling in my soul was so strong that I rushed into the back room of the front office to pray.

There was no fire and no light in the room; nevertheless, it seemed to me as if it were perfectly light. As I went in and shut the door behind me, it felt as if I met the Lord Jesus Christ face to face. It didn’t occur to me then, nor for some time afterward, that this was entirely a mental state. On the contrary, it seemed to me that I saw him just as I would see any other man. He said nothing but looked at me in a way that made me break down completely at his feet. I have always considered this a most remarkable state of mind because it felt so real that he stood before me. I fell at his feet and poured out my soul to him. I wept aloud like a child and made whatever confessions I could with my choked voice. It seemed to me that I bathed his feet with my tears, and yet I don’t remember having any distinct impression that I actually touched him.

I must have stayed in this state for a good while, but my mind was too absorbed in the encounter to remember anything I said. But I know that as soon as my mind became calm enough to break away from this meeting, I returned to the front office. I found that the large wood fire I had built was nearly burned out.

But as I turned and was about to take a seat by the fire, I received a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost. Without expecting it, without ever thinking such a thing could happen to me, without any memory of ever hearing anyone in the world mention it, the Holy Spirit came down on me in a way that seemed to go right through me, body and soul. I could feel the sensation, like a wave of electricity, passing through and through me. Indeed, it seemed to come in waves and waves of liquid love; I couldn’t describe it any other way. It felt like the very breath of God. I can distinctly remember that it seemed to fan me, like immense wings.

No words can express the wonderful love that filled my heart. I wept aloud with joy and love. I might even say I literally bellowed out the indescribable flood of emotions from my heart.”

(President Finney continued describing his experience:) “These waves of feeling came over me again and again. It happened so many times that I remember crying out, ‘I will die if these waves keep passing over me!’ I said, ‘Lord, I can’t bear any more.’ Yet, I wasn’t afraid of death.

I don’t know how long I stayed in that state, with this spiritual baptism rolling over me and going through me. But I know it was late in the evening when a member of my choir came to the office to see me. (I was the choir leader.) He was a member of the church. He found me weeping loudly and asked, ‘Mr. Finney, what’s wrong with you?’ For some time, I couldn’t answer him. Then he asked, ‘Are you in pain?’ I gathered myself up as best I could and replied, ‘No, but I’m so happy that I feel like I can’t live.’”

Billy Bray’s Joyful Praise

I mentioned Billy Bray earlier. His own short description of how he felt after his conversion is a perfect example: “I can’t help praising the Lord. As I walk down the street, I lift up one foot, and it seems to say ‘Glory!’ I lift up the other, and it seems to say ‘Amen!’ They just keep doing that the whole time I am walking.”

Do Sudden Conversions Last?

Before I finish this lecture, I want to say a word about whether these sudden conversions are temporary or permanent. I’m sure some of you know that many people who experience conversion later “backslide” or relapse into their old ways. You might use these relapses as your main way of understanding the whole topic, dismissing it all with a pitying smile as just “hysterics” or emotional overreaction.

However, looking at it this way is shallow, both psychologically and religiously. It misses the truly interesting point. What’s most important isn’t how long the change lasts, but the nature and quality of these shifts in character to a higher level. People can fall back from any level of improvement – we don’t need statistics to tell us that.

The Value of Revealed Potential

Think about love, for example. We all know that love doesn’t always last forever. But whether it’s constant or not, while it lasts, love reveals new possibilities and heights of ideals. These revelations are what make love significant to people, no matter how long it endures.

It’s the same with the conversion experience. The fact that it can show a person, even for a short time, the highest point of their spiritual ability – their “high-water mark” – is what makes it important. Backsliding later doesn’t reduce this importance, though staying committed to the change would certainly increase it.

Striking Conversions Are Often Permanent

Actually, many of the most striking examples of conversion, like the ones I’ve shared, have been permanent. One case that might seem doubtful, because it strongly suggested a seizure-like event, was that of M. Ratisbonne. Yet, I am told that Ratisbonne’s entire future was shaped by those few minutes of his conversion.

He gave up his plans to marry.
He became a priest.
He moved to Jerusalem and started a mission of nuns to try to convert Jewish people.
He showed no tendency to use the fame from his unusual conversion for selfish reasons. (In fact, he could seldom talk about his conversion without tears.)
In short, he remained a model member of the Church until he died, sometime in his late 80s.

Statistics on the Duration of Conversion

The only statistics I know about how long conversions last were collected for Professor Starbuck by Miss Johnston.

The study included only one hundred people. They were all members of evangelical churches, and more than half were Methodists.
According to what these people said about themselves, there had been some sort of backsliding in nearly all cases: 93 percent of the women and 77 percent of the men.

However, when Starbuck looked at these reports more closely, he found that:

Only 6 percent were actual relapses from the religious faith that the conversion had confirmed.
The “backsliding” most people complained about was usually just a fluctuation in the intensity of their religious feelings. Only six out of the hundred people reported a change in their actual faith.

Starbuck’s conclusion was that the effect of conversion is to bring about “a changed attitude towards life, which is fairly constant and permanent, although the feelings fluctuate… . In other words, the persons who have passed through conversion, having once taken a stand for the religious life, tend to feel themselves identified with it, no matter how much their religious enthusiasm declines.”

SAINTLINESS

(Lectures XI, XII, and XIII)

The last lecture left us wondering. When people have such movingly happy conversions as the ones we heard about, what are the practical results in their lives? This question brings us to the really important part of our study.

Remember, we started this investigation not just to explore an interesting aspect of human consciousness. We also wanted to form a spiritual judgment about the total value and real meaning of all the religious struggles and joys we’ve observed.

So, our task has two parts:

First, we must describe the results, or fruits, of the religious life.
Then, we must evaluate them.

Let’s begin with the descriptive part without any more delay.

A Pleasant Task

This should be the most enjoyable part of our work in these lectures. It’s true that some small parts might be difficult or show human nature in a sad light. But mostly, it will be pleasant. This is because the best results of religious experience are the best things history has to show.

People have always considered them to be so. If there is such a thing as a truly dedicated and strenuous life, this is it. Simply recalling a series of such examples, even just by reading about them as I have recently, makes one feel encouraged, uplifted, and refreshed by a better moral atmosphere.

The greatest acts of charity, devotion, trust, patience, and bravery that humans are capable of have been inspired by religious ideals. To illustrate this, I can’t do better than to share some remarks by Sainte-Beuve from his History of Port-Royal. He discusses the results of conversion, or what he calls the “state of grace.”

Sainte-Beuve on the State of Grace

Sainte-Beuve says: “Even if we look at it from a purely human perspective, the experience of grace is still quite extraordinary. It is remarkable and rare, both in its nature and its effects, and it deserves a closer look. When a soul reaches this state, it achieves a kind of fixed and unbeatable condition. This condition is truly heroic, and it is from this state that the greatest actions are performed.

People may reach this state through different forms of religious practice and various means – perhaps through a special celebration, a general confession, or solitary prayer. Whatever the place or occasion, it’s easy to see that the state itself is fundamentally the same in spirit and results.

If you look a little deeper than the different circumstances, it becomes clear. Christians from different times are affected by the same basic change. There is truly a single, fundamental, and identical spirit of religious devotion and charity common to those who have received grace. It is an inner state that is, above all, one of love and humility, of infinite trust in God, and of being strict with oneself while being tender towards others. The unique results of this state of the soul have the same quality in everyone, whether in distant lands or different surroundings – in Saint Teresa of Avila just as in any Moravian brother from Herrnhut.”

Focusing on Strong Examples

Sainte-Beuve is thinking here of the most notable examples of spiritual transformation, and these are, of course, the most instructive for us to consider as well. These devoted individuals have often lived their lives so differently from other people that, if we judge them by worldly standards, we might be tempted to call them strange deviations from the natural path.

Therefore, I’ll start by asking a general psychological question: What are the inner conditions that can make one human character so extremely different from another?

Why People Are Different: Emotions and Impulses

My immediate answer is that when we talk about character (as distinct from intelligence), the reasons for human diversity are mainly found in two things:

Our different sensitivities to emotional excitement.
The different impulses and inhibitions (inner restraints) that these emotions bring with them.

Let me explain this more clearly.

Generally speaking, our moral and practical attitude at any given moment is always the result of two sets of forces within us:

Impulses pushing us one way.
Obstructions and inhibitions holding us back.

The impulses say, “Yes! Yes!” The inhibitions say, “No! No!”

Few people, unless they’ve specifically thought about it, realize how constantly this factor of inhibition affects us. It contains and shapes us with its restrictive pressure, almost as if we were liquids held inside a jar. This influence is so constant that it becomes subconscious.

For example, all of you are sitting here with a certain degree of restraint right now. You are likely not consciously aware of it, but it’s because of the social influence of this occasion. If each of you were left alone in this room, you would probably involuntarily shift your posture and adopt a more “free and easy” attitude.

But social rules and their inhibitions can snap like cobwebs if a strong emotional excitement occurs.

I’ve seen a well-dressed man run into the street with his face still covered in shaving lather because a house across the street was on fire.
A woman will run among strangers in her nightgown if it’s a matter of saving her baby’s life or her own.

Consider the life of a self-indulgent woman. She might give in to every inhibition created by her unpleasant sensations. She might stay in bed late, live on tea or calming drugs, and stay indoors to avoid the cold. Every difficulty makes her obey its “no.”

But make her a mother, and what happens? Filled with maternal excitement, she now faces sleeplessness, tiredness, and hard work without a moment’s hesitation or a word of complaint. The power of pain to inhibit her disappears whenever her baby’s interests are involved. The inconveniences caused by this little creature have become, as one writer said, the glowing heart of a great joy. Indeed, these very inconveniences are now the conditions that make her joy most profound.

The Power of Strong Emotions

This is an example of what you’ve already heard called the “expulsive power of a higher affection” – a strong positive emotion driving out weaker ones. But it doesn’t matter if the emotion is “high” or “low,” as long as the excitement it brings is strong enough.

In one of Henry Drummond’s talks, he tells of a flood in India. An area of high ground with a house on it remained above water. It became a refuge for a number of wild animals and reptiles, as well as the humans who were there. At one point, a royal Bengal tiger appeared, swimming towards the high ground. It reached the land and lay panting like a dog among the people. The tiger was still overcome by such an intense terror that one of the Englishmen could calmly walk up with a rifle and shoot it. The tiger’s usual fierceness was temporarily suppressed by the overwhelming emotion of fear. Fear became dominant and formed a new center for its behavior.

When Emotions Compete

Sometimes, no single emotional state is dominant. Instead, many conflicting ones are mixed together. In that case, a person hears both “yeses” and “noes” from within. The “will” is then called upon to resolve the conflict.

Take a soldier, for example.

His dread of being seen as a coward pushes him to advance.
His fears push him to run away.
His tendency to imitate others might push him in various directions if his comrades behave differently.

His mind becomes a battlefield of conflicting influences. He might simply hesitate for a time because no single emotion is strong enough to take over.

However, there is a level of intensity which, if any emotion reaches it, makes that one emotion solely effective. It sweeps away its opponents and all their inhibitions.

The fury of his comrades’ charge, once it begins, can give the soldier this intense level of courage.
The panic of their retreat can give him this intense level of fear.

In these dominant states of excitement, things that are ordinarily impossible become natural because the inhibitions are canceled out. Their “No! No!” is not only unheard; it doesn’t even exist. Obstacles then become like paper hoops for a circus rider – no barrier at all. The emotional flood is higher than any dam they could create. “Let them go begging if they’re hungry!” cries the soldier, frantic over his Emperor’s capture, when someone mentions his wife and children. And people trapped in a burning theater have been known to cut their way through the crowd with knives.

The Power of Earnestness and Anger

One type of emotional excitability is extremely important in forming an energetic character. This is because of its unique power to destroy inhibitions.

In its simpler form, this is mere irascibility – a tendency to get angry, the fighting temper.
In more subtle ways, it shows up as impatience, grimness, earnestness, and severity of character.

Earnestness means being willing to live with energy, even if that energy brings pain. The pain might be to other people or to oneself – it makes little difference. When someone is in a strenuous, determined mood, the goal is to break something, no matter whose or what it is.

Nothing destroys an inhibition as irresistibly as anger does. As the military strategist Moltke said of war, its essence is pure and simple destruction. This is what makes anger such a valuable partner for every other passion. The sweetest pleasures are trampled on with a ferocious joy the moment they try to block a cause that has aroused our higher indignation. In such moments, it costs nothing to:

End friendships.
Give up long-held privileges and possessions.
Break social ties.

Instead, we often take a stern joy in the harshness and desolation. What is often called “weakness of character” seems in most cases to be an inability to enter these sacrificial moods, where one’s own lesser self and its cherished comforts must often be the targets and the victims.

From Temporary Shifts to Fixed Character

So far, I’ve talked about temporary changes in the same person caused by shifting excitements. But the relatively fixed differences in character between different people can be explained in a very similar way.

In a person who is prone to a particular type of emotion, whole sets of inhibitions that are usually effective in other people simply vanish. Other kinds of inhibitions might take their place. When a person has an inborn talent or “genius” for certain emotions, their life is strangely different from that of ordinary people. None of the usual deterrents or checks stop them.

In contrast, someone who merely aspires to a certain type of character only shows their hopelessness when a natural lover, fighter, or reformer comes along – someone for whom that passion is a gift of nature. The aspirer has to deliberately overcome their inhibitions. The genius with the inborn passion seems not to feel them at all. They are free from all that inner friction and wasted nervous energy.

For people like Fox, Garibaldi, General Booth, John Brown, Louise Michel, or Bradlaugh, the obstacles that seem all-powerful to those around them are as if they don’t exist. If the rest of us could disregard these obstacles in the same way, there might be many such heroes. Many people have the wish to live for similar ideals; they only lack the necessary degree of “inhibition-quenching fury.”

The Difference Between Willing and Wishing

The difference between truly willing something and merely wishing for it, between having ideals that create action and ideals that are just longings and regrets, depends solely on one of two things:

The amount of chronic “steam-pressure” driving the character in the ideal direction.
The amount of ideal excitement acquired temporarily.

Given a certain amount of love, indignation, generosity, magnanimity, admiration, loyalty, or enthusiastic self-surrender, the result is always the same. That whole collection of cowardly obstructions – which in timid people and dull moods are powerful barriers to action – sinks away at once.

Our conventionality, our shyness, laziness, and stinginess, our demands for precedent and permission, for guarantees and surety, our small suspicions, timidities, and despairs – where are they now? They are severed like cobwebs, broken like bubbles in the sun.

As a German poem says: “Where now are the care and need That just yesterday sought to weaken me? I am ashamed of them in the morning light.”

The emotional flood we are carried on rolls them so lightly underneath us that we don’t even feel their contact. Freed from them, we float, soar, and sing. This dawn-like openness and uplift give all creative, ideal states a bright and joyful quality. This quality is nowhere more noticeable than when the controlling emotion is religious. An Italian mystic wrote, “The true monk takes nothing with him but his lyre.”

The Results of the Religious State

We can now turn from these general psychological points to the results of the religious state, which are the special subject of this lecture.

The person who lives from their religious center of personal energy, and is driven by spiritual enthusiasms, differs from their previous, more worldly (“carnal”) self in very specific ways.

The new passion burning in their heart consumes the lower “noes” that used to trouble them.
It keeps them safe from infection by the more base parts of their nature.
Acts of great generosity, once impossible, are now easy.
Trivial social rules and selfish motives, once powerful, no longer hold any influence.
The stone wall inside them has fallen; the hardness in their heart has broken down.

The rest of us can, I think, imagine this by recalling how we feel during those temporary “melting moods.” These moods can be brought on by the trials of real life, or sometimes by the theatre or a novel. This is especially true if we weep! When we weep, it’s as if our tears break through a long-standing inner dam. This allows all sorts of old faults and moral stagnations to drain away. We are left feeling washed, soft-hearted, and open to every nobler influence.

With most of us, the usual hardness quickly returns. But this is not so with saintly people. Many saints, even energetic ones like Teresa and Loyola, possessed what the church traditionally honors as a special grace: the so-called gift of tears. In these individuals, the melting mood seems to have been almost constantly in control.

And what is true for tears and melting moods is also true for other elevated emotions. Their dominance may come through gradual growth or through a sudden crisis. But in either case, it may have “come to stay.”

Permanent Change: Overcoming Temptation

At the end of the last lecture, we saw that this permanence can be true of the general dominance of higher insight. This is so even if, during periods of low emotional excitement, less noble motives might temporarily win out and backsliding might occur.

But there is also documented evidence in certain cases that lower temptations can be completely eliminated. This isn’t just due to transient emotion, but seems to be an alteration of the person’s habitual nature. Before discussing the general natural history of the transformed character, let me convince you of this curious fact with one or two examples.

The most numerous examples are those of reformed drunkards.

You might recall the case of Mr. Hadley from the last lecture.
The Jerry M’Auley Water Street Mission has many similar stories.
You also remember the Oxford graduate. He was converted at three in the afternoon and got drunk in a hay-field the next day. But after that, he was permanently cured of his desire for alcohol. He said: “From that hour drink has had no terrors for me: I never touch it, never want it. The same thing occurred with my pipe… the desire for it went at once and has never returned. So with every known sin, the deliverance in each case being permanent and complete. I have had no temptations since conversion.”

Here is a similar case from Starbuck’s collection: A person went into a Holiness meeting and began praying, “Lord, Lord, I must have this blessing.” Then, what seemed like an audible voice asked, “Are you willing to give up everything to the Lord?” Question after question came, and to all of them, the person said, “Yes, Lord; yes, Lord!” Finally, the question came: “Why do you not accept it now?” And the person replied, “I do, Lord.”

The account continues: “I felt no particular joy, only a trust. Just then the meeting closed. As I went out on the street, I met a gentleman smoking a fine cigar. A cloud of smoke came into my face, and I took a long, deep breath of it. Praise the Lord, all my appetite for it was gone! Then, as I walked along the street, passing saloons where the smell of liquor came out, I found that all my taste and longing for that cursed stuff was gone. Glory to God! … [But] for ten or eleven long years [after that] I was in the wilderness with its ups and downs. My appetite for liquor never came back.”

Colonel Gardiner’s Cure

The classic case of Colonel Gardiner is that of a man cured of sexual temptation in a single hour.

The colonel told Mr. Spears: “I was effectively cured of all inclination to that sin I was so strongly addicted to that I thought nothing but shooting me through the head could have cured me of it. All desire and inclination to it was removed, as entirely as if I had been a nursing child. Nor did the temptation return to this day.”
Mr. Webster’s words on the same subject are: “One thing I have heard the colonel frequently say, is that he was much addicted to impurity before his acquaintance with religion. But, as soon as he was enlightened from above, he felt the power of the Holy Ghost changing his nature so wonderfully that his sanctification in this respect seemed more remarkable than in any other.”

The Role of Subliminal Influences

Such rapid elimination of old impulses and tendencies strongly reminds us of what has been observed as a result of hypnotic suggestion. It is difficult not to believe that subliminal influences (influences from the unconscious part of the mind) play the decisive part in these abrupt changes of heart, just as they do in hypnotism.

Therapy using suggestion has many records of curing, after just a few sessions, deep-seated bad habits. These were habits that the patient, left to ordinary moral and physical influences, had struggled against in vain. Both drunkenness and sexual addictions have been cured in this way. It seems that action through the subconscious mind has, in many individuals, the special ability to bring about relatively stable change.

If God’s grace works miracles, it probably does so through this subconscious part of our mind. However, exactly how anything operates in this region is still not explained. It’s best for us now to move on from discussing the process of transformation altogether. We can leave it, if you like, as a considerable psychological or theological mystery. Instead, let’s turn our attention to the results of the religious condition, no matter how they may have come about.

What is Saintliness?

The collective name for the mature results of religion in a person’s character is Saintliness. The saintly character is one where spiritual emotions are the usual center of personal energy. There’s a kind of combined image of universal saintliness, the same in all religions, and its features can be easily identified.

These features are:

1. Core Inner Conditions of Saintliness

A Wider Life and an Ideal Power: A feeling of being part of a life that is bigger than this world’s small, selfish concerns. This includes a conviction – not just an intellectual idea, but an almost physical sense – that an Ideal Power exists. In Christian saintliness, this power is always seen as God. However, abstract moral ideals, visions of a perfect society or nation, or inner ideas of holiness or rightness can also be felt as the true guiding forces that enlarge our life. I described these kinds of feelings in the lecture on the Reality of the Unseen.
Friendly Connection and Self-Surrender: A sense that this ideal power is friendly and connected to our own life. This leads to a willing self-surrender to its control.
Elation and Freedom: An immense feeling of joy and freedom as the boundaries of the limiting self seem to dissolve.
Shift to Loving Affections: A change in the emotional center towards loving and harmonious feelings. This means saying “yes, yes” to the needs and claims of others, rather than “no.”

2. Practical Results of Saintliness These fundamental inner conditions lead to characteristic practical results:

a. Asceticism (Self-Denial): The self-surrender can become so passionate that it turns into self-sacrifice. It might overcome ordinary physical inhibitions so much that the saint finds actual pleasure in sacrifice and self-denial. These actions measure and express the depth of their loyalty to the higher power.
b. Strength of Soul: The sense of an enlarged life can be so uplifting that personal motives and inhibitions, which are usually very powerful, become too insignificant to notice. New levels of patience and inner strength open up. Fears and anxieties disappear, and a blissful calm takes their place. Whether good things or bad things happen, it makes no difference anymore.

Some who strive for this strength of soul might adopt principles like these:
- “We forbid ourselves from seeking popularity or trying to appear important.”
- “We pledge to avoid falsehood in all its forms.”
- “We promise not to create or encourage false hopes about what is possible, either in what we say or write.”
- “We promise each other active sincerity. This means striving to see truth clearly and never being afraid to declare what we see.”
- “We promise to deliberately resist trendy ideas, public manias and panics, and all forms of weakness and fear.”
- “We forbid ourselves from using sarcasm. We will speak of serious things seriously and without smiling, without joking or appearing to joke. This applies to all things, because there are serious ways to be lighthearted.”
- “We will always present ourselves for what we are, simply and without false humility, and also without showing off, being artificial, or being proud.”
c. Purity: The shift in the emotional center first brings an increase in purity. Sensitivity to spiritual inconsistencies is heightened. It becomes essential to cleanse one’s life from brutal and sensual elements. Situations involving contact with such elements are avoided. The saintly life must deepen its spiritual consistency and remain “unspotted from the world.” In some people, this need for purity of spirit takes a self-denying turn, and weaknesses of the flesh are treated with relentless severity.
d. Charity (Love for Others): Secondly, the shift in the emotional center brings an increase in charity and tenderness for fellow creatures. The ordinary reasons for dislike, which usually limit tenderness between people, are inhibited. The saint loves their enemies and treats even loathsome beggars as their brothers.

Illustrations: The Sense of a Higher, Friendly Power

I now need to give some concrete examples of these fruits from the spiritual tree. The only difficulty is choosing which ones, because there are so many.

Since the feeling of the Presence of a higher and friendly power seems to be the fundamental feature of the spiritual life, I will start with that.

In our stories of conversion, we saw how the world might look shining and transformed to the person who has converted. And even apart from any intensely religious experience, we all have moments when the universal life seems to wrap us in friendliness. In youth and good health, in summer, in the woods, or on the mountains, there are days when the weather seems to whisper peace. There are hours when the goodness and beauty of existence surround us like a dry, warm climate, or resonate through us as if our inner ears were subtly ringing with the world’s security.

Thoreau writes: “Once, a few weeks after I came to the woods, I doubted for an hour whether being near other people was essential for a calm and healthy life. Being alone was somewhat unpleasant. But, in the midst of a gentle rain, while these thoughts were on my mind, I suddenly became aware of such sweet and kind company in Nature. It was in the very pattering of the raindrops, and in every sight and sound around my house. An infinite and unexplainable friendliness surrounded me all at once, like an atmosphere, supporting me. It made the supposed advantages of human company seem insignificant, and I have never thought of them since. Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me. I was so clearly made aware of the presence of something similar to me, that I thought no place could ever be strange to me again.”

The Christian Experience of God’s Presence

In Christian awareness, this sense of an enveloping friendliness becomes very personal and distinct. A German author writes, “The compensation for losing that sense of personal independence, which humans give up so unwillingly, is the disappearance of all fear from one’s life. It’s a completely indescribable and unexplainable feeling of inner security. One can only experience it, but once experienced, one can never forget it.”

I find an excellent description of this state of mind in a sermon by Mr. Voysey: “Countless trusting souls have experienced that this sense of God’s unfailing presence with them – when they go out and when they come in, by night and by day – is a source of absolute rest and confident calmness. It drives away all fear of what might happen to them. That nearness of God is a constant security against terror and anxiety. It’s not that they are at all assured of physical safety, or think themselves protected by a love that is denied to others. Instead, they are in a state of mind equally ready to be safe or to face injury. If injury happens to them, they will be content to bear it because the Lord is their keeper, and nothing can happen to them without His will. If it is His will, then injury is a blessing for them and not a calamity at all. This is the only way the trustful person is protected and shielded from harm. And I, for one – though I am by no means a thick-skinned or hard-nerved man – am absolutely satisfied with this arrangement. I do not wish for any other kind of immunity from danger and catastrophe. Though I am as sensitive to pain as the most highly strung person, I still feel that the worst of it is conquered. The sting is taken out of it altogether by the thought that God is our loving and sleepless keeper, and that nothing can hurt us without His will.”

Ecstatic Experiences of God’s Love

More intense expressions of this condition are plentiful in religious literature. I could easily tire you with their similarity. Here is an account from Mrs. Jonathan Edwards:

“Last night,” Mrs. Edwards writes, “was the sweetest night I ever had in my life. I never before, for so long a time, enjoyed so much of the light, rest, and sweetness of heaven in my soul, but without the least physical agitation the whole time. Part of the night I lay awake, sometimes asleep, and sometimes between sleeping and waking. But all night I continued in a constant, clear, and vivid sense of the heavenly sweetness of Christ’s excellent love, of his nearness to me, and of my dearness to him. I felt an indescribably sweet calmness of soul in complete rest in him.

I seemed to perceive a glow of divine love come down from the heart of Christ in heaven into my heart in a constant stream, like a stream or ray of sweet light. At the same time, my heart and soul all flowed out in love to Christ. There seemed to be a constant flowing and reflowing of heavenly love. I appeared to myself to float or swim in these bright, sweet beams, like dust motes swimming in the sunbeams, or the streams of sunlight that come in at the window.

I think that what I felt each minute was worth more than all the outward comfort and pleasure I had enjoyed in my whole life put together. It was pleasure without the least sting or any interruption. It was a sweetness that my soul was lost in; it seemed to be all that my weak body could handle. There was little difference whether I was asleep or awake, but if there was any difference, the sweetness was greatest while I was asleep.

As I awoke early the next morning, it seemed to me that I had entirely finished with myself. I felt that the world’s opinions about me were nothing. I had no more to do with any outward personal interest of my own than with that of a person I had never seen. The glory of God seemed to swallow up every wish and desire of my heart…

After going to bed and sleeping a little while, I awoke. I was led to reflect on God’s mercy to me: for many years, He gave me a willingness to die. After that, He made me willing to live, so that I might do and suffer whatever He called me to here. I also thought how God had graciously given me an entire surrender to His will regarding the kind and manner of death I should die. I had been made willing to die on the rack, or at the stake, and if it were God’s will, to die in darkness.

But now it occurred to me, I used to think of living no longer than the ordinary age of man. Upon this, I was led to ask myself whether I was not willing to be kept out of heaven even longer. My whole heart seemed immediately to reply: Yes, a thousand years, and a thousand more in horror, if it brings the most honor to God. This would be even if the torment of my body was so great, awful, and overwhelming that no one could bear to live in the country where such a spectacle was seen, and the torment of my mind was vastly greater.

And it seemed to me that I found a perfect willingness, quietness, and joyful readiness of soul in consenting that it should be so, if it were most for the glory of God. There was no hesitation, doubt, or darkness in my mind. The glory of God seemed to overcome me and swallow me up. Every conceivable suffering, and everything that was terrible to my nature, seemed to shrink to nothing before it. This feeling of resignation continued in its clearness and brightness for the rest of the night, all the next day, the night following, and on Monday in the forenoon, without interruption or lessening.”

The historical records of Catholic saints are full of accounts as ecstatic as this, or even more so. It is said of Sister Séraphique de la Martinière, “Often the rushes of divine love reduced her almost to the point of death. She used to complain tenderly about this to God. ‘I cannot bear it,’ she would say. ‘Deal gently with my weakness, or I shall die from the intensity of your love.’”

Charity and Brotherly Love

Let me move next to Charity and Brotherly Love. These are common results of saintliness and have always been considered essential theological virtues, no matter how limited the kinds of service required by a particular theology might have been.

Brotherly love would logically follow from the assurance of God’s friendly presence. The idea of our brotherhood as humans is an immediate consequence of the idea of God’s fatherhood over us all. When Christ gives the commands: “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you,” he gives a reason: “That you may be the children of your Father in heaven: for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

One might therefore be tempted to explain both the humility about oneself and the charity towards others that characterize spiritual excitement as results of the all-leveling nature of belief in God. But these feelings are certainly not just products of theism. We find them in Stoicism, Hinduism, and Buddhism to the highest possible degree. They fit beautifully with a belief in a fatherly God, but they also fit with any reflection on humankind’s dependence on general causes. We must, I think, consider them not as secondary but as equally important parts of the great complex excitement we are studying.

Religious ecstasy, moral enthusiasm, wonder about existence, and cosmic emotion are all states of mind that unify. In these states, the friction and smallness of the self tend to disappear, and tenderness tends to rule.

The best approach is to describe this condition as a whole – as a characteristic emotional state our nature is capable of, a region where we find ourselves at home, a sea in which we swim. We should not pretend to explain its parts by trying too cleverly to derive them from one another. Like love or fear, the faith-state is a natural psychological complex, and it brings charity with it as an organic consequence. Great joy is an expansive emotion, and all expansive emotions are self-forgetful and kind as long as they last.

Joy and Tenderness, Even in Illness

We find this to be true even when these emotions have a medical origin. In his informative work, La Tristesse et la Joie (Sadness and Joy), M. Georges Dumas compares the melancholy (depressed) and the joyous phases of what was then called “circular insanity” (now often understood as bipolar disorder). He shows that while selfishness characterizes the depressed phase, the joyous phase is marked by altruistic impulses. No human being was as stingy and useless as a patient named Marie during her melancholy period. But the moment her happy period began, “sympathy and kindness become her characteristic sentiments. She displays a universal goodwill, not only in intention, but in action… She becomes concerned about the health of other patients, interested in getting them released, and desirous to get wool to knit socks for some of them. Never since she has been under my observation have I heard her express anything but charitable opinions during her joyous period.”

Later, Dr. Dumas says of all such joyous conditions that “unselfish sentiments and tender emotions are the only emotional states to be found in them. The subject’s mind is closed against envy, hatred, and vindictiveness, and wholly transformed into benevolence, indulgence, and mercy.”

The Natural Link Between Joy and Kindness

So, there is a natural connection between joyfulness and tenderness. Their companionship in the saintly life should not be surprising at all. Along with happiness, this increase of tenderness is often noted in stories of conversion. “I began to work for others.” “I had more tender feeling for my family and friends.” “I spoke at once to a person with whom I had been angry.” “I felt for everyone, and loved my friends better.” “I felt everyone to be my friend.” These are all expressions from the records collected by Professor Starbuck.

Mrs. Edwards, continuing the story I quoted a moment ago, says: “When I got up on the morning of the Sabbath, I felt a love for all humankind that was wholly unique in its strength and sweetness, far beyond anything I had ever felt before. The power of that love seemed indescribable. I thought, if I were surrounded by enemies who were venting their malice and cruelty upon me, tormenting me, it would still be impossible for me to feel anything towards them but love, pity, and strong desires for their happiness. I never before felt so far from a tendency to judge and criticize others as I did that morning. I also realized, in an unusual and very vivid way, how great a part of Christianity lies in performing our social and relative duties to one another. The same joyful sense continued throughout the day—a sweet love for God and all humankind.”

Whatever the explanation for this charity, it can erase all usual human barriers.

An Example of Christian Non-Resistance

Here, for instance, is an example of Christian non-resistance from Richard Weaver’s autobiography. Weaver was a coal miner and a semi-professional boxer in his younger days. He later became a much-loved evangelist. Fighting, especially after drinking, seems to have been the sin he originally felt most drawn to.

After his first conversion, he had a relapse. This consisted of beating up a man who had insulted a girl. Feeling that, since he had already fallen, he might as well be “hanged for a sheep as for a lamb” (meaning, he might as well go all the way with his wrongdoing), he got drunk. He then went and broke the jaw of another man who had recently challenged him to a fight and had taunted him for refusing, calling him a coward because he was a Christian. I mention these incidents to show how genuine a change of heart is implied in the later conduct he describes:

“I went down the mine shaft and found the boy crying because a fellow-workman was trying to take the wagon from him by force. I said to him: ‘Tom, you mustn’t take that wagon.’ He swore at me and called me a Methodist devil. I told him that God did not tell me to let him rob me.”

(Richard Weaver’s story continues:) The man cursed again and said he would push the wagon over me. “‘Well,’ I said, ‘let us see whether the devil and you are stronger than the Lord and me.’ And the Lord and I proved stronger than the devil and him. He had to get out of the way, or the wagon would have gone over him. So, I gave the wagon to the boy. Then Tom said: ‘I’ve a good mind to smack you on the face.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘if that will do you any good, you can do it.’ So he struck me on the face. I turned the other cheek to him and said, ‘Strike again.’ He struck again and again, until he had struck me five times. I turned my cheek for the sixth stroke, but he turned away cursing. I shouted after him: ‘The Lord forgive you, for I do, and the Lord save you.’

This happened on a Saturday. When I went home from the coal pit, my wife saw my face was swollen and asked what was wrong with it. I said: ‘I’ve been fighting, and I’ve given a man a good thrashing.’ She burst out weeping and said, ‘Oh, Richard, what made you fight?’ Then I told her all about it. She thanked the Lord that I had not struck back.

But the Lord had struck, and His blows have more effect than a man’s. Monday came. The devil began to tempt me, saying: ‘The other men will laugh at you for allowing Tom to treat you as he did on Saturday.’ I cried, ‘Get behind me, Satan!’—and went on my way to the coal pit. Tom was the first man I saw. I said ‘Good morning,’ but got no reply. He went down into the pit first. When I got down, I was surprised to see him sitting on the wagon road waiting for me. When I came to him, he burst into tears and said: ‘Richard, will you forgive me for striking you?’ ‘I have forgiven you,’ said I. ‘Ask God to forgive you. The Lord bless you.’ I gave him my hand, and we each went to our work.”

Loving Your Enemies

“Love your enemies!” Notice this carefully. It doesn’t mean simply those who happen not to be your friends. It means your enemies, your actual, active enemies. Either this is just an Eastern exaggeration, a bit of dramatic language meaning only that we should try to reduce our anger as much as we can, or else it is sincere and meant literally.

Outside of certain close personal relationships, it has seldom been taken literally. Yet it makes one ask the question: Can there generally be a level of emotion so unifying, so capable of erasing differences between people, that even hostility becomes irrelevant and fails to block friendlier feelings?

If positive goodwill could reach such an extreme level of excitement, those who were controlled by it might well seem like superhuman beings. Their life would be morally separate from the life of other people. In the absence of real, authentic experience – for there are few active examples in our scriptures, and the Buddhist examples are legendary – there is no telling what the effects might be. They might conceivably transform the world.

Psychologically and in principle, the command “Love your enemies” is not self-contradictory. It is merely the extreme limit of a kind of great-heartedness that we are fairly familiar with, in the form of pitying tolerance for our oppressors.

Yet, if followed radically, it would involve such a complete break with our basic instincts and with the current ways of the world that a critical point would practically be passed. We would be born into another kind of existence. Religious emotion makes us feel that this other kingdom is close at hand, within our reach.

Love for the Loathsome

The ability to suppress instinctive disgust is proven not only by showing love to enemies, but by showing it to anyone who is personally repulsive. In the records of saintliness, we find a curious mix of motives pushing people in this direction.

Asceticism (self-denial) plays a part.
Along with pure and simple charity, we find humility – the desire to reject any claim to distinction and to humble oneself to the common level before God.

Certainly, all three principles were at work when Francis of Assisi and Ignatius Loyola exchanged their clothes with those of filthy beggars. All three are at work when religious people dedicate their lives to caring for those with leprosy or other particularly unpleasant diseases. Nursing the sick is a role that religious people seem strongly drawn to, even apart from church traditions encouraging it.

But in the history of this sort of charity, we find recorded fantastic excesses of devotion. These can only be explained by the simultaneous frenzy of self-sacrifice. Francis of Assisi kissed his lepers. Margaret Mary Alacoque, Francis Xavier, St. John of God, and others are said to have cleansed the sores and ulcers of their patients with their own tongues. The lives of saints like Elizabeth of Hungary and Madame de Chantal are full of a kind of reveling in hospital filth and bodily fluids – things that are disagreeable to read about and make us admire and shudder at the same time.

Inner Peace and Strength

So much for the human love aroused by the faith-state. Let me next speak of the Equanimity, Resignation, Fortitude, and Patience that it brings.

A “paradise of inward tranquility” seems to be faith’s usual result. It is easy to understand this, even without being religious oneself. A moment ago, when discussing the sense of God’s presence, I spoke of the unexplainable feeling of safety one may then have.

And indeed, how can it possibly fail to steady the nerves, cool a feverish mind, and calm anxieties, if one is consciously aware that, no matter how difficult one’s current problems may seem, one’s life as a whole is in the keeping of a power whom one can absolutely trust? In deeply religious people, the surrender of oneself to this power is passionate. Whoever not only says, but truly feels, “God’s will be done,” is protected against every weakness. The entire historical lineup of martyrs, missionaries, and religious reformers is there to prove the calm-mindedness that self-surrender brings, even under naturally upsetting or distressing circumstances.

Different Styles of Inner Calm

The nature of this calm-mindedness differs, of course, depending on whether the person has a naturally gloomy or a naturally cheerful disposition.

In the gloomy temperament, it involves more resignation and submission.
In the cheerful temperament, it is a joyous agreement.

As an example of the gloomy temperament, I quote part of a letter from Professor Lagneau, a respected philosophy teacher who recently died. He was a great invalid in Paris: “My life, for whose success you send good wishes, will be what it can be. I ask nothing from it; I expect nothing from it. For many long years now, I exist, think, and act, and am worth what I am worth, only through the despair which is my sole strength and my sole foundation. May it preserve for me, even in these last trials I am approaching, the courage to do without the desire for relief. I ask nothing more from the Source whence all strength comes, and if that is granted, your wishes will have been fulfilled.”

There is something pathetic and fatalistic about this. But the power of such a tone as a protection against external shocks is clear. Pascal is another Frenchman with a naturally pessimistic temperament. He expresses the temper of self-surrendering submissiveness even more fully: “Deliver me, Lord,” he writes in his prayers, “from the sadness at my own suffering which self-love might give, but put into me a sadness like your own. Let my sufferings calm your anger. Make them an occasion for my conversion and salvation. I ask you neither for health nor for sickness, for life nor for death. I ask only that you may arrange my health and my sickness, my life and my death, for your glory, for my salvation, and for the use of the Church and of your saints, of whom I would by your grace be one. You alone know what is best for me; you are the sovereign master; do with me according to your will. Give to me, or take away from me; only make my will conform to yours. I know but one thing, Lord, that it is good to follow you, and bad to offend you. Apart from that, I do not know what is good or bad in anything. I do not know which is most profitable to me – health or sickness, wealth or poverty, nor anything else in the world. That discernment is beyond the power of men or angels, and is hidden among the secrets of your Providence, which I adore, but do not seek to understand.”

Joyful Acceptance

When we encounter more optimistic temperaments, resignation becomes less passive. Examples are so widespread throughout history that I could easily move on without giving any. As it is, I will share the first one that comes to mind. Madame Guyon, though physically frail, had a naturally happy disposition. She went through many dangers with admirable serenity of soul. After being sent to prison for heresy: “Some of my friends,” she writes, “wept bitterly when they heard of it, but such was my state of acceptance and resignation that it failed to draw any tears from me… There appeared to be in me then, as I find it to be in me now, such a complete loss of concern for myself, that any of my own interests gave me little pain or pleasure. I always wanted to will or wish for myself only the very thing which God does.”

In another place she writes: “We all nearly perished in a river we had to cross. The carriage sank in quicksand. Others who were with us threw themselves out in excessive fright. But I found my thoughts so much occupied with God that I had no distinct sense of danger. It is true that the thought of being drowned passed across my mind, but it caused no other sensation or reflection in me than this: I felt quite contented and willing for it to happen, if it were my heavenly Father’s choice.”

Sailing from Nice to Genoa, a storm kept her at sea for eleven days. “As the irritated waves dashed around us,” she writes, “I could not help experiencing a certain degree of satisfaction in my mind. I pleased myself with thinking that those rebellious waves, under the command of Him who does all things rightly, might probably provide me with a watery grave. Perhaps I carried it too far, in the pleasure I took in thus seeing myself beaten and tossed by the swelling waters. Those who were with me took notice of my fearlessness.”

Fearlessness from Religious Enthusiasm

The contempt for danger that religious enthusiasm produces can be even more cheerful. I take an example from a charming recent autobiography, “With Christ at Sea,” by Frank Bullen. A couple of days after his conversion experience on shipboard, which he describes in the book: “It was blowing stiffly,” he writes, “and we were carrying a lot of sail to get north out of the bad weather. Shortly after 9 AM we hauled down the flying-jib (a type of sail), and I sprang out astride the boom (a spar) to furl it (roll it up). I was sitting astride the boom when suddenly it gave way with me. The sail slipped through my fingers, and I fell backwards, hanging head downwards over the churning, shining foam under the ship’s bows, suspended by one foot. But I felt only high exhilaration in my certainty of eternal life. Although death was separated from me by a hair’s breadth, and I was acutely conscious of that fact, it gave me no sensation but joy. I suppose I could have hung there no longer than five seconds, but in that time I lived a whole age of delight. But my body asserted itself, and with a desperate gymnastic effort, I regained the boom. How I furled the sail I don’t know, but I sang at the utmost pitch of my voice, praises to God that went echoing out over the dark waste of waters.”

Martyrdom: The Ultimate Test of Calm

The records of martyrdom are, of course, the main area where religious imperturbability triumphs. Let me cite as an example the statement of a humble sufferer, persecuted as a Huguenot (a French Protestant) under Louis XIV: “They shut all the doors,” Blanche Gamond writes, “and I saw six women, each with a bunch of willow rods as thick as a hand could hold, and a yard long. He gave me the order, ‘Undress yourself,’ which I did. He said, ‘You are leaving on your shift (a simple undergarment); you must take it off.’ They had so little patience that they took it off themselves, and I was naked from the waist up. They brought a cord with which they tied me to a beam in the kitchen. They drew the cord tight with all their strength and asked me, ‘Does it hurt you?’ And then they discharged their fury upon me, exclaiming as they struck me, ‘Pray now to your God.’ It was the Roulette woman who said this.

But at this moment, I received the greatest consolation that I can ever receive in my life, since I had the honor of being whipped for the name of Christ, and in addition, of being crowned with his mercy and his consolations. Why can I not write down the inconceivable influences, consolations, and peace which I felt internally? To understand them, one must have gone through the same trial. They were so great that I was enraptured, for where afflictions are plentiful, grace is given even more plentifully. In vain the women cried, ‘We must double our blows; she does not feel them, for she neither speaks nor cries.’ And how could I have cried, since I was swooning with happiness within?”

The Shift to Inner Peace

The transition from tenseness, self-responsibility, and worry to equanimity, receptivity, and peace is the most wonderful of all those shifts of inner equilibrium, those changes of the personal center of energy, which I have analyzed so often. The chief wonder of it is that it so often comes about, not by doing anything, but by simply relaxing and throwing the burden down.

This abandonment of self-responsibility seems to be the fundamental act in specifically religious practice, as distinct from moral practice. It existed before formal theologies and is independent of philosophies. Mind-cure, theosophy, Stoicism, ordinary neurological hygiene – all insist on it as emphatically as Christianity does. It is capable of closely combining with every speculative belief system.

Christians who have this quality strongly live in what is called “recollection.” They are never anxious about the future, nor do they worry over the outcome of the day. Of Saint Catharine of Genoa, it is said that “she took notice of things only as they were presented to her in succession, moment by moment.” To her holy soul, “the divine moment was the present moment… and when the present moment was assessed in itself and in its relations, and when the duty involved in it was accomplished, it was allowed to pass away as if it had never been, and to give way to the facts and duties of the moment that came after.” Hinduism, mind-cure, and theosophy all place great emphasis on this concentration of consciousness upon the moment at hand.

Purity of Life

The next religious symptom I will note is what I have called Purity of Life. The saintly person becomes exceedingly sensitive to inner inconsistency or discord. Mixture and confusion become intolerable. All the mind’s objects and occupations must be ordered with reference to the special spiritual excitement that is now its central theme. Whatever is unspiritual taints the pure water of the soul and is repulsive.

Mixed with this heightened moral sensitivity, there is also an eagerness for sacrifice – sacrificing, for the beloved deity’s sake, everything unworthy of Him. Sometimes the spiritual passion is so dominant that purity is achieved instantly – we have seen examples of this. Usually, it is a more gradual achievement. Billy Bray’s account of giving up tobacco is a good example of this latter form of achievement:

“I had been a smoker as well as a drunkard. I used to love my tobacco as much as I loved my food, and I would rather go down into the mine without my dinner than without my pipe. In the old days, the Lord spoke by the mouths of his servants, the prophets; now he speaks to us by the spirit of his Son. I not only had the feeling part of religion, but I could hear the small, still voice within speaking to me. When I took the pipe to smoke, the thought would come to me, ‘It is an idol, a lust; worship the Lord with clean lips.’ So, I felt it was not right to smoke.

The Lord also sent a woman to convince me. I was one day in a house, and I took out my pipe to light it at the fire. Mary Hawke – for that was the woman’s name – said, ‘Do you not feel it is wrong to smoke?’ I said that I felt something inside telling me that it was an idol, a lust. She said that was the Lord. Then I said, ‘Now, I must give it up, for the Lord is telling me of it inside, and the woman outside, so the tobacco must go, love it as I may.’

There and then I took the tobacco out of my pocket and threw it into the fire. I put the pipe under my foot, ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’ And I have not smoked since. I found it hard to break off old habits, but I cried to the Lord for help, and he gave me strength, for he has said, ‘Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you.’

The day after I gave up smoking, I had a toothache so bad that I did not know what to do. I thought this was because I gave up the pipe, but I said I would never smoke again, even if I lost every tooth in my head. I said, ‘Lord, you have told us, My yoke is easy and my burden is light,’ and when I said that, all the pain left me. Sometimes the thought of the pipe would come back to me very strongly; but the Lord strengthened me against the habit, and, bless his name, I have not smoked since.”

Bray’s biographer writes that after he had given up smoking, he thought that he would chew a little. But he conquered this dirty habit too. “On one occasion,” Bray said, “when at a prayer-meeting at Hicks Mill, I heard the Lord say to me, ‘Worship me with clean lips.’ So, when we got up from our knees, I took the quid (small piece of chewing tobacco) out of my mouth and ‘whipped ‘en’ [threw it] under the bench.”

(Billy Bray’s story of giving up tobacco continues:) “But, when we got on our knees again, I put another quid (a piece of chewing tobacco) into my mouth. Then the Lord said to me again, ‘Worship me with clean lips.’ So I took the quid out of my mouth and threw it under the bench again, and said, ‘Yes, Lord, I will.’ From that time I gave up chewing as well as smoking, and have been a free man.”

Extreme Forms of Truthfulness and Purity: The Early Quakers

The self-denying forms that the desire for truthfulness and purity of life can take are often quite striking and deeply affecting. The early Quakers, for example, had hard battles to fight against the worldliness and insincerity of the established Christian churches of their time. Yet the battle that probably caused them the most wounds was the one they fought to defend their own right to social truthfulness and sincerity. This included:

Using “thee” and “thou” when speaking to a single person.
Not taking off their hats to people.
Not using titles of respect.

George Fox felt that these conventional customs were a lie and a sham. As a result, his entire group of followers gave them up as a sacrifice to truth, so that their actions and the spirit they claimed to follow might be more consistent.

George Fox says in his Journal: “When the Lord sent me into the world, he forbade me to take off my hat to anyone, high or low. I was required to use ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ with all men and women, without any special respect for rich or poor, great or small. And as I traveled around, I was not to bid people ‘Good morning’ or ‘Good evening,’ nor was I to bow or scrape my leg to anyone.

This made the religious groups and professionals furious. Oh! The rage that was in the priests, magistrates, professors, and people of all sorts, especially in priests and professors! Even though using ‘thou’ to a single person was according to their grammar rules and the Bible, they could not bear to hear it. And because I could not take off my hat to them, it set them all into a rage…

Oh! The scorn, anger, and fury that arose! Oh! The blows, punches, beatings, and imprisonments we suffered for not taking off our hats to men! Some had their hats violently pulled off and thrown away, so they completely lost them. The bad language and evil treatment we received on this account is hard to describe, besides the danger we were sometimes in of losing our lives for this matter. And this was from the great professors of Christianity, who thereby showed they were not true believers.

And though it was but a small thing in man’s eyes, yet it brought a wonderful confusion among all professors and priests. But, blessed be the Lord, many came to see the foolishness of that custom of taking off hats to men, and felt the weight of Truth’s testimony against it.”

In the autobiography of Thomas Elwood, an early Quaker who was once secretary to John Milton, we find a wonderfully quaint and honest account of the trials he faced, both at home and elsewhere, in following Fox’s rules of sincerity. The stories are too long to quote here, but Elwood describes his feelings about these things in a shorter passage, which I will quote as a typical expression of spiritual sensitivity:

“By this divine light, then,” says Elwood, “I saw that although I did not have the common evils of uncleanliness, debauchery, profanity, and the pollutions of the world to put away (because through the great goodness of God and a decent upbringing, I had been kept from those worse evils), yet I had many other evils to put away and to stop doing. Some of these were not considered evils by the world, which lies in wickedness, but by the light of Christ, they were shown to me to be evils, and as such, they were condemned in me.

Specifically, those fruits and effects of pride that show themselves in the vanity and excess of clothing, which I took too much delight in. This evil of my actions I was required to put away and stop; and judgment lay upon me until I did so. I took off from my clothing those unnecessary trimmings of lace, ribbons, and useless buttons. These had no real purpose but were put on only for what was mistakenly called ornament. And I stopped wearing rings.

Again, giving flattering titles to men when there was no relationship between us that would justify such titles. This was an evil I had been much addicted to and was considered quite skilled at. Therefore, I was required to put away and stop this evil also. So, from then on, I dared not say, Sir, Master, My Lord, Madam (or My Dame); or say ‘Your Servant’ to anyone to whom I did not really stand in the position of a servant, which I had never done to anyone.

Again, showing respect to people by uncovering the head and bowing the knee or body in greeting was a practice I had often followed. This, being one of the vain customs of the world, introduced by the spirit of the world, is a false representation of true honor. It is used deceitfully as a token of respect by people who bear no real respect for one another. Besides this, since bowing and uncovering the head are a type and proper symbol of the divine honor that all should pay to Almighty God (and which all Christians show when they offer prayers to Him), they should not be given to men. I found this to be one of those evils I had been doing for too long. Therefore, I was now required to put it away and stop it.

Again, the corrupt and unsound way of speaking in the plural number to a single person – ‘you’ to one, instead of ‘thou’ – is contrary to the pure, plain, and simple language of truth (‘thou’ to one, and ‘you’ to more than one). This way of speaking had always been used by God to men, and men to God, as well as by people to one another, from the oldest records of time. Then corrupt men, for corrupt reasons, in later and corrupt times, brought in that false and senseless way of speaking ‘you’ to one to flatter, fawn, and manipulate the corrupt nature in men. This has since corrupted modern languages and has greatly debased the spirits and depraved the manners of men. I had been as quick to follow this evil custom as others, and now I was called out of it and required to stop.

These and many more evil customs, which had sprung up in the night of darkness and general falling away from truth and true religion, were now gradually revealed to me by the shining of this pure ray of divine light in my conscience. I saw them as things I ought to stop, shun, and stand as a witness against.”

John Woolman’s Pursuit of Purity

These early Quakers were Puritans indeed. The slightest inconsistency between what they said and what they did deeply troubled some of them, leading to active protest. John Woolman writes in his diary:

“In these journeys, I have been where much cloth has been dyed. At various times, I have walked over ground where many of their dyestuffs have drained away. This has produced a longing in my mind that people might achieve cleanness of spirit, cleanness of person, and cleanness about their houses and garments. Dyes were invented partly to please the eye and partly to hide dirt. I have felt in this weak state, when traveling in dirty conditions and affected by unwholesome smells, a strong desire that the nature of dyeing cloth to hide dirt may be more fully considered.

Washing our garments to keep them fresh is clean. But it is the opposite of real cleanliness to hide dirt in them. By giving way to hiding dirt in our garments, a spirit that would conceal what is disagreeable is strengthened. Real cleanliness is fitting for a holy people. But hiding what is not clean by coloring our garments seems contrary to the sweetness of sincerity. Some sorts of dyes make cloth less useful. And if the value of dyestuffs, the expense of dyeing, and the damage done to cloth were all added together, and that cost applied to keeping everything fresh and clean, how much more real cleanliness would prevail!

Thinking often on these things, the use of hats and garments dyed with a dye harmful to them, and wearing more clothes in summer than are useful, grew more uneasy for me. I believe them to be customs that do not have their foundation in pure wisdom. The thought of being different from my beloved friends was a difficulty for me. Thus, I continued to use some things contrary to my judgment for about nine months. Then I thought of getting a hat the natural color of the fur. But the thought of being looked upon as someone trying to be different felt uneasy to me. On this account, I was under close mental struggle during our general spring meeting in 1762, greatly desiring to be rightly directed. Being deeply bowed in spirit before the Lord, I was made willing to submit to what I understood was required of me. When I returned home, I got a hat of the natural color of the fur.

In attending meetings, this singularity was a trial for me. This was especially true at this time because white hats were used by some who were fond of following changeable fashions, and because some friends, who did not know my motives for wearing it, grew shy of me. For a time, I felt my way was shut up in the exercise of my ministry. Some friends were worried that my wearing such a hat suggested an affected desire to be different. Those who spoke with me in a friendly way, I generally informed in a few words that I believed my wearing it was not of my own will.”

Withdrawing for Inner Harmony

When the craving for moral consistency and purity is developed to this degree, a person may well find the outer world too full of shocks to live in. They can unify their life and keep their soul unspotted only by withdrawing from it.

That law which pushes the artist to achieve harmony in their composition by simply removing whatever jars or suggests a conflict also rules in the spiritual life. Robert Louis Stevenson said that to omit is the one art in literature: “If I knew how to omit, I should ask no other knowledge.” And life, when full of disorder, slackness, and vague excess, can no more have what we call character than literature can under similar conditions.

So, monasteries and communities of like-minded devotees open their doors. In their unchanging order, characterized by omissions just as much as by actions, the holy-minded person finds that inner smoothness and cleanness. It is torture for them to feel this violated at every turn by the discord and brutality of secular existence.

Asceticism: A Deeper Look

It must be admitted that the scrupulous pursuit of purity can be carried to a fantastic extreme. In this, it resembles Asceticism, to which further symptom of saintliness we should now turn. The adjective “ascetic” is applied to conduct that originates on different psychological levels. I might as well begin by distinguishing these from one another.

Hardihood: Asceticism may be a mere expression of natural toughness, a disgust with too much ease.
Purity: Temperance in food and drink, simplicity in clothing, chastity, and generally not pampering the body may be results of a love of purity, shocked by anything that hints at the sensual.
Love and Sacrifice: These practices may also be fruits of love. That is, they may appeal to the person as sacrifices they are happy to make for the Deity they acknowledge.
Expiation: Ascetic self-punishments and torments may also be due to pessimistic feelings about oneself, combined with theological beliefs about making amends for sins. The devotee may feel they are buying their freedom, or escaping worse sufferings in the afterlife, by doing penance now.
Obsession: In individuals with psychological conditions, self-punishments may be undertaken irrationally, driven by a sort of obsession or fixed idea that comes as a challenge and must be acted out. Only by doing so does the person regain a sense of inner rightness.
Perverted Sensibility: Finally, ascetic exercises may in rarer instances be prompted by genuine perversions of bodily sensation, where stimuli that normally cause pain are actually felt as pleasures.

I will try to give an instance under each of these headings. However, it is not easy to find pure examples, because in cases clear enough to be immediately classed as ascetic, several of these motives usually work together. Moreover, before citing any examples at all, I must invite you to some general psychological considerations that apply to all of them.

Changing Attitudes Towards Pain

A strange moral transformation has swept over our Western world in the past century. We no longer think that we are called on to face physical pain with calm acceptance. It is not expected of a person that they should either endure it or inflict much of it. Listening to accounts of physical pain makes our skin crawl, morally as well as physically.

The way our ancestors looked upon pain as an eternal part of the world’s order, and both caused and suffered it as a matter-of-course part of their daily lives, fills us with amazement. We wonder that any human beings could have been so callous. The result of this historical change is that even in the Catholic Church itself, where ascetic discipline has such a fixed traditional prestige as a factor of spiritual merit, it has largely fallen out of use, if not into discredit. A believer who whips or “macerates” (harshly disciplines) themselves today arouses more wonder and fear than imitation. Many Catholic writers who admit that times have changed in this respect do so with resignation. Some even add that perhaps it is just as well not to waste feelings regretting the matter, because to return to the heroic physical discipline of ancient days might be an extravagance.

The Naturalness of Seeking Hardship

Where seeking the easy and the pleasant seems instinctive—and it does appear to be instinctive in humans—any deliberate tendency to pursue the hard and painful as such and for its own sake might well strike one as purely abnormal. Nevertheless, in moderate degrees, it is natural and even usual for human nature to seek out challenges. It is only the extreme manifestations of this tendency that can be regarded as a paradox.

The psychological reasons for this lie near the surface. When we drop abstract ideas and look at what we call our “will” in action, we see that it is a very complex function. It involves both stimulations and inhibitions. It follows generalized habits. It is accompanied by reflective criticisms. And it leaves a good or a bad taste of itself behind, depending on how it was performed.

The result is that, quite apart from the immediate pleasure any physical experience may give us, our own general moral attitude in seeking or undergoing the experience brings with it a secondary satisfaction or distaste. Some men and women, indeed, can live on smiles and the word “yes” forever. But for others (indeed for most), this is too mild and relaxed a moral climate. Passive happiness is slack and uninteresting, and soon grows overly sentimental and intolerable. Some austerity and wintry negativity, some roughness, danger, strictness, and effort, some “no! no!” must be mixed in to produce the sense of an existence with character, texture, and power.

The range of individual differences in this respect is enormous. But whatever the mixture of “yeses” and “noes” may be, a person is always aware when they have struck the right proportion for themselves. “This,” they feel, “is my proper calling, this is the best way, the rule, the life for me to live. Here I find the degree of balance, safety, calm, and leisure I need, or here I find the challenge, passion, fight, and hardship without which my soul’s energy dies.”

In short, every individual soul, like every individual machine or organism, has its own best conditions for efficiency. A given machine will run best under a certain steam pressure or electrical current. An organism will function best under a certain diet, weight, or amount of exercise. “You seem to do best,” I heard a doctor say to a patient, “at about 140 millimeters of arterial tension.” And it is just so with our various souls: some are happiest in calm weather; some need the sense of tension, of strong willpower, to make them feel alive and well. For these latter souls, whatever is gained from day to day must be paid for by sacrifice and inhibition, or else it comes too cheaply and has no excitement.

Now, when characters of this latter sort become religious, they are likely to turn the edge of their need for effort and negativity against their natural self. The ascetic life then develops as a consequence.

Examples of Ascetic Practices

When Professor Tyndall, in one of his lectures, tells us that Thomas Carlyle put him into his bathtub every morning of a freezing Berlin winter, he described one of the lowest grades of asceticism. Even without Carlyle, most of us find it necessary for our soul’s health to start the day with a rather cool immersion.

A little further along the scale, we get statements like this from one of my correspondents, an agnostic: “Often at night in my warm bed, I would feel ashamed to depend so on the warmth. Whenever the thought would come over me, I would have to get up, no matter what time of night it was, and stand for a minute in the cold, just to prove my manhood.”

Such cases as these simply belong to our first category (organic hardihood). In the next case, we probably have a mixture of categories 2 (love of purity) and 3 (sacrifices for a deity). The asceticism becomes far more systematic and pronounced. The writer is a Protestant whose sense of moral energy could doubtless be satisfied on no lower terms. I take his case from Starbuck’s collection: “I practiced fasting and mortification of the flesh (disciplining the body). I secretly made burlap shirts and put the rough side with the burrs next to my skin. I wore pebbles in my shoes. I would spend nights flat on my back on the floor without any covering.”

The Roman Church has organized and codified all this sort of thing and given it a market value in the shape of “merit.” But we see the cultivation of hardship appearing under every sky and in every faith, as a spontaneous need of character.

(Billy Bray’s story concludes:) “But, when we got on our knees again, I put another quid of tobacco into my mouth. Then the Lord said to me again, ‘Worship me with clean lips.’ So I took the quid out of my mouth and threw it under the bench again, and said, ‘Yes, Lord, I will.’ From that time, I gave up chewing as well as smoking, and have been a free man.”

Channing’s Simple Asceticism

The self-denying forms that the strong desire for truthfulness and purity can take are often quite moving. For example, we read of Channing, when he first became a Unitarian minister: He was now simpler than ever and seemed unable to indulge himself in any way. He took the smallest room in the house for his study, though he could easily have had one that was lighter, airier, and more suitable in every way. For his bedroom, he chose an attic which he shared with a younger brother. The furniture in the bedroom might have suited a hermit’s cell. It consisted of a hard mattress on a simple cot, plain wooden chairs and a table, with matting on the floor. It had no heating, and he was extremely sensitive to cold throughout his life. But he never complained or seemed to be aware of any inconvenience.

His brother recalled, “I remember after one very severe night, in the morning he jokingly referred to his suffering: ‘If my bed were my country, I should be somewhat like Bonaparte: I have no control except over the part I occupy; the instant I move, frost takes possession.’” Only when he was sick would he temporarily change his room and accept a few comforts. The clothes he habitually wore were also of very poor quality. He constantly wore garments that the world would call shabby, though an almost feminine neatness kept him from looking neglected.

Channing’s asceticism, such as it was, was clearly a mix of natural hardiness and a love of purity. The democratic spirit, which comes from a love for humanity (and which I will discuss later under the topic of the “cult of poverty”), probably also played a part. Certainly, there was no pessimistic element in his case.

John Cennick: Asceticism from Fear and Pessimism

In the next case, we see a strong pessimistic element, so it belongs under our fourth category of asceticism (due to pessimistic self-feelings and theological beliefs about atonement). John Cennick was Methodism’s first lay preacher. In 1735, while walking in London, he became deeply convinced of his sinfulness: At once, he stopped singing popular songs, playing cards, and going to theaters. Sometimes he wished to go to a Catholic monastery to spend his life in devout retirement. At other times, he longed to live in a cave, sleeping on fallen leaves and eating forest fruits. He fasted long and often and prayed nine times a day. Believing that dry bread was too much of an indulgence for such a great sinner as himself, he began to eat potatoes, acorns, crabs, and grass. He often wished he could live on roots and herbs. Finally, in 1737, he found peace with God and went on his way rejoicing.

In this poor man, we see a morbid sadness and fear. The sacrifices he made were to cleanse himself of sin and to buy safety. The hopelessness of some Christian theological views regarding the flesh and the natural human state has, by organizing fear, made it a tremendous incentive for self-mortification. However, it would be quite unfair to call this a purely selfish or “mercenary” incentive, even though this fear has often been used in a manipulative way for preaching purposes. The initial impulse to atone and do penance is far too immediate and spontaneous an expression of self-despair and anxiety to deserve such criticism.

Loving Sacrifice: The Curé of Ars

In the form of loving sacrifice, of spending all we have to show our devotion, ascetic discipline of the severest kind can be the result of highly optimistic religious feeling. M. Vianney, the curé (parish priest) of Ars, was a French country priest whose holiness was exemplary. We read in his biography the following account of his inner need for sacrifice: “‘On this path,’ M. Vianney said, ‘it is only the first step that costs. There is in mortification (self-denial) a soothing balm and a special flavor. Once one has experienced them, one cannot live without them. There is but one way to give oneself to God—that is, to give oneself entirely, and to keep nothing for oneself. The little that one keeps is only good to cause trouble and make one suffer.’

Accordingly, he made it a rule for himself that he should never smell a flower, never drink when parched with thirst, never drive away a fly, never show disgust before a repulsive object, never complain about anything related to his personal comfort, never sit down, and never lean on his elbows when he was kneeling. The Curé of Ars was very sensitive to cold, but he would never take steps to protect himself from it. During a very severe winter, one of his fellow priests cleverly built a false floor in his confessional and placed a metal case of hot water underneath. The trick worked, and the Saint was deceived. ‘God is very good,’ he said with emotion. ‘This year, through all the cold, my feet have always been warm.’”

In this case, the spontaneous impulse to make sacrifices for the pure love of God was probably the main conscious motive. We can class this, then, under our third category (fruits of love). Some authors think that the impulse to sacrifice is the main religious phenomenon. It is certainly a prominent and universal phenomenon, and it lies deeper than any special creed.

Cotton Mather: A Spontaneous Sacrifice

Here, for instance, is what seems to be a spontaneous example of it, simply expressing what seemed right at the time between an individual and his Maker. Cotton Mather, the New England Puritan minister, is generally considered a rather eccentric scholar. Yet, what is more touchingly simple than his account of what happened when his wife was dying? “When I saw to what a point of resignation I was now called by the Lord,” he says, “I resolved, with His help, to glorify Him in it. So, two hours before my lovely wife died, I kneeled by her bedside. I took into my two hands her dear hand, the dearest in the world. With her hand thus in mine, I solemnly and sincerely gave her up to the Lord. As a token of my real resignation, I gently put her hand out of mine and laid away a most lovely hand, resolving that I would never touch it more. This was the hardest, and perhaps the bravest, action I ever did. She… told me that she signed and sealed my act of resignation. And though before that she called for me continually, after this, she never asked for me any more.”

The Spirit of Asceticism

Father Vianney’s asceticism, taken as a whole, was simply the result of a permanent flood of high spiritual enthusiasm, longing to prove itself. The Roman Church, in its incomparable way, has collected all the motives for asceticism and codified them. Anyone wishing to pursue Christian perfection can find a practical system mapped out for them in any one of a number of ready-made manuals. The dominant Church idea of perfection is, of course, the negative one: avoiding sin. Sin comes from strong desires (concupiscence), and these desires come from our carnal passions and temptations. The chief among these are pride, sensuality in all its forms, and the loves of worldly excitement and possessions. All these sources of sin must be resisted. Discipline and austerities are a most effective way to combat them. Hence, these books always have chapters on self-mortification.

But whenever a procedure is codified, its more delicate spirit evaporates. If we want the undiluted ascetic spirit – the passion of self-contempt acting itself out on the poor flesh, the divine irrationality of devotion making a sacrificial gift of all it has (namely, its sensibilities) to the object of its adoration – we must go to autobiographies or other individual documents.

Saint John of the Cross: The Path of Nothingness

Saint John of the Cross, a Spanish mystic who lived (one can hardly say “flourished,” as there was little that suggested flourishing about him) in the sixteenth century, provides a passage suitable for our purpose.

“First of all, carefully cultivate in yourself a habitual, affectionate will to imitate Jesus Christ in all things. If anything agreeable offers itself to your senses, yet does not at the same time purely promote the honor and glory of God, renounce it. Separate yourself from it for the love of Christ, who all his life long had no other taste or wish than to do the will of his Father, whom he called his food and nourishment. For example, you take satisfaction in hearing things in which the glory of God plays no part. Deny yourself this satisfaction; mortify your wish to listen. You take pleasure in seeing objects that do not raise your mind to God: refuse yourself this pleasure, and turn away your eyes. Do the same with conversations and all other things. Act similarly, as far as you are able, with all the operations of the senses, striving to make yourself free from their control.

The radical remedy lies in the mortification of the four great natural passions: joy, hope, fear, and grief. You must seek to deprive these of every satisfaction and leave them, as it were, in darkness and emptiness. Let your soul, therefore, always turn:

Not to what is easiest, but to what is hardest.
Not to what tastes best, but to what is most distasteful.
Not to what most pleases, but to what disgusts.
Not to matters of consolation, but rather to matters for desolation.
Not to rest, but to labor.
Not to desire more, but less.
Not to aspire to what is highest and most precious, but to what is lowest and most contemptible.
Not to will anything, but to will nothing.
Not to seek the best in everything, but to seek the worst, so that you may enter, for the love of Christ, into complete destitution, perfect poverty of spirit, and an absolute renunciation of everything in this world.

Embrace these practices with all the energy of your soul, and you will find in a short time great delights and unspeakable consolations.

Despise yourself, and wish that others should despise you.
Speak to your own disadvantage, and desire others to do the same.
Conceive a low opinion of yourself, and find it good when others hold the same.

To enjoy the taste of all things, have no taste for anything. To know all things, learn to know nothing. To possess all things, resolve to possess nothing. To be all things, be willing to be nothing. To get to where you have no taste for anything, go through whatever experiences you have no taste for. To learn to know nothing, go where you are ignorant. To reach what you do not possess, go wherever you own nothing. To be what you are not, experience what you are not.”

These later verses play with that dizziness of self-contradiction which is so dear to mysticism. Those that come next are completely mystical, for in them Saint John passes from God to the more metaphysical notion of the All:

“When you stop at one thing, you cease to open yourself to the All. For to come to the All, you must give up the All. And if you should attain to owning the All, you must own it by desiring Nothing. In this emptying, the soul finds its tranquility and rest. Profoundly established in the center of its own nothingness, it can be attacked by nothing that comes from below. And since it no longer desires anything, what comes from above cannot depress it; for its desires alone are the causes of its woes.”

Suso’s Extreme Self-Tortures

And now, as a more concrete example of our fourth and fifth categories of asceticism (expiation and obsession), in fact of all our categories together, and of the irrational extreme to which a psychologically disturbed individual may go in bodily austerity, I will quote the sincere Suso’s account of his own self-tortures. Suso, you will remember, was one of the fourteenth-century German mystics. His autobiography, written in the third person, is a classic religious document.

“He was, in his youth, of a temperament full of fire and life. When this began to make itself felt, it was very grievous to him. He sought by many devices how he might bring his body into subjection. He wore for a long time a hair shirt and an iron chain, until the blood ran from him, so that he was obliged to stop wearing them.

He secretly had an undergarment made for him. In the undergarment, he had strips of leather fixed, into which a hundred and fifty brass nails, pointed and filed sharp, were driven. The points of the nails were always turned towards his flesh. He had this garment made very tight and arranged to go around him and fasten in front, so that it might fit closer to his body and the pointed nails might be driven into his flesh. It was high enough to reach upwards to his navel. In this, he used to sleep at night.

Now in summer, when it was hot, and he was very tired and ill from his journeys, or when he held the office of lecturer, he would sometimes, as he lay thus in bonds, oppressed with toil, and tormented also by noxious insects, cry aloud and give way to fretfulness. He would twist round and round in agony, as a worm does when run through with a pointed needle. It often seemed to him as if he were lying upon an ant-hill from the torture caused by the insects; for if he wished to sleep, or when he had fallen asleep, they competed with one another to bite him. Sometimes he cried to Almighty God in the fullness of his heart: ‘Alas! Gentle God, what a dying is this! When a man is killed by murderers or strong beasts of prey, it is soon over; but I lie dying here under the cruel insects, and yet cannot die.’

The nights in winter were never so long, nor was the summer so hot, as to make him leave off this exercise. On the contrary, he devised something further: two leather loops into which he put his hands, and fastened one on each side of his throat. He made the fastenings so secure that even if his cell had been on fire around him, he could not have helped himself. This he continued until his hands and arms had become almost shaky with the strain.

Then he devised something else: two leather gloves. He had a metalworker fit them all over with sharp-pointed brass tacks. He used to put them on at night so that if he should try while asleep to throw off the hair undergarment, or relieve himself from the gnawings of the vile insects, the tacks might then stick into his body. And so it happened. If ever he sought to help himself with his hands in his sleep, he drove the sharp tacks into his breast and tore himself, so that his flesh festered. When after many weeks the wounds had healed, he tore himself again and made fresh wounds.

He continued this tormenting exercise for about sixteen years. At the end of this time, when his blood had now chilled, and the fire of his temperament was destroyed, a messenger from heaven appeared to him in a vision on Whitsunday (Pentecost). The messenger told him that God required this of him no longer. Whereupon he discontinued it and threw all these things away into a running stream.”

Suso then tells how, to imitate the sorrows of his crucified Lord, he made himself a cross with thirty protruding iron needles and nails. This he wore on his bare back between his shoulders day and night. “The first time that he stretched out this cross upon his back, his tender frame was struck with terror at it, and he blunted the sharp nails slightly against a stone. But soon, repenting of this womanly cowardice, he pointed them all again with a file and once more placed the cross upon him. It made his back, where the bones are, bloody and raw. Whenever he sat down or stood up, it was as if a hedgehog-skin were on him. If anyone touched him unawares, or pushed against his clothes, it tore him.”

Suso next tells of his penances by means of striking this cross and forcing the nails deeper into his flesh, and likewise of his self-whippings—a dreadful story—and then goes on as follows: “At this same period, the Servitor (Suso) procured an old, castaway door. He used to lie upon it at night without any bedclothes to make him comfortable, except that he took off his shoes and wrapped a thick cloak around him. He thus secured for himself a most miserable bed. Hard pea-stalks lay in humps under his head, the cross with the sharp nails stuck into his back, his arms were locked fast in bonds, the horsehair undergarment was around his loins, and the cloak too was heavy and the door hard. Thus he lay in wretchedness, afraid to stir, just like a log, and he would send up many a sigh to God.

In winter, he suffered very much from the frost. If he stretched out his feet, they lay bare on the floor and froze. If he gathered them up, the blood felt like it was on fire in his legs, and this was great pain. His feet were full of sores, his legs swollen with fluid (dropsical), his knees bloody and raw, his loins covered with scars from the horsehair garment, his body wasted, his mouth parched with intense thirst, and his hands shaky from weakness. Amid these torments, he spent his nights and days. He endured them all out of the greatness of the love which he bore in his heart to the Divine and Eternal Wisdom, our Lord Jesus Christ, whose agonizing sufferings he sought to imitate.

After a time, he gave up this penitential exercise of the door. Instead of it, he took up his abode in a very small cell and used the bench, which was so narrow and short that he could not stretch himself upon it, as his bed. In this hole, or upon the door, he lay at night in his usual bonds for about eight years. It was also his custom, during the space of twenty-five years, provided he was staying in the convent, never to go after evening prayers (compline) in winter into any warm room, or to the convent stove to warm himself, no matter how cold it might be, unless he was obliged to do so for other reasons. Throughout all these years, he never took a bath, either a water bath or a sweat bath. This he did in order to mortify his comfort-seeking body. He practiced such rigid poverty for a long time that he would neither receive nor touch a penny, either with permission or without it.”

(Suso’s story of self-discipline concludes:) “For a considerable time, he strove to attain such a high degree of purity that he would neither scratch nor touch any part of his body, except only his hands and feet.”

I will spare you the details of poor Suso’s self-inflicted tortures from thirst. It is pleasant to know that after his fortieth year, God showed him through a series of visions that he had sufficiently broken down his natural self, and that he could stop these exercises. His case is clearly pathological (related to mental or physical illness). However, he does not seem to have had the relief, which some ascetics have enjoyed, of a change in sensibility that could actually turn torment into a perverse kind of pleasure.

Of the founder of the Sacred Heart order, for example, we read that: “Her love of pain and suffering was insatiable… She said that she could cheerfully live until the day of judgment, provided she might always have things to suffer for God; but that to live a single day without suffering would be intolerable. She said again that she was consumed by two unquenchable fevers: one for holy communion, the other for suffering, humiliation, and self-annihilation. ‘Nothing but pain,’ she continually said in her letters, ‘makes my life bearable.’”

So much for the phenomena that the ascetic impulse will lead to in certain people.

Obedience and Poverty in Religious Life

In the formally consecrated religious character, three minor branches of self-mortification have been recognized as essential paths to perfection. I am referring to the chastity, obedience, and poverty which a monk vows to observe. I will make a few remarks on obedience and poverty.

Obedience

First, let’s discuss Obedience. The secular life of our twentieth century (the author was writing in the early 20th century) begins with this virtue not being held in high regard. On the contrary, the duty of the individual to determine their own conduct and to benefit or suffer from the consequences seems to be one of our most deeply rooted contemporary Protestant social ideals. This is so much the case that it is difficult even to imagine how people with an inner life of their own could ever have come to think that subjecting their will to that of other finite creatures was a good idea. I confess that to me, it seems something of a mystery. Yet, it clearly corresponds to a profound inner need in many people, and we must do our best to understand it.

Practical Reasons: On the most basic level, one can see how the usefulness of obedience in a well-organized religious institution must have led to it being seen as praiseworthy.
Need for Counsel: Next, experience shows that there are times in everyone’s life when one can be better advised by others than by oneself. Inability to decide is one of the commonest symptoms of fatigued nerves. Friends who see our troubles more broadly often see them more wisely than we do. So, it is frequently an act of excellent virtue to consult and obey a doctor, a partner, or a spouse.
Spiritual Self-Surrender: But leaving these lower, practical reasons, we find good reasons for idealizing obedience in the nature of some of the spiritual excitements we have been studying. Obedience may spring from the general religious phenomenon of inner softening, self-surrender, and throwing oneself on higher powers. These attitudes are felt to be so beneficial that they become ideally sacred in themselves, apart from any utility. In obeying a person whose fallibility we see clearly, we may nevertheless feel much as we do when we resign our will to that of infinite wisdom.
Ascetic Sacrifice: Add self-despair and the passion for self-crucifixion to this, and obedience becomes an ascetic sacrifice. It becomes agreeable quite apart from whatever practical uses it might have.

Catholic writers primarily see obedience as a sacrifice – a “sacrifice which man offers to God, and of which he is himself both the priest and the victim. By poverty, he sacrifices his external possessions; by chastity, he sacrifices his body; by obedience, he completes the sacrifice and gives to God all that he still holds as his own: his two most precious goods, his intellect and his will. The sacrifice is then complete and unreserved, a genuine holocaust (a complete burnt offering), for the entire victim is now consumed for the honor of God.”

Accordingly, in Catholic discipline, one obeys a superior not as a mere man, but as the representative of Christ. By intending to obey God through him, obedience becomes easy. But when textbook theologians list all their reasons for recommending it, the mixture sounds rather odd to our ears.

A Jesuit authority says: “One of the great consolations of the monastic life is the assurance we have that in obeying, we can commit no fault. The Superior may commit a fault in commanding you to do this thing or that, but you are certain that you commit no fault as long as you obey. This is because God will only ask you if you have duly performed the orders you received. If you can provide a clear account in that respect, you are completely absolved. Whether the things you did were appropriate, or whether there was not something better that might have been done – these are questions not asked of you, but rather of your Superior. The moment what you did was done obediently, God wipes it out of your account and charges it to the Superior. So that Saint Jerome well exclaimed, in celebrating the advantages of obedience, ‘Oh, sovereign liberty! Oh, holy and blessed security by which one becomes almost incapable of sin!’

Saint John Climachus shares the same sentiment when he calls obedience an excuse before God. In fact, when God asks why you have done this or that, and you reply, ‘It is because I was so ordered by my Superiors,’ God will ask for no other excuse. Just as a passenger in a good vessel with a good pilot need not concern himself further, but may go to sleep in peace because the pilot is in charge of everything and ‘watches for him’; so a religious person who lives under the yoke of obedience goes to heaven as if while sleeping. That is, they lean entirely on the guidance of their Superiors, who are the pilots of their vessel and keep watch for them continually. It is no small thing, truly, to be able to cross the stormy sea of life on the shoulders and in the arms of another. Yet that is just the grace which God grants to those who live under the yoke of obedience. Their Superior bears all their burdens… A certain respected doctor said that he would rather spend his life picking up straws out of obedience than, by his own responsible choice, busy himself with the loftiest works of charity. This is because one is certain of following the will of God in whatever one may do from obedience, but never certain in the same degree of anything which we may do of our own accord.”

Ignatius Loyola on Obedience

One should read the letters in which Ignatius Loyola recommends obedience as the backbone of his order to gain insight into the full spirit of its cultivation. They are too long to quote, but Ignatius’s belief is so vividly expressed in a couple of sayings reported by companions that, though they have been cited so often, I will ask your permission to copy them once more:

An early biographer reports him as saying: “On entering religion, and thereafter, I ought to place myself entirely in the hands of God, and of him who takes His place by His authority. I ought to desire that my Superior should require me to give up my own judgment and conquer my own mind. I ought to set up no difference between one Superior and another… but recognize them all as equal before God, whose place they fill. For if I distinguish persons, I weaken the spirit of obedience. In the hands of my Superior, I must be like soft wax, a thing from which he is to require whatever pleases him, be it to write or receive letters, to speak or not to speak to such a person, or the like. I must put all my passion into executing zealously and exactly what I am ordered. I must consider myself as a corpse which has neither intelligence nor will; be like a mass of matter which without resistance lets itself be placed wherever it may please anyone; like a stick in the hand of an old man, who uses it according to his needs and places it where it suits him. So must I be under the hands of the Order, to serve it in the way it judges most useful. I must never ask the Superior to be sent to a particular place, or to be employed in a particular duty… I must consider nothing as belonging to me personally. Regarding the things I use, I must be like a statue which lets itself be stripped and never opposes resistance.”

The other saying is reported by Rodriguez in the chapter from which I quoted a moment ago. When speaking of the Pope’s authority, Rodriguez writes: “Saint Ignatius said, when general of his company, that if the Holy Father were to order him to set sail in the first boat he might find in the port of Ostia, near Rome, and to abandon himself to the sea, without a mast, without sails, without oars or rudder or any of the things that are needful for navigation or subsistence, he would obey. He would do so not only with eagerness, but without anxiety or reluctance, and even with great internal satisfaction.”

An Extreme Example of Obedience

With one solitary, concrete example of the extravagance to which the virtue we are considering has been carried, I will pass to the next topic. “Sister Marie Claire [of Port Royal] had been greatly impressed with the holiness and excellence of M. de Langres. This prelate (high-ranking cleric), soon after he came to Port Royal, said to her one day, seeing her so tenderly attached to Mother Angélique, that it would perhaps be better not to speak to her again. Marie Claire, eager for obedience, took this inconsiderate word for an oracle of God. From that day forward, she remained for several years without once speaking to her sister (Mother Angélique).”

Poverty

Our next topic shall be Poverty, felt at all times and under all creeds as one adornment of a saintly life. Since the instinct of ownership is fundamental in human nature, this is one more example of the ascetic paradox. Yet it appears no paradox at all, but perfectly reasonable, the moment one remembers how easily higher excitements hold lower desires in check.

Having just quoted the Jesuit Rodriguez on the subject of obedience, I will, to give an immediate concrete turn to our discussion of poverty, also read you a page from his chapter on this latter virtue. You must remember that he is writing instructions for monks of his own order and bases them all on the text, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”

Rodriguez says: “If any one of you will know whether or not he is really poor in spirit, let him consider whether he loves the ordinary consequences and effects of poverty. These are hunger, thirst, cold, fatigue, and the lack of all conveniences. See if you are glad to wear a worn-out habit full of patches. See if you are glad when something is lacking from your meal, when you are passed by in serving it, when what you receive is distasteful to you, when your cell is out of repair. If you are not glad of these things, if instead of loving them you avoid them, then there is proof that you have not attained the perfection of poverty of spirit.”

Rodriguez then goes on to describe the practice of poverty in more detail: “The first point is that which Saint Ignatius proposes in his constitutions, when he says, ‘Let no one use anything as if it were his private possession.’ ‘A religious person,’ he says, ‘ought, in respect to all the things that he uses, to be like a statue which one may drape with clothing, but which feels no grief and makes no resistance when one strips it again. It is in this way that you should feel towards your clothes, your books, your cell, and everything else that you make use of. If ordered to quit them, or to exchange them for others, have no more sorrow than if you were a statue being uncovered. In this way, you will avoid using them as if they were your private possession. But if, when you give up your cell, or yield possession of this or that object or exchange it for another, you feel reluctance and are not like a statue, that shows that you view these things as if they were your private property.’

And this is why our holy founder wished the superiors to test their monks somewhat as God tested Abraham. He wanted them to put their poverty and their obedience to trial, that by this means they may become acquainted with the degree of their virtue, and gain a chance to make ever further progress in perfection… making one move out of his room when he finds it comfortable and is attached to it; taking away from another a book of which he is fond; or obliging a third to exchange his garment for a worse one. Otherwise, we should end by acquiring a species of property in all these several objects, and little by little the wall of poverty that surrounds us and constitutes our principal defense would be thrown down.

The ancient fathers of the desert used often to treat their companions this way… Saint Dositheus, being a sick-nurse, desired a certain knife and asked Saint Dorotheus for it, not for his private use, but for employment in the infirmary of which he had charge. Whereupon Saint Dorotheus answered him: ‘Ha! Dositheus, so that knife pleases you so much! Will you be the slave of a knife or the slave of Jesus Christ! Do you not blush with shame at wishing that a knife should be your master? I will not let you touch it.’ This reproach and refusal had such an effect upon the holy disciple that since that time he never touched the knife again…

Therefore, in our rooms,” Father Rodriguez continues, “there must be no other furniture than a bed, a table, a bench, and a candlestick – things purely necessary, and nothing more. It is not allowed among us that our cells should be ornamented with pictures or anything else; neither armchairs, carpets, curtains, nor any sort of cabinet or bureau of any elegance. Neither is it allowed us to keep anything to eat, either for ourselves or for those who may come to visit us. We must ask permission to go to the refectory even for a glass of water. And finally, we may not keep a book in which we can write a line, or which we may take away with us. One cannot deny that thus we are in great poverty. But this poverty is at the same time a great repose and a great perfection. For it would be inevitable, if a religious person were allowed to own superfluous possessions, that these things would greatly occupy his mind, be it to acquire them, to preserve them, or to increase them. So, in not permitting us at all to own them, all these inconveniences are remedied. Among the various good reasons why the company forbids secular persons to enter our cells, the principal one is that thus we may the easier be kept in poverty. After all, we are all men, and if we were to receive people of the world into our rooms, we should not have the strength to remain within the prescribed bounds, but should at least wish to adorn them with some books to give the visitors a better opinion of our scholarship.”

The Universal Ideal of Poverty

Since Hindu fakirs, Buddhist monks, and Mohammedan dervishes unite with Jesuits and Franciscans in idealizing poverty as the loftiest individual state, it is worthwhile to examine the spiritual grounds for such a seemingly unnatural opinion. And first, let’s look at those grounds which lie closest to common human nature.

The opposition between “people who have things” and “people who are something” is ancient. Though the gentleman, in the old-fashioned sense of a well-born man, has usually in fact been acquisitive and enjoyed lands and goods, he has never identified his essence with these possessions. Instead, he identified it with personal superiorities – the courage, generosity, and pride supposed to be his birthright. He thanked God he was forever above certain “huckstering” kinds of considerations. If life’s ups and downs should make him poor through lack of these possessions, he was glad to think that with his sheer valor, he was all the freer to work out his salvation. “He who merely had something,” says Lessing’s Knight Templar in Nathan the Wise, “my God, my God, I have nothing!”

This ideal of the well-born man without possessions was embodied in knight-errantry and the Knight Templars. Hideously corrupted as it has always been, it still sentimentally, if not practically, dominates the military and aristocratic view of life. We glorify the soldier as the man who is absolutely unencumbered. Owning nothing but his bare life, and willing to toss that up at any moment when the cause commands him, he represents unhampered freedom in ideal directions.

The laborer, who pays with his person day by day and has no rights invested in the future, also offers much of this ideal detachment. Like the savage, he may make his bed wherever his right arm can support him. From his simple and athletic attitude of observation, the property-owner seems buried and smothered in ignoble external things and constraints, “wading in straw and rubbish to his knees.” The claims which things make are corrupters of manhood, mortgages on the soul, and a drag anchor on our progress towards higher realms.

George Whitefield writes: “Everything I meet with seems to carry this voice with it—‘Go thou and preach the Gospel; be a pilgrim on earth; have no party or certain dwelling place.’ My heart echoes back, ‘Lord Jesus, help me to do or suffer thy will. When thou seest me in danger of nestling—in pity—in tender pity—put a thorn in my nest to prevent me from it.’”

The loathing of “capital” with which our laboring classes today are growing more and more infected seems largely composed of this sound sentiment of antipathy for lives based on mere having.

An anarchist poet writes: “Not by accumulating riches, but by giving away what you have, Shall you become beautiful; You must undo the wrappings, not cover yourself in fresh ones; Not by multiplying clothes shall you make your body sound and healthy, but rather by discarding them… For a soldier who is going on a campaign does not seek what new furniture he can carry on his back, but rather what he can leave behind; Knowing well that every additional thing which he cannot freely use and handle is a hindrance.”

In short, lives based on having things are less free than lives based either on doing things or on being a certain way. In their pursuit of spiritual excitement, people often throw away possessions, seeing them as mere burdens or “clogs.” Only those who have no private interests can follow an ideal path directly. Laziness and cowardice creep in with every dollar or piece of gold we have to protect.

When a young monk came to Saint Francis, saying: “Father, it would be a great comfort to me to own a psalter (a book of psalms). But even if our leader allowed me this, I should still like to have your consent,” Francis discouraged him. He used examples of great heroes like Charlemagne, Roland, and Oliver, who pursued their enemies with sweat and hard work, finally dying on the battlefield. “So,” he said, “do not care for owning books and knowledge, but care rather for works of goodness.”

Some weeks later, the young monk came again to talk about his strong desire for the psalter. Francis said: “After you have your psalter, you will crave a breviary (a prayer book). And after you have your breviary, you will sit in your chair like a grand church official and will say to your brother: ‘Hand me my breviary.’” From then on, Francis denied all such requests, saying: “A man possesses only as much learning as comes out of him in action. A monk is a good preacher only as far as his deeds proclaim him such, for every tree is known by its fruits.”

The Deeper Meaning of Not Having: Absolute Surrender

But beyond this more admirable “athletic” attitude involved in doing and being, there is something even more profound in the desire not to have things. It is related to that fundamental mystery of religious experience: the satisfaction found in absolute surrender to the larger power.

As long as any worldly safeguard is kept, as long as any remaining practical guarantee is clung to, the surrender is incomplete. The vital crisis point is not passed, fear still stands guard, and mistrust of the divine continues. We are holding on with two anchors: looking to God, it is true, in a way, but also holding on to our own plans and schemes.

We see the same critical point to overcome in certain medical experiences. A drunkard, or someone addicted to morphine or cocaine, offers himself to be cured. He appeals to the doctor to wean him from his enemy, but he dares not face complete abstinence. The tyrannical drug is still an anchor he relies on. He hides supplies of it among his clothing or secretly arranges to have it smuggled in if needed.

Similarly, a person who is not completely transformed by religious experience still trusts in their own resources. Their money is like the sleeping potion that the chronic insomniac keeps beside his bed. He throws himself on God, but if he should need the other help, it will be there too. Everyone knows cases of this incomplete and ineffective desire for reform – drunkards who, despite all their self-reproaches and resolutions, are clearly quite unwilling to seriously imagine never being drunk again.

Really to give up anything on which we have relied – to give it up definitely, “for good and all” and forever – signifies one of those radical alterations of character that we discussed in the lectures on conversion. In it, the inner person rolls over into an entirely different position of balance. From this time on, they live from a new center of energy. The turning point and hinge of all such operations usually seems to involve the sincere acceptance of certain “nakednesses” and deprivations.

The Call to Complete Sacrifice

Accordingly, throughout the records of saintly life, we find this ever-recurring theme: Fling yourself upon God’s providence without holding anything back. Take no thought for tomorrow. Sell all you have and give it to the poor. Only when the sacrifice is ruthless and reckless will the higher safety truly arrive.

As a concrete example, let me read a page from the biography of Antoinette Bourignon. She was a good woman, much persecuted in her day by both Protestants and Catholics because she would not take her religion second-hand. When she was a young girl in her father’s house: She spent whole nights in prayer, often repeating: “Lord, what do you want me to do?” One night, being in a state of most profound repentance, she said from the bottom of her heart: “O my Lord! What must I do to please you? For I have nobody to teach me. Speak to my soul, and it will hear you.”

At that instant, she heard, as if another person spoke within her: “Forsake all earthly things. Separate yourself from the love of created beings. Deny yourself.” She was quite astonished, not understanding this language, and thought for a long time about these three points, wondering how she could fulfill them. She thought she could not live without earthly things, nor without loving created beings, nor without loving herself. Yet she said, “By your Grace, I will do it, Lord!”

But when she tried to perform her promise, she did not know where to begin. Having thought about nuns in monasteries – that they forsook all earthly things by being shut up in a cloister, and forsook the love of themselves by subjecting their wills – she asked her father for permission to enter a cloister of the barefoot Carmelites. But he would not permit it, saying he would rather see her in her grave. This seemed a great cruelty to her, for she thought she would find in the cloister the true Christians she had been seeking. But she found out afterwards that he knew the cloisters better than she did.

After he had forbidden her and told her he would never permit her to be a nun, nor give her any money to enter there, she still went to Father Laurens, the Director. She offered to serve in the monastery and work hard for her food, and be content with little, if he would receive her. At this, he smiled and said: “That cannot be. We must have money to build; we take no maids without money. You must find the way to get it, or else there is no entry here.”

This astonished her greatly. She was thereby disillusioned about the cloisters. She resolved to forsake all company and live alone until it should please God to show her what she ought to do and where to go. She always asked earnestly, “When shall I be perfectly yours, O my God?” And she thought He still answered her, “When you shall no longer possess anything, and shall die to yourself.” “And where shall I do that, Lord?” He answered her, “In the desert.”

This made such a strong impression on her soul that she longed for this. But being a maid of only eighteen years, she was afraid of unfortunate accidents. She was never used to travel and knew no roads. She laid aside all these doubts and said, “Lord, you will guide me how and where it shall please you. It is for you that I do it. I will lay aside my maid’s clothing and will take that of a hermit so that I may pass unknown.”

Having then secretly prepared this hermit’s habit, while her parents thought to marry her (her father having promised her to a rich French merchant), she acted before the planned time. On Easter evening, having cut her hair, she put on the habit, slept a little, and went out of her chamber around four in the morning. She took nothing but one penny to buy bread for that day. And as she was going out, a voice seemed to say to her, “Where is your faith? In a penny?” She threw it away, begging pardon of God for her fault, and saying, “No, Lord, my faith is not in a penny, but in you alone.”

Thus, she went away, wholly delivered from the heavy burden of the cares and good things of this world. She found her soul so satisfied that she no longer wished for anything on earth, resting entirely upon God. Her only fear was that she should be discovered and be obliged to return home. For she already felt more content in this poverty than she had ever felt in all her life amidst all the delights of the world.

The penny was a small financial safeguard, but an effective spiritual obstacle. Not until it was thrown away could her character settle into the new equilibrium completely.

Other Mysteries in the Vow of Poverty

Over and above the mystery of self-surrender, there are other religious mysteries in the “cult of poverty” (the high regard for poverty).

There is the mystery of truthfulness: “Naked I came into the world,” etc. Whoever first said that possessed this mystery. My own bare self must fight the battle – shams cannot save me.
There is also the mystery of democracy, or the feeling of the equality before God of all His creatures. This sentiment (which seems generally to have been more widespread in Mohammedan than in Christian lands) tends to cancel out humanity’s usual desire to acquire things. Those who have it reject dignities and honors, privileges and advantages, preferring, as I said in a former lecture, to humble themselves to the common level before the face of God. It is not exactly the sentiment of humility, though it comes so close to it in practice. It is humanity, rather, refusing to enjoy anything that others do not share.

A profound moralist, writing of Christ’s saying, “Sell all you have and follow me,” explains it as follows: “Christ may have meant: If you love mankind absolutely, as a result you will not care for any possessions whatever. This seems a very likely proposition. But it is one thing to believe that a proposition is probably true; it is another thing to see it as a fact. If you loved mankind as Christ loved them, you would see his conclusion as a fact. It would be obvious. You would sell your goods, and they would be no loss to you. These truths, while literal to Christ and to any mind that has Christ’s love for mankind, become parables to lesser natures. There are in every generation people who, beginning innocently, with no predetermined intention of becoming saints, find themselves drawn into this way of life by their interest in helping mankind, and by the understanding that comes from actually doing it. The abandonment of their old mode of life is like dust in the balance – it weighs very little. It is done gradually, incidentally, almost without noticing. Thus, the whole question of abandoning luxury is no question at all, but merely a minor part of another question: namely, the degree to which we abandon ourselves to the relentless logic of our love for others.”

Understanding from Experience

But in all these matters of sentiment, one must have “been there” oneself in order to understand them. No American can ever truly understand the loyalty of a Briton towards his king, or of a German towards his emperor. Nor can a Briton or German ever understand the peace of heart of an American in having no king, no Kaiser, no artificial nonsense, between him and the common God of all.

If sentiments as simple as these are mysteries that one must receive as gifts of birth, how much more is this the case with those subtler religious sentiments we have been considering! One can never fathom an emotion or understand its commands by standing outside of it. In the glowing hour of excitement, however, all incomprehensible things are solved. What was so puzzling from the outside becomes transparently obvious.

Each emotion obeys a logic of its own and makes deductions that no other logic can draw. Piety and charity live in a different universe from worldly desires and fears. They form another center of energy altogether. Just as in a supreme sorrow, lesser annoyances may become a comfort, or as a supreme love may turn minor sacrifices into gains, so a supreme trust may make common safeguards seem hateful. And in certain moments of generous excitement, it may appear unspeakably mean to hold onto personal possessions.

The only sound plan, if we ourselves are outside the circle of such emotions, is to observe as well as we can those who feel them, and to record faithfully what we observe. This, I need hardly say, is what I have tried to do in these last two descriptive lectures, which I now hope will have covered the ground sufficiently for our present needs.

For example, one person shared: “Temptations from the outside still attack me, but there is nothing inside me that responds to them.” In this case, the person’s sense of self is completely identified with their higher, spiritual centers. These centers feel like they are on the “inside.” Another person said: “Since then, although Satan tempts me, there is, as it were, a wall of brass around me, so that his attacks cannot touch me.”

Unquestionably, these kinds of functional changes – where certain connections are effectively cut off – must occur in the brain. But from the perspective of someone looking inward at their own experience, the cause of these changes is nothing but the high degree of spiritual excitement. This excitement eventually becomes so strong that it takes complete control. We must frankly admit that we do not know exactly why or how such control comes about in one person and not in another. We can only give our imagination a certain, possibly misleading, help by using mechanical analogies.

An Analogy: The Tipping Solid

Imagine, for example, that the human mind, with its different possibilities for balance, is like a many-sided solid object. This solid has different flat surfaces on which it can rest. We could then compare mental transformations to this solid object tipping from one surface to another.

Let’s say the solid is lying on surface A. As it is pried up from this position, perhaps by a lever, it will linger for a time unstably halfway up. If the lever stops pushing it, the solid will tumble back, or “relapse,” under the continued pull of gravity, landing back on surface A.

But if the solid is finally rotated far enough so that its center of gravity passes beyond surface A altogether, it will fall over onto a new surface, let’s say surface B. It will then stay there permanently. The pulls of gravity that were trying to pull it back to surface A have vanished. They can now be disregarded. The many-sided solid has become immune to further attraction from that original direction.

Applying the Analogy to Personal Change

In this figure of speech:

The lever can represent the emotional influences that push for a new way of life.
The initial pull of gravity can represent the old drawbacks and inhibitions that hold a person back.

As long as the emotional influence (the lever) fails to reach a certain level of effectiveness, the changes it produces are unstable. The person then relapses into their original attitude (surface A).

But when the new emotion reaches a certain intensity, a critical point is passed. Then, an irreversible change occurs. This is like the solid falling onto a new surface (B) and staying there. It is equivalent to the creation of a new nature in the person.

THE VALUE OF SAINTLINESS

We’ve looked at the main things people consider to be the results of true religion. We’ve also looked at the qualities of deeply religious people. Now, instead of just describing these things, we need to evaluate them. We have to ask: can these results help us understand the real value that religion brings to human life? Our main topic will be a careful examination of saintliness.

The Challenge of Evaluating Saintliness

It would be much easier to explore this topic if we could approach it like some religious scholars. For instance, some theologians start with fixed definitions of what humans are, what makes a person perfect, and clear beliefs about God. If we used that approach, evaluating would be simple.

Their View of Perfection: In such a system, a person’s main goal would be to achieve perfection. Perfection would mean becoming united with God, their Creator.
Paths to Union: They believe people could reach this union with God in three main ways:
1. Through active service.
2. Through purifying oneself.
3. Through deep thought and contemplation.
Easy Measurement: It would be simple to measure someone’s progress on these paths. We would just use a limited set of religious and moral ideas and definitions.
Clear Answers: With such a system, the true importance and value of any religious experience would seem clear, almost like solving a math problem.

Why We Can’t Use the “Easy” Method

If being convenient was our top priority, we might feel sad that we can’t use such a straightforward method. However, we deliberately chose a different path. In our first discussion, we decided to use the empirical method – an approach based on looking at actual experiences.

Because we chose this path, we have to accept that our results won’t be perfectly neat or fit into strict academic boxes.

No Sharp Divisions: We can’t neatly divide people into an “animal” part and a “rational” part.
Natural vs. Supernatural: We can’t always tell the difference between natural events and supernatural ones.
Good vs. Evil Influence: Even if something seems supernatural, we can’t know for sure if it’s a gift from God or a trick from an evil force.

Instead, our approach is to:

Gather information about various experiences without a pre-set religious system.
Make many small judgments about the value of each experience.
Use our general philosophies, our instincts, and our common sense as our only guides for these judgments.
Decide, on the whole, whether a certain type of religion is good based on its results, or if another type should be condemned.

I realize that saying “on the whole” might not satisfy everyone. Practical people often use this kind of language, but those who prefer perfectly organized systems find it frustrating.

Our Method: Not Random, But Based on Experience

I also understand that by admitting this, some of you might think I’m just guessing or being random. You might believe that such a flexible method can only lead to skepticism or arbitrary choices. So, let me say a few things to defend this approach and further explain the principles of relying on experience.

Do We Need to Believe in God to Judge Religion’s Fruits?

At first glance, it might seem illogical to try to measure the value of a religion’s results using only human standards. How can you judge these results without first deciding if the God who supposedly inspires them actually exists?

If God Exists: If this God is real, then any actions people take to meet God’s expectations must be reasonable outcomes of that religion. These actions would only be unreasonable if God didn’t exist.
Example: Sacrifices: Imagine you disapprove of a religion that involves human or animal sacrifices because it goes against your personal feelings. If there really was a god demanding those sacrifices, you would be making a mistake by assuming that god doesn’t exist. You would be creating your own religious theory, just like a traditional philosopher.

So, to a certain extent, we do have to make some basic assumptions, almost like theologians. If we strongly disbelieve in certain kinds of gods, then our common sense, instincts, and general beliefs are guiding our “theology.” This happens whenever these guides make us reject particular beliefs as unacceptable.

How Our Standards Evolve

However, these common-sense beliefs and instincts are themselves products of human experience over time. It’s striking how people’s moral and religious ideas change as they learn more about nature and as their societies develop.

Changing Views of God: After a few generations, new ideas about God emerge that make older concepts seem outdated. The gods that satisfied people in the past may no longer seem believable because they don’t fit with current understanding.
Example: Cruel Deities: Today, a god who demanded bloody sacrifices to be appeased would seem too brutal to be taken seriously. Even if there was strong historical evidence for such a god, we probably wouldn’t accept it.
Past Acceptance of Cruelty: In contrast, there was a time when a god’s cruel demands were seen as proof of power. In ages when only harsh signs of strength were respected and understood, these traits actually made such gods more appealing to people’s imaginations. Deities like that were worshipped because people valued those kinds of “fruits” or results.

While historical accidents surely played a role later on, the original reason for how people imagined their gods was likely psychological. The prophets, seers, and devoted followers who started a particular religion found personal value in the deity they worshipped.

Gods Were Useful: This deity guided their thoughts, supported their hopes, and helped control their actions. Or, they needed this god to protect them from evil forces and to control the bad behavior of others.
Chosen for Their Value: In any case, they chose their god based on the good results or “fruits” they believed this god provided.
When Fruits Become Worthless: As soon as these results started to seem worthless, the god began to lose credibility. This happened if the results:
- Clashed with essential human ideals.
- Interfered too much with other important values.
- Seemed childish, ridiculous, or immoral when people thought about them carefully.
Forgotten Gods: Eventually, such a discredited deity would be neglected and forgotten.

This is how educated people in ancient Greece and Rome stopped believing in their gods. It’s also how we today often evaluate Hindu, Buddhist, and Islamic theologies. Protestants have viewed Catholic ideas about God this way, and more liberal Protestants have done the same with older Protestant ideas. This is how people in China might judge Western religions, and how all of us living now will be judged by future generations. When we stop admiring or approving of what a particular idea of God involves, we eventually find that God unbelievable.

The Shifting Nature of Belief

Few changes in history are more interesting than these shifts in theological opinions. For example, our ancestors were so used to the idea of kings having absolute power that they almost expected their God to be somewhat cruel and arbitrary.

Cruelty as Justice: They called this cruelty “retributive justice.” A God who wasn’t capable of such harshness might have seemed not powerful or “sovereign” enough to them.
Modern Disapproval: But today, we find the idea of eternal suffering horrifying. The concept of God randomly choosing some individuals for salvation and others for damnation – an idea that someone like Jonathan Edwards not only believed but found “delightful,” “exceeding pleasant, bright, and sweet” – seems to us incredibly irrational and unfair, if anything.

It’s not just the cruelty of gods believed in by earlier generations that surprises later ones; it’s also how petty or trivial their characters sometimes seem. We’ll see examples of this from the history of Catholic saints that might make modern Protestants uncomfortable.

Ritual Worship: To many modern thinkers who favor a more spiritual or very plain form of religion, ritual worship can seem like it’s directed at a childish god. They see a deity who delights in things like toy-store decorations, candles, fancy fabrics, special costumes, mumbled prayers, and elaborate ceremonies, and who somehow feels more “glorious” because of them.
Different Preferences: On the other hand, people who prefer rituals find the vast, formless ideas of pantheism (God is everything) to be empty. Similarly, the simple, stark beliefs of some evangelical groups can seem unpleasantly bare and uninspiring to them.
Luther’s Potential Reaction: Emerson once said that Martin Luther (a key figure in the Protestant Reformation) would have rather cut off his own hand than post his famous theses if he had known they would lead to the bland, watered-down beliefs of Boston Unitarianism (a liberal Christian denomination).

So, even though we try to be empirical (basing our views on experience), we are forced to use some kind of our own standard for what seems theologically likely whenever we try to evaluate the results of other people’s religions. However, this very standard has grown out of the general course of human life. It is the voice of collective human experience within us, judging and rejecting any gods that block the path along which humanity feels it is moving forward. Experience, in its broadest sense, is the source of those disbeliefs that some accused of being inconsistent with an experience-based method. You see, the inconsistency isn’t a real problem, and we can ignore that criticism.

Positive Beliefs and Human Needs

When we move from disbeliefs to positive beliefs, I don’t think there’s even a superficial inconsistency with our method. The gods we believe in are the gods we need and can find useful. They are the gods whose demands on us reinforce the positive demands we place on ourselves and on each other.

Therefore, what I plan to do is simple:

Test saintliness using common sense.
Use human standards to help us decide how much the religious life can be recommended as an ideal way for humans to live.

If it seems good: Then any theological beliefs that inspire such a life will, to that extent, be considered valid.
If it doesn’t seem good: Then those beliefs will be discredited. All of this will be done by looking only at practical human principles. It’s like applying the idea of “survival of the fittest” to religious beliefs – keeping what is humanly fit and discarding what is not. If we look at history honestly and without bias, we have to admit that no religion has ever established itself or proven its worth in the long run in any other way.

Religions have proven themselves by meeting various important human needs that already existed. When a religion clashed too strongly with other needs, or when new faiths came along that met the same needs better, the older religions were replaced.

The needs were always varied, and the ways of testing them were never precise. So, the criticism that our empirical method is vague, subjective, and relies on “on the whole” judgments is a criticism that applies to all of human life when dealing with these complex matters. No religion has ever become widespread because of absolute, undeniable proof. Later, I will discuss whether logical theological arguments can ever add objective certainty to a religion that is already widely accepted based on experience.

A Note on Skepticism

One more point about the criticism that by following this kind of empirical method, we are simply giving in to systematic skepticism (constant doubting).

It’s impossible to deny that our feelings and needs change over time and across cultures. Therefore, it would be absurd to claim that one’s own era has reached a point of understanding that future generations cannot improve upon. So, no group of thinkers can completely rule out skepticism as a possibility that might challenge their conclusions. No one who relies on experience should claim to be exempt from this universal uncertainty.

However, admitting that your current understanding might need correction in the future is very different from deliberately choosing to doubt everything. We cannot be accused of intentionally promoting skepticism.

Acknowledging Imperfection: Someone who recognizes that their tools (their methods of understanding) are not perfect, and who takes that into account when discussing their observations, is in a much better position to find truth than someone who claims their tools are infallible.
Is Dogmatic Theology Less Doubted? Does claiming to be absolutely undeniable actually make traditional, dogmatic theology any less doubted in reality? Probably not.
What Would Be Lost? What would this kind of theology really lose if, instead of claiming absolute certainty, it only claimed that its conclusions were reasonably probable?

If we only claim reasonable probability, that’s as much as anyone who loves truth can realistically hope to achieve at any given moment. It’s almost certainly more truth than we would have if we weren’t aware of our potential to be wrong.

Nevertheless, those who prefer rigid, unchanging beliefs (dogmatism) will likely continue to criticize us for admitting this. The mere appearance of unshakeable certainty is so important to some people that openly giving it up is unthinkable for them. They will claim certainty even when the facts clearly show it’s foolish.

But the safest approach is surely to recognize that all the insights of temporary beings like ourselves must be provisional – open to revision. The wisest critic is always learning and changing, subject to better understanding tomorrow. At any given moment, they are right only “up to date” and “on the whole.” When wider truths become known, it’s surely best to be open to accepting them, without being held back by our previous claims of knowing everything. As Emerson said, “Heartily know, when half-gods go, the gods arrive.” (Meaning: when lesser ideas depart, truer ones can emerge.)

Diverse Judgments Are Unavoidable

The fact that people have different judgments about religious matters is therefore completely unavoidable, no matter how much someone might want to find an irreversible, final truth.

But beyond that, there’s a more fundamental question: Should we even expect everyone’s opinions in this area to be exactly the same?

Should all people have the same religion?
Should they all approve of the same religious outcomes and follow the same spiritual paths?
Are people so similar in their inner needs that everyone – whether tough or gentle, proud or humble, energetic or laid-back, optimistic or despairing – requires exactly the same religious motivations?

Or, is it possible that different types of people have different roles to play in the larger system of humanity? Perhaps some people genuinely benefit more from a religion that offers comfort and reassurance, while others are better suited to one that inspires awe, or even fear and correction. This might very well be the case, and I think we will increasingly suspect it is true as we continue our discussion.

And if it is true, how can any judge or critic avoid being biased in favor of the religion that best meets their own personal needs? They might strive for impartiality, but they are too involved in the struggle not to be a participant to some extent. They are bound to most warmly approve of those religious results in others that they personally find most appealing and beneficial.

A Plea for Patience with This Method

I am well aware that much of what I’m saying might sound chaotic or like it undermines the very idea of truth, especially when I express it so abstractly and briefly. But I ask you to hold off on your judgment until we see how this method applies to the specific details we are about to examine.

I truly do not believe that we, or any other humans, can achieve absolutely perfect and unchangeable truth on any given day about the kinds of factual matters that religions deal with. But I reject this ideal of absolute, dogmatic certainty not because I enjoy intellectual instability or chaos. I am not a lover of disorder and doubt for their own sake.

Rather, I fear losing hold of truth by pretending we already possess all of it. I believe as much as anyone that we can gain more and more truth by always moving in the right direction. I hope to bring all of you to my way of thinking by the end of these talks. Until then, please do not close your minds completely against the empirical approach I am advocating.

I will not spend any more time trying to justify my method in abstract terms. Instead, let’s start applying it directly to the facts.

Individual Religion vs. Institutional Religion

When critically judging the value of religious phenomena, it’s very important to insist on the difference between religion as an individual, personal experience and religion as an institutional, corporate, or tribal product. I mentioned this distinction in my second lecture.

The word “religion,” as people commonly use it, can mean different things. A look at history shows that, typically, religious geniuses (highly influential religious figures) attract followers. These followers then form groups of like-minded people.

Growth of Institutions: When these groups become strong enough to get organized, they often turn into official religious institutions with their own organizational goals and ambitions.
Corruption Creeps In: At this point, the spirit of politics and the desire for strict, dogmatic control can easily enter and spoil the original, innocent nature of the religious impulse.
“Religion” Means “Church” to Many: This is why when we hear the word “religion” today, we almost automatically think of some “church” or organized religious body.
Negative View of “Church”: For some people, the word “church” brings to mind so much hypocrisy, tyranny, pettiness, and stubborn superstition that they broadly and indiscriminately declare they are “against” religion altogether. Even those of us who belong to a church often criticize other churches besides our own.

However, in these lectures, we are hardly concerned with official religious institutions at all. The religious experience we are studying is the kind that unfolds within a person’s private heart and mind.

This kind of firsthand, individual experience has always seemed like a radical, even heretical, innovation to those who first witnessed it. It comes into the world raw and alone. For a time at least, it has always driven the person who has it into a kind of wilderness – often a literal, physical wilderness. This was the case for figures like Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, St. Francis, George Fox, and many others.

George Fox, a founder of the Quaker movement, expressed this sense of isolation well. At this point, the best thing I can do is read to you a page from his journal. It refers to the period of his youth when religion began to stir powerfully within him:

“I fasted much,” Fox says, “walked abroad in solitary places many days, and often took my Bible, and sat in hollow trees and lonesome places until night came on; and frequently in the night walked mournfully about by myself; for I was a man of sorrows in the time of the first workings of the Lord in me.”

Here is George Fox’s own account of his early spiritual journey:

“During all this time, I never joined any particular religious group. Instead, I dedicated myself completely to the Lord. I had left behind all bad company. I said goodbye to my father, mother, and all other relatives. I traveled around like a stranger on earth, going wherever the Lord led my heart.

In each town I came to, I would rent a room for myself. Sometimes I stayed longer, sometimes shorter. I didn’t dare stay too long in one place. I was afraid of both religious people (professors) and non-religious people (profane). I was a tender young man, and I worried I might be harmed by talking too much with either group.

Because of this, I mostly kept to myself, like a stranger. I was seeking heavenly wisdom and knowledge from the Lord. I was guided away from focusing on external things and learned to rely only on the Lord.

Just as I had left the official priests, I also left the independent preachers and those considered the most experienced religious people. I saw that none of them could truly understand or speak to my spiritual condition.

When all my hopes in them and in everyone else were gone, I had nothing external to help me. I didn’t know what to do. Then, oh then, I heard a voice that said, ‘There is one, Jesus Christ, who can speak to your condition.’

When I heard that, my heart leaped for joy. Then the Lord showed me why no one on earth could speak to my condition. I didn’t have fellowship with any group—not priests, not official church members, nor any separate religious groups. I was afraid of all superficial or worldly talk and talkers, because I saw corruption everywhere.

When I was in my deepest despair, feeling trapped and shut down, I couldn’t believe I would ever overcome my problems. My troubles, sorrows, and temptations were so great that I often thought I would lose all hope; I was so tempted.

But then Christ showed me how he himself was tempted by the same devil and had overcome him. Christ had crushed the devil’s head. He showed me that through him and his power, life, grace, and spirit, I too would overcome. This gave me confidence in him.

Even if I had a king’s rich food, a palace, and servants, it all would have meant nothing to me. Nothing gave me comfort except the Lord through his power. I saw that the religious leaders, priests, and ordinary people were comfortable and at ease in the very spiritual state that was causing me misery. They loved what I wanted to get rid of. But the Lord focused my desires on himself, and I cast all my worries on him alone.”

The Fate of First-Hand Religious Experience

A genuine, personal religious experience like the one George Fox described is bound to seem like an unconventional or different belief (a heterodoxy) to those who witness it. The person having the experience, the prophet, might appear to others as just a lonely, perhaps crazy, individual.

From Innovation to Heresy: If their new ideas and teachings prove popular enough to spread to others, they soon get labeled as a definite heresy – a belief that goes against an established religious system.
From Heresy to Orthodoxy: But if these ideas continue to spread, overcome persecution, and eventually become dominant, then the heresy itself becomes the new orthodoxy – the accepted, standard belief.
The Dry Spring of Orthodoxy: When a religion becomes an established orthodoxy, its period of deep, personal spiritual experience is often over. The original source of inspiration, like a spring, runs dry. The followers then tend to live their faith “second-hand,” relying on established rules and doctrines. Ironically, they may then be the ones who criticize or “stone” new prophets and innovators.
Institutions and Spontaneity: The new church, despite any human goodness it may encourage, can often be counted on to try to suppress any new, spontaneous expressions of religious spirit. It may try to stop any fresh “bubblings” from the original fountain of inspiration from which it once drew its own life.
Co-opting New Movements: There is an exception: sometimes an established religious institution can cleverly adopt new spiritual movements. It might take them over and use them to further its own organizational goals and power. The history of the Roman Catholic Church’s dealings with many individual saints and prophets provides plenty of examples of this kind of strategic action, whether decided on quickly or slowly.

Religion and Worldly Matters

The plain fact is that people’s minds often work in separate compartments. They can be religious in one way, yet still have many other things in their lives besides their religion. Unholy connections and associations inevitably develop.

Misplaced Blame: The bad things often blamed on religion are usually not the fault of true religion itself. Instead, they are more often due to religion’s “wicked practical partner”: the spirit of corporate dominion. This is the desire of organized groups for power and control.
The Problem of Dogmatism: Similarly, bigotry and intolerance are mostly chargeable to religion’s “wicked intellectual partner”: the spirit of dogmatic dominion. This is the passion for laying down strict laws in the form of an absolutely closed-off system of theories.
The Ecclesiastical Spirit: The general spirit of organized religious institutions (the ecclesiastical spirit) is often a combination of these two desires for control – control over people and control over beliefs.

I urge you never to confuse the behaviors that come from this kind of tribal or corporate psychology with the genuine expressions of a purely personal, inner spiritual life. The purely inner life is the exclusive focus of our study.

Atrocities in Religion’s Name: Tribal Instinct, Not Piety

Actions like persecuting Jews, hunting down groups like the Albigenses and Waldenses, stoning Quakers, dunking Methodists, murdering Mormons, and massacring Armenians are not primarily expressions of the positive religious feeling (piety) of the perpetrators.

Instead, these acts much rather express:

A basic human fear of new or unfamiliar things (neophobia).
The aggressive tendencies that we all still have to some degree.
An inborn hatred of people who are different, eccentric, or don’t conform, viewing them as dangerous outsiders.

In these cases, piety is the mask; the inner driving force is tribal instinct. For example, think of the German emperor addressing his troops with Christian-sounding words as they were on their way to China (referring to the Boxer Rebellion). You probably believe, as I do, that the conduct he suggested – and which other “Christian” armies sometimes surpassed in brutality – had absolutely nothing to do with the inner religious life of the soldiers involved.

Piety’s Role: Failure to Check Passions?

So, we shouldn’t hold genuine piety responsible for such atrocities, past or present. At most, we can blame piety for:

Failing to effectively check our natural human passions and negative impulses.
Sometimes providing hypocritical excuses for bad behavior.

However, even hypocrisy creates certain obligations. The excuse usually comes with some kind of restriction on behavior. And when the intense wave of passion is over, religious feeling might lead to a reaction of repentance and a desire to make amends. A non-religious person, driven only by natural impulses, might not show this kind of repentance.

Religion’s Liability: Over-Zealousness

So, religion as such is not to blame for many of the historical wrongdoings attributed to it. However, we cannot completely excuse religion from the charge that over-zealousness or fanaticism is one of its potential downsides. I will discuss this point next.

But first, a preliminary remark that connects to much of what will follow.

The Impression of Extravagance in Saintliness

Our review of the lives and characteristics of saints has likely given you an impression of extravagance. As we looked at one example after another, some of you may have asked: Is it really necessary to be so fantastically good?

A More Moderate Path?: Most of us don’t feel called to the most extreme forms of holiness. We probably hope that we’ll be accepted on the “last day” even if our humility, self-discipline (asceticism), and devotion are less intense or dramatic.
Admire, But Not Imitate?: This practically means that while we can legitimately admire much in the lives of saints, we don’t necessarily have to imitate all of it.
The Golden Mean: Religious expressions, like all other human phenomena, seem to be subject to the “law of the golden mean” – the idea that balance is best, and extremes can be problematic.

Think about other fields:

Political reformers often achieve their goals by temporarily focusing only on their specific cause, ignoring others.
Great schools of art develop their unique styles and reveal important truths at the cost of being one-sided, a one-sidedness that other schools later compensate for.

We accept figures like John Howard (prison reformer), Mazzini (Italian nationalist), Botticelli (painter), or Michelangelo (artist) with a kind of understanding. We are glad they existed to show us their particular way of doing things. But we are also glad that there are other ways of seeing and living life.

The same applies to many of the saints we have examined. We can be proud that human nature is capable of such passionate extremes. However, we might hesitate to advise others to follow their exact example. The kind of good behavior we usually blame ourselves for not following is often closer to a middle path of human effort. It depends less on particular beliefs or doctrines. It’s the kind of behavior that holds up well in different eras and that reasonable judges from different cultures can all commend.

Corruption by Excess

In other words, the “fruits” of religion, like all human products, can be corrupted if taken to an extreme. Common sense must be our judge. We don’t necessarily need to blame the deeply devoted person (the votary). But we may only be able to praise them conditionally, recognizing them as someone who acts faithfully according to their own understanding and light. They show us heroism in one specific way. However, the unconditionally good way is one that doesn’t require us to make excuses or allowances for its extremes.

Error by Excess: The Lack of Balance in Saintly Virtues

We find that every saintly virtue can lead to error if taken to an extreme. In human abilities, “excess” usually means one-sidedness or a lack of balance.

It’s hard to imagine an essential human ability being “too strong,” if other abilities are equally strong to cooperate with it and ensure balanced action.

Strong emotions need a strong will to manage them.
Strong abilities for action need a strong intellect to guide them.
A strong intellect needs strong empathy and compassion to keep life steady and humane.

If this balance exists, no single faculty can really be too strong; what results is simply a stronger, more well-rounded character.

In the lives of saints (those technically called saints), their spiritual faculties are undeniably strong. However, what often gives the impression of extravagance or extremism usually turns out, on closer examination, to be a relative deficiency of intellect or a lack of broader understanding.

Spiritual excitement can take unhealthy, even pathological, forms whenever:

A person has too few other interests.
Their intellect or understanding is too narrow or limited.

We see this pattern with all the saintly attributes in turn:

Devout love of God
Purity
Charity
Asceticism (self-discipline)

All of these can lead a person astray if they become unbalanced. Let’s look at these virtues one by one.

Devoutness and Its Pitfall: Fanaticism

First, let’s consider Devoutness. When devoutness becomes unbalanced, one of its negative outcomes is called Fanaticism.

Fanaticism (when it’s not just a cover for an organization’s ambition for power) is simply loyalty taken to a convulsive, unhealthy extreme.

Here’s how it can develop:

An intensely loyal person with a narrow mind becomes convinced that a certain superhuman being (or deity) is worthy of their exclusive devotion.
One of the first things that happens is that they begin to idealize the act of devotion itself. Adequately appreciating the “idol” (the object of worship) becomes the worshiper’s greatest achievement.
The sacrifices and extreme acts of submission, similar to how ancient tribes showed faithfulness to their chieftains, are now directed towards the deity, often in even more extreme forms.
- People exhaust vocabularies and even change languages trying to praise the deity enough.
- Death is seen as a gain if it attracts the deity’s grateful attention.
- Being a devotee becomes almost like a new, highly respected professional specialty within the group.

The legends and extraordinary stories that grow around the lives of holy people are products of this powerful impulse to celebrate and glorify them. Figures like the Buddha, Mohammed, their companions, and many Christian saints are covered in a heavy layer of anecdotes. These stories are meant to honor them, but many are simply tasteless (or insipid) and silly. They form a touching, though often misguided, expression of humanity’s tendency to praise.

Jealousy for the Deity’s Honor

An immediate consequence of this fanatical state of mind is an intense jealousy for the deity’s honor. How can devotees show their loyalty better than by being extremely sensitive in this regard?

The slightest perceived insult or neglect must be strongly resented.
The deity’s enemies must be shamed and defeated.

In people with exceedingly narrow minds but very active wills, this concern can become an all-consuming preoccupation. Crusades have been preached and massacres have been instigated for no other reason than to remove some imagined slight against God.

Theologies that portray gods as being very concerned with their own glory, and churches with expansionist or imperialistic policies, have often worked together to fuel this aggressive temper. As a result, intolerance and persecution have become vices that some of us automatically associate with the “saintly” mind. These are, without a doubt, its most common and dangerous sins.

The Cruelty of Moral Partisanship: The saintly temper is a moral temper. And a strong moral temper often has to be cruel to enforce its standards. It is a partisan temper (taking sides strongly), and that too can lead to cruelty.
- King David in the Bible saw no difference between his enemies and God’s enemies.
- Catherine of Siena, desperate to stop the wars among Christians in her time, could think of no better way to unite them than a crusade to massacre the Turks.
- Martin Luther offered no words of protest or regret over the horrific tortures used to execute Anabaptist leaders (a rival Protestant group).
- Oliver Cromwell praised God for delivering his enemies into his hands for “execution.”

Politics plays a role in all such cases, but religious feeling (piety) often finds this partnership with political power quite natural. So, when “freethinkers” (skeptics or critics of religion) tell us that religion and fanaticism are like twins, we cannot completely deny the charge.

Fanaticism, then, must be marked down as a negative aspect of religion, especially as long as the religious person’s understanding of God is that of a despotic ruler who demands honor. However, as soon as God is imagined as being less focused on personal honor and glory, fanaticism ceases to be such a pressing danger.

The Theopathic Condition: Devotion Without Breadth

Fanaticism is typically found in characters who are masterful and aggressive. But what about gentle characters?

In gentle individuals, where devoutness is intense but the intellect is weak or undeveloped, we find a different kind of imbalance. This is an imaginative absorption in the love of God that excludes all practical human interests. While this state might be innocent enough, it’s too one-sided to be truly admirable.

A mind that is too narrow has room for only one kind of dominant affection. When the love of God takes complete possession of such a mind, it tends to expel all human loves and practical concerns. There isn’t a common English name for this sweet but excessive form of devotion, so I will refer to it as a theopathic condition.

Example: Margaret Mary Alacoque

The blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque can serve as an example of this. Her biographer wrote enthusiastically: “To be loved here on earth, to be loved by a noble, elevated, distinguished being; to be loved with fidelity, with devotion—what enchantment! But to be loved by God! And loved by him to distraction! Margaret melted away with love at the thought of such a thing. Like Saint Philip of Neri or Saint Francis Xavier before her, she would say to God: ‘Hold back, O my God, these torrents which overwhelm me, or else enlarge my capacity to receive them.’”

The most significant proofs of God’s love that Margaret Mary received were her hallucinations of sight, touch, and hearing. The most notable among these were the revelations of Christ’s sacred heart. She described it as “surrounded with rays more brilliant than the Sun, and transparent like a crystal. The wound which he received on the cross visibly appeared upon it. There was a crown of thorns round about this divine Heart, and a cross above it.”

At the same time, Christ’s voice told her that he could no longer contain the flames of his love for mankind. He had chosen her, by a miracle, to spread the knowledge of this love. He then, according to her account, took out her mortal heart, placed it inside his own, set it aflame, and then put it back in her breast, adding: “Until now, you have taken the name of my slave; from now on, you shall be called the well-beloved disciple of my Sacred Heart.”

In a later vision, the Savior revealed to her in detail the “great design” he wished to establish through her: “I ask of you to bring it about that every first Friday after the week of Holy Sacrament shall be made into a special holy day for honoring my Heart. This should be done by a general communion and by services intended to make honorable amends for the indignities which it has received. And I promise you that my Heart will expand to shed with abundance the influences of its love upon all those who pay it these honors, or who bring it about that others do the same.”

Her biographer, Monsignor Bougaud, stated: “This revelation is unquestionably the most important of all the revelations which have illumined the Church since that of the Incarnation and of the Lord’s Supper… After the Eucharist, it is the supreme effort of the Sacred Heart.”

Well, what were the good results of these experiences in Margaret Mary’s life? Apparently, little else but sufferings, prayers, mental absences, swoons, and ecstasies. She became increasingly useless in the practical life of the convent. Her absorption in Christ’s love: “…grew upon her daily, making her more and more incapable of attending to external duties. They tried her in the infirmary, but without much success, although her kindness, zeal, and devotion were without bounds, and her charity rose to acts of such heroism that our readers would not bear to hear them described. They tried her in the kitchen, but were forced to give it up as hopeless—everything dropped out of her hands. The admirable humility with which she made amends for her clumsiness could not prevent this from being damaging to the order and regularity that must always exist in a community. They put her in the school, where the little girls cherished her and cut pieces out of her clothes (for relics) as if she were already a saint, but where she was too inwardly absorbed to pay the necessary attention. Poor dear sister, even less after her visions than before them was she a denizen of earth, and they had to leave her in her heaven.”

Poor dear sister, indeed! She was amiable and good. But her intellectual outlook was so feeble that it would be too much to ask those of us with a modern, Protestant-influenced education to feel anything but indulgent pity for the kind of saintship she represents.

A Lower Example: Saint Gertrude

An even lower example of this kind of theopathic saintliness is that of Saint Gertrude. She was a Benedictine nun in the thirteenth century. Her “Revelations,” a well-known mystical text, consist mainly of what she perceived as proofs of Christ’s special favoritism towards her, an undeserving person.

Her writings are filled with assurances of Christ’s love, intimate moments, caresses, and compliments of the most absurd and childish sort, all addressed by Christ to Gertrude as an individual. This forms the very fabric of her rather small-minded account.

In reading such a narrative, we keenly realize the vast gap between the thirteenth and the twentieth centuries. We feel that saintliness of character can produce almost completely worthless results if it is associated with such an inferior or limited intellectual understanding of the world.

With the influence of science, modern philosophical idealism, and democratic values, our own imagination has grown to need a God of an entirely different temperament. We are no longer content with the idea of a Being interested exclusively in handing out personal favors to specific individuals – the kind of God with whom our ancestors were so contented.

Because we deeply care about social justice today, a God who only wants praise and gives special treatment to a few favorites doesn’t seem very grand or worthy of our admiration. As a result, even the most famous saints from past centuries can seem strangely superficial and not very inspiring if their holiness was tied to this kind of small-minded idea of God.

The Case of Saint Teresa

Take Saint Teresa, for example. In many ways, she was one of the most capable women whose life story we know. She had a powerful, practical mind. She wrote excellent descriptions of human psychology. She possessed a strong will that could handle any emergency. She had great talent for politics and business, a cheerful personality, and a first-rate writing style. She was persistently ambitious and dedicated her entire life to her religious ideals.

Yet, from our modern point of view, her religious goals seem so insignificant. I confess that (although I know others have different reactions) when I read her writings, my main feeling has been pity. I feel sorry that such a lively and capable soul spent her energy on what seem like such minor goals.

Despite the sufferings she went through, there’s a curious sense of superficiality about her genius. An anthropologist from Birmingham, Dr. Jordan, divided the human race into two types: “shrews” and “non-shrews.”

The shrew-type is defined as having an “active, unimpassioned temperament.” In simpler terms, shrews are “doers” or “motors” rather than deep “feelers” or “sensories.” Their outward expressions are usually more energetic than the feelings that seem to be behind them.

As strange as it sounds, Saint Teresa was a typical “shrew” in this sense. The constant busyness of her writing style, as well as her life, proves it. Not only did she feel she had to receive unheard-of personal favors and spiritual blessings from her Savior, but she also had to immediately write about them. She needed to use them professionally and leverage her expertise to instruct those less privileged.

Consider these traits, which are typical of this “shrewd” nature:

She talked a lot about herself (her voluble egotism).
She focused on her specific “faults” and “imperfections” (in the plural), rather than expressing a deep sense of being fundamentally sinful, as truly contrite people often do.
Her expressions of humility seemed routine. She would repeatedly state her “confusion” at each new sign of God’s special favor for someone as “unworthy” as herself.

Someone with truly deep feelings would likely be overwhelmed with gratitude and remain quiet about such experiences, lost in the objective wonder of it.

It’s true she had some public concerns; she hated the Lutherans and longed for the church to triumph over them. But mostly, her idea of religion seems to have been like an endless romantic flirtation – if I can say that respectfully – between the devotee and the deity. Apart from helping younger nuns follow this same path through her example and teaching, she offered little of practical human benefit or showed much concern for broader human issues.

Yet, the spirit of her time, far from criticizing her, praised her as superhuman.

Saintship Based on Merits: A Small-Minded God?

We have to make a similar judgment about the whole idea of achieving sainthood based on “merits” or good deeds. Any God who, on one hand, cares enough to keep a fussy, detailed record of every individual’s small mistakes, and on the other hand, shows such favoritism and showers particular people with bland or uninspiring signs of special treatment, is simply too small-minded a God for us to believe in today.

When Martin Luther, in his immensely strong and manly way, swept aside the very notion of God keeping a debit and credit account with individuals, he expanded the soul’s imagination. He saved religious thought from seeming childish.

So much for the idea of mere devotion when it’s separated from the kind of intellectual understanding that could guide it toward producing genuinely useful human benefits.

Excess in Purity: Withdrawing from the World

The next saintly virtue where we find excess is Purity. For people who are intensely devoted but have a narrow focus (the “theopathic” types we discussed earlier), the love of God must be pure and not mixed with any other love. Family members like fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, and even friends are often felt as interfering distractions.

This is because when extreme sensitiveness and narrowness of mind occur together (as they often do), these individuals above all need a simplified world to live in comfortably. Variety and confusion are too much for their ability to adapt.

There are two ways such individuals achieve this simplification:

The aggressive pietist tries to achieve unity in the world around them by forcibly stamping out disorder and differences.
The retiring pietist achieves unity subjectively. They leave the disorder in the wider world as it is, but they create a smaller, personal world for themselves from which they eliminate all complexity.

So, alongside the “church militant” (the fighting church) with its prisons, forced conversions (dragonnades), and inquisitions, we also have what we might call the “church fugient” (the fleeing or withdrawing church). This includes hermitages, monasteries, and various sectarian organizations. Both types of churches are pursuing the same goal: to unify life and simplify the scene presented to the soul.

A mind that is extremely sensitive to inner discords will drop one external relationship or activity after another because they interfere with the mind’s absorption in spiritual things.

Amusements must go first.
Then conventional “society.”
Then business concerns.
Then family duties. Eventually, the only thing that can be tolerated is seclusion, with the day strictly divided into hours for specific religious acts. The lives of saints are often a history of giving up one complexity after another. One form of contact with the outer world is dropped after another to save the purity of their inner spiritual state.

A young sister once asked her Superior, “Is it not better that I should not speak at all during the hour of recreation, so as not to run the risk, by speaking, of falling into some sin of which I might not be conscious?”

If life remains social at all within these groups, those who take part must follow one identical, strict rule. Surrounded by this monotony, the person zealous for purity feels clean and free once more. The level of detailed uniformity maintained in certain religious communities, whether they are monasteries or not, is almost unimaginable to an ordinary person living in the world. Costumes, ways of speaking, schedules, and habits are absolutely stereotyped. There’s no doubt that some people are made in such a way that they find an incomparable kind of mental rest in this stability.

Extreme Purification: Saint Louis of Gonzaga

We don’t have time for many examples, so let’s look at the case of Saint Louis of Gonzaga. He can serve as a type of excess in purification. I think you’ll agree that this young man carried the elimination of external and “discordant” things to a point that we cannot fully admire.

His biographer tells us that at the age of ten: “The inspiration came to him to consecrate his own virginity to the Mother of God—seeing that as the most agreeable gift possible for her. Without delay, then, and with all the fervor in him, joyous of heart, and burning with love, he made his vow of perpetual chastity. Mary accepted the offering of his innocent heart. As a reward, she obtained for him from God the extraordinary grace of never feeling during his entire life the slightest touch of temptation against the virtue of purity. This was an altogether exceptional favor, rarely given even to Saints themselves. It was all the more marvelous because Louis always lived in courts and among important people, where danger and opportunity are so unusually frequent.

It is true that Louis from his earliest childhood had shown a natural dislike for anything impure or unvirginal, and even for relationships of any sort between people of the opposite sex. But this made it all the more surprising that he should, especially after this vow, feel it necessary to use so many strategies for protecting his consecrated virginity against even the shadow of danger. One might suppose that if anyone could have been content with the ordinary precautions prescribed for all Christians, it would surely have been him. But no! In using preservatives and means of defense, in fleeing from the most insignificant occasions and every possibility of peril, just as in the mortification (self-denial) of his flesh, he went farther than most saints. He, who by an extraordinary protection of God’s grace was never tempted, measured all his steps as if he were threatened on every side by particular dangers. From then on, he never raised his eyes, either when walking in the streets or when in society. Not only did he avoid all dealings with females even more scrupulously than before, but he also gave up all conversation and every kind of social recreation with them, although his father tried to make him take part. And he began far too early to subject his innocent body to austerities of every kind.”

We read that when this young man was twelve: “If by chance his mother sent one of her maids of honor to him with a message, he never allowed her to come in. He would listen to her through the barely opened door and dismiss her immediately. He did not like to be alone with his own mother, whether at the dinner table or in conversation. When the rest of the company withdrew, he would also find an excuse to leave… He avoided learning to recognize several great ladies, who were his relatives, even by sight. He made a sort of treaty with his father, promising to promptly and readily agree to all his wishes, if only he might be excused from all visits to ladies.”

When he was seventeen, Louis joined the Jesuit order, against the passionate pleas of his father, as he was the heir of a princely house. When his father died a year later, Louis took the loss as a “particular attention” to himself from God. He wrote letters of stilted, preachy good advice, as if from a spiritual superior, to his grieving mother.

He soon became such a devout monk that if anyone asked him the number of his brothers and sisters, he had to stop, reflect, and count them before answering. A Father asked him one day if he were never troubled by the thought of his family. His only answer was, “I never think of them except when praying for them.”

He was never seen holding a flower or anything perfumed in his hand, just to take pleasure in it. On the contrary, in the hospital, he used to seek out whatever was most disgusting. He would eagerly snatch the bandages from ulcers and similar items from the hands of his companions. He avoided worldly talk and immediately tried to turn every conversation to pious subjects, or else he remained silent.

He systematically refused to notice his surroundings. Being ordered one day to bring a book from the rector’s seat in the dining hall, he had to ask where the rector sat. In the three months he had eaten there, he had guarded his eyes so carefully that he had not even noticed the rector’s place. One day, during recess, having accidentally looked at one of his companions, he reproached himself as if he had committed a grave sin against modesty. He cultivated silence, believing it preserved him from sins of the tongue. His greatest penance (self-punishment) was the limit his superiors placed on his physical self-punishments. He sought out false accusations and unjust reprimands as opportunities for humility. Such was his obedience that when a roommate, having no more paper, asked him for a sheet, he did not feel free to give it without first getting permission from the superior, who, in that role, stood in the place of God and transmitted God’s orders.

I can find no other kinds of results or “fruits” from Louis’s sainthood than these. He died in 1591, in his twenty-ninth year, and is known in the Church as the patron saint of all young people. On his festival day, the altar in the chapel dedicated to him in a certain church in Rome “is surrounded by flowers, arranged with exquisite taste. A pile of letters may be seen at its foot, written to the Saint by young men and women, and addressed to ‘Paradise.’ They are supposed to be burnt unread except by San Luigi, who must find singular petitions in these pretty little messages, tied up now with a green ribbon (expressing hope), now with a red one (symbolizing love),” and so on.

Our final judgment of the worth of a life like this will largely depend on our idea of God and of the sort of behavior He is most pleased with in His creatures. Sixteenth-century Catholicism paid little attention to social righteousness. Back then, leaving the world to the devil while saving one’s own soul was not considered a discreditable plan.

Today, rightly or wrongly, helpfulness in general human affairs is considered an essential element of a person’s worth. This is due to one of those long-term shifts in moral sentiment that I mentioned earlier. To be of some public or private use is also now considered a type of divine service. Other early Jesuits, especially missionaries like Xavier, Brébeuf, and Jogues, were practical, outward-looking individuals. They fought, in their own way, for the world’s welfare. So, their lives inspire us today.

But when the intellect, as in this Louis, is originally no larger than a pin’s head and cherishes correspondingly small ideas of God, the result, despite the heroism involved, is on the whole repulsive. Purity, as this example shows us, is not the one thing essential for a good life. It is better that a life should get many “dirt-marks” than lose its usefulness in its efforts to remain perfectly unspotted.

Excesses of Tenderness and Charity

Continuing our search for religious extravagance, we next come to excesses of Tenderness and Charity. Here, saintliness faces the charge of counterproductively preserving the unfit and breeding parasites and beggars. Saintly principles like “Resist not evil” and “Love your enemies” are ones that practical, worldly people find hard to discuss without impatience. Are the worldly people right, or do the saints possess a deeper understanding of truth?

No simple answer is possible. Here, if anywhere, one feels the complexity of moral life and the mysterious way in which facts and ideals are interwoven.

The Complexity of Perfect Conduct

Perfect conduct is a relationship between three elements:

The actor (the person doing the action).
The objects or goals for which they act.
The recipients of the action.

For conduct to be abstractly perfect, all three elements – intention, execution (how it’s done), and reception (how it’s received and by whom) – must be well-suited to one another. The best intention will fail if it either uses false means or is directed at the wrong recipient. For example, offering complex financial aid to someone who will immediately waste it on harmful habits makes a good intention useless.

Therefore, no one judging the value of conduct can limit their focus only to the actor’s intentions, separate from the other parts of the action.

Just as there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, similarly, using reasonable arguments, challenging people to be generous, or appealing to sympathy or justice is foolish when dealing with inherently predatory or destructive individuals (likened here to “human crocodiles and boa-constrictors”).
The saint, by being too trustful, may simply hand over the world to the enemy.
By practicing non-resistance, the saint may ensure their own destruction.

Saintly Conduct in an Imperfect World

The philosopher Herbert Spencer tells us that a perfect person’s conduct will seem perfect only when the environment itself is perfect; it is not suitably adapted to any inferior environment. We can paraphrase this by agreeing that:

Saintly conduct would indeed be the most perfect conduct imaginable in a world where everyone was already a saint.
However, in a world where few are saints, and many are the exact opposite, such conduct must be poorly adapted and potentially harmful.

So, using our common sense and ordinary practical judgments, we must frankly confess that in the world as it actually is, virtues like sympathy, charity, and non-resistance can be, and often have been, demonstrated in excess. The forces of darkness have systematically taken advantage of them.

The whole modern, scientific organization of charity is a result of the failure of simply handing out alms without discretion.
The entire history of constitutional government (with laws, rights, and checks on power) is a commentary on the excellence of resisting evil. It shows that when one cheek is struck, it is often better to strike back rather than merely turn the other cheek.

You will generally agree with this. In spite of the Gospels, in spite of Quaker pacifism, in spite of Tolstoy’s teachings, most people believe in fighting fire with fire. You believe in stopping usurpers, locking up thieves, and dealing firmly with freeloaders and swindlers.

The Indispensable Role of Tenderness

And yet, you are sure, as I am sure, that if the world were confined only to these hard-headed, hard-hearted, and hard-fisted methods;

If there were no one quick to help a brother or sister first, and only afterward find out if they were “worthy”;
If there were no one willing to overlook their private wrongs out of pity for the wrongdoer’s situation;
If there were no one ready to be fooled many times rather than live always suspicious of others;
If there were no one glad to treat individuals passionately and impulsively with kindness, rather than always by cold, general rules of prudence; …the world would be an infinitely worse place than it is now to live in. The tender grace – not of a day that is gone, but of a day yet to be born, when the golden rule becomes natural – would be cut out from our hopes for the future.

Saints as Prophetic Agents of Change

The saints, living this way with their sometimes “extravagant” human tenderness, may actually be prophetic. Indeed, countless times they have proven themselves to be just that. By treating those they met as worthy – despite their past actions, despite all outward appearances – saints have often stimulated those individuals to become worthy. They have miraculously transformed them by their radiant example and by the powerful challenge of their positive expectations.

From this point of view, we can admit that the human charity we find in all saints, and the great excess of it we find in some, is a genuinely creative social force. It tends to make real a degree of virtue that only such charity is ready to believe is possible. The saints are authors, auctores (Latin for originators or promoters), increasers of goodness. The potential for development in human souls is unfathomable. So many people who seemed irretrievably hardened have, in fact, been softened, converted, and regenerated in ways that amazed themselves even more than they surprised onlookers. Because of this, we can never be sure in advance about anyone that their salvation through the path of love is hopeless.

We don’t have the right to label people who seem like “human crocodiles” or “boa constrictors” (meaning deeply predatory or harmful people) as being impossible to change. People are complex. They have hidden emotional depths, many sides to their character, and untapped inner resources.

Long ago, Saint Paul taught that every soul is essentially sacred or holy. He said that because Christ died for everyone without exception, we should never lose hope for anyone. This belief in the essential sacredness of every person shows up today in all sorts of kind customs, efforts to reform people, and a growing dislike for the death penalty and harsh punishments.

Saints, with their extreme human tenderness, lead the way in promoting this belief. They are like pioneers clearing a path through darkness. They are like early drops of water flung far ahead of a big wave, showing where things are headed. The rest of the world hasn’t caught up to them yet, so they often seem ridiculous or out of place in everyday life.

But they plant seeds of goodness in the world. They bring to life good potentials in others that might otherwise never awaken. It’s harder to be as mean as we might naturally be after we’ve seen their example. Their goodness inspires others, like one fire lighting another. Without their almost excessive belief in human worth, the rest of us might remain spiritually stuck.

The Vital Role of Saintly Charity

In the short term, a saint might seem to waste their kindness or be tricked because of their intense desire to help. But overall, their charity plays a necessary and life-giving role in how society develops for the better. If things are ever to move upward, someone must be ready to take the first step and accept the risk involved.

You can’t know if methods like charity and non-resistance will work unless you’re willing to try them, as saints are always willing. When these methods do succeed, they are much more powerfully successful than using force or being overly cautious.

Force destroys enemies.
Worldly prudence (carefulness) at best keeps what we already have safe.
But non-resistance, when successful, turns enemies into friends.
And charity helps to regenerate or renew the people it touches.

These saintly approaches are powerful creative energies. True saints, filled with the inspiring excitement of their faith, have a special authority and impressiveness. This makes them very effective, even irresistible, in situations where less profound people would fail without resorting to worldly cleverness. This practical proof that we can safely go beyond ordinary, cautious wisdom is the saint’s special, almost magical, gift to humanity.

Not only does their vision of a better world comfort us in the face of general dullness and emptiness, but even when they seem ill-suited to the world, they still inspire some people to change. The environment gets better because of their efforts. A saint is an effective catalyst for goodness, slowly transforming the earthly into something more heavenly.

In this way, idealistic dreams about perfect social justice, like those some contemporary socialists and anarchists have, are similar to a saint’s belief in a present kingdom of heaven. Even if these dreams aren’t practical right now, they help to soften the general harshness of the world and slowly work like leaven to create a better society.

Asceticism: A Virtue Prone to Excess?

The next topic is Asceticism, which is severe self-discipline and the avoidance of worldly pleasures. I imagine you are all ready to agree that this is a virtue that can easily be taken to an extreme.

Modern positive thinking and sophisticated views have changed how even the church views extreme physical self-punishment (corporeal mortification). Historical figures known for extreme self-denial, like Suso or Saint Peter of Alcantara, now seem more like tragic, misguided performers (mountebanks) than like wise people we should respect.

We tend to ask: If someone’s inner attitude is good, why do they need all this suffering and self-harm? Focusing too much on punishing the body actually makes the body seem too important. Anyone who is genuinely free from bodily desires will see pleasures and pains, having a lot or having little, as equally unimportant and irrelevant. They can engage in actions and experience enjoyments without fearing corruption or becoming enslaved by them.

The Bhagavad-Gita says that only those who are still inwardly attached to worldly actions need to renounce them.
One of Ramakrishna’s sayings is: “He needs no devotional practices whose heart is moved to tears at the mere mention of the name of Hari (God).”
The Buddha, when pointing out “the middle way” to his disciples, told them to avoid both extremes. Excessive self-punishment, he said, is as unreal and unworthy as mere desire and pleasure. The only perfect life is one of inner wisdom, which makes one thing as unimportant to us as another, leading to rest, peace, and Nirvana.

Accordingly, we find that as ascetic saints grew older, and as spiritual directors became more experienced, they usually tended to put less stress on special bodily mortifications. Catholic teachers have always taught that since health is needed to serve God effectively, health must not be sacrificed for self-punishment.

Today, the general optimism and healthy-mindedness of liberal Protestant circles make self-punishment for its own sake seem repulsive to us. We no longer believe in cruel deities, and the idea that God could take delight in watching people inflict sufferings on themselves in His honor is abhorrent.

Because of all these reasons, unless some special usefulness can be shown in an individual’s specific discipline, you are probably inclined to view the general tendency towards asceticism as something pathological or unhealthy.

The Deeper Meaning of Asceticism

Yet, I believe that if we consider the whole matter more carefully, distinguishing between the generally good intention of asceticism and the uselessness of some of the particular acts it might involve, we ought to value it more.

In its spiritual meaning, asceticism stands for nothing less than the essence of the “twice-born” philosophy (a view of life that involves a profound personal transformation, often after a crisis). It symbolizes, perhaps imperfectly but sincerely, the belief that there is an element of real wrongness in this world. This wrongness is not to be ignored or evaded. It must be squarely met and overcome by calling upon the soul’s heroic resources. It must be neutralized and cleansed away by suffering.

In contrast, the ultra-optimistic form of the “once-born” philosophy (a more straightforward, less crisis-driven view of life) thinks we can treat evil by simply ignoring it. A person who, due to good health and fortunate circumstances, escapes much personal suffering, might also close their eyes to the evil that exists in the wider world. They might think they can sail through life happily on a healthy-minded basis. But as we saw in our discussions on melancholy, this attempt is necessarily unstable. Moreover, it’s only for the individual and leaves the evil outside of them unaddressed and unredeemed by their philosophy.

Ignoring evil cannot be a general solution to the problem. To minds that naturally see life as a tragic mystery, such optimism seems like a shallow trick or a cowardly evasion. It accepts a lucky personal accident – a small escape route – instead of real deliverance. It leaves the general world unhelped and still in the grip of evil.

The “twice-born” folk insist that real deliverance must apply to everyone. Pain, wrong, and death must be fairly met and overcome with a higher, more powerful spiritual excitement. Otherwise, their sting, their power over us, remains essentially unbroken. If one has ever truly taken in the fact of how much tragic death there is in this world’s history – freezing, drowning, being buried alive, attacks by wild beasts or worse humans, hideous diseases – it seems to me that one can hardly continue a life of worldly prosperity without suspecting that they might not be truly “inside the game,” that they might lack “the great initiation” into life’s deeper realities.

Asceticism as Voluntary Initiation

Well, this is exactly what asceticism believes. It voluntarily takes this initiation. Life, it says, is neither a silly show nor a polite comedy. It is something serious that we must experience, perhaps in figurative mourning clothes, hoping its bitter taste will purge us of our foolishness. The wild and the heroic are such deeply rooted parts of life that simple, sentimental optimism (“healthy-mindedness”) can hardly be seen by any thinking person as a serious solution. Neat, cozy, and comfortable phrases can never be the answer to life’s great riddle (the “sphinx’s riddle”).

In these remarks, I am leaning only on mankind’s common instinct for reality. This instinct has, in fact, always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism. In heroism, we feel, life’s supreme mystery is hidden. We don’t respect anyone who has no capacity for heroism in any form. On the other hand, no matter what a person’s other weaknesses may be, if they are willing to risk death – and even more so if they suffer it heroically – in the service they have chosen, that fact makes them sacred or revered forever. If we cling to life while another person, perhaps inferior to us in other ways, is able “to fling it away like a flower,” caring nothing for it, we consider them in the deepest way our natural superior. Each of us feels in our own heart that a courageous indifference to life would make up for all our shortcomings.

The profound mystery, recognized by common sense, is this: he who “feeds on death that feeds on men” (meaning, he who conquers or transcends the death that eventually claims all people) possesses life in a superior and excellent way. He best meets the secret demands of the universe. Asceticism has been the faithful champion of this truth. The “folly of the cross” (the idea of sacrifice leading to triumph), so difficult for the intellect to explain, still has an indestructible, vital meaning.

So, representatively and symbolically – and apart from the strange paths into which the unenlightened intellect of former times may have led it – asceticism must, I believe, be acknowledged as part of a deeper way of handling the gift of existence. Naturalistic optimism, by comparison, is like mere fluff and flattery (“syllabub and sponge-cake”).

Finding Modern Channels for Heroism

Therefore, the practical course of action for us as religious people today would not be to simply turn our backs on the ascetic impulse, as most of us do. Rather, it would be to discover some outlet for it where the results of privation and hardship might be objectively useful. The older monastic asceticism often involved pointless efforts or ended in mere egotism, with the individual focused only on increasing their own perfection. But isn’t it possible for us to discard most of these older forms of self-punishment and yet find saner channels for the heroism that inspired them?

For example:

Doesn’t the worship of material luxury and wealth, which is so much a part of the “spirit” of our age, lead to a kind of softness and lack of manliness?
Isn’t the exclusively sympathetic and overly lighthearted way most children are brought up today – so different from education a hundred years ago, especially in evangelical circles – in danger, despite its many advantages, of developing a certain “trashiness of fibre” (a lack of inner strength)? Are there not some areas here where a renewed and revised ascetic discipline could be applied?

Many of you would recognize such dangers but might point to athletics, militarism, and individual and national enterprise and adventure as the remedies. These contemporary ideals are quite remarkable for the energy with which they promote heroic standards of life. Contemporary religion, in contrast, is remarkable for the way it neglects them. War and adventure certainly keep all who engage in them from treating themselves too tenderly. They demand such incredible efforts, deep and sustained exertion, that the whole scale of motivation changes. Discomfort, annoyance, hunger, wetness, pain, cold, squalor, and filth cease to have any deterrent effect. Death becomes a commonplace matter, and its usual power to stop our actions vanishes. With these customary inhibitions removed, new ranges of energy are set free, and life seems to be lived on a higher plane of power.

The “beauty” of war in this respect is that it fits so well with ordinary human nature. Ancestral evolution has made us all potential warriors. So even the most insignificant individual, when thrown into an army in the field, is quickly weaned from any excessive tenderness towards their own precious self and can easily develop into a monster of insensibility.

The Moral Equivalent of War

But when we compare the military type of self-severity with that of the ascetic saint, we find a worldwide difference in all their spiritual accompaniments.

An clear-headed Austrian officer wrote: “‘Live and let live’ is no motto for an army. Contempt for one’s own comrades, for the enemy’s troops, and, above all, fierce contempt for one’s own person – that’s what war demands of everyone. It is far better for an army to be too savage, too cruel, too barbarous, than to have too much sentimentality and human reasonableness. If a soldier is to be good for anything as a soldier, he must be the exact opposite of a reasoning and thinking man. His worth is measured by his possible use in war. War, and even peace, require the soldier to have absolutely unique standards of morality. A new recruit brings common moral ideas with him, which he must try to get rid of immediately. For him, victory and success must be everything. The most barbaric tendencies in men come to life again in war, and for war’s purposes, they are immeasurably good.”

These words are, of course, literally true. As the military strategist Moltke said, the immediate aim of a soldier’s life is destruction, and nothing but destruction. Whatever positive constructions wars might lead to are remote and not military in nature. Consequently, the soldier must train himself to be as unfeeling as possible towards all those usual sympathies and respects, for people or things, that lead to conservation and preservation.

Yet, the fact remains that war is a school of strenuous life and heroism. And, because it taps into our basic instincts, it is the only such school that is, as yet, universally available. But when we seriously ask ourselves whether this wholesale organization of irrationality and crime is our only defense against becoming too soft and effeminate, we are horrified at the thought. This makes us think more kindly of ascetic religion.

We hear of the “mechanical equivalent of heat” in physics. What we now need to discover in the social realm is the moral equivalent of war. We need something heroic that will speak to people as universally as war does, and yet will be as compatible with their spiritual selves as war has proven itself to be incompatible.

I have often thought that in the old monastic ideal of poverty-worship, despite the excessive attention to detail that often plagued it, there might be something like that moral equivalent of war we are seeking. Might not voluntarily accepted poverty be “the strenuous life,” without the need to crush weaker peoples?

Poverty as the Strenuous Life

Indeed, poverty is the strenuous life – without brass bands or uniforms or hysterical popular applause or lies or evasive language. And when one sees the way that getting wealthy has become an ideal embedded in the very core of our generation, one wonders. Perhaps a revival of the belief that poverty is a worthy religious vocation could be “the transformation of military courage.” Perhaps it is the spiritual reform that our time most desperately needs.

Among us English-speaking peoples especially, the praises of poverty need to be boldly sung once more. We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise anyone who chooses to be poor in order to simplify and save their inner life. If they do not join the general scramble for money and pant along with the money-making crowd, we consider them spiritless and lacking in ambition. We have lost the power even of imagining what the ancient idealization of poverty could have meant:

The liberation from material attachments.
The unbribed soul.
A more manly indifference to hardship.
Paying our way by what we are or do, not by what we have.
The right to fling away our life at any moment irresponsibly. In short, a more athletic moral trim, the moral fighting shape.

When we, the so-called better classes, are scared of material ugliness and hardship in a way people in history never were; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and tremble at the thought of having a child without a bank account who might be doomed to manual labor – it is time for thinking people to protest against such an unmanly and irreligious state of opinion.

It is true that if wealth gives time for ideal ends and provides energy for ideal pursuits, then wealth is better than poverty and ought to be chosen. But wealth does this in only a portion of actual cases. In many other instances, the desire to gain wealth and the fear of losing it are our chief breeders of cowardice and propagators of corruption. There are thousands of situations in which a person bound by their wealth must be a slave, while a person for whom poverty has no terrors becomes a freeman.

Think of the strength that personal indifference to poverty would give us if we were devoted to unpopular causes. We would no longer need to hold our tongues or fear to vote for revolutionary or reformatory ideas. Our stocks might fall, our hopes of promotion might vanish, our salaries might stop, our club doors might close in our faces. Yet, while we lived, we would calmly bear witness to the spirit, and our example would help to set free our generation.

A cause or movement would still need money to operate. But those of us who serve it would be more effective and powerful if we ourselves were content with living simply and not having much money.

I urge you to think seriously about this. It’s certain that the widespread fear of poverty among educated people today is the worst moral sickness affecting our civilization.

Summing Up: The Value of Saintly Qualities

I have now said all that I can usefully say about the different results of religion as we see them in saintly lives. So, I will make a brief review and then move to my more general conclusions.

Remember, our main question is whether religion is good, based on the results we see in saintly people. It’s true that individual saintly qualities, like kindness or patience, can sometimes be found in non-religious people, just as part of their natural personality. But all these qualities together – the whole group of them – form a special combination that is distinctly religious. This is because this combination seems to come from a deep sense of God, or the divine, as if that’s its psychological core.

Characteristics Flowing from a Sense of the Divine:

Infinite Significance: Anyone who strongly feels this sense of God naturally begins to believe that even the smallest details of this world have deep meaning because they are connected to an unseen divine order or plan.
Superior Happiness and Steadfastness: Thinking about this divine order gives them a higher kind of happiness and a strength of spirit that nothing else can match.
Exemplary Service: In their relationships with others, saints are exceptionally helpful. They are full of the desire to assist people.
Inward and Outward Help: Their help isn’t just practical; it’s also emotional and spiritual. Their sympathy touches people’s souls as well as their physical needs, awakening hidden abilities within them.
Higher Source of Happiness: Saints don’t find happiness in comfort, like most people do. They find it in a higher kind of inner inspiration or excitement. This inspiration can turn discomforts into reasons for cheerfulness and can cancel out unhappiness.
Devotion to Duty: So, saints don’t avoid any duty, no matter how difficult or unrewarding.
Reliability: When we need help, we can rely on a saint more surely than on anyone else.
Freedom from Pretension: Finally, their humility and self-disciplined (ascetic) tendencies protect them from the small-minded arrogance and personal pretensions that often complicate everyday social interactions.
Purity of Companionship: Their purity makes them good, morally clean companions.

Happiness, purity, charity, patience, self-discipline – these are all wonderful qualities. Saints show these qualities more completely than anyone else.

Saints Are Not Infallible

But, as we saw, all these things together do not make saints perfect or infallible. When their understanding of the world (their intellectual outlook) is limited, saints can fall into all sorts of “holy” excesses. These include:

Fanaticism
Unhealthy absorption in God (theopathic absorption)
Self-torment
Being overly proper or prudish
Excessive worrying about sin (scrupulosity)
Being easily fooled (gullibility)
A morbid inability to meet the world and its challenges.

A saint, because of their intense loyalty to the small-minded or paltry ideals that a limited intellect might inspire in them, can sometimes be even more objectionable and harmful than a superficial, worldly person would be in the same situation.

Judging Saints Intellectually We shouldn’t judge saints based only on emotion or in isolation. We need to use our own intellectual understanding, consider the time and place they lived in (their environment), and evaluate their overall impact or function.

When it comes to intellectual standards, we must remember something important. If we find that a saint had a narrow mind, it’s unfair to always blame the individual for this as a personal vice. In religious and theological matters, they probably just absorbed the limited views common in their generation.

Moreover, we must not confuse the essential core of saintliness (which are those general positive passions I’ve spoken about) with its “accidents” (which are the specific ways these passions were expressed at any particular moment in history). In these specific expressions, saints will usually be loyal to the temporary “idols” or popular ideas of their tribe or society. For example, taking refuge in monasteries was as much an idol of the tribe in the Middle Ages as being actively involved in the world’s work is today. If Saint Francis or Saint Bernard were living today, they would undoubtedly be leading dedicated, consecrated lives of some sort, but they almost certainly would not lead them in seclusion or retirement.

Our dislike of some specific historical ways saintliness was expressed must not lead us to dismiss the essential value of saintly impulses themselves, handing them over to hostile critics.

Nietzsche’s Critique: The Saint Versus the “Strong Man”

The most hostile critic of saintly impulses that I know is Friedrich Nietzsche. He contrasts them with worldly passions, especially those embodied in the aggressive, predatory military character, and he strongly favors the latter. It must be confessed, there’s often something about a natural-born saint that can make a worldly, “carnal” man feel disgusted or uneasy. So, it will be worthwhile to consider this contrast more fully.

Dislike of the saintly nature seems to be a negative result of a biologically useful instinct: our tendency to welcome leadership and glorify the “chief of the tribe.” The chief is the potential, if not actual, tyrant – the masterful, overpowering man of prey. We often confess our inferiority and grovel before him. We may quail under his glance but, at the same time, feel proud of having such a dangerous leader. This kind of instinctive and submissive hero-worship must have been essential for survival in ancient tribal life. In the endless wars of those times, leaders were absolutely necessary for a tribe’s survival. If any tribes had no leaders, they likely didn’t survive to tell their story. These leaders always had good consciences, because for them, conscience and will were the same thing. Those who looked at them were as much struck with wonder at their freedom from inner restraint as they were with awe at the energy of their outward actions.

Compared with these “beaked and taloned graspers of the world,” saints seem like herbivorous animals – tame and harmless barnyard poultry. There are saints whose beards you could, if you wanted to, pull without any fear of punishment. Such a person doesn’t excite any thrills of wonder mixed with terror. Their conscience is full of scruples and self-questioning. They don’t stun us with their inner freedom or their outward power. Unless saints could appeal to an altogether different faculty of admiration within us, we would probably just pass them by with contempt.

The Rivalry of Two Ideals In point of fact, saints do appeal to a different faculty. Human nature re-enacts the fable of the wind, the sun, and the traveler (where the sun’s gentle warmth, not the wind’s force, succeeded). The sexes often embody this discrepancy. A woman might admire a man more if he is stormier and more powerful, and the world often deifies its rulers more for being willful and unaccountable. But, in turn, a woman can subjugate a man by the mystery of gentleness in beauty, and the saint has always charmed the world by something similar. Mankind is susceptible and suggestible in opposite directions, and the rivalry between these influences is constant. The saintly ideal and the worldly ideal pursue their feud in literature just as much as in real life.

For Nietzsche, the saint represents little but sneakiness and slavishness. He sees the saint as a sophisticated invalid, the ultimate example of degeneration, a person with insufficient vitality. He believed that if saints became too prevalent, it would put the human type in danger. Nietzsche wrote:

“The sick are the greatest danger for the well. The weaker, not the stronger, are the strong’s undoing. It is not fear of our fellow-man, which we should wish to see diminished; for fear rouses those who are strong to become terrible in turn themselves, and preserves the hard-earned and successful type of humanity. What is to be dreaded by us more than any other doom is not fear, but rather the great disgust, not fear, but rather the great pity—disgust and pity for our human fellows… The morbid are our greatest peril not the ‘bad’ men, not the predatory beings. Those born wrong, the miscarried, the broken—they it is, the weakest, who are under-mining the vitality of the race, poisoning our trust in life, and putting humanity in question. Every look of them is a sigh—’Would I were something other! I am sick and tired of what I am.’ In this swamp-soil of self-contempt, every poisonous weed flourishes, and all so small, so secret, so dishonest, and so sweetly rotten. Here swarm the worms of sensitiveness and resentment; here the air smells odious with secrecy, with what is not to be acknowledged; here is woven endlessly the net of the meanest of conspiracies, the conspiracy of those who suffer against those who succeed and are victorious; here the very aspect of the victorious is hated—as if health, success, strength, pride, and the sense of power were in themselves things vicious, for which one ought eventually to make bitter expiation. Oh, how these people would themselves like to inflict the expiation, how they thirst to be the hangmen! And all the while their duplicity never confesses their hatred to be hatred.”

Poor Nietzsche’s intense dislike is itself rather unhealthy, but we all understand what he means. He expresses well the clash between these two ideals. The “carnivorous-minded strong man,” the aggressive adult male, can see nothing but moldiness and morbidness in the saint’s gentleness and self-discipline, and regards the saint with pure loathing.

The whole argument essentially revolves around two main points:

Shall the seen world (the physical, everyday world) or the unseen world (the spiritual realm) be our primary focus for adaptation?
Must our means of adapting in this seen world be primarily through aggressiveness or through non-resistance?

The Ideal Type: An Empirical View

The debate is serious. In some sense and to some degree, both worlds must be acknowledged and taken into account. And in the seen world, both aggressiveness and non-resistance are needed. It’s a question of emphasis, of more or less. Is the saint’s type or the strong-man’s type the more ideal?

It has often been supposed, and I think most people still suppose, that there can be one intrinsically ideal type of human character. People imagine that a certain kind of person must be the “best” person absolutely, regardless of the usefulness of their function or practical considerations. The saint’s type and the knight’s or gentleman’s type have always been rival claimants for this status of absolute ideality. In the ideal of military religious orders, both types were, in a way, blended.

However, according to empirical philosophy (which bases knowledge on experience and observation), all ideals are matters of relation. It would be absurd, for example, to ask for a definition of “the ideal horse” as long as different functions like dragging drays, running races, bearing children, and jogging about with tradesmen’s packages all remain essential and distinct equine roles. You might choose what you call a general all-round animal as a compromise, but it will be inferior to any horse of a more specialized type in some particular direction. We must not forget this now when, in discussing saintliness, we ask if it is an ideal type of humanity. We must test it by its “economical relations” – its practical value and function in society.

Adaptation and the Abstract Superiority of the Saint

I think the method Mr. Herbert Spencer uses in his Data of Ethics will help us form an opinion. Ideality in conduct is entirely a matter of adaptation to one’s environment.

A society where everyone was invariably aggressive would destroy itself through internal friction.
In a society where some are aggressive, others must be non-resistant if there is to be any kind of order. This is the current constitution of society, and we owe many of our blessings to this mixture.

But the aggressive members of society are always tending to become bullies, robbers, and swindlers. No one believes that the state of things we live in now is the millennium (a perfect, ideal society).

Meanwhile, it’s quite possible to imagine a society where there is no aggressiveness, only sympathy and fairness – any small community of true friends now realizes such a society. Abstractly considered, such a society on a large scale would be the millennium, because every good thing could be realized there with no cost of friction.

To such a millennial society, the saint would be entirely adapted. His peaceful methods of appeal would be effective with his companions, and there would be no one around to take advantage of his non-resistance. Therefore, the saint is abstractly a higher type of man than the “strong man,” because he is adapted to the highest society conceivable, whether that society ever becomes concretely possible or not. The strong man, by his very presence, would immediately tend to make that ideal society deteriorate. It would become inferior in everything except perhaps a certain kind of warlike excitement, which is dear to people as they currently are.

Saintly Adaptation in the Real World

But if we turn from this abstract question to the actual situation, we find that an individual saint may be well or ill adapted, depending on particular circumstances. In short, there is no absoluteness in the excellence of sainthood. It must be confessed that as far as this world goes, anyone who makes an out-and-out saint of himself does so at his own peril. If he is not a “large enough” man (meaning, a person of great overall capacity and wisdom), he may appear more insignificant and contemptible, for all his saintship, than if he had remained a worldly person.

Accordingly, religion has seldom been taken so radically in our Western world that the devotee could not mix it with some worldly temperament. Religion has always found good people who could follow most of its impulses but who stopped short when it came to complete non-resistance. Christ himself was fierce on occasion. Figures like Cromwell, Stonewall Jackson, and General Gordon show that Christians can be strong men too.

How can success be absolutely measured when there are so many different environments and so many ways of looking at adaptation? It cannot be measured absolutely; the verdict will vary according to the point of view adopted. From a purely biological point of view, Saint Paul was a failure because he was beheaded. Yet, he was magnificently adapted to the larger environment of history. And so far as any saint’s example acts as a leaven of righteousness in the world, drawing it in the direction of more prevalent habits of saintliness, he is a success, no matter what his immediate bad fortune may be.

The greatest saints, the spiritual heroes whom everyone acknowledges – figures like Saint Francis, Saint Bernard, Luther, Loyola, Wesley, Channing, Moody, Gratry, Phillips Brooks, Agnes Jones, Margaret Hallahan, and Dora Pattison – are successes from the outset. They simply show themselves, and there is no question; everyone perceives their strength and stature. Their sense of mystery in things, their passion, and their goodness radiate around them, enlarging their outlines while also softening them. They are like pictures with an atmosphere and a background. Placed alongside them, the “strong men” of this world (and no other) seem as dry as sticks, as hard and crude as blocks of stone or brickbats.

General Conclusion: Religion’s Enduring Place

In a general way, then, and “on the whole,” our decision to set aside theological criteria and to test religion by practical common sense and the empirical method still leaves religion in its towering place in history. Economically (from a practical, societal standpoint), the saintly group of qualities is indispensable to the world’s welfare.

The great saints are immediate successes.
The smaller ones are at least heralds and harbingers (messengers of what’s to come), and they may also be leavens, helping to bring about a better worldly order.

Let us be saints, then, if we can, whether or not we succeed visibly and temporally in this world. But, as the saying goes, “in our Father’s house are many mansions.” Each of us must discover for himself the kind of religion and the amount of saintship that best fits with what he believes to be his powers and feels to be his truest mission and vocation. There are no successes to be guaranteed and no set orders to be given to individuals, so long as we follow the methods of empirical philosophy.

Looking Ahead: Mysticism and Religious Philosophy

This is my conclusion so far. I know that for some of you, it leaves a feeling of wonder that such a method should have been applied to such a subject. This might be despite all those remarks about empiricism I made at the beginning of Lecture XIII.

How, you might say, can religion, which believes in two worlds and an invisible order, be evaluated solely by how well its results adapt to this world’s order? It is religion’s truth, you might insist, not its utility, upon which our verdict ought to depend. If religion is true, its fruits are good fruits, even if in this world they should prove to be uniformly ill-adapted and full of nothing but pathos (sadness or suffering).

So, it all goes back, after all, to the question of the truth of theology. The plot inevitably thickens; we cannot escape theoretical considerations. I propose, then, that to some degree we face this responsibility. Religious persons have often, though not always, professed to see truth in a special manner. That manner is known as mysticism. I will consequently now proceed to discuss mystical phenomena at some length. After that, though more briefly, I will consider religious philosophy.

The provided text consists of footnotes and endnotes, not the main narrative prose of “THE VALUE OF SAINTLINESS.” According to the project guidelines (specifically Mission Objective 5 and the instruction to omit parenthetical asides, citations, and notes), this type of edition-specific material should be discarded and not rewritten as part of the main simplified text. Therefore, no rewrite is provided for this section.

MYSTICISM

Over and over again in these talks, I have brought up certain points and left them unfinished. I’ve been waiting until we could discuss the subject of Mysticism. Some of you might have smiled as you noticed me repeatedly putting it off. But now, the time has come to face mysticism seriously and tie up those loose ends.

I believe that personal religious experience truly has its foundation and core in mystical states of consciousness. In these lectures, we are focusing exclusively on personal experience. So, these mystical states should be the central chapter that sheds light on all the others.

Whether my discussion of mystical states will bring more light or more darkness, I honestly don’t know. My own nature almost completely prevents me from experiencing these states myself. I can only talk about them based on what others have reported, or “at second hand.” But even though I’m forced to look at the subject from the outside, I will try to be as objective and open-minded as I can. I think I can at least convince you that these states are real and that their role is extremely important.

What Are “Mystical States of Consciousness”?

First, let’s ask: What does the phrase “mystical states of consciousness” actually mean? How do we distinguish mystical states from other states of mind?

The words “mysticism” and “mystical” are often used simply as terms of criticism. People might use them to describe any opinion they think is vague, overly broad, sentimental, or not based on facts or logic. For some writers, a “mystic” is just anyone who believes in things like telepathy (thought-transference) or spirits returning from the dead. Used this way, the word doesn’t have much value because there are many other, clearer words available.

So, to make the term useful by limiting its meaning, I will do what I did with the word “religion.” I will simply propose four characteristics. When an experience has these characteristics, we can call it “mystical” for the purpose of these lectures. This way, we can avoid arguments about words and the usual accusations that go with them.

Four Key Characteristics of Mystical States

Here are the four marks I use to classify a state of mind as mystical:

Ineffability (Indescribable)
- This is the most straightforward mark. The person experiencing it immediately says that the state defies expression. They feel that no words can adequately describe its contents.
- This means that the quality of the experience must be directly felt or lived through. It cannot be explained or transferred to others.
- In this way, mystical states are more like states of feeling than like states of intellect or thought.
  - For example, no one can make another person understand what a certain feeling is like if they’ve never had that feeling themselves.
  - You must have musical ears to truly know the value of a symphony.
  - You must have been in love yourself to understand what a lover is feeling.
- If we lack the heart or ear for these things, we can’t understand the musician or the lover properly. We might even think they are weak-minded or absurd.
- The mystic finds that most of us treat their experiences with similar incompetence because we haven’t experienced them directly.
Noetic Quality (Sense of Insight or Knowledge)
- Although mystical states are similar to states of feeling, those who experience them also feel they are states of knowledge.
- They feel like moments of insight into deep truths that the ordinary, reasoning mind cannot reach.
- They are experienced as illuminations or revelations, full of meaning and importance, even though they remain hard to put into words.
- As a rule, they also carry a curious sense of authority that lasts long after the experience has passed.

These first two characteristics are enough for a state to be called mystical, in the way I’m using the word. Two other qualities are less sharply defined but are usually present:

Transiency (Short-Lasting)
- Mystical states cannot be kept up for long.
- Except in rare cases, half an hour, or at most an hour or two, seems to be the limit. Beyond that, they fade into the ordinary light of everyday consciousness.
- Often, once they have faded, their quality can only be imperfectly remembered.
- However, if they happen again, they are recognized. From one recurrence to another, they can develop continuously in what the person feels as inner richness and importance.
Passivity (Feeling Controlled by an Outside Force)
- Although a person might be able to encourage mystical states through certain voluntary actions (like focusing their attention, doing specific physical exercises, or other methods prescribed in manuals of mysticism), once the characteristic mystical consciousness sets in, the mystic feels as if their own will is not in control.
- Indeed, they sometimes feel as if they are grasped and held by a superior power.
- This particular quality connects mystical states with certain phenomena of a “secondary” or alternative personality. Examples include:
  - Prophetic speech (speaking messages seemingly from a divine source).
  - Automatic writing (writing without conscious control).
  - Mediumistic trance (a state where a medium supposedly communicates with spirits).
- However, when these other conditions (like trance) are very pronounced, there might be no memory of what happened. The event might have no significance for the person’s usual inner life, acting merely as an interruption.
- Mystical states, strictly speaking, are never just interruptions. Some memory of their content always remains, along with a profound sense of their importance. They change the person’s inner life between occurrences.
- It’s hard to make sharp divisions in this area, though, and we find all sorts of gradations and mixtures of these experiences.

These four characteristics are enough to define a group of states of consciousness that are unusual enough to deserve a special name and careful study. Let us call this the mystical group.

Studying Mystical Experiences

Our next step should be to become familiar with some typical examples of mystical states. Professional mystics, at the peak of their development, often have elaborately organized experiences and a philosophy based on them.

But you might remember what I said in my first lecture: phenomena are best understood when we place them within their series. We should study them from their earliest beginnings (their “germ”) to their most developed and even decaying forms. We should also compare them with similar experiences that are exaggerated or degenerated.

The range of mystical experience is very wide – much too wide for us to cover completely in the time we have. Yet, this method of studying things in a series is essential for understanding them. If we really want to reach conclusions, we must use it.

Therefore, I will begin with phenomena that claim no special religious significance. I will end with those whose religious claims are extreme.

Simple Beginnings of Mystical Experience

1. Deepened Sense of Significance The simplest starting point of mystical experience seems to be that sudden, deepened sense of the meaning of a common saying or idea that occasionally sweeps over a person.

We might exclaim, “I’ve heard that said all my life, but I never truly understood its full meaning until now!”
Martin Luther said, “When a fellow monk one day repeated the words of the Creed: ‘I believe in the forgiveness of sins,’ I saw the Scripture in an entirely new light; and right away I felt as if I were born anew. It was as if I had found the door of paradise thrown wide open.”

This sense of deeper significance isn’t limited to rational statements.

Single words.
Combinations of words.
The effects of light on land and sea.
Smells and musical sounds. All these can bring about this feeling when the mind is in the right state, or “tuned aright.”

Most of us can remember the strangely moving power of passages in certain poems we read when we were young. These were like irrational doorways through which the mystery of existence, the wildness and the pain of life, stole into our hearts and thrilled them. The words themselves may now have become just polished surfaces for us. But lyric poetry and music are alive and meaningful only to the extent that they bring back these vague glimpses of a larger life continuous with our own – a life that beckons and invites us, yet always eludes our grasp. We are alive or dead to the eternal inner message of the arts depending on whether we have kept or lost this mystical susceptibility.

2. The Feeling of “Been Here Before” (Déjà Vu) A more pronounced step on the mystical ladder is an extremely common phenomenon: that sudden feeling which sometimes sweeps over us of having “been here before.” It’s as if at some unknown time in the past, in this exact place, with these exact people, we were already saying these exact things. As the poet Tennyson writes:

“Moreover, something is or seems That touches me with mystic gleams Like glimpses of forgotten dreams—

Of something felt, like something here; Of something done, I know not where; Such as no language may declare.”

Sir James Crichton-Browne gave the technical name “dreamy states” to these sudden invasions of vaguely reminiscent consciousness.

They bring a sense of mystery and of the metaphysical duality of things (the idea that reality has two sides or levels).
They also bring the feeling of an enlargement of perception that seems about to happen but never quite does.

Dr. Crichton-Browne believed these states are connected with the confused and scared disturbances of self-consciousness that sometimes precede epileptic attacks. I think this learned psychiatrist takes an overly alarmist view of what is often an intrinsically insignificant phenomenon. He follows it down the ladder towards insanity. Our path, however, primarily pursues the upward ladder, towards higher states. This difference in perspective shows how important it is not to neglect any part of a phenomenon’s connections. We can make something appear admirable or dreadful depending on the context we place it in.

3. Meaning in Everything (Charles Kingsley) Somewhat deeper plunges into mystical consciousness occur in other kinds of dreamy states. Feelings like those Charles Kingsley describes are surely far from uncommon, especially in youth:

“When I walk the fields, I am oppressed now and then with an innate feeling that everything I see has a meaning, if I could but understand it. And this feeling of being surrounded with truths which I cannot grasp amounts to indescribable awe sometimes… Have you not felt that your real soul was imperceptible to your mental vision, except in a few hallowed moments?”

A More Extreme Mystical State: J. A. Symonds’s Experience

A much more extreme state of mystical consciousness is described by J. A. Symonds. Probably more people than we suspect could share similar experiences from their own lives. Symonds writes:

“Suddenly, at church, or in company, or when I was reading, and always, I think, when my muscles were at rest, I felt the approach of the mood. Irresistibly it took possession of my mind and will, lasted what seemed an eternity, and disappeared in a series of rapid sensations which resembled the awakening from anesthetic influence.

One reason why I disliked this kind of trance was that I could not describe it to myself. I cannot even now find words to render it intelligible. It consisted in a gradual but swiftly progressive obliteration of space, time, sensation, and the multitudinous factors of experience which seem to qualify what we are pleased to call our Self. In proportion as these conditions of ordinary consciousness were subtracted, the sense of an underlying or essential consciousness acquired intensity. At last nothing remained but a pure, absolute, abstract Self. The universe became without form and void of content. But Self persisted, formidable in its vivid keenness, feeling the most poignant doubt about reality, ready, as it seemed, to find existence break as breaks a bubble round about it.

And what then? The apprehension of a coming dissolution, the grim conviction that this state was the last state of the conscious Self, the sense that I had followed the last thread of being to the verge of the abyss, and had arrived at demonstration of eternal Maya or illusion, stirred or seemed to stir me up again. The return to ordinary conditions of sentient existence began by my first recovering the power of touch, and then by the gradual though rapid influx of familiar impressions and diurnal interests. At last I felt myself once more a human being; and though the riddle of what is meant by life remained unsolved, I was thankful for this return from the abyss—this deliverance from so awful an initiation into the mysteries of skepticism.

This trance recurred with diminishing frequency until I reached the age of twenty-eight. It served to impress upon my growing nature the phantasmal unreality of all the circumstances which contribute to a merely phenomenal consciousness. Often have I asked myself with anguish, on waking from that formless state of denuded, keenly sentient being, Which is the unreality—the trance of fiery, vacant, apprehensive, skeptical Self from which I issue, or these surrounding phenomena and habits which veil that inner Self and build a self of flesh-and-blood conventionality? Again, are men the factors of some dream, the dream-like unsubstantiality of which they comprehend at such eventful moments? What would happen if the final stage of the trance were reached?”

In a description like this, there is certainly something that sounds like it could be related to a pathological condition.

The Mystical Consciousness from Intoxicants

The next step into mystical states carries us into a realm that public opinion and ethical philosophy have long since branded as pathological (unhealthy or abnormal). However, private practice and certain strains of lyric poetry still seem to bear witness to its potential ideality or positive value. I am referring to the consciousness produced by intoxicants and anesthetics, especially by alcohol.

Alcohol:

The power alcohol has over mankind is unquestionably due to its ability to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature. These faculties are usually crushed by the cold facts and dry criticisms of our sober moments.
Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says “no.”
Drunkenness expands, unites, and says “yes.” It is, in fact, the great exciter of the “Yes function” in humans.
It brings its devotee from the chilly edges of things to the radiant core. It makes them, for a moment, one with truth.
People don’t chase after it merely out of perversity. For the poor and uneducated, it can take the place of symphony concerts and literature.
It is part of the deeper mystery and tragedy of life that glimpses of something we immediately recognize as excellent should be given to so many of us only in the fleeting, early phases of what is, in its entirety, such a degrading form of poisoning.
The drunken consciousness is one bit of the mystic consciousness, and our total opinion of it must find its place in our opinion of that larger whole.

Nitrous Oxide and Ether:

Nitrous oxide and ether, especially nitrous oxide when sufficiently diluted with air, stimulate the mystical consciousness to an extraordinary degree.
The person inhaling it feels as if depth beyond depth of truth is being revealed.
However, this truth fades out or escapes the moment they return to normal consciousness. If any words remain in which the truth seemed to dress itself, they usually turn out to be utter nonsense.
Nevertheless, the sense of a profound meaning having been there persists. I know more than one person who is convinced that in the nitrous oxide trance, we experience a genuine metaphysical revelation.

My Own Experiences with Nitrous Oxide: Some years ago, I myself made some observations on this aspect of nitrous oxide intoxication and reported them in print. One conclusion was forced upon my mind at that time, and my impression of its truth has remained unshaken ever since.

It is that our normal waking consciousness (rational consciousness, as we call it) is but one special type of consciousness.
All around it, parted from it by the thinnest of screens, lie potential forms of consciousness that are entirely different.
We may go through life without ever suspecting their existence. But if the right stimulus is applied, they are there in an instant, in all their completeness – definite types of mentality which probably have their own field of application and adaptation somewhere.
No account of the universe in its totality can be final if it completely disregards these other forms of consciousness.
The question is how to regard them, because they are so disconnected from ordinary consciousness.
Yet, they may influence our attitudes even if they cannot provide clear formulas, and they can open up a new region of understanding even if they fail to give us a map of it.
At any rate, they prevent us from prematurely closing our accounts with reality.

Looking back on my own experiences, they all point towards a kind of insight to which I cannot help but assign some metaphysical significance. The keynote of this insight is invariably a reconciliation. It is as if the opposites of the world – whose contradictions and conflicts create all our difficulties and troubles – were melted into unity. Not only do these contrasted opposites belong to one and the same general category (genus), but one of them, the nobler and better one, is itself that general category and thus soaks up and absorbs its opposite into itself.

This is a dark saying, I know, when expressed in terms of common logic, but I cannot entirely escape its authority. I feel as if it must mean something, something like what Hegelian philosophy means, if one could only grasp it more clearly. Those who have ears to hear, let them hear; for me, the living sense of its reality only comes in the artificial mystic state of mind.

I just mentioned friends who believe in revelations experienced under anesthetics. For them too, it is a monistic insight, in which “the other” (everything that seems separate or opposite) in its various forms appears to be absorbed into “the One.”

One of them writes:

“Into this pervading genius we pass, forgetting and forgotten, and thenceforth each is all, in God. There is no higher, no deeper, no other, than the life in which we are founded. ‘The One remains, the many change and pass;’ and each and every one of us is the One that remains… This is the ultimatum… As sure as being—whence is all our care—so sure is content, beyond duplexity, antithesis, or trouble, where I have triumphed in a solitude that God is not above.”

This has the genuine ring of religious mysticism! I just now quoted J. A. Symonds.

He also records a mystical experience he had with chloroform. Here is his account:

“After the choking and suffocating feeling passed away, I seemed at first to be in a state of utter blankness. Then came flashes of intense light, alternating with blackness. I also had a keen vision of what was going on in the room around me, but I had no sensation of touch. I thought that I was near death.

Then, suddenly, my soul became aware of God. God was clearly dealing with me, handling me, so to speak, in an intense, personal, present reality. I felt Him streaming in like light upon me… I cannot describe the ecstasy I felt.

Then, as I gradually awoke from the influence of the anesthetic, the old sense of my relation to the world began to return. The new sense of my relation to God began to fade. I suddenly leaped to my feet on the chair where I was sitting and shrieked out, ‘It is too horrible, it is too horrible, it is too horrible!’ I meant that I could not bear this disillusionment. Then I flung myself on the ground. At last, I awoke covered with blood, calling to the two surgeons (who were frightened), ‘Why did you not kill me? Why would you not let me die?’

Only think of it. To have felt for that long, timeless ecstasy of vision the very God, in all purity and tenderness and truth and absolute love! And then to find that I had, after all, had no revelation, but that I had been tricked by the abnormal excitement of my brain.

Yet, this question remains: Is it possible that the inner sense of reality which I experienced – when my flesh was dead to impressions from the outside, replacing the ordinary sense of physical relations – was not a delusion but an actual experience? Is it possible that I, in that moment, felt what some of the saints have said they always felt: the undemonstrable but undeniable certainty of God?”

With this, we connect to religious mysticism in its pure and simple form. Symonds’s question takes us back to those examples I quoted in the lecture on “The Reality of the Unseen.” These were examples of a sudden realization of the immediate presence of God. This phenomenon, in one form or another, is not uncommon.

Everyday Mystical Realizations

Mr. Trine, a writer on these subjects, shares an example:

“I know an officer on our police force who has told me that many times when off duty, and on his way home in the evening, something happens. There comes to him such a vivid and vital realization of his oneness with this Infinite Power. This Spirit of Infinite Peace so takes hold of and so fills him, that it seems as if his feet could hardly keep to the pavement. He becomes so buoyant and so exhilarated because of this inflowing tide of feeling.”

Certain aspects of nature seem to have a special power to awaken such mystical moods. Most of the striking cases I have collected have occurred outdoors. Literature has celebrated this fact in many passages of great beauty.

From Amiel’s Journal: Here is an extract from Amiel’s Journal Intime:

“Shall I ever again have any of those prodigious reveries which sometimes came to me in former days? One day, in my youth at sunrise, I was sitting in the ruins of the castle of Faucigny. Another time, in the mountains, under the noonday sun, above Lavey, I was lying at the foot of a tree and visited by three butterflies. Once more, at night upon the shingly shore of the Northern Ocean, my back was on the sand and my vision ranged through the Milky Way.

Such grand and spacious, immortal, cosmogonic (universe-creating) reveries! Times when one reaches to the stars, when one owns the infinite! These were divine moments, ecstatic hours. Our thought flies from world to world, pierces the great enigma of existence. We breathe with a respiration as broad, tranquil, and deep as the ocean’s breath, as serene and limitless as the blue sky… These were instants of irresistible intuition in which one feels oneself as great as the universe, and as calm as a god… What hours, what memories! The traces they leave behind are enough to fill us with belief and enthusiasm, as if they were visits of the Holy Ghost.”

From Malwida von Meysenbug’s Memoirs: Here is a similar record from the memoirs of Malwida von Meysenbug, an interesting German idealist:

“I was alone upon the seashore as all these thoughts flowed over me, liberating and reconciling. And now again, as once before in distant days in the Alps of Dauphiné, I was impelled to kneel down, this time before the illimitable ocean, symbol of the Infinite. I felt that I prayed as I had never prayed before, and I knew now what prayer really is: to return from the solitude of individuation into the consciousness of unity with all that is; to kneel down as one that passes away, and to rise up as one imperishable. Earth, heaven, and sea resounded as in one vast world-encircling harmony. It was as if the chorus of all the great who had ever lived were about me. I felt myself one with them, and it appeared as if I heard their greeting: ‘You too belong to the company of those who overcome.’”

From Walt Whitman: The well-known passage from Walt Whitman is a classic expression of this occasional type of mystical experience:

“I believe in you, my Soul… Loaf with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat;… Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice. I mind how once we lay, such a transparent summer morning. Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson [a central support beam] of the creation is love.”

From J. Trevor’s Autobiography: I could easily give more examples, but one more will be enough. I take it from the Autobiography of J. Trevor:

“One brilliant Sunday morning, my wife and boys went to the Unitarian Chapel in Macclesfield. I felt it impossible to accompany them—as though to leave the sunshine on the hills and go down there to the chapel would be, for the time, an act of spiritual suicide. And I felt such a need for new inspiration and expansion in my life. So, very reluctantly and sadly, I left my wife and boys to go down into the town, while I went further up into the hills with my stick and my dog.

In the loveliness of the morning, and the beauty of the hills and valleys, I soon lost my sense of sadness and regret. For nearly an hour I walked along the road to the ‘Cat and Fiddle’ [a pub], and then returned. On the way back, suddenly, without warning, I felt that I was in Heaven—an inward state of peace and joy and assurance, indescribably intense. This was accompanied with a sense of being bathed in a warm glow of light, as though the external condition had brought about the internal effect. I had a feeling of having passed beyond the body, though the scene around me stood out more clearly and as if nearer to me than before, because of the illumination in the midst of which I seemed to be placed. This deep emotion lasted, though with decreasing strength, until I reached home, and for some time after, only gradually passing away.”

The writer adds that having had further experiences of a similar sort, he now knows them well. He writes:

“The spiritual life justifies itself to those who live it; but what can we say to those who do not understand? This, at least, we can say: it is a life whose experiences are proved real to their possessor, because they remain with him when brought closest into contact with the objective realities of life. Dreams cannot stand this test. We wake from them to find that they are but dreams. Wanderings of an overwrought brain do not stand this test.

These highest experiences that I have had of God’s presence have been rare and brief—flashes of consciousness which have compelled me to exclaim with surprise—God is here! Or they were conditions of exaltation and insight, less intense, and only gradually passing away. I have severely questioned the worth of these moments. I have not told any soul about them, lest I should be building my life and work on mere fantasies of the brain. But I find that, after every questioning and test, they stand out today as the most real experiences of my life. They are experiences which have explained and justified and unified all past experiences and all past growth. Indeed, their reality and their far-reaching significance are ever becoming more clear and evident. When they came, I was living the fullest, strongest, sanest, deepest life. I was not seeking them. What I was seeking, with resolute determination, was to live more intensely my own life, as against what I knew would be the adverse judgment of the world. It was in the most real seasons that the Real Presence came, and I was aware that I was immersed in the infinite ocean of God.”

Cosmic Consciousness

Even those of you who are least mystical must by this time be convinced that mystical moments exist. They are states of consciousness with an entirely specific quality. They also make a deep impression on those who experience them.

A Canadian psychiatrist, Dr. R. M. Bucke, gives the name cosmic consciousness to the more distinctly characterized of these phenomena. Dr. Bucke says:

“Cosmic consciousness in its more striking instances is not simply an expansion or extension of the self-conscious mind with which we are all familiar. Instead, it is the superaddition of a function as distinct from any possessed by the average man as self-consciousness is distinct from any function possessed by one of the higher animals.”

He continues:

“The prime characteristic of cosmic consciousness is a consciousness of the cosmos, that is, of the life and order of the universe. Along with the consciousness of the cosmos, there occurs an intellectual enlightenment. This alone would place the individual on a new plane of existence—it would make him almost a member of a new species. To this is added a state of moral exaltation: an indescribable feeling of elevation, elation, and joyousness, and a quickening of the moral sense. This moral enhancement is fully as striking, and more important, than is the enhanced intellectual power. With these come what may be called a sense of immortality, a consciousness of eternal life – not a conviction that he shall have this, but the consciousness that he has it already.”

It was Dr. Bucke’s own experience of a typical onset of cosmic consciousness that led him to investigate it in others. He has printed his conclusions in a highly interesting volume, from which I take the following account of what happened to him:

“I had spent the evening in a great city, with two friends, reading and discussing poetry and philosophy. We parted at midnight. I had a long drive in a hansom cab to my lodging. My mind, deeply under the influence of the ideas, images, and emotions called up by the reading and talk, was calm and peaceful. I was in a state of quiet, almost passive enjoyment, not actually thinking, but letting ideas, images, and emotions flow of themselves, as it were, through my mind.

All at once, without warning of any kind, I found myself wrapped in a flame-colored cloud. For an instant, I thought of fire, an immense conflagration somewhere close by in that great city. The next moment, I knew that the fire was within myself.

Directly afterward, there came upon me a sense of exultation, of immense joyousness, accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination impossible to describe. Among other things, I did not merely come to believe, but I saw that the universe is not composed of dead matter, but is, on the contrary, a living Presence. I became conscious in myself of eternal life. It was not a conviction that I would have eternal life, but a consciousness that I possessed eternal life then. I saw that all men are immortal; that the cosmic order is such that, without any doubt, all things work together for the good of each and all; that the foundation principle of the world, of all the worlds, is what we call love; and that the happiness of each and all is, in the long run, absolutely certain.

The vision lasted a few seconds and was gone. But the memory of it, and the sense of the reality of what it taught, has remained during the quarter of a century which has since elapsed. I knew that what the vision showed was true. I had attained to a point of view from which I saw that it must be true. That view, that conviction, I may say that consciousness, has never, even during periods of the deepest depression, been lost.”

Methodical Cultivation of Mystic Consciousness

We have now seen enough of this cosmic or mystic consciousness as it appears sporadically, or without deliberate effort. We must next pass to its methodical cultivation as an element of religious life. Hindus, Buddhists, Mohammedans (Muslims), and Christians have all cultivated it methodically.

In India: Yoga In India, training in mystical insight has been known from ancient times under the name of yoga.

Yoga means the experimental union of the individual with the divine.
It is based on persevering exercise. The diet, posture, breathing, intellectual concentration, and moral discipline vary slightly in the different systems that teach it.
The yogi, or disciple, who by these means has sufficiently overcome the obscurations (blockages or hindrances) of his lower nature, enters into the condition termed samâdhi. In this state, he “comes face to face with facts which no instinct or reason can ever know.”
He learns:

“That the mind itself has a higher state of existence, beyond reason, a superconscious state, and that when the mind gets to that higher state, then this knowledge beyond reasoning comes… All the different steps in yoga are intended to bring us scientifically to the superconscious state or Samâdhi… Just as unconscious work is beneath consciousness, so there is another work which is above consciousness, and which, also, is not accompanied with the feeling of egoism… There is no feeling of ‘I,’ and yet the mind works, desireless, free from restlessness, objectless, bodiless. Then the Truth shines in its full effulgence, and we know ourselves—for Samâdhi lies potential in us all—for what we truly are: free, immortal, omnipotent, loosed from the finite, and its contrasts of good and evil altogether, and identical with the Atman or Universal Soul.”
The Vedantists (followers of a school of Hindu philosophy) say that one may stumble into superconsciousness sporadically, without the previous discipline, but it is then impure. Their test of its purity, like our test of religion’s value, is empirical: its results must be good for life. When a man comes out of Samâdhi, they assure us that he remains “enlightened, a sage, a prophet, a saint, his whole character changed, his life changed, illumined.”

In Buddhism: Dhyâna The Buddhists used the word “samâdhi” as well as the Hindus. However, dhyâna is their special word for higher states of contemplation. There seem to be four stages recognized in dhyâna:

The first stage comes through concentration of the mind upon one point. It excludes desire, but not discernment or judgment; it is still intellectual.
In the second stage, the intellectual functions drop off, and the satisfied sense of unity remains.
In the third stage, the satisfaction departs, and indifference begins, along with memory and self-consciousness.
In the fourth stage, the indifference, memory, and self-consciousness are perfected. (The exact meaning of “memory” and “self-consciousness” in this context is doubtful. They cannot be the faculties familiar to us in ordinary life.)

Higher stages of contemplation are also mentioned:

A region where nothing exists, and where the meditator says: “There exists absolutely nothing,” and then stops.
Then he reaches another region where he says: “There are neither ideas nor absence of ideas,” and stops again.
Then another region where, “having reached the end of both idea and perception, he stops finally.” This would seem to be not yet Nirvâna, but as close an approach to it as this life affords.

In the Mohammedan (Muslim) World: Sufism In the Muslim world, the Sufi sect and various dervish bodies are the keepers of the mystical tradition. The Sufis have existed in Persia from the earliest times. Because their pantheism (the belief that God is everything and in everything) is so different from the fervent and rigid monotheism of the Arab mind, it has been suggested that Sufism must have been introduced into Islam through Hindu influences. We Christians know little of Sufism, for its secrets are disclosed only to those who are initiated. To give its existence a certain liveliness in your minds, I will quote a Muslim document and then move on from this specific subject.

Al-Ghazzali: A Sufi Perspective Al-Ghazzali was a Persian philosopher and theologian who lived in the eleventh century. He ranks as one of the greatest scholars of the Muslim church. He left us one of the few autobiographies found outside of Christian literature. It is strange that a type of book so common among Christians should be so rare elsewhere. The absence of strictly personal confessions is the main difficulty for the purely literary student who wants to become acquainted with the inner nature of religions other than Christianity.

M. Schmölders has translated a part of Al-Ghazzali’s autobiography into French. The Muslim author says:

“The Science of the Sufis aims at detaching the heart from all that is not God, and at giving to it for its sole occupation the meditation of the divine being. Theory being more easy for me than practice, I read [certain books] until I understood all that can be learned by study and hearsay. Then I recognized that what pertains most exclusively to their method is just what no study can grasp, but only transport, ecstasy, and the transformation of the soul. How great, for example, is the difference between knowing the definitions of health, of satiety, with their causes and conditions, and being really healthy or filled. How different to know in what drunkenness consists—as being a state occasioned by a vapor that rises from the stomach—and being drunk effectively.”

Al-Ghazzali continued his comparison: A drunken man, without a doubt, doesn’t know the definition of drunkenness or what makes it interesting for science. While he is drunk, he knows nothing. The physician, however, although not drunk, knows very well what drunkenness is and what conditions lead to it. Similarly, there is a difference between knowing the nature of abstinence (self-denial) and actually being abstinent or having one’s soul detached from the world.

So, I had learned what words could teach about Sufism. But what remained could not be learned by study or by listening. It could only be learned by giving oneself up to ecstasy and leading a pious life.

Al-Ghazzali’s Spiritual Struggle and Transformation He reflected on his situation:

“I found myself tied down by many bonds—temptations on every side. Considering my teaching, I found it was impure before God. I saw myself struggling with all my might to achieve glory and to spread my name.”

(Here, Al-Ghazzali describes six months of hesitation to break away from his life in Baghdad. At the end of this period, he fell ill with a paralysis of the tongue.)

“Then, feeling my own weakness, and having entirely given up my own will, I turned to God like a man in distress who has no more resources. He answered, as He answers the wretched person who calls upon Him. My heart no longer felt any difficulty in renouncing glory, wealth, and my children.

So I left Baghdad. I kept only what was essential from my fortune for my basic needs and distributed the rest. I went to Syria, where I remained for about two years. My only occupation was living in retreat and solitude, conquering my desires, combating my passions, training myself to purify my soul, to make my character perfect, and to prepare my heart for meditating on God—all according to the methods of the Sufis, as I had read about them.

This retreat only increased my desire to live in solitude, and to complete the purification of my heart and prepare it for meditation. But the uncertainties of the times, family affairs, and the need to make a living changed my original resolve in some ways. These things interfered with my plans for a purely solitary life. I had never yet found myself completely in ecstasy, except for a few single hours. Nevertheless, I kept the hope of attaining this state. Every time that outside events led me astray, I sought to return to my path. I spent ten years in this situation.

During this solitary state, things were revealed to me which are impossible either to describe or to point out. I recognized for certain that the Sufis are surely walking in the path of God. Both in their actions and in their inaction, whether internal or external, they are illuminated by the light which comes from the prophetic source (divine inspiration).

The first condition for a Sufi is to purge his heart entirely of all that is not God. The next key to the contemplative life consists in the humble prayers that come from a fervent soul, and in the meditations on God in which the heart is completely absorbed. But in reality, this is only the beginning of the Sufi life. The end of Sufism is total absorption in God. The intuitions and all that come before are, so to speak, only the threshold for those who enter.

From the beginning, revelations take place in such a clear and obvious way that the Sufis see before them, while wide awake, the angels and the souls of the prophets. They hear their voices and receive their favors. Then, the mystical transport rises from the perception of forms and figures to a level that escapes all expression. No man may try to give an account of it without his words involving sin.

Whoever has had no experience of this transport knows nothing of the true nature of prophetism (the prophetic state) except its name. Meanwhile, he may be sure of its existence, both by his own experience and by what he hears the Sufis say. Just as there are people endowed only with the physical senses who reject what is offered to them in the way of objects of pure understanding, so there are intellectual people who reject and avoid the things perceived by the prophetic faculty. A blind man can understand nothing of colors except what he has learned by being told about them.

Yet God has brought prophetism near to mankind by giving everyone a state similar to it in its main characteristics. This state is sleep. If you were to tell a man who had no experience of such a phenomenon that there are people who at times swoon away so as to resemble dead men, and who (in dreams) yet perceive things that are hidden, he would deny it and give his reasons. Nevertheless, his arguments would be refuted by actual experience.

Therefore, just as the understanding is a stage of human life in which an ‘eye’ opens to discern various intellectual objects that sensation cannot comprehend, just so in the prophetic state, the sight is illuminated by a light that uncovers hidden things and objects that the intellect fails to reach. The chief properties of prophetism are perceptible only during the mystical transport, by those who embrace the Sufi life. The prophet is endowed with qualities to which you possess nothing similar, and which consequently you cannot possibly understand. How should you know their true nature, since one knows only what one can comprehend? But the transport which one attains by the method of the Sufis is like an immediate perception, as if one touched the objects with one’s hand.”

The Unspeakable Nature of Mystical Experience

This incommunicableness (inability to be communicated) of the mystical transport is the keynote of all mysticism. Mystical truth exists for the individual who has the transport, but for no one else. In this, as I have said, it resembles the knowledge given to us through our sensations more than the knowledge given by conceptual thought.

Thought, with its remoteness and abstractness, has often been contrasted unfavorably with sensation in the history of philosophy. It is a common idea in metaphysics that God’s knowledge cannot be discursive (step-by-step, like reasoning) but must be intuitive. That is, God’s knowledge must be structured more like what we call immediate feeling in ourselves, rather than like propositions and judgments. However, our immediate feelings usually have no content other than what our five senses supply. And we have seen, and shall see again, that mystics may strongly deny that the senses play any part in the very highest type of knowledge that their transports provide.

Mysticism in Christianity

In the Christian church, there have always been mystics. Although many of them have been viewed with suspicion, some have gained favor with the authorities. The experiences of these favored mystics have been treated as precedents. A codified (organized) system of mystical theology has been based upon them, in which everything considered legitimate finds its place.

The basis of this system is “orison” or meditation – the methodical elevation of the soul towards God. Through the practice of orison, the higher levels of mystical experience may be attained. It is odd that Protestantism, especially evangelical Protestantism, seems to have abandoned everything methodical in this area. Apart from what prayer may lead to, Protestant mystical experience appears to have been almost exclusively sporadic (occurring irregularly and unexpectedly). It has been left to modern “mind-curers” (early forms of psychotherapists or self-help proponents) to reintroduce methodical meditation into our religious life.

The Practice of Orison (Meditation) The first thing to aim for in orison is the mind’s detachment from outer sensations. These sensations interfere with its concentration upon ideal or spiritual things. Manuals such as Saint Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises recommend that the disciple expel sensation by a graduated series of efforts to imagine holy scenes. The peak of this kind of discipline would be a semi-hallucinatory mono-ideism – for example, an imaginary figure of Christ coming to fully occupy the mind. Sensorial images of this sort, whether literal or symbolic, play an enormous part in mysticism.

But in certain cases, imagery may fall away entirely. In the very highest raptures, it tends to do so. The state of consciousness then becomes impossible to describe in any words. Mystical teachers are unanimous about this.

Saint John of the Cross on the “Union of Love” Saint John of the Cross, for instance, one of the best of these teachers, describes the condition called the “union of love.” He says it is reached by “dark contemplation.” In this state, the Deity pervades or “compenetrates” the soul, but in such a hidden way that the soul:

“…finds no terms, no means, no comparison by which to convey the sublimity of the wisdom and the delicacy of the spiritual feeling with which she is filled… We receive this mystical knowledge of God clothed in none of the kinds of images, in none of the sensible representations, which our mind makes use of in other circumstances. Accordingly, in this knowledge, since the senses and the imagination are not employed, we get neither form nor impression, nor can we give any account or furnish any likeness, although the mysterious and sweet-tasting wisdom comes home so clearly to the inmost parts of our soul.

Imagine a man seeing a certain kind of thing for the first time in his life. He can understand it, use it, and enjoy it, but he cannot apply a name to it, nor communicate any idea of it, even though all the while it may be a mere thing of sense. How much greater will be his powerlessness when it goes beyond the senses! This is the peculiarity of the divine language. The more infused, intimate, spiritual, and supersensible it is, the more it exceeds the senses, both inner and outer, and imposes silence upon them…

The soul then feels as if placed in a vast and profound solitude, to which no created thing has access, in an immense and boundless desert – a desert all the more delicious the more solitary it is. There, in this abyss of wisdom, the soul grows by what it drinks in from the well-springs of the comprehension of love… and recognizes, however sublime and learned the terms we may employ, how utterly vile, insignificant, and improper they are, when we seek to talk about divine things using them.”

Countless Variations in Mystical Experience

I cannot pretend to detail to you the various stages of the Christian mystical life. For one thing, our time would not be sufficient. Moreover, I confess that the subdivisions and names we find in Catholic books seem to me to represent nothing objectively distinct. So many people, so many minds: I imagine that these experiences can be as infinitely varied as are the unique characteristics (idiosyncrasies) of individuals.

Mystical Experiences as Revelations of Truth

What we are directly concerned with are the cognitive aspects of these experiences – their value in the way of revelation. It is easy to show by quoting mystics how strong an impression these experiences leave of being revelations of new depths of truth. Saint Teresa is the expert of experts in describing such conditions, so I will turn immediately to what she says of one of the highest of them, the “orison of union.”

Saint Teresa on the “Orison of Union” Saint Teresa says:

“In the orison of union, the soul is fully awake as regards God, but wholly asleep as regards things of this world and in respect to herself. During the short time the union lasts, she is, as it were, deprived of every feeling. Even if she wanted to, she could not think of any single thing. Thus, she needs to use no trick to stop the use of her understanding; it remains so stricken with inactivity that she neither knows what she loves, nor in what manner she loves, nor what she wills. In short, she is utterly dead to the things of the world and lives solely in God… I do not even know whether in this state she has enough life left to breathe. It seems to me she has not; or at least that if she does breathe, she is unaware of it. Her intellect would like to understand something of what is going on within her, but it has so little force now that it can act in no way whatsoever. So a person who falls into a deep faint appears as if dead…

Thus God, when He raises a soul to union with Himself, suspends the natural action of all her faculties. She neither sees, hears, nor understands, so long as she is united with God. But this time is always short, and it seems even shorter than it is. God establishes Himself in the interior of this soul in such a way that when she returns to herself, it is wholly impossible for her to doubt that she has been in God, and God in her. This truth remains so strongly impressed on her that, even though many years should pass without the condition returning, she can neither forget the favor she received, nor doubt of its reality.

If you, nevertheless, ask how it is possible that the soul can see and understand that she has been in God, since during the union she has neither sight nor understanding, I reply that she does not see it then. She sees it clearly later, after she has returned to herself, not by any vision, but by a certitude which stays with her and which God alone can give her. I knew a person who was ignorant of the truth that God’s way of being in everything must be either by presence, by power, or by essence. But after having received the grace of which I am speaking, this person believed this truth in the most unshakable manner. So much so that, having consulted a half-learned man who was as ignorant on this point as she had been before she was enlightened, when he replied that God is in us only by ‘grace,’ she disbelieved his reply, so sure she was of the true answer. And when she came to ask wiser doctors, they confirmed her in her belief, which much consoled her…

But how, you will repeat, can one have such certainty about what one does not see? This question, I am powerless to answer. These are secrets of God’s omnipotence which it is not for me to penetrate. All that I know is that I tell the truth; and I shall never believe that any soul who does not possess this certainty has ever been really united to God.”

Types of Truth from Mystical Experiences The kinds of truth communicated in mystical ways, whether these are perceived through the senses or beyond them, are varied.

Some relate to this world: visions of the future, reading people’s hearts, the sudden understanding of texts, or knowledge of distant events, for example.
But the most important revelations are theological or metaphysical (relating to the fundamental nature of reality and being).

Saint Ignatius’s Revelations:

“Saint Ignatius confessed one day to Father Laynez that a single hour of meditation at Manresa had taught him more truths about heavenly things than all the teachings of all the doctors put together could have taught him… One day in orison on the steps of the choir of the Dominican church, he saw in a distinct manner the plan of divine wisdom in the creation of the world. On another occasion, during a procession, his spirit was carried away in God, and it was given him to contemplate, in a form and images fitted to the weak understanding of a dweller on the earth, the deep mystery of the Holy Trinity. This last vision flooded his heart with such sweetness, that the mere memory of it in after times made him shed abundant tears.”

Saint Teresa’s Revelations: Similarly with Saint Teresa:

“One day, being in orison,” she writes, “it was granted me to perceive in one instant how all things are seen and contained in God. I did not perceive them in their proper form, and nevertheless the view I had of them was of a sovereign clearness, and has remained vividly impressed upon my soul. It is one of the most signal (remarkable) of all the graces which the Lord has granted me… The view was so subtle and delicate that the understanding cannot grasp it.”

She goes on to tell how it was as if the Deity were an enormous and supremely clear diamond, in which all our actions were contained in such a way that their full sinfulness appeared evident as never before. On another day, she relates, while she was reciting the Athanasian Creed:

“Our Lord made me comprehend in what way it is that one God can be in three persons. He made me see it so clearly that I remained as extremely surprised as I was comforted… and now, when I think of the Holy Trinity, or hear It spoken of, I understand how the three adorable Persons form only one God and I experience an unspeakable happiness.”

On still another occasion, Saint Teresa was given to see and understand how the Mother of God had been assumed (taken up) into her place in Heaven.

The Intense Pleasure of Mystical States The deliciousness of some of these states seems to be beyond anything known in ordinary consciousness. It evidently involves physical sensations, because it is spoken of as something too extreme to be borne, and as bordering on bodily pain. But it is too subtle and piercing a delight for ordinary words to describe. Phrases like “God’s touches,” “the wounds of His spear,” and references to intoxication (“ebriety”) and to nuptial union have to be used to hint at it.

Intellect and senses both swoon away in these highest states of ecstasy. Saint Teresa says:

“If our understanding comprehends, it is in a mode which remains unknown to it, and it can understand nothing of what it comprehends. For my own part, I do not believe that it does comprehend, because, as I said, it does not understand itself to do so. I confess that it is all a mystery in which I am lost.”

In the condition called raptus or ravishment by theologians, breathing and circulation are so depressed that it is a question among scholars whether the soul is or is not temporarily separated from the body. One must read Saint Teresa’s descriptions and the very exact distinctions she makes to persuade oneself that one is dealing not with imaginary experiences, but with phenomena which, however rare, follow perfectly definite psychological types.

The Medical Perspective on Ecstasies

To the medical mind, these ecstasies signify nothing but suggested and imitated hypnoid states (states resembling hypnosis). They are seen as resting on an intellectual basis of superstition, and a physical one of degeneration and hysteria. Undoubtedly, these pathological conditions have existed in many, and possibly in all, of the cases. But that fact tells us nothing about the value for knowledge of the consciousness which these conditions induce.

To truly judge these mystical states, we must not just listen to superficial medical opinions. Instead, we need to look at their fruits for life – how they affect the people who experience them.

The Varied Results of Mystical Experiences

The results of mystical experiences appear to have been quite varied.

Stupefaction and Helplessness: For one thing, a state of confusion or inability to act seems to have sometimes been a result. You may remember how helpless poor Margaret Mary Alacoque was in the kitchen and schoolroom. Many other ecstatic individuals would have died if admiring followers had not taken care of them. The “other-worldliness” encouraged by mystical consciousness makes this extreme detachment from practical life a particular risk for mystics whose character is naturally passive and whose intellect is weak.
Increased Energy and Strength: However, in people with naturally strong minds and characters, we find quite the opposite results. The great Spanish mystics, who experienced ecstasy as intensely as anyone, mostly seem to have shown an unbreakable spirit and amazing energy. This was often all the more so because of the trances they experienced.
- Saint Ignatius was a mystic, but his mysticism certainly made him one of the most powerfully practical human beings who ever lived.
- Saint John of the Cross, writing about the intuitions and “touches” by which God reaches the core of the soul, tells us:
  
  “They enrich it marvelously. A single one of them may be enough to instantly remove certain imperfections that the soul had vainly tried to get rid of its whole life. It can leave the soul adorned with virtues and loaded with supernatural gifts. A single one of these intoxicating consolations may reward it for all the labors it has undergone in its life—even if they were countless. Filled with an invincible courage, and an impassioned desire to suffer for its God, the soul then is seized with a strange torment—that of not being allowed to suffer enough.”
- Saint Teresa is just as emphatic and much more detailed. You might remember a passage I quoted from her in my first lecture. There are many similar pages in her autobiography. Her description of the effects of certain ecstasies, which leave the soul on a higher level of emotional excitement when they depart, is one of the most obviously truthful accounts in literature of how a new center of spiritual energy is formed:
  
  “Often, the soul, though weak and suffering from dreadful pains before the ecstasy, emerges from it full of health and wonderfully ready for action… as if God had willed that the body itself, already obedient to the soul’s desires, should share in the soul’s happiness… After such a favor, the soul is filled with such great courage that if at that moment its body should be torn to pieces for the cause of God, it would feel nothing but the liveliest comfort. Then it is that promises and heroic resolutions spring up abundantly in us, along with soaring desires, a horror of the world, and the clear perception of our own nothingness… What power is comparable to that of a soul who, from this sublime summit to which God has raised her, sees all the things of earth beneath her feet, and is captivated by none of them? How ashamed she is of her former attachments! How amazed at her blindness! What lively pity she feels for those whom she sees still shrouded in darkness!… She groans at having ever been sensitive to points of honor, at the illusion that made her ever see as honor what the world calls by that name. Now she sees in this name nothing more than an immense lie of which the world remains a victim. She discovers, in the new light from above, that in genuine honor there is nothing false; that to be faithful to this honor is to give our respect to what truly deserves to be respected, and to consider as nothing, or as less than nothing, whatever perishes and is not agreeable to God… She laughs when she sees serious people, people of prayer, caring for points of honor for which she now feels the deepest contempt. They pretend it is suitable to the dignity of their rank to act this way, and that it makes them more useful to others. But she knows that by despising the dignity of their rank for the pure love of God, they would do more good in a single day than they would achieve in ten years by preserving it… She laughs at herself that there should ever have been a time in her life when she made any big deal of money, when she ever desired it… Oh! If only human beings could agree together to regard money as so much useless mud, what harmony would then reign in the world! With what friendship we would all treat each other if our interest in honor and in money could but disappear from earth! For my own part, I feel as if it would be a remedy for all our ills.”

The Question of Truth in Mysticism

Mystical conditions, therefore, can make the soul more energetic in the directions their inspiration favors. But this could be considered an advantage only if the inspiration were a true one. If the inspiration were wrong, the energy would be all the more mistaken and misdirected. So, we once again face that problem of truth which confronted us at the end of the lectures on saintliness. You will remember that we turned to mysticism precisely to get some light on this question of truth. Do mystical states establish the truth of those theological feelings and beliefs in which the saintly life has its roots?

The Philosophical Leanings of Mysticism: Optimism and Monism

In spite of their rejection of clear, articulate self-description, mystical states in general do assert a pretty distinct theoretical direction. It is possible to describe the outcome of the majority of them in terms that point in definite philosophical directions. One of these directions is optimism, and the other is monism (the belief that all reality is ultimately one).

We pass into mystical states from ordinary consciousness as if moving from a lesser state into a greater one – from smallness into vastness, and at the same time, from unrest to rest.
We feel them as reconciling, unifying states.
They appeal to the “yes-function” (acceptance, affirmation) in us more than to the “no-function” (denial, rejection).
In these states, the unlimited seems to absorb all limits and peacefully settle all accounts.

Their very denial of every adjective you might propose as applicable to the ultimate truth – for example, the Upanishads say that He, the Self, the Atman, is to be described by “No! no!” only – might seem on the surface to be a “no-function.” But it is a denial made on behalf of a deeper “yes.” Whoever calls the Absolute anything in particular, or says that it is this, seems implicitly to shut it off from being that – it is as if they lessened it. So, we deny the “this,” negating the limitation which it seems to imply, in the interests of the higher, affirmative attitude that possesses us.

The fountainhead of Christian mysticism is Dionysius the Areopagite. He describes the absolute truth exclusively by negatives:

“The cause of all things is neither soul nor intellect; nor has it imagination, opinion, or reason, or intelligence; nor is it reason or intelligence; nor is it spoken or thought. It is neither number, nor order, nor magnitude (size), nor littleness, nor equality, nor inequality, nor similarity, nor dissimilarity. It neither stands, nor moves, nor rests… It is neither essence, nor eternity, nor time. Even intellectual contact does not belong to it. It is neither science nor truth. It is not even royalty or wisdom; not one; not unity; not divinity or goodness; nor even spirit as we know it,” and so on, endlessly.

But Dionysius denies these qualifications not because the truth falls short of them, but because it so infinitely excels them. It is above them. It is super-lucent (brighter than light), super-splendent (more brilliant than splendor), super-essential, super-sublime – super everything that can be named. Like the philosopher Hegel in his logic, mystics journey towards the positive pole of truth only by the “Method of Absolute Negation.”

Paradoxical Language in Mystical Writings

This approach leads to the paradoxical expressions that are so common in mystical writings.

As when Meister Eckhart tells of the “still desert of the Godhead,” describing it as a place “where difference was never seen, neither Father, Son, nor Holy Ghost; where there is no one at home, yet where the spark of the soul is more at peace than in itself.”
As when Jakob Böhme writes of the Primal Love, that “it may fitly be compared to Nothing, for it is deeper than any Thing, and is as nothing with respect to all things, because it is not comprehensible by any of them. And because it is nothing in this respect, it is therefore free from all things, and is that only good, which a man cannot express or utter what it is, there being nothing to which it may be compared, to express it by.”
Or as when Angelus Silesius sings:

“God is a pure Nothing, no Now nor Here touches Him; The more you grasp for Him, the more He eludes you.”

The Moral Equivalent: Denying the Limited Self

Corresponding to this intellectual use of negation as a way to move towards a higher kind of affirmation, there is the subtlest of moral counterparts in the realm of personal will. Since the denial of the finite self and its wants – since asceticism of some sort – is found in religious experience to be the only doorway to the larger and more blessed life, this moral mystery intertwines and combines with the intellectual mystery in all mystical writings.

Böhme continues about Love being Nothing:

“For when you have gone forth wholly from the Creature and from that which is visible, and have become Nothing to all that is Nature and Creature, then you are in that eternal One, which is God himself, and then you shall feel within you the highest virtue of Love… The treasure of treasures for the soul is where she goes out of the Something into that Nothing out of which all things may be made. The soul here says: I have nothing, for I am utterly stripped and naked; I can do nothing, for I have no manner of power, but am as water poured out; I am nothing, for all that I am is no more than an image of Being, and only God is to me I AM. And so, sitting down in my own Nothingness, I give glory to the eternal Being, and will nothing of myself, so that God may will all in me, He being to me my God and all things.”

In Saint Paul’s language, “I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” Only when I become as nothing can God enter in, and no difference between His life and mine remains.

The Great Mystic Achievement: Oneness with the Absolute

This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states, we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of climate or creed. In Hinduism, in Neoplatonism, in Sufism, in Christian mysticism, in the writings of Walt Whitman, we find the same recurring note. Because of this, there is an eternal unanimity about mystical utterances that ought to make a critic stop and think. It also brings it about that the mystical classics have, as has been said, neither birthday nor native land. Perpetually telling of the unity of man with God, their speech predates languages, and they do not grow old.

“That art Thou!” say the Upanishads, and the Vedantists add: “Not a part, not a mode of That, but identically That, that absolute Spirit of the World.”
“As pure water poured into pure water remains the same, thus, O Gautama, is the Self of a thinker who knows. Water in water, fire in fire, ether in ether, no one can distinguish them: likewise a man whose mind has entered into the Self.”
“‘Every man,’ says the Sufi Gulshan-Râz, ‘whose heart is no longer shaken by any doubt, knows with certainty that there is no being save only One… In his divine majesty the “me,” and “we,” the “thou,” are not found, for in the One there can be no distinction. Every being who is annulled and entirely separated from himself, hears resound outside of him this voice and this echo: I am God: he has an eternal way of existing, and is no longer subject to death.’”
In the vision of God, says Plotinus, “what sees is not our reason, but something prior and superior to our reason… He who thus sees does not properly see, does not distinguish or imagine two things. He changes, he ceases to be himself, preserves nothing of himself. Absorbed in God, he makes but one with him, like a center of a circle coinciding with another center.”
“Here,” writes Suso, “the spirit dies, and yet is all alive in the marvels of the Godhead… and is lost in the stillness of the glorious dazzling obscurity and of the naked simple unity. It is in this modeless state where that the highest bliss is to be found.”
Angelus Silesius sings again: “I am as great as God, He is as small as I; He cannot be above me, nor I beneath Him.”

Mystical Truth and Music

In mystical literature, such self-contradictory phrases as “dazzling obscurity,” “whispering silence,” and “teeming desert” are continually met with. They prove that music, rather than conceptual speech, is the element through which mystical truth is best communicated to us. Many mystical scriptures are indeed little more than musical compositions.

Consider these words about Nada, “the Soundless Sound”:

“He who would hear the voice of Nada… and comprehend it, he has to learn the nature of Dhâranâ (concentration)… When to himself his form appears unreal, as do on waking all the forms he sees in dreams; when he has ceased to hear the many, he may discern the ONE—the inner sound which kills the outer… For then the soul will hear, and will remember. And then to the inner ear will speak the VOICE OF THE SILENCE… And now thy Self is lost in SELF, thyself unto THYSELF, merged in that SELF from which thou first didst radiate… Behold! thou hast become the Light, thou hast become the Sound, thou art thy Master and thy God. Thou art THYSELF the object of thy search: the VOICE unbroken, that resounds throughout eternities, exempt from change, from sin exempt, the seven sounds in one, the VOICE OF THE SILENCE. Om tat Sat.”

These words, if they do not make you laugh as you hear them, probably stir chords within you that music and language touch in common. Music gives us messages about the nature of being (ontological messages) which non-musical criticism is unable to contradict, though it may laugh at our foolishness for paying attention to them. There is an edge of the mind which these things haunt; and whispers from there mingle with the operations of our understanding, even as the waters of the infinite ocean send their waves to break among the pebbles that lie on our shores.

As the poet Swinburne wrote:

“Here begins the sea that ends not till the world’s end. Where we stand, Could we know the next high sea-mark set beyond these waves that gleam, We should know what never man hath known, nor eye of man hath scanned… Ah, but here man’s heart leaps, yearning towards the gloom with venturous glee, From the shore that hath no shore beyond it, set in all the sea.”

That doctrine, for example, that eternity is timeless – that our “immortality,” if we live in the eternal, is not so much a future state as one that is already now and here – is a belief often expressed today in certain philosophical circles. It finds its support in a “hear, hear!” or an “amen” that floats up from that mysteriously deeper level of our being. We recognize the passwords to the mystical region as we hear them, but we cannot use them ourselves; that region alone has the keeping of “the password primeval.”

General Traits of Mystic Consciousness: A Summary

I have now sketched, with extreme brevity and insufficiency, but as fairly as I am able in the time allowed, the general traits of the mystic range of consciousness.

It is, on the whole, pantheistic (seeing God in everything) and optimistic, or at least the opposite of pessimistic.
It is anti-naturalistic (it does not see the natural world as the only or ultimate reality).
It harmonizes best with “twice-bornness” (a profound spiritual transformation) and so-called other-worldly states of mind.

The Authority of Mystical States

My next task is to inquire whether we can consider mystical consciousness as authoritative. Does it provide any warrant or justification for the truth of the “twice-born” perspective, supernaturalism, and pantheism which it seems to favor? I must give my answer to this question as concisely as I can.

In brief, my answer is this—and I will divide it into three parts:

Mystical states, when well developed, usually are, and have the right to be, absolutely authoritative over the individuals to whom they come.
No authority comes from them that should make it a duty for those who stand outside of them to accept their revelations uncritically.
They break down the authority of the non-mystical or rationalistic consciousness, which is based upon the understanding and the senses alone. They show it to be only one kind of consciousness. They open up the possibility of other orders of truth, in which, so far as anything in us vitally responds to them, we may freely continue to have faith.

I will take up these points one by one.

1. Authority Over the Individual

As a matter of psychological fact, mystical states that are well-pronounced and emphatic are usually authoritative over those who experience them. They feel they have “been there” and know. It is useless for rationalism to grumble about this. If the mystical truth that comes to a person proves to be a force they can live by, what right do we, the majority, have to order them to live in another way? We can throw them into a prison or a madhouse, but we cannot change their mind—we commonly only make them cling more stubbornly to their beliefs. As a matter of fact, it mocks our utmost efforts, and in terms of logic, it absolutely escapes our jurisdiction.

Our own more “rational” beliefs are based on evidence exactly similar in nature to that which mystics quote for theirs. Namely, our senses have assured us of certain states of fact. But mystical experiences are as direct perceptions of fact for those who have them as any sensations ever were for us. The records show that even though the five senses may be inactive in these states, the experiences are absolutely “sensational” in their epistemological quality (their quality as a way of knowing), if I may be pardoned the awkward expression. That is, they are face-to-face presentations of what seems immediately to exist.

The mystic, in short, is invulnerable. Whether we like it or not, we must leave the mystic in undisturbed enjoyment of their beliefs. As Tolstoy said, faith is what people live by. And a state of faith and a mystical state are practically the same thing.

2. No Obligation for Outsiders to Uncritically Accept Mystical Claims

But now I must add that mystics have no right to claim that we ought to accept the insights of their unique experiences if we ourselves are outsiders and feel no personal pull towards them. The most they can ever ask of us in this life is to admit that their experiences establish a presumption – a reason to consider their claims, but not a demand for belief.

They form a consensus, a general agreement, and their experiences have a clear outcome. Mystics might say it would be odd if such a widely reported type of experience should turn out to be completely wrong. At its core, however, this would only be an appeal to numbers, similar to how rationalism appeals to its own kind of majority. The appeal to numbers has no logical force. If we acknowledge it, it’s for “suggestive” reasons (it influences us), not for logical ones; we follow the majority because doing so suits our lives.

But even this presumption, based on the supposed unanimity of mystics, is far from being strong. When I characterized mystic states as generally pantheistic (seeing God in everything), optimistic, and so on, I’m afraid I oversimplified the truth. I did so for the sake of clear explanation and to stay closer to the classic mystical tradition.

It must now be confessed that classic religious mysticism is only a “privileged case.” It’s like an extract, kept true to type by carefully selecting the best examples and preserving them in “schools” of thought. This classic form is carved out from a much larger, more diverse mass of experiences. If we take this larger mass as seriously as religious mysticism has historically taken itself, we find that the supposed unanimity largely disappears.

Diversity within Religious Mysticism: To begin with, even religious mysticism itself – the kind that accumulates traditions and creates schools – is much less unanimous than I have allowed.
- Within the Christian church, it has been both ascetic (self-denying) and, at times, anti-nomianly self-indulgent (rejecting laws and indulging desires).
- It is dualistic (believing in two fundamental principles, like spirit and matter) in Sankhya philosophy (an ancient Indian school) and monistic (believing in one ultimate reality) in Vedanta philosophy (another Indian school).
- I called it pantheistic, but the great Spanish mystics are anything but pantheists. With few exceptions, they are not metaphysical minds; for them, the “category of personality” (the idea of God as a person) is absolute. For them, the “union” of man with God is much more like an occasional miracle than an original, fundamental identity.
- How different again, apart from the happiness common to all, is the mysticism of figures like Walt Whitman, Edward Carpenter, and Richard Jefferies (who were naturalistic pantheists) from the more distinctively Christian type of mysticism.
Mystical Feeling Lacks Specific Content: The fact is that the mystical feeling of enlargement, union, and emancipation has no specific intellectual content of its own. It is capable of forming partnerships with ideas from the most diverse philosophies and theologies, as long as they can find a place in their framework for its peculiar emotional mood.
No Special Endorsement: Therefore, we have no right to use the prestige of mystical experience to distinctively favor any special belief, such as belief in absolute idealism, or in absolute monistic identity, or in the absolute goodness of the world. Mysticism is only relatively in favor of these things – it moves out of common human consciousness in the direction where these ideas lie.

So much for religious mysticism proper. But there is more to be told, because religious mysticism is only one half of mysticism. The other half has no accumulated traditions except those found in textbooks on insanity. Open any one of these, and you will find many cases where “mystical ideas” are cited as characteristic symptoms of enfeebled or deluded states of mind.

“Diabolical Mysticism”: In delusional insanity (sometimes called paranoia), we may find a kind of “diabolical mysticism” – a sort of religious mysticism turned upside down.
- There’s the same sense of unspeakable importance in the smallest events.
- The same texts and words come with new, profound meanings.
- There are the same voices, visions, senses of guidance, and missions.
- There’s the same feeling of being controlled by external powers.
- Only this time, the emotion is pessimistic: instead of consolations, there are desolations and despair. The meanings are dreadful, and the powers are seen as enemies to life.

It is evident that from the point of view of their psychological mechanism, classic religious mysticism and these “lower” or darker mysticisms spring from the same mental level. This level is that great subliminal (below the threshold of consciousness) or transmarginal (beyond the usual limits of consciousness) region. Science is beginning to admit the existence of this region, but very little is actually known about it. That region contains every kind of material: “seraph and snake” (good and evil) live there side by side. Simply coming from this region is not an infallible sign of truth or value. What comes from there must be sifted and tested. It must face confrontation with the total context of our experience, just like anything that comes from the outer world of our senses. Its value must be determined by empirical methods (based on experience and observation), as long as we are not mystics ourselves.

Once more, then, I repeat that non-mystics are under no obligation to acknowledge in mystical states a superior authority given to them by their intrinsic nature.

3. Mystical States Challenge the Sole Authority of Rational Consciousness

Yet, I repeat once more: the existence of mystical states absolutely overthrows the claim of non-mystical states of consciousness to be the sole and ultimate dictators of what we may believe.

As a rule, mystical states merely add a supersensuous (beyond the senses) meaning to the ordinary outward data of consciousness. They are like emotional excitements, such as the emotions of love or ambition. They are gifts to our spirit through which facts already objectively before us gain a new expressiveness and make a new connection with our active life. They do not contradict these facts as such, or deny anything that our senses have immediately perceived.

It is the rationalistic critic, rather, who plays the part of the denier in this controversy. And his denials have no strength, because there can never be a state of facts to which new meaning may not truthfully be added, provided the mind rises to a more encompassing point of view.

It must always remain an open question whether mystical states may not possibly be such superior points of view – windows through which the mind looks out upon a more extensive and inclusive world. The fact that different mystical windows may offer different views need not prevent us from considering this possibility. If this were true, the wider world would simply prove to have a mixed constitution, like that of our current world. That is all. It would have its heavenly and its hellish regions, its tempting and its saving moments, its valid experiences and its counterfeit ones, just as our world has them. But it would be a wider world all the same. We would have to use its experiences by selecting, subordinating, and substituting, just as we do in this ordinary, naturalistic world. We would be liable to error, just as we are now. Yet, counting in that wider world of meanings, and seriously dealing with it, might, in spite of all the perplexity, be indispensable stages in our approach to the final fullness of truth.

Concluding Thoughts on Mysticism’s Authority

In this way, I think, we have to leave the subject of mysticism.

Mystical states indeed hold no authority simply because they are mystical states.
But the higher ones among them point in directions towards which the religious sentiments of even non-mystical people tend to incline. They speak of the supremacy of the ideal, of vastness, of union, of safety, and of rest.
They offer us hypotheses – ideas we may voluntarily ignore, but which, as thinkers, we cannot possibly disprove or upset.
The supernaturalism and optimism to which they would persuade us may, interpreted in one way or another, be after all the truest insights into the meaning of this life.

As Robert Browning wrote: “Oh, the little more, and how much it is; and the little less, and what worlds away!” It may be that this kind of possibility and permission for belief are all that our religious consciousness requires to live on. In my last lecture, I will try to persuade you that this is the case.

Meanwhile, however, I am sure that for many of my readers, this “diet” of mere possibility is too slender. If supernaturalism and inner union with the divine are true, you might think, then we ought to find not so much permission, as compulsion to believe. Philosophy has always claimed to prove religious truth by coercive (forceful and convincing) argument. The construction of such philosophies has always been one favorite function of the religious life, if we use this term in its broad historical sense.

But religious philosophy is an enormous subject. In my next lecture, I can only give that brief glance at it which my limits will allow.

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PHILOSOPHY

Our discussion about Saintliness left us with a big question: When someone feels a divine presence, is that sense pointing to something objectively true? We first looked to mysticism for an answer. We found that although mysticism is very willing to support religion, its expressions are too private and too varied to claim universal authority.

But philosophy publishes results that claim to be universally valid, if they are valid at all. So now, we turn to philosophy with our question: Can philosophy confirm that the religious person’s sense of the divine is true?

Guessing the Direction?

I imagine that at this point, many of you are trying to guess where I’m heading with this argument. You might think: “He undermined the authority of mysticism, and the next thing he’ll probably do is try to discredit philosophy too.” You might expect me to conclude that religion is nothing more than a matter of faith. This faith would be based either on vague feelings or on that vivid sense of the reality of unseen things, which I gave many examples of in my second lecture and in the lecture on Mysticism.

You might think I’ll say religion is essentially private and individual. It always goes beyond our ability to put it into words. And although people will probably always try to pour its contents into a philosophical mold (because that’s human nature), these attempts are always secondary. They don’t add to the authority or guarantee the truthfulness of the original feelings that inspire them and give them any sense of conviction they might have.

In short, you might suspect that I’m planning to defend feeling at the expense of reason. You might think I want to bring back primitive, unreflective ways of thinking and discourage you from hoping for any kind of Theology that’s truly worthy of the name.

To a certain extent, I have to admit your guess is right. I do believe that feeling is the deeper source of religion. I also believe that philosophic and theological formulas are secondary products, like translations of a text into another language. But statements like these are misleading because they are so brief. It will take this whole hour for me to explain exactly what I mean.

Theology: A Product of Feeling

When I call theological formulas “secondary products,” I mean this: In a world where no religious feeling had ever existed, I doubt that any philosophic theology could ever have been created.

I doubt that calmly and dispassionately thinking about the universe – without, on one hand, inner unhappiness and a need for deliverance, and on the other hand, mystical emotion – would ever have led to the kind of religious philosophies we have now. People would have started with animistic explanations for natural events (attributing spirits to natural objects). They would then have criticized these away into scientific explanations, as they have actually done. Within science, they might have left a certain amount of “psychical research” (study of paranormal phenomena), just as they probably will have to re-admit a certain amount of it now.

But they would have had no reason to venture into high-flying speculations like those of dogmatic theology (based on fixed beliefs) or idealistic theology (emphasizing mind or spirit). They wouldn’t have felt any need to connect with such deities. These speculations, it seems to me, must be classified as over-beliefs. They are like buildings constructed by the intellect, extending out in directions that feeling originally hinted at.

Philosophy’s Goal: From Private Feeling to Universal Truth

But even if religious philosophy needed its first hint from feeling, couldn’t it have handled the subject matter in a superior way?

Feeling is private and silent; it can’t give an account of itself. It admits its results are mysteries and enigmas. It declines to justify them rationally and, at times, is willing for them to seem paradoxical or absurd.
Philosophy takes the opposite approach. Its goal is to reclaim any territory it touches from mystery and paradox. The intellect’s most cherished ideal has always been to find an escape from obscure and unpredictable personal persuasion and arrive at truth that is objectively valid for all thinking people. Reason’s task has been to redeem religion from unhealthy privacy and to give its insights public status and a universal right of way.

I believe philosophy will always have the opportunity to work on this task. We are thinking beings, and we cannot exclude our intellect from participating in any of our functions. Even when we talk to ourselves, we interpret our feelings intellectually. Both our personal ideals and our religious and mystical experiences must be understood in a way that fits with the kind of mental “scenery” our thinking mind inhabits. The philosophic climate of our time inevitably influences how we see things.

Moreover, we must share our feelings with one another. In doing so, we have to speak and use general and abstract verbal formulas. Concepts and constructed ideas are thus a necessary part of our religion. Philosophy will always have much to do as a moderator amid the clash of different hypotheses, and as a mediator among the criticisms of one person’s ideas by another. It would be strange if I disputed this, especially since these very lectures I am giving are (as you will see more clearly from now on) a careful attempt to extract some general facts from the privacy of religious experiences – facts that can be defined in formulas everyone might agree on.

In other words, religious experience spontaneously and inevitably gives rise to myths, superstitions, dogmas (fixed beliefs), creeds (statements of faith), and metaphysical theologies. It also leads to criticisms of one set of these by the adherents of another. Recently, impartial classifications and comparisons of these different religious expressions have become possible. This is a change from the past, when interactions between creeds consisted exclusively of denunciations and condemnations. We now have the beginnings of a so-called “Science of Religions.” If these lectures could ever be considered even a small contribution to such a science, I would be very happy.

But all these intellectual operations – whether they are building up theories, or comparing and criticizing them – assume that immediate experiences are their subject matter. They are interpretative and inductive operations. They happen after the fact, following religious feeling. They are not on the same level as religious feeling, nor are they independent of what religious feeling ascertains.

The “Intellectualism” I Wish to Discredit

The “intellectualism” in religion that I wish to challenge pretends to be something entirely different from this.

It assumes it can construct religious objects (like God) using only the resources of logical reason, or by logical reason drawing strict conclusions from non-subjective facts (facts outside personal experience).
It calls its conclusions “dogmatic theology” or “philosophy of the absolute,” depending on the case. It does not call them “science of religions.”
It reaches these conclusions in an a priori way (based on reasoning from self-evident propositions rather than observation) and guarantees their truthfulness.

Systems that claim to guarantee truth have always been idols for aspiring souls. All-inclusive, yet simple; noble, clean, luminous, stable, rigorous, true – what more ideal refuge could such a system offer to spirits troubled by the muddiness and accidental nature of the world of sensible things? Accordingly, we find that theological schools today, almost as much as in the past, teach a disdain for truth that is merely possible or probable, and for results that only private assurance can grasp. Both Scholastics (medieval philosophers) and idealists (philosophers who emphasize mind or spirit) express this disdain.

Philosophers on Reason Over Feeling Principal John Caird, for example, writes in his Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion:

“Religion must indeed be a thing of the heart; but in order to elevate it from the region of subjective whim and waywardness, and to distinguish between what is true and false in religion, we must appeal to an objective standard. That which enters the heart must first be discerned by the intelligence to be true. It must be seen as having in its own nature a right to dominate feeling, and as constituting the principle by which feeling must be judged. In estimating the religious character of individuals, nations, or races, the first question is, not how they feel, but what they think and believe—not whether their religion is one which manifests itself in emotions, more or less intense and enthusiastic, but what are the conceptions of God and divine things by which these emotions are called forth. Feeling is necessary in religion, but it is by the content or intelligent basis of a religion, and not by feeling, that its character and worth are to be determined.”

Cardinal Newman, in his work The Idea of a University, expresses this disdain for sentiment even more emphatically. Theology, he says, is a science in the strictest sense of the word. He explains what it is not – not “physical evidences” for God, not “natural religion,” because these are just vague subjective interpretations:

“If,” he continues, “the Supreme Being is powerful or skillful, just so far as the telescope shows power, or the microscope shows skill; if His moral law is to be ascertained simply by the physical processes of the animal frame, or His will gathered from the immediate issues of human affairs; if His Essence is just as high and deep and broad as the universe and no more; if this be the fact, then will I confess that there is no specific science about God, that theology is but a name, and a protest in its behalf an hypocrisy. Then, pious as it is to think of Him while the pageant of experiment or abstract reasoning passes by, still such piety is nothing more than a poetry of thought, or an ornament of language, a certain view taken of Nature which one man has and another has not, which gifted minds strike out, which others see to be admirable and ingenious, and which all would be the better for adopting. It is but the theology of Nature, just as we talk of the philosophy or the romance of history, or the poetry of childhood, or the picturesque or the sentimental or the humorous, or any other abstract quality which the genius or the whim of the individual, or the fashion of the day, or the consent of the world, recognizes in any set of objects which are subjected to its contemplation. I do not see much difference between avowing that there is no God, and implying that nothing definite can be known for certain about Him.”

What I mean by Theology, continues Newman, is none of these things:

“I simply mean the Science of God, or the truths we know about God, put into a system, just as we have a science of the stars and call it astronomy, or of the crust of the earth and call it geology.”

Philosophy’s Failure to Achieve Universal Agreement

In both these extracts, the issue is clearly set before us: Feeling, valid only for the individual, is pitted against Reason, supposedly valid universally. The test is a perfectly plain matter of fact. Theology based on pure reason must, in actual fact, convince people universally. If it did not, what would make it superior? If it only formed sects and schools, just as sentiment and mysticism do, how would it fulfill its promise of freeing us from personal whim and waywardness?

This perfectly definite, practical test of philosophy’s claims to found religion on universal reason simplifies my procedure today. I don’t need to discredit philosophy by laboriously criticizing its arguments. It will be enough if I show that, as a matter of history, it fails to prove its claim to be “objectively” convincing.

In fact, philosophy does so fail. It does not banish differences; it founds schools and sects just as feeling does. I believe, in fact, that human logical reason operates in this field of divinity exactly as it has always operated in love, or in patriotism, or in politics, or in any other of the wider affairs of life, in which our passions or our mystical intuitions fix our beliefs beforehand. Reason then finds arguments for our convictions, because indeed it has to find them. It expands and defines our faith, and dignifies it and lends it words and plausibility. It hardly ever creates faith in the first place; it cannot secure it now.

A Look at Systematic Theology’s Arguments

Lend me your attention while I quickly review some points from older systematic theology. You find them in both Protestant and Catholic manuals, especially in the countless textbooks published since Pope Leo’s Encyclical recommending the study of Saint Thomas Aquinas. I’ll first glance at the arguments by which dogmatic theology establishes God’s existence, and after that, at those by which it establishes His nature.

Arguments for God’s Existence These arguments have stood for hundreds of years, with waves of unbelieving criticism breaking against them. They have never been totally discredited in the ears of the faithful, but on the whole, criticism has slowly and surely weakened them, like washing out the mortar from between stones.

If you already have a God you believe in, these arguments confirm your belief.
If you are atheistic, they fail to convert you.

The proofs are varied:

The “cosmological” argument: This reasons from the contingent nature of the world (the fact that it depends on something else for its existence) to a First Cause. This First Cause must contain whatever perfections the world itself contains.
The “argument from design”: This reasons from the fact that Nature’s laws are mathematical, and her parts are benevolently adapted to each other. It concludes that this First Cause is both intelligent and benevolent.
The “moral argument”: This argues that the moral law presupposes a divine lawgiver.
The “argument from common consent” (ex consensu gentium): This argues that the belief in God is so widespread that it must be grounded in the rational nature of humanity and should therefore carry authority.

As I just said, I will not discuss these arguments technically. The simple fact that all idealist philosophers since Kant have felt entitled either to dismiss or to neglect them shows that they are not solid enough to serve as religion’s all-sufficient foundation. Absolutely impersonal reasons, to be valid, would need to be much more generally convincing.

Causation is indeed too obscure a principle to bear the weight of the whole structure of theology.
As for the argument from design, see how Darwinian ideas have revolutionized it. Benevolent adaptations in Nature, now conceived as fortunate escapes from almost limitless processes of destruction, suggest a deity very different from the one described in earlier versions of the argument.

The fact is that these arguments merely follow the combined suggestions of observed facts and our own feelings. They prove nothing rigorously. They only support our pre-existing inclinations.

Philosophy’s Attempts to Define God’s Attributes

If philosophy can do so little to establish God’s existence, how does it fare with its efforts to define His attributes? It is worthwhile to look at what systematic theology attempts in this direction.

Systematic theology, this “science of sciences,” says that since God is the First Cause, He differs from all His creatures by possessing existence a se (from Himself, or self-existence). From this “a-seity” on God’s part, theology deduces most of His other perfections by pure logic. For instance:

He must be both necessary (His existence is not dependent on anything else) and absolute (He cannot not be, and cannot in any way be determined by anything else).
This makes Him absolutely unlimited from without, and unlimited also from within (because limitation implies non-being, and God is being itself). This unlimitedness makes God infinitely perfect.
Moreover, God is One and Only, because the infinitely perfect can admit no equal or peer.
He is Spiritual, because if He were composed of physical parts, some other power would have had to combine them into the whole, and His self-existence (aseity) would thus be contradicted. He is therefore both simple (not made of parts) and non-physical in nature.
He is also simple metaphysically. This means His nature (His essentia or essence) and His existence (His esse or being) cannot be distinct, as they are in finite substances (which share their formal natures with one another and are individual only in their material aspect). Since God is one and only, His essence and His being must be given at one stroke. This excludes from His being all those distinctions so familiar in the world of finite things, such as between potentiality and actuality, substance and accidents, being and activity, or existence and attributes. We can talk, it is true, of God’s powers, acts, and attributes, but these discriminations are only “virtual” (existing in effect or essence, though not in fact) and are made from the human point of view. In God, all these points of view fall into an absolute identity of being.

This absence of all potentiality in God requires Him to be immutable (unchangeable).

He is actuality, through and through. If there were anything potential about Him, He would either lose or gain by its actualization, and either loss or gain would contradict His perfection. He cannot, therefore, change.
Furthermore, He is immense and boundless. If He could be outlined in space, He would be composite (made of parts), and this would contradict His indivisibility. He is therefore omnipresent, indivisibly present at every point of space.
He is similarly wholly present at every point of time—in other words, eternal. If He began in time, He would need a prior cause, which would contradict His self-existence. If He ended, it would contradict His necessity (His nature of having to exist). If He went through any succession of changes, it would contradict His immutability.

He has intelligence and will and every other perfection found in creatures, because we have them, and the effect cannot be greater than its cause (effectus nequit superare causam).

In Him, however, these perfections are absolutely and eternally in act (fully realized).
Their object, since God can be bounded by nothing external, can primarily be nothing else than God Himself. He knows Himself, then, in one eternal, indivisible act, and wills Himself with an infinite self-pleasure.
Since He must, by logical necessity, thus love and will Himself, He cannot be called “free” ad intra (internally) with the freedom of choosing between opposites that characterizes finite creatures.
Ad extra (externally), however, or with respect to His creation, God is free. He cannot need to create, being perfect in being and in happiness already. He wills to create, then, by an absolute freedom.

God, being a substance with intellect, will, and freedom, is therefore a person. He is also a living person because He is both the object and the subject of His own activity, and this is what distinguishes the living from the lifeless. He is thus absolutely self-sufficient: His self-knowledge and self-love are both infinite and complete, needing no external conditions to perfect them.

Omniscient (All-Knowing): God is all-knowing because, in knowing Himself as the Cause of all things, He implicitly knows all created things and events. His knowledge is previsive (seeing beforehand) because He is present to all of time. Even our free acts are known to Him beforehand; otherwise, His wisdom would have to be enriched moment by moment, which would contradict His unchangeable nature (immutability).
Omnipotent (All-Powerful): He is all-powerful in doing everything that does not involve a logical contradiction. His power includes creation.
Creation Ex Nihilo (Out of Nothing): If what He creates were made of His own substance, it would have to be infinite in essence, just as His substance is. But created things are finite; so, their substance must be non-divine. If they were made of some pre-existing substance (like eternally existing matter) that God found and simply gave form to, that would contradict God’s definition as the First Cause and would make Him merely a shaper of something already caused. Therefore, the things He creates, He creates “out of nothing” (ex nihilo). He gives them absolute being as so many finite substances additional to Himself. The forms He imprints on them have their original patterns (prototypes) in His ideas. But since there is no multiplicity or variety in God Himself, and since these ideas appear numerous to us, we must distinguish between the ideas as they are in God and the way our minds externally imitate them. We should attribute these multiple ideas to Him only in a “terminative” sense – as different aspects, from our finite point of view, of His unique, singular essence.
Holy, Good, and Just: God is, of course, holy, good, and just. He can do no evil, because He is the fullness of positive being, and evil is a negation or absence of being. It is true that He has created physical evil in some places, but only as a means to achieve a wider good (because, as a principle states, “the good of the whole is more important than the good of the part” – bonum totius præeminet bonum partis). He cannot will moral evil, either as an end or as a means, because that would contradict His holiness. By creating free beings, He only permits moral evil; neither His justice nor His goodness obliges Him to prevent those who receive freedom from misusing that gift.
Purpose in Creation: Regarding God’s purpose in creating, primarily it can only have been to exercise His absolute freedom by showing His glory to others. From this, it follows that these “others” must be rational beings, capable, in the first place, of knowledge, love, and honor, and in the second place, of happiness. This is because the knowledge and love of God is the main source of true happiness (felicity). In this respect, one may say that God’s secondary purpose in creating is love.

The Value of Dogmatic Theology

I will not weary you by pursuing these metaphysical (concerned with the fundamental nature of reality) determinations further, for example, into the mysteries of God’s Trinity. What I have given will serve as a sample of the orthodox philosophical theology of both Catholics and Protestants.

Cardinal Newman, filled with enthusiasm at God’s list of perfections, continues the passage I began to quote to you with a couple of pages of rhetoric so magnificent that I can hardly resist adding them, despite the time it would take. He first lists God’s attributes in a resonant way, then celebrates His ownership of everything in earth and Heaven, and the dependence of all that happens upon His permissive will. He gives us scholastic philosophy “touched with emotion,” and every philosophy should be touched with emotion to be rightly understood.

Emotionally, then, dogmatic theology (theology based on authoritative doctrines) is worth something to minds like Newman’s. To help us estimate what it is worth intellectually, I will now make a short digression.

The Pragmatic Approach to Philosophy

A saying goes: “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” The Continental European schools of philosophy have too often overlooked the fact that a person’s thinking is organically connected with their conduct. It seems to me to be the chief glory of English and Scottish thinkers to have kept this organic connection in view.

The guiding principle of British philosophy has, in fact, been that every difference must make a difference. Every theoretical difference must somewhere result in a practical difference. The best method of discussing points of theory is to begin by finding out what practical difference would result if one alternative or the other were true.

What is the particular truth in question known as?
In what facts does it result?
What is its “cash-value” in terms of particular experience?

This is the characteristic English way of taking up a question.

You remember that Locke takes up the question of personal identity in this way. He says what you mean by it is just your chain of particular memories. That is the only concretely verifiable part of its significance. All further ideas about it, such as whether the spiritual substance it’s based on is one or many, are therefore void of understandable meaning. Propositions about such ideas can be either affirmed or denied without much consequence.
So too Berkeley with his “matter.” The cash-value of matter is our physical sensations. That is what it is known as, all that we concretely verify of its concept. That, therefore, is the whole meaning of the term “matter”—any other pretended meaning is just empty words.
Hume does the same thing with causation. It is known as habitual antecedence (one thing regularly coming before another) and as a tendency on our part to look for something definite to follow. Apart from this practical meaning, it has no significance whatever, and books about it may as well be burned, says Hume.
Dugald Stewart and Thomas Brown, James Mill, John Mill, and Professor Bain have followed this same method more or less consistently. Shadworth Hodgson has used the principle with full explicitness.

When all is said and done, it was English and Scottish writers, not Kant, who introduced “the critical method” into philosophy – the one method suited to make philosophy a study worthy of serious people. For what seriousness can possibly remain in debating philosophical propositions that will never make an appreciable difference to us in action? And what could it matter, if all propositions were practically indifferent, which of them we should agree to call true or which false?

Charles Sanders Peirce and Pragmatism An American philosopher of eminent originality, Mr. Charles Sanders Peirce, has done a service to thought. He disentangled the principle by which these thinkers were instinctively guided from the specific details of its application. He singled it out as fundamental and gave it a Greek name. He calls it the principle of pragmatism, and he defends it somewhat as follows:

Thought in movement has only one conceivable motive: to attain belief, or thought at rest. Only when our thought about a subject has found its rest in belief can our action on the subject firmly and safely begin.
Beliefs, in short, are rules for action. The whole function of thinking is just one step in producing active habits.
If there were any part of a thought that made no difference in the thought’s practical consequences, then that part would not be a proper element of the thought’s significance.
To develop a thought’s meaning, we therefore only need to determine what conduct it is fitted to produce. That conduct is, for us, its sole significance.
The tangible fact at the root of all our thought-distinctions is that there is no distinction so fine that it doesn’t consist in anything but a possible difference of practice.
To attain perfect clearness in our thoughts about an object, we then only need to consider what sensations (immediate or remote) we can conceivably expect from it, and what conduct we must prepare in case the object should be true. Our conception of these practical consequences is, for us, the whole of our conception of the object, so far as that conception has any positive significance at all.

This is the principle of Peirce, the principle of pragmatism. Such a principle will help us on this occasion to decide, among the various attributes set down in the scholastic inventory of God’s perfections, whether some are not far less significant than others.

Pragmatism Applied to God’s Metaphysical Attributes

If we apply the principle of pragmatism to God’s metaphysical attributes strictly so-called (as distinguished from His moral attributes), I think that even if we were forced by coercive logic to believe them, we would still have to confess them to be destitute of all intelligible significance.

Take, for example:

God’s aseity (self-existence)
His necessariness
His immateriality
His “simplicity” (His superiority to the kind of inner variety and succession we find in finite beings)
His indivisibility
His lack of inner distinctions between being and activity, substance and accident, potentiality and actuality, etc.
His repudiation of inclusion in a genus (not being classifiable as a type of something larger)
His actualized infinity
His “personality,” apart from the moral qualities it may involve
His relations to evil being permissive and not positive
His self-sufficiency, self-love, and absolute felicity (happiness) in Himself

Candidly speaking, how do such qualities as these make any definite connection with our life? And if they individually call for no distinctive adaptations of our conduct, what vital difference can it possibly make to a person’s religion whether they are true or false?

For my own part, although I dislike to say anything that may clash with tender associations, I must frankly confess that even if these attributes were faultlessly deduced, I cannot conceive of it being of the smallest consequence to us religiously that any one of them should be true. Pray, what specific act can I perform in order to adapt myself better to God’s simplicity? Or how does it help me to plan my behavior to know that His happiness is, in any case, absolutely complete?

In the middle of the last century, Mayne Reid was a great writer of outdoor adventure books. He was forever praising hunters and field-observers of living animals’ habits, and constantly criticizing the “closet-naturalists,” as he called them – the collectors, classifiers, and handlers of skeletons and skins. When I was a boy, I used to think that a closet-naturalist must be the vilest type of wretch under the sun. But surely the systematic theologians are the closet-naturalists of the deity, even in Captain Mayne Reid’s sense. What is their deduction of metaphysical attributes but a shuffling and matching of pedantic dictionary-adjectives? These attributes are aloof from morals, aloof from human needs. They are something that might be worked out from the mere word “God” by one of those logical machines of wood and brass which recent ingenuity has contrived, just as well as by a man of flesh and blood. They have the “trail of the serpent” over them. One feels that in the theologians’ hands, they are only a set of titles obtained by a mechanical manipulation of synonyms. Verbality has stepped into the place of vision; professionalism into that of life. Instead of bread, we have a stone; instead of a fish, a serpent.

If such a conglomeration of abstract terms really gave the essence of our knowledge of the deity, schools of theology might indeed continue to flourish, but religion – vital, living religion – would have taken its flight from this world. What keeps religion going is something else than abstract definitions and systems of linked adjectives, and something different from faculties of theology and their professors. All these things are after-effects, secondary additions upon those phenomena of vital conversation with the unseen divine, of which I have shown you so many instances, renewing themselves endlessly (“in saecula saeculorum”) in the lives of humble, private individuals.

So much for the metaphysical attributes of God! From the point of view of practical religion, the metaphysical monster which they offer to our worship is an absolutely worthless invention of the scholarly mind.

Pragmatism and God’s Moral Attributes

What shall we now say of the attributes called moral? Pragmatically, they stand on an entirely different footing.

They positively determine fear and hope and expectation.
They are foundations for the saintly life. It needs but a glance at them to show how great their significance is.
God’s holiness, for example: being holy, God can will nothing but the good.
Being omnipotent, He can ensure its triumph.
Being omniscient, He can see us in the dark.
Being just, He can punish us for what He sees.
Being loving, He can pardon too.
Being unalterable, we can count on Him securely.

These qualities enter into connection with our life; it is highly important that we should be informed about them. That God’s purpose in creation should be the manifestation of His glory is also an attribute which has definite relations to our practical life. Among other things, it has given a definite character to worship in all Christian countries.

If dogmatic theology really does prove beyond dispute that a God with characters like these exists, she may well claim to give a solid basis to religious sentiment. But truly, how do her arguments stand up?

It stands with them as poorly as with the arguments for His existence. Not only do post-Kantian idealists reject them root and branch, but it is a plain historic fact that they have never converted anyone who has found reasons in the moral complexion of the world, as he experienced it, for doubting that a good God can have framed it. To try to prove God’s goodness to such a witness by the scholastic argument that there is no non-being (and therefore no evil) in His essence would sound simply silly.

No! The Book of Job went over this whole matter once for all and definitively. Reasoning (ratiocination) is a relatively superficial and unreal path to the deity: “I will lay my hand upon my mouth; I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You.” An intellect perplexed and baffled, yet a trustful sense of presence – such is the situation of the person who is sincere with himself and with the facts, but who remains religious still.

Moving Beyond Dogmatic Theology

We must therefore, I think, bid a definitive goodbye to dogmatic theology. In all sincerity, our faith must do without that kind of warrant or guarantee. Modern idealism, I repeat, has said goodbye to this theology forever. Can modern idealism give faith a better warrant, or must faith still rely on her poor self for witness?

Modern Idealism: Kant and Hegel The basis of modern idealism is Kant’s doctrine of the Transcendental Ego of Apperception. By this formidable term, Kant merely meant the fact that the consciousness “I think them” must (potentially or actually) accompany all our objects of thought. Former skeptics had said as much, but the “I” in question had remained for them identified with the personal individual. Kant abstracted and depersonalized it, making it the most universal of all his categories, although for Kant himself, the Transcendental Ego had no theological implications.

It was left for his successors to convert Kant’s notion of Bewusstsein überhaupt (abstract consciousness in general) into an infinite, concrete self-consciousness which is the soul of the world, and in which our various personal self-consciousnesses have their being. It would lead me into technicalities to show you even briefly how this transformation was actually achieved. Suffice it to say that in the Hegelian school, which today so deeply influences both British and American thinking, two principles have borne the main burden of this operation.

The first of these principles is that the old logic of identity (A is A) never gives us more than a post-mortem dissection of separated parts (disjecta membra). The fullness of life can be understood by thought only by recognizing that every object our thought may consider involves the notion of some other object which seems at first to negate or be opposite to the first one.
The second principle is that to be conscious of a negation is already virtually to be beyond it. The mere asking of a question or expression of a dissatisfaction proves that the answer or the satisfaction is already imminent. The finite, realized as such, is already the infinite in posse (in potential).

Applying these principles, we seem to get a propulsive force into our logic which the ordinary logic of a bare, stark self-identity in each thing never achieves. The objects of our thought now act within our thought, much like objects act when given in experience. They change and develop. They introduce something other than themselves along with them. This “other,” at first only ideal or potential, presently proves itself also to be actual. It supersedes the thing first supposed, and both verifies and corrects it, in developing the fullness of its meaning.

The program is excellent. The universe is a place where things are followed by other things that both correct and fulfill them. A logic that gave us something like this movement of fact would express truth far better than the traditional school-logic, which never gets of its own accord from anything to anything else, and only registers predictions and subsumptions (classifying things under general categories), or static resemblances and differences. Nothing could be more unlike the methods of dogmatic theology than those of this new logic. Let me quote in illustration some passages from the Scottish transcendentalist whom I have already named.

Principal Caird writes:

“How are we to conceive of the reality in which all intelligence rests?” He replies: “Two things may without difficulty be proved, viz., that this reality is an absolute Spirit, and conversely that it is only in communion with this absolute Spirit or Intelligence that the finite Spirit can realize itself. It is absolute; for the faintest movement of human intelligence would be arrested, if it did not presuppose the absolute reality of intelligence, of thought itself.”

Principal Caird’s quote continues:

”…Doubt or denial themselves presuppose and indirectly affirm it. When I pronounce anything to be true, I pronounce it, indeed, to be relative to thought, but not to be relative to my thought, or to the thought of any other individual mind. I can mentally subtract all individual minds as such; I can think them away. But that which I cannot think away is thought or self-consciousness itself, in its independence and absoluteness – or, in other words, an Absolute Thought or Self-Consciousness.”

Here, you see, Principal Caird makes a transition that Kant did not make. Kant spoke of consciousness in general as a necessary condition for any “truth” to be possible anywhere. Caird converts this idea into an omnipresent, universal consciousness, which he identifies with God in His concrete reality.

He next proceeds to use the principle that to acknowledge your limits is, in essence, to be beyond them. He then makes the transition to the religious experience of individuals in the following words:

“If Man were only a creature of transient sensations and impulses, of an ever-coming-and-going succession of intuitions, fancies, and feelings, then nothing could ever have for him the character of objective truth or reality. But it is the special quality (prerogative) of man’s spiritual nature that he can yield himself up to a thought and will that are infinitely larger than his own.

As a thinking, self-conscious being, indeed, he may be said, by his very nature, to live in the atmosphere of the Universal Life. As a thinking being, it is possible for me to suppress and quiet in my consciousness every movement of self-assertion, every notion and opinion that is merely mine, every desire that belongs to me as this particular Self. It is possible for me to become the pure medium of a thought that is universal—in one word, to live no more my own life, but let my consciousness be possessed and filled by the Infinite and Eternal life of spirit.

And yet, it is just in this renunciation of self that I truly gain myself, or realize the highest possibilities of my own nature. For whilst in one sense we give up self to live the universal and absolute life of reason, yet that to which we thus surrender ourselves is in reality our truer self. The life of absolute reason is not a life that is foreign to us.”

Nevertheless, Principal Caird goes on to say, as far as we are able outwardly to realize this doctrine, the comfort it offers remains incomplete. Whatever we may be in potential (in posse), even the very best of us, in actuality (in actu), falls very short of being absolutely divine. Social morality, love, and even self-sacrifice only merge our Self with some other finite self or selves. They do not quite identify it with the Infinite. Humanity’s ideal destiny, though infinite in abstract logic, might thus seem in practice forever unrealizable.

Our author continues:

“Is there, then, no solution to the contradiction between the ideal and the actual? We answer, There is such a solution, but in order to reach it, we are carried beyond the sphere of morality into that of religion.

It may be said to be the essential characteristic of religion, as contrasted with morality, that it changes aspiration into fruition (fulfillment), anticipation into realization. Instead of leaving man in the interminable pursuit of a vanishing ideal, it makes him the actual partaker of a divine or infinite life. Whether we view religion from the human side or the divine—as the surrender of the soul to God, or as the life of God in the soul—in either aspect, it is of its very essence that the Infinite has ceased to be a far-off vision and has become a present reality. The very first pulsation of the spiritual life, when we rightly understand its significance, is the indication that the division between the Spirit and its object has vanished, that the ideal has become real, that the finite has reached its goal and become filled with the presence and life of the Infinite.

Oneness of mind and will with the divine mind and will is not the future hope and aim of religion, but its very beginning and birth in the soul. To enter on the religious life is to terminate the struggle. In that act which constitutes the beginning of the religious life—call it faith, or trust, or self-surrender, or by whatever name you will—there is involved the identification of the finite self with a life which is eternally realized.

It is true indeed that the religious life is progressive. But understood in the light of the foregoing idea, religious progress is not progress towards, but progress within the sphere of the Infinite. It is not the vain attempt by endless finite additions or increments to become possessed of infinite wealth. Instead, it is the endeavor, by the constant exercise of spiritual activity, to appropriate that infinite inheritance of which we are already in possession. The whole future of the religious life is given in its beginning, but it is given implicitly (understood though not clearly stated).

The position of the person who has entered on the religious life is that evil, error, and imperfection do not really belong to him. They are like unwanted growths (excrescences) that have no organic relation to his true nature. They are already virtually (in essence), as they will be actually, suppressed and annulled. And in the very process of being annulled, they become the means of spiritual progress. Though he is not exempt from temptation and conflict, yet in that inner sphere where his true life lies, the struggle is over; the victory is already achieved. It is not a finite but an infinite life which the spirit lives. Every pulse-beat of its existence is the expression and realization of the life of God.”

You will readily admit that no description of the phenomena of religious consciousness could be better than these words from your lamented preacher and philosopher, Principal Caird. They reproduce the very rapture of those crises of conversion we have been discussing. They express what the mystic felt but was unable to communicate. And the saint, in hearing them, recognizes his own experience. It is indeed gratifying to find the content of religion reported so unanimously.

But when all is said and done, has Principal Caird – and I only use him as an example of that whole way of thinking – truly transcended the sphere of feeling and of the direct experience of the individual? Has he laid the foundations of religion in impartial reason? Has he made religion universal by coercive (forcefully convincing) reasoning, transforming it from a private faith into a public certainty? Has he rescued its affirmations from obscurity and mystery?

I believe that he has done nothing of the kind. Instead, he has simply reaffirmed the individual’s experiences in a more generalized vocabulary. And again, I can be excused from technically proving that transcendentalist reasonings fail to make religion universal. I can simply point to the plain fact that a majority of scholars, even religiously disposed ones, stubbornly refuse to treat these reasonings as convincing. The whole of Germany, one may say, has positively rejected the Hegelian line of argument. As for Scotland, I need only mention Professor Fraser’s and Professor Pringle-Pattison’s memorable criticisms, with which so many of you are familiar. Once more, I ask: if transcendental idealism were as objectively and absolutely rational as it pretends to be, could it possibly fail so dramatically to be persuasive?

What religion reports, you must remember, always claims to be a fact of experience: the divine is actually present, religion says, and between it and ourselves, relations of give and take are actual. If definite perceptions of fact like this cannot stand upon their own feet, surely abstract reasoning cannot give them the support they need. Conceptual processes (thinking with concepts) can classify facts, define them, and interpret them. But they do not produce facts, nor can they reproduce their unique individuality. There is always a “plus,” a “thisness,” a unique quality that only feeling can account for. Philosophy in this sphere is thus a secondary function, unable to guarantee faith’s truthfulness. And so I return to the thesis which I announced at the beginning of this lecture.

In all sad sincerity, I think we must conclude that the attempt to demonstrate the truth of the insights from direct religious experience by purely intellectual processes is absolutely hopeless.

What Philosophy Can Do for Religion

It would be unfair to philosophy, however, to leave her under this negative sentence. Let me close, then, by briefly listing what philosophy can do for religion. If philosophy will abandon metaphysics and deduction (reasoning from general principles to specific conclusions) in favor of criticism and induction (reasoning from specific observations to general principles), and frankly transform herself from theology into a science of religions, she can make herself enormously useful.

Here’s how:

Refine Definitions: The spontaneous intellect of humanity always defines the divine it feels in ways that harmonize with its temporary intellectual biases. Philosophy, by comparison, can eliminate the local and accidental elements from these definitions.
Remove Historical Clutter: From both dogma (official beliefs) and worship, philosophy can remove historical incrustations (layers of outdated or irrelevant additions).
Eliminate Scientific Incongruities: By comparing spontaneous religious constructions with the results of natural science, philosophy can also eliminate doctrines that are now known to be scientifically absurd or inconsistent.
Identify Possible Conceptions: By sifting out unworthy formulations in this way, philosophy can leave a remainder of conceptions that are at least possible.
Test Hypotheses: With these possible conceptions, philosophy can deal with them as hypotheses, testing them in all the ways (whether negative or positive) by which hypotheses are ever tested.
Reduce and Select: Philosophy can reduce the number of these hypotheses, as some are found more open to objection. It can perhaps become the champion of one hypothesis that it picks out as being the most closely verified or verifiable.
Clarify Meaning: Philosophy can refine the definition of this chosen hypothesis, distinguishing between what is innocent over-belief and symbolism in its expression, and what is to be taken literally.
Mediate and Build Consensus: As a result, philosophy can offer mediation between different believers and help to bring about a consensus of opinion. It can do this more successfully the better it discriminates the common and essential elements of religious beliefs from the individual and local elements it compares.

I do not see why a critical Science of Religions of this sort might not eventually command as general a public agreement as is commanded by a physical science. Even personally non-religious people might accept its conclusions on trust, much as blind persons now accept the facts of optics – it might appear as foolish to refuse them.

Yet, just as the science of optics has to be fed in the first instance, and continually verified later, by facts experienced by seeing persons, so the science of religions would depend for its original material on facts of personal experience. It would have to align itself with personal experience throughout all its critical reconstructions. It could never get away from concrete life or work in a conceptual vacuum. It would forever have to confess, as every science confesses, that the subtlety of nature flies beyond it, and that its formulas are only approximations.

Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation. There is in the living act of perception always something that glimmers and twinkles and will not be caught, and for which reflection comes too late. No one knows this as well as the philosopher. He must fire his volley of new words out of his conceptual shotgun, because his profession condemns him to this activity, but he secretly knows its hollowness and irrelevance. His formulas are like stereoscopic or kinetoscopic photographs seen outside the instrument; they lack depth, motion, and vitality. In the religious sphere, in particular, belief that formulas are true can never wholly take the place of personal experience.

In my next lecture, I will try to complete my rough description of religious experience. And in the lecture after that, which is the last one, I will try my hand at conceptually formulating the truth to which religious experience bears witness.

It makes a religion seem weaker when people try to argue for it using that kind of reasoning.

The rest of the provided text consists of “Notes - 10” and “Notes - 11.” According to the project guidelines (specifically Mission Objective 5 and the instruction to omit parenthetical asides, citations, and notes), this type of edition-specific material, including footnotes and endnotes, should be discarded and not rewritten as part of the main simplified text.

Therefore, no rewrite of this footnote material is provided.

OTHER CHARACTERISTICS

After our journey through mysticism and philosophy, we have circled back to where we were before. The best arguments for the truth in religion are its uses: its benefits to the individual who has it, and the benefits that individual brings to the world. We return to the empirical philosophy: the idea that what is true is what works well, even if we always have to add the qualification “on the whole.”

In this lecture, we must go back to describing things. We will finish our picture of the religious consciousness by saying a word about some of its other characteristic elements. Then, in a final lecture, we will be free to make a general review and draw our independent conclusions.

The Role of Aesthetics in Religion

The first point I will speak of is the part that the aesthetic life (the appreciation of beauty and art) plays in determining a person’s choice of a religion.

A while ago, I said that people involuntarily intellectualize their religious experience. They need formulas and explanations, just as they need fellowship and community in worship. Therefore, I might have spoken too dismissively earlier about the practical uselessness of the famous scholastic list of God’s attributes. These attributes do have one use I neglected to consider: their aesthetic value.

The eloquent passage in which Cardinal Newman lists these attributes puts us on the track of this use. As he recites them, almost like chanting a cathedral service, he shows how high their aesthetic value is. Carrying these exalted and mysterious verbal additions enriches our basic piety, just as it enriches a church to have an organ, old brass fixtures, marble, frescoes, and stained-glass windows. Epithets (descriptive words and phrases) lend an atmosphere and subtle overtones to our devotion. They are like a hymn of praise and a service of glory, and they may sound even more sublime for being incomprehensible. Minds like Newman’s grow as protective of the credit given to these verbal ornaments as ancient priests are of the jewelry and decorations that blaze upon their idols.

Among the ways the mind spontaneously builds upon religion, the aesthetic motive must never be forgotten. I promised to say nothing of ecclesiastical systems (organized church structures) in these lectures. However, I may be allowed to put in a word here on how their satisfaction of certain aesthetic needs contributes to their hold on human nature.

Although some people aim most at intellectual purity and simplification, for others, richness is the supreme imaginative requirement.
When a person’s mind is strongly of this type, an individual religion will hardly serve the purpose. The inner need is rather for something institutional and complex. This would be something majestic in the hierarchical interconnectedness of its parts, with authority descending from stage to stage. At every stage, there would be objects for adjectives of mystery and splendor, derived ultimately from the Godhead who is the fountain and culmination of the system.
One then feels as if in the presence of some vast, encrusted work of jewelry or architecture. One hears the multitude of liturgical appeals. One gets the feeling of honor and reverence coming from every quarter.

Compared with such a noble complexity – in which ascending and descending movements seem in no way to clash with stability, and in which no single item, however humble, is insignificant because so many august institutions hold it in its place – how flat does evangelical Protestantism appear! How bare is the atmosphere of those isolated religious lives whose boast it is that “man in the bush with God may meet.” What a pulverization and leveling of what was a gloriously piled-up structure! To an imagination used to the perspectives of dignity and glory, the naked gospel scheme seems to offer an almshouse instead of a palace.

It is much like the patriotic sentiment of those brought up in ancient empires. How many emotions must be frustrated of their object when one gives up the titles of dignity, the crimson lights and blare of brass instruments, the gold embroidery, the plumed troops, the fear and trembling – and puts up with a president in a black coat who shakes hands with you, and who comes, perhaps, from a simple “home” on the veldt or prairie with one sitting-room and a Bible on its center table. It certainly “pauperizes” (makes poor) the monarchical imagination!

The strength of these aesthetic sentiments makes it rigorously impossible, it seems to me, that Protestantism – however superior in spiritual profundity it may be to Catholicism – should at the present day succeed in making many converts from the more venerable, older ecclesiasticism (Catholicism). The latter offers so much richer pasturage and shade to the fancy. It has so many cells with so many different kinds of honey. It is so indulgent in its many-sided appeals to human nature, that Protestantism will always look like an almshouse to Catholic eyes.

The bitter negativity of Protestantism is, to the Catholic mind, incomprehensible. To intellectual Catholics, many of the antiquated beliefs and practices that the Church supports are, if taken literally, as childish as they are to Protestants. But they are childish in the pleasing sense of “childlike”—innocent and amiable, and worthy to be smiled on in consideration of the undeveloped condition of the dear people’s intellects. To the Protestant, on the contrary, these things are childish in the sense of being idiotic falsehoods. The Protestant feels he must stamp out their delicate and lovable redundancy, leaving the Catholic to shudder at his literalness. The Protestant appears to the Catholic as morose (gloomy and ill-tempered) as if he were some hard-eyed, numb, monotonous kind of reptile. The two will never understand each other—their centers of emotional energy are too different. Rigorous truth and the intricacies of human nature are always in need of a mutual interpreter. So much for the aesthetic diversities in the religious consciousness.

Sacrifice, Confession, and Prayer

In most books on religion, three things are represented as its most essential elements. These are Sacrifice, Confession, and Prayer. I must say a word in turn about each of these elements, though briefly. First, Sacrifice.

Sacrifice Sacrifices to gods are found everywhere in primeval (early) worship. But as cults (systems of religious worship) have grown more refined, burnt offerings and the blood of goats have been replaced by sacrifices more spiritual in their nature. Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism get along without ritual sacrifice. Christianity does too, except insofar as the notion is preserved in a transformed (transfigured) way in the mystery of Christ’s atonement. These religions substitute offerings of the heart and renunciations of the inner self for all those vain physical offerings.

In the ascetic practices (practices of severe self-discipline) that Islam, Buddhism, and older forms of Christianity encourage, we see how indestructible is the idea that sacrifice of some sort is a religious exercise. When lecturing on asceticism, I spoke of its significance as symbolic of the sacrifices that life, whenever it is taken seriously, calls for. But since I’ve already said my piece about those, and as these lectures expressly avoid discussing earlier religious usages and questions of origin, I will pass from the subject of Sacrifice altogether and turn to that of Confession.

Confession Regarding Confession, I will also be very brief, saying my word about it psychologically, not historically.

Confession is not nearly as widespread as sacrifice. It corresponds to a more inward and moral stage of sentiment.
It is part of the general system of purgation and cleansing that one feels one needs in order to be in right relations with one’s deity.
For the person who confesses, shams are over and realities have begun; they have brought their “rottenness” out into the open. If they have not actually gotten rid of it, they at least no longer cover it up with a hypocritical show of virtue—they live, at least, on a basis of truthfulness.
The complete decay of the practice of confession in Anglo-Saxon (English-speaking Protestant) communities is a little hard to explain. Reaction against “popery” (a derogatory term for Catholicism) is, of course, the historic explanation, because in Catholicism, confession went with penances, absolution (formal forgiveness), and other practices deemed inadmissible by Protestants.
But on the side of the sinner himself, it seems as if the need ought to have been too great to accept such a quick refusal of its satisfaction. One would think that in more people, the shell of secrecy would have had to open, the pent-up abscess would have had to burst and find relief, even if the ear that heard the confession were unworthy.
The Catholic Church, for obvious practical (utilitarian) reasons, has substituted auricular confession (confession to one priest) for the more radical act of public confession.
We English-speaking Protestants, in the general self-reliance and somewhat unsociable nature we have, seem to find it enough if we take God alone into our confidence.

Prayer: The Soul of Religion

The next topic on which I must comment is Prayer—and this time it must be less briefly. We have heard much talk lately against prayer, especially against prayers for better weather and for the recovery of sick people.

Prayers for the Sick: As regards prayers for the sick, if any medical fact can be considered to stand firm, it is that in certain environments, prayer may contribute to recovery and should be encouraged as a therapeutic measure. Being a normal factor of moral health in the person, its omission would be harmful.
Prayers for Weather: The case of the weather is different. Notwithstanding how recently people believed otherwise, everyone now knows that droughts and storms follow from physical causes, and that moral appeals cannot prevent them.

But petitional prayer (asking for things) is only one department of prayer. If we take the word in the wider sense, as meaning every kind of inward communion or conversation with the power recognized as divine, we can easily see that scientific criticism leaves it untouched.

Prayer in this wide sense is the very soul and essence of religion. A liberal French theologian, M. Sabatier, says:

“Religion is an intercourse, a conscious and voluntary relation, entered into by a soul in distress with the mysterious power upon which it feels itself to depend, and upon which its fate is contingent. This intercourse with God is realized by prayer. Prayer is religion in act; that is, prayer is real religion. It is prayer that distinguishes the religious phenomenon from such similar or neighboring phenomena as purely moral or aesthetic sentiment. Religion is nothing if it is not the vital act by which the entire mind seeks to save itself by clinging to the principle from which it draws its life. This act is prayer, by which term I understand no vain exercise of words, no mere repetition of certain sacred formulæ, but the very movement itself of the soul, putting itself in a personal relation of contact with the mysterious power of which it feels the presence—it may be even before it has a name by which to call it. Wherever this interior prayer is lacking, there is no religion; wherever, on the other hand, this prayer rises and stirs the soul, even in the absence of forms or of doctrines, we have living religion. One sees from this why ‘natural religion,’ so-called, is not properly a religion. It cuts man off from prayer. It leaves him and God in mutual remoteness, with no intimate commerce, no interior dialogue, no interchange, no action of God in man, no return of man to God. At bottom this pretended religion is only a philosophy. Born at epochs of rationalism, of critical investigations, it never was anything but an abstraction. An artificial and dead creation, it reveals to its examiner hardly one of the characters proper to religion.”

It seems to me that the entire series of our lectures proves the truth of M. Sabatier’s statement. The religious phenomenon, studied as an inner fact and apart from church-related or theological complications, has shown itself to consist everywhere, and at all its stages, in the consciousness which individuals have of an intercourse between themselves and higher powers with which they feel themselves to be related. This intercourse is realized at the time as being both active and mutual.

If it is not effective; if it is not a give-and-take relation; if nothing is really transacted while it lasts; if the world is in no way different for its having taken place; then prayer (taken in this wide meaning of a sense that something is happening) is, of course, a feeling of what is illusory. In that case, religion must on the whole be classed not simply as containing elements of delusion—these undoubtedly exist everywhere—but as being rooted in delusion altogether, just as materialists and atheists have always said it was. At most, if the direct experiences of prayer were ruled out as false witnesses, there might remain some belief based on inference that the whole order of existence must have a divine cause. But this way of contemplating nature, pleasing as it would doubtless be to persons of a pious taste, would leave them only the spectators’ part at a play. In contrast, in experimental religion and the prayerful life, we seem ourselves to be actors, and not in a play, but in a very serious reality.

The genuineness of religion is thus inseparably bound up with the question of whether the prayerful consciousness is or is not deceitful. The conviction that something is genuinely transacted in this consciousness is the very core of living religion. As to what is transacted, great differences of opinion have prevailed. The unseen powers have been supposed, and are still supposed, to do things which no enlightened person can nowadays believe in. It may well prove that the sphere of influence in prayer is exclusively subjective, and that what is immediately changed is only the mind of the praying person. But however our opinion of prayer’s effects may come to be limited by criticism, religion, in the vital sense in which these lectures study it, must stand or fall by the persuasion that effects of some sort genuinely do occur. Through prayer, religion insists, things which cannot be realized in any other manner come about: energy which but for prayer would be bound is by prayer set free and operates in some part, be it objective or subjective, of the world of facts.

This fundamental belief (postulate) is strikingly expressed in a letter written by the late Frederic W. H. Myers to a friend, who allows me to quote from it. It shows how independent the prayer-instinct is of usual doctrinal complications. Mr. Myers writes:

“I am glad that you have asked me about prayer, because I have rather strong ideas on the subject. First, consider what are the facts. There exists around us a spiritual universe, and that universe is in actual relation with the material one. From the spiritual universe comes the energy which maintains the material world, and the energy which makes the life of each individual spirit. Our spirits are supported by a perpetual drawing in of this energy, and the vigor of that drawing-in is perpetually changing, much as the vigor of our absorption of material nourishment changes from hour to hour.

I call these ‘facts’ because I think that some scheme of this kind is the only one consistent with our actual evidence, which is too complex to summarize here. How, then, should we act on these facts? Plainly, we must endeavor to draw in as much spiritual life as possible, and we must place our minds in any attitude which experience shows to be favorable to such drawing-in. Prayer is the general name for that attitude of open and earnest expectancy.

If we then ask to whom to pray, the answer (strangely enough) must be that that does not much matter. The prayer is not indeed a purely subjective thing; it means a real increase in intensity of absorption of spiritual power or grace. But we do not know enough of what takes place in the spiritual world to know how the prayer operates—who is aware of it, or through what channel the grace is given. It is better to let children pray to Christ, who is at any rate the highest individual spirit of whom we have any knowledge. But it would be rash to say that Christ himself hears us; while to say that God hears us is merely to restate the first principle—that grace flows in from the infinite spiritual world.”

Let us reserve the question of the truth or falsehood of the belief that power is absorbed until the next lecture, when our dogmatic conclusions, if we have any, must be reached. Let this lecture still confine itself to the description of phenomena.

George Müller: An Example of the Prayerful Life As a concrete example of an extreme sort, of the way in which the prayerful life may still be led, let me take a case with which most of you must be acquainted: that of George Müller of Bristol, who died in 1898. Müller’s prayers were of the most direct, petitionary kind (asking for specific things). Early in life, he resolved to take certain Bible promises in literal sincerity. He decided to let himself be fed, not by his own worldly foresight, but by the Lord’s hand. He had an extraordinarily active and successful career. Among its results were:

The distribution of over two million copies of Scripture texts in different languages.
The equipping of several hundred missionaries.
The circulation of more than a hundred and eleven million scriptural books, pamphlets, and tracts.
The building of five large orphanages.
The keeping and educating of thousands of orphans.
Finally, the establishment of schools in which over a hundred and twenty-one thousand young and adult pupils were taught.

In the course of this work, Mr. Müller received and administered nearly a million and a half pounds sterling (a very large sum of money). He also traveled over two hundred thousand miles by sea and land. During the sixty-eight years of his ministry, he never owned any property except his clothes and furniture, and cash in hand. He left, at the age of eighty-six, an estate worth only a hundred and sixty pounds.

His method was to let his general needs be publicly known, but not to inform other people about the details of his temporary, specific necessities. For the relief of these latter needs, he prayed directly to the Lord. He believed that sooner or later, prayers are always answered if one has enough trust.

George Müller continued to describe his reliance on prayer:

“When I lose such a thing as a key,” he writes, “I ask the Lord to direct me to it, and I look for an answer to my prayer. When a person with whom I have made an appointment does not come at the fixed time, and I begin to be inconvenienced by it, I ask the Lord to please hasten him to me, and I look for an answer. When I do not understand a passage of the word of God, I lift up my heart to the Lord that He would be pleased by His Holy Spirit to instruct me, and I expect to be taught, though I do not fix the time when, and the manner how it should be. When I am going to preach or teach, I seek help from the Lord, and… am not discouraged, but of good cheer because I look for His assistance.”

Müller’s custom was to never accumulate bills, not even for a week. He explained:

“As the Lord provides for us by the day… the week’s payment might become due and we might have no money to meet it. Thus, those with whom we deal might be inconvenienced by us, and we would be found acting against the commandment of the Lord: ‘Owe no man anything.’ From this day forward, as long as the Lord gives us our supplies by the day, we intend to pay at once for every item as it is purchased. We will never buy anything unless we can pay for it at once, however much it may seem to be needed, and however much those with whom we deal may wish to be paid only by the week.”

The “articles needed” that Müller speaks of were the food, fuel, and other supplies for his orphanages. Somehow, though they often came close to going without a meal, they hardly ever seem to have actually done so. Müller wrote:

“Greater and more manifest nearness of the Lord’s presence I have never had than when after breakfast there were no provisions for dinner for more than a hundred persons; or when after dinner there were no provisions for tea, and yet the Lord provided the tea. And all this happened without one single human being having been informed about our need… Through Grace, my mind is so fully assured of the faithfulness of the Lord that, in the midst of the greatest need, I am able to peacefully go about my other work. Indeed, if the Lord did not give me this peace, which is the result of trusting in Him, I should scarcely be able to work at all. For it is now a relatively rare thing that a day comes when I am not in need for one or another part of the work.”

In building his orphanages simply by prayer and faith, Müller stated that his prime motive was:

“…to have something to point to as a visible proof that our God and Father is the same faithful God that He ever was—as willing as ever to prove Himself the living God, in our day as formerly, to all that put their trust in Him.”

For this reason, he refused to borrow money for any of his projects. He asked:

“How does it work when we thus anticipate God by going our own way? We certainly weaken faith instead of increasing it. And each time we work out a deliverance of our own in this way, we find it more and more difficult to trust in God, until at last we give way entirely to our natural fallen reason, and unbelief prevails. How different if one is enabled to wait God’s own time, and to look alone to Him for help and deliverance! When at last help comes, after many seasons of prayer it may be, how sweet it is, and what a present reward! Dear Christian reader, if you have never walked in this path of obedience before, do so now, and you will then know experimentally the sweetness of the joy which results from it.”

When supplies came in but slowly, Müller always considered that this was for the trial of his faith and patience. When his faith and patience had been sufficiently tried, he believed the Lord would send more means.

“And thus it has proved,” I quote from his diary, “for today I was given the sum of 2050 pounds, of which 2000 are for the building fund [of a certain house], and 50 for present necessities. It is impossible to describe my joy in God when I received this donation. I was neither excited nor surprised; for I look out for answers to my prayers. I believe that God hears me. Yet my heart was so full of joy that I could only sit before God, and admire Him, like David in 2 Samuel vii. At last, I cast myself flat down upon my face and burst forth in thanksgiving to God and in surrendering my heart afresh to Him for His blessed service.”

George Müller’s is an extreme case in every respect, and in no respect more so than in the extraordinary narrowness of the man’s intellectual horizon. His God was, as he often said, his business partner. For Müller, God seems to have been little more than a sort of supernatural clergyman interested in the congregation of tradesmen and others in Bristol who were his saints, and in the orphanages and other enterprises. Müller’s God was not described with any of those vaster, wilder, and more ideal attributes with which the human imagination elsewhere has invested Him. Müller, in short, was absolutely unphilosophical. His intensely private and practical conception of his relations with the Deity continued the traditions of the most primitive human thought. When we compare a mind like his with such a mind as, for example, Emerson’s or Phillips Brooks’s, we see the wide range that the religious consciousness covers.

There is an immense amount of literature relating to answers to petitional prayer (prayers asking for specific things). Evangelical journals are filled with such answers, and entire books are devoted to the subject. But for our purposes, Müller’s case will be enough.

The “Led” Life: A Subtler Form of Prayerful Living

Countless other Christians follow a less “sturdy beggar-like” (less direct and demanding) fashion of leading the prayerful life. Such people say that persistence in leaning on the Almighty for support and guidance will bring with it proofs of His presence and active influence. These proofs are palpable (able to be felt) but much more subtle.

The following description of a “led” life, by a German writer, Dr. Hilty, whom I have already quoted, would no doubt appear to countless Christians in every country as if transcribed from their own personal experience. Dr. Hilty says that in this guided sort of life, one finds:

“That books and words (and sometimes people) come to one’s attention just at the very moment in which one needs them.”
“That one glides over great dangers as if with shut eyes, remaining ignorant of what would have terrified one or led one astray, until the peril is past—this being especially the case with temptations to vanity and sensuality.”
“That paths on which one ought not to wander are, as it were, hedged off with thorns; but that on the other side, great obstacles are suddenly removed.”
“That when the time has come for something, one suddenly receives a courage that formerly failed, or perceives the root of a matter that until then was concealed, or discovers thoughts, talents, yes, even pieces of knowledge and insight, in one’s self, of which it is impossible to say where they come from.”
“Finally, that people help us or decline to help us, favor us or refuse us, as if they had to do so against their will, so that often those indifferent or even unfriendly to us provide us the greatest service and assistance. (God often takes worldly goods from those whom He leads, at just the right moment, when these goods threaten to impede the effort after higher interests.)”

Dr. Hilty continues:

“Besides all this, other noteworthy things happen, which are not easy to explain. There is no doubt whatever that now one walks continually through ‘open doors’ and on the easiest roads, with as little care and trouble as it is possible to imagine.

Furthermore, one finds oneself settling one’s affairs neither too early nor too late, whereas they used to be spoiled by untimeliness, even when the preparations had been well laid. In addition to this, one does them with perfect tranquility of mind, almost as if they were matters of no consequence, like errands done by us for another person, in which case we usually act more calmly than when we act in our own concerns. Again, one finds that one can wait for everything patiently, and that is one of life’s great arts. One finds also that each thing comes in due order, one thing after the other, so that one gains time to make one’s footing sure before advancing farther. And then every thing occurs to us at the right moment, just what we ought to do, etc. And often in a very striking way, just as if a third person were keeping watch over those things which we are in easy danger of forgetting.

Often, too, people are sent to us at the right time, to offer or ask for what is needed, and what we should never have had the courage or resolution to undertake of our own accord.

Through all these experiences one finds that one is kindly and tolerant of other people, even of those who are repulsive, negligent, or ill-willed. For they also are instruments of good in God’s hand, and often most efficient ones. Without these thoughts, it would be hard for even the best of us always to keep our equanimity (calmness). But with the consciousness of divine guidance, one sees many things in life quite differently from what would otherwise be possible.

All these are things that every human being knows who has had experience of them; and of which the most striking examples could be brought forward. The highest resources of worldly wisdom are unable to attain that which, under divine leading, comes to us of its own accord.”

A Shift in Perspective: The World Transformed by Inner Connection

Such accounts as this shade away into others where the belief is not that particular events are tempered more favorably towards us by a superintending providence (divine guidance) as a reward for our reliance. Instead, the belief is that by cultivating the continuous sense of our connection with the power that made things as they are, we are tempered more favorably for their reception. The outward face of nature need not alter, but the expressions of meaning in it alter. It was dead and is alive again. It is like the difference between looking at a person without love, and looking at the same person with love. In the latter case, intercourse (interaction) springs into new vitality.

So, when one’s affections keep in touch with the divinity of the world’s authorship, fear and egotism fall away. In the equanimity that follows, one finds in the hours, as they succeed each other, a series of purely benignant (kindly and favorable) opportunities. It is as if all doors were opened, and all paths freshly smoothed. We meet a new world when we meet the old world in the spirit which this kind of prayer infuses.

Such a spirit was that of Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus. It is that of mind-curers, of the transcendentalists, and of the so-called “liberal” Christians. As an expression of it, I will quote a page from one of Martineau’s sermons:

“The universe, open to the eye today, looks as it did a thousand years ago: and the morning hymn of Milton does but tell the beauty with which our own familiar sun dressed the earliest fields and gardens of the world. We see what all our fathers saw. And if we cannot find God in your house or in mine, upon the roadside or the margin of the sea; in the bursting seed or opening flower; in the day duty or the night musing; in the general laugh and the secret grief; in the procession of life, ever entering afresh, and solemnly passing by and dropping off; I do not think we should discern Him any more on the grass of Eden, or beneath the moonlight of Gethsemane.

Depend upon it, it is not the want of greater miracles, but of the soul to perceive such as are allowed us still, that makes us push all the sanctities into the far spaces we cannot reach. The devout feel that wherever God’s hand is, there is miracle: and it is simply an indevoutness which imagines that only where miracle is, can there be the real hand of God. The customs of Heaven ought surely to be more sacred in our eyes than its anomalies (irregularities); the dear old ways, of which the Most High is never tired, than the strange things which He does not love well enough ever to repeat. And he who will but discern beneath the sun, as he rises any morning, the supporting finger of the Almighty, may recover the sweet and reverent surprise with which Adam gazed on the first dawn in Paradise. It is no outward change, no shifting in time or place; but only the loving meditation of the pure in heart, that can reawaken the Eternal from the sleep within our souls: that can render Him a reality again, and reassert for Him once more His ancient name of ‘the Living God.’”

When we see all things in God, and refer all things to Him, we read superior expressions of meaning in common matters. The deadness with which custom invests the familiar vanishes, and existence as a whole appears transfigured (transformed into something more beautiful or elevated). The state of a mind thus awakened from dullness (torpor) is well expressed in these words, which I take from a friend’s letter:

“If we occupy ourselves in summing up all the mercies and bounties we are privileged to have, we are overwhelmed by their number (so great that we can imagine ourselves unable to give ourselves time even to begin to review the things we may imagine we have not). We sum them and realize that we are actually killed with God’s kindness; that we are surrounded by bounties upon bounties, without which all would fall. Should we not love it; should we not feel buoyed up by the Eternal Arms?”

Sometimes this realization that facts are of divine sending, instead of being habitual, is casual, like a mystical experience. Father Gratry gives this instance from his youthful melancholy period:

“One day I had a moment of consolation, because I met with something which seemed to me ideally perfect. It was a poor drummer beating the tattoo (a military drum signal) in the streets of Paris. I walked behind him in returning to the school on the evening of a holiday. His drum gave out the tattoo in such a way that, at that moment at least, however peevish I were, I could find no pretext for fault-finding. It was impossible to conceive more nerve or spirit, better time or measure, more clearness or richness than were in this drumming. Ideal desire could go no farther in that direction. I was enchanted and consoled; the perfection of this wretched act did me good. Good is at least possible, I said, since the ideal can thus sometimes get embodied.”

In Sénancour’s novel Obermann, a similar transient lifting of the veil is recorded. In Paris streets, on a March day, he comes across a flower in bloom, a jonquil:

“It was the strongest expression of desire: it was the first perfume of the year. I felt all the happiness destined for man. This unutterable harmony of souls, the phantom of the ideal world, arose in me complete. I never felt anything so great or so instantaneous. I know not what shape, what analogy, what secret of relation it was that made me see in this flower a limitless beauty… I shall never enclose in a conception this power, this immensity that nothing will express; this form that nothing will contain; this ideal of a better world which one feels, but which, it seems, nature has not made actual.”

We heard in previous lectures of the vivified (enlivened) face of the world as it may appear to converts after their awakening. As a rule, religious persons generally assume that whatever natural facts connect themselves in any way with their destiny are significant of the divine purposes with them. Through prayer, the purpose, often far from obvious, comes home to them; and if it be a “trial,” strength to endure the trial is given.

Thus, at all stages of the prayerful life, we find the persuasion that in the process of communion, energy from on high flows in to meet demand, and becomes operative (active) within the world of observable facts (the phenomenal world). So long as this active operation is admitted to be real, it makes no essential difference whether its immediate effects are subjective (within the person’s mind) or objective (in the external world). The fundamental religious point is that in prayer, spiritual energy, which otherwise would remain dormant, does become active, and spiritual work of some kind is really accomplished.

So much for Prayer, taken in the wide sense of any kind of communion. As the core of religion, we must return to it in the next lecture.

Religious Life and the Subconscious

The last aspect of the religious life which remains for me to touch upon is the fact that its manifestations so frequently connect themselves with the subconscious part of our existence. You may remember what I said in my opening lecture about the prevalence of the “psychopathic temperament” (a temperament prone to mental or emotional instability) in religious biography. You will, in point of fact, hardly find a religious leader of any kind in whose life there is no record of automatisms (actions or utterances performed unconsciously or involuntarily).

I speak not merely of savage priests and prophets, whose followers regard automatic utterance and action as by itself equivalent to inspiration. I speak of leaders of thought and subjects of intellectualized experience.

Saint Paul had his visions, his ecstasies, his gift of tongues (though he attached little importance to the latter).
The whole array of Christian saints and founders of heresies (heresiarchs) – including the greatest, such as the Bernards, the Loyolas, the Luthers, the Foxes, the Wesleys – had their visions, voices, rapt conditions, guiding impressions, and “openings” (moments of insight).

They had these things because they had exalted sensibility (a heightened sensitivity or responsiveness), and people with such sensibility are liable to experience these things. This liability, however, has consequences for theology. Beliefs are strengthened wherever automatisms corroborate them. Incursions from beyond the “transmarginal region” (the region beyond the normal limits of consciousness) have a peculiar power to increase conviction. The developing (inchoate) sense of presence is infinitely stronger than mere intellectual conception, but strong as it may be, it is seldom equal to the evidence of a hallucination. Saints who actually see or hear their Savior reach the highest point (acme) of assurance.

Motor automatisms (involuntary physical actions), though rarer, are, if possible, even more convincing than sensations. The subjects in these cases actually feel themselves being played upon by powers beyond their will.

The evidence feels dynamic; the God or spirit moves the very organs of their body.

Inspiration: Being an Instrument of Higher Power

The great area where people feel this sense of being an instrument of a higher power is, of course, “inspiration.” It is easy to tell the difference between religious leaders who have been habitually subject to inspiration and those who have not.

In the teachings of the Buddha, of Jesus, of Saint Paul (apart from his gift of tongues), of Saint Augustine, of Huss, of Luther, and of Wesley, automatic or semi-automatic composition of their teachings or writings appears to have been only occasional.
In the Hebrew prophets, on the contrary, in Mohammed, in some of the Alexandrian philosophers, in many minor Catholic saints, in George Fox (founder of Quakerism), and in Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism), something like inspired utterance appears to have been frequent, sometimes habitual.

We have distinct professions from these individuals of being under the direction of a foreign power and serving as its mouthpiece.

The Hebrew Prophets An author who has made a careful study of the Hebrew prophets writes about how extraordinary it is to see:

“How, one after another, the same features are reproduced in the prophetic books. The process is always extremely different from what it would be if the prophet arrived at his insight into spiritual things by the tentative efforts of his own genius. There is something sharp and sudden about it. He can lay his finger, so to speak, on the moment when it came. And it always comes in the form of an overpowering force from without, against which he struggles, but in vain. Listen, for instance, to the opening of the book of Jeremiah. Read through in like manner the first two chapters of the prophecy of Ezekiel.

It is not, however, only at the beginning of his career that the prophet passes through a crisis which is clearly not self-caused. Scattered all through the prophetic writings are expressions which speak of some strong and irresistible impulse coming down upon the prophet. This impulse determines his attitude to the events of his time, constrains his utterance, and makes his words the vehicle of a higher meaning than their own. For instance, this of Isaiah’s: ‘The Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand’—an emphatic phrase which denotes the overmastering nature of the impulse—‘and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people.’ … Or passages like this from Ezekiel: ‘The hand of the Lord God fell upon me,’ ‘The hand of the Lord was strong upon me.’

The one standing characteristic of the prophet is that he speaks with the authority of Jehovah himself. Hence it is that the prophets one and all preface their addresses so confidently, ‘The Word of the Lord,’ or ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ They even have the audacity to speak in the first person, as if Jehovah himself were speaking. As in Isaiah: ‘Hearken unto me, O Jacob, and Israel my called; I am He, I am the First, I also am the Last,’—and so on. The personality of the prophet sinks entirely into the background; he feels himself for the time being the mouthpiece of the Almighty.”

The same author adds:

“We need to remember that prophecy was a profession, and that the prophets formed a professional class. There were schools of the prophets, in which the gift was regularly cultivated. A group of young men would gather round some commanding figure—a Samuel or an Elisha—and would not only record or spread the knowledge of his sayings and doings, but seek to catch themselves something of his inspiration. It seems that music played its part in their exercises… It is perfectly clear that by no means all of these ‘Sons of the prophets’ ever succeeded in acquiring more than a very small share in the gift which they sought. It was clearly possible to ‘counterfeit’ prophecy. Sometimes this was done deliberately… But it by no means follows that in all cases where a false message was given, the giver of it was altogether conscious of what he was doing.”

Philo of Alexandria Here, to take another Jewish case, is the way in which Philo of Alexandria (a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher) describes his inspiration:

“Sometimes, when I have come to my work empty, I have suddenly become full; ideas being in an invisible manner showered upon me, and implanted in me from on high. So that through the influence of divine inspiration, I have become greatly excited, and have known neither the place in which I was, nor those who were present, nor myself, nor what I was saying, nor what I was writing. For then I have been conscious of a richness of interpretation, an enjoyment of light, a most penetrating insight, a most manifest energy in all that was to be done; having such effect on my mind as the clearest ocular (visual) demonstration would have on the eyes.”

Mohammed If we turn to Islam, we find that Mohammed’s revelations all came from the subconscious sphere. To the question of in what way he got them:

“Mohammed is said to have answered that sometimes he heard a knell as from a bell, and that this had the strongest effect on him; and when the angel went away, he had received the revelation. Sometimes again he held converse with the angel as with a man, so as easily to understand his words. The later authorities, however, … distinguish still other kinds. In the Itqân (a famous Islamic text) the following are enumerated: 1, revelations with sound of bell; 2, by inspiration of the holy spirit in Mohammed’s heart; 3, by Gabriel in human form; 4, by God immediately, either when awake (as in his journey to heaven) or in a dream… In Almawâhib alladunîya (another text) the kinds are thus given: 1, Dream; 2, Inspiration of Gabriel in the Prophet’s heart; 3, Gabriel taking Dahya’s form (a companion of Mohammed); 4, with the bell-sound, etc.; 5, Gabriel in his own person (only twice); 6, revelation in heaven; 7, God appearing in person, but veiled; 8, God revealing himself immediately without a veil. Others add two other stages, namely: 1, Gabriel in the form of still another man; 2, God showing himself personally in a dream.”

In none of these cases is the revelation described as distinctly “motor” (involving physical movement or action on Mohammed’s part).

Joseph Smith In the case of Joseph Smith (who had countless prophetic revelations in addition to the revealed translation of the gold plates which resulted in the Book of Mormon), although there may have been a motor element, the inspiration seems to have been predominantly sensorial (related to the senses). He began his translation with the aid of “peep-stones” which he found – or thought or said that he found – with the gold plates. This was apparently a case of “crystal gazing.” For some of the other revelations, he used the peep-stones but seems generally to have asked the Lord for more direct instruction.

“Openings” and the “Psychopathic Level” Other revelations are described as “openings.” George Fox’s, for example, were evidently of the kind known in spiritistic circles today as “impressions” (strong feelings or ideas that seem to come from an outside source). Since all effective initiators of change must necessarily live to some degree upon this “psychopathic level” – this level of sudden perception or conviction of new truth, or of an impulse to action so obsessive that it must be worked off – I will say nothing more about such a very common phenomenon.

Religion and the Subconscious Region

When, in addition to these phenomena of inspiration, we take religious mysticism into account; when we recall the striking and sudden unifications of a discordant self which we saw in conversion; and when we review the extravagant obsessions of tenderness, purity, and self-severity met with in saintliness, we cannot, I think, avoid a crucial conclusion: In religion, we have a department of human nature with unusually close relations to the transmarginal or subliminal region (the subconscious).

If the word “subliminal” is offensive to any of you, perhaps because it smells too much of psychical research or other unconventional ideas, you can call it by any other name you please to distinguish it from the level of full, sunlit consciousness.

Call this sunlit consciousness the A-region of personality, if you like.
And call the other the B-region.

The B-region, then, is obviously the larger part of each of us.

It is the abode of everything that is latent (hidden or undeveloped).
It is the reservoir of everything that passes unrecorded or unobserved by our conscious mind.
It contains, for example, such things as all our momentarily inactive memories.
It harbors the springs of all our obscurely motivated passions, impulses, likes, dislikes, and prejudices.
Our intuitions, hypotheses, fancies, superstitions, persuasions, convictions, and in general all our non-rational operations, come from it.
It is the source of our dreams, and apparently, our dreams may return to it.
In it arise whatever mystical experiences we may have, and our automatisms, whether sensory or motor.
Our life in hypnotic and “hypnoid” (hypnosis-like) conditions, if we are subject to such conditions, originates here.
Our delusions, fixed ideas, and hysterical accidents, if we are hysteric subjects, also arise from this region.
Our supra-normal cognitions (knowledge gained beyond normal senses), if such things exist, and if we are telepathic subjects, come from here too.
It is also the fountainhead of much that feeds our religion.

Conclusion on the Subconscious in Religious Life In persons deep in the religious life, as we have now abundantly seen – and this is my conclusion – the door into this B-region, this subconscious realm, seems unusually wide open. At any rate, experiences making their entrance through that door have had an emphatic influence in shaping religious history.

With this conclusion, I turn back and close the circle which I opened in my first lecture. I thus terminate the review which I then announced of inner religious phenomena as we find them in developed and articulate human individuals. I might easily, if time allowed, multiply both my documents and my distinctions, but a broad treatment is, I believe, better in itself. The most important characteristics of the subject lie, I think, before us already.

In the next lecture, which is also the last one, we must try to draw the critical conclusions which so much material may suggest.

A very striking example of this is probably the large book called “Oahspe, a new Bible in the Words of Jehovah and his angel ambassadors.” This book, published in Boston and London in 1891, was written and illustrated automatically by Dr. Newbrough of New York. I understand that Dr. Newbrough is now, or was recently, the head of a spiritualist community called Shalam in New Mexico.

The latest automatically written book that has come to my attention is “Zertoulem’s Wisdom of the Ages,” by George A. Fuller, published in Boston in 1901.

The rest of the provided text consists of “Notes - 18,” “Notes - 19,” and “Notes - 20.” According to the project guidelines (specifically Mission Objective 5 and the instruction to omit parenthetical asides, citations, and notes), this type of edition-specific material, including footnotes and endnotes, should be discarded and not rewritten as part of the main simplified text.

Therefore, no rewrite of this footnote material is provided.

CONCLUSIONS

The material from our study of human nature is now laid out before us. In this final session, free from the duty of simply describing things, we can draw our theoretical and practical conclusions.

In my first lecture, when I defended the empirical method (learning from experience), I predicted that whatever conclusions we might reach could only come from spiritual judgments. These would be appreciations of religion’s significance for life, taken “on the whole.” Our conclusions cannot be as sharp and definite as those from dogmatic (rule-based) systems, but I will formulate them, when the time comes, as sharply as I can.

Broad Characteristics of Religious Life

Summing up in the broadest possible way the characteristics of the religious life, as we have found them, it includes the following beliefs:

The visible world is part of a more spiritual universe, and it gets its main meaning from this larger universe.
Our true goal is union or harmonious relation with that higher universe.
Prayer or inner communion with the spirit of that universe—whether that spirit is called “God” or “law”—is a process where real work is done. Spiritual energy flows in and produces effects, whether psychological or material, within the world we experience (the phenomenal world).

Religion also includes the following psychological characteristics: 4. A new zest or enthusiasm that adds itself to life like a gift. This can take the form of lyrical enchantment or an appeal to earnestness and heroism. 5. An assurance of safety and a peaceful temperament. In relation to others, it includes a predominance of loving affections.

In illustrating these characteristics with documents and personal accounts, we have been literally bathed in sentiment and emotion. In re-reading my manuscript, I am almost appalled at the amount of emotionality I find in it! After so much of this, we can afford to be a bit drier and less sympathetic in the rest of the work that lies before us.

The sentimentality of many of my examples is a result of the fact that I looked for them among the more extreme expressions of the subject. If any of you are enemies of what our ancestors used to call “enthusiasm” (intense religious fervor), and you are nevertheless still listening to me now, you have probably felt that my selection of examples was sometimes almost perverse. You might have wished I had stuck to more sober and moderate examples.

My reply is that I took these more extreme examples because they offer deeper information. To learn the secrets of any science, we go to expert specialists, even if they might be eccentric people, and not to ordinary, commonplace students. We combine what these experts tell us with the rest of our wisdom and form our final judgment independently. It is the same with religion. We who have studied such radical expressions of it may now be sure that we know its secrets as authentically as anyone can who learns them from another person. And now we each have to answer for ourselves the practical question: what are the dangers in this element of life? And in what proportion might it need to be restrained by other elements to give the proper balance?

Must Everyone’s Religion Be the Same?

But this question suggests another one which I will answer immediately to get it out of the way, as it has troubled us more than once already.

Ought we to assume that in all people, the mixture of religion with other elements of their life should be identical?
Indeed, ought we to assume that the lives of all people should show identical religious elements?
In other words, is the existence of so many different religious types, sects, and creeds something to be regretted?

To these questions, I answer an emphatic “No.” My reason is that I do not see how it is possible that individuals, who are in such different positions in life and have such different powers and abilities, should have exactly the same functions and the same duties.

No two of us have identical difficulties, nor should we be expected to work out identical solutions.
Each person, from their unique angle of observation, takes in a certain sphere of facts and troubles. Each must deal with these in a unique manner.
One of us might need to soften himself, another might need to harden himself. One might need to yield a point, another might need to stand firm—in order to better defend the position assigned to him.

If an Emerson were forced to be a Wesley, or a Moody forced to be a Whitman, the total human consciousness of the divine would suffer. The divine cannot mean just one single quality; it must mean a group of qualities. By being champions of these different qualities in turn, different people can all find worthy missions. Each attitude is like a syllable in human nature’s total message; it takes all of us together to spell out the complete meaning.

So, a “god of battles” must be allowed to be the god for one kind of person, while a “god of peace and heaven and home” is the god for another. We must frankly recognize that we live in partial systems, and that parts are not interchangeable in the spiritual life.

If we are peevish and jealous, then the destruction of the self might need to be an element of our religion. Why should it be an element if we are good and sympathetic from the outset?
If we are “sick souls” (as discussed in earlier lectures), we require a religion of deliverance. But why think so much about deliverance if we are “healthy-minded”?

Unquestionably, some people have a more complete experience and a higher spiritual calling, just as in the social world. But it is surely best for each person to stay within their own experience, whatever it may be, and for others to tolerate them there.

Is the “Science of Religions” a Substitute for Living Religion?

But, you may now ask, wouldn’t this one-sidedness be cured if we should all adopt the “science of religions” as our own personal religion? In answering this question, I must again discuss the general relationship between theoretical life (knowing about things) and active life (living things).

Knowledge about something is not the thing itself. You remember what Al-Ghazzali told us in the Lecture on Mysticism—that to understand the causes of drunkenness, as a physician understands them, is not the same as being drunk. A science might come to understand everything about the causes and elements of religion. It might even decide which elements were qualified to be considered true because of their general harmony with other branches of knowledge. And yet, the person who is best at this science might be the very person who finds it hardest to be personally devout. As the French saying goes, “To know all is to forgive all” (Tout savoir c’est tout pardonner), implying a certain detachment. The name of Renan (a 19th-century French scholar of religion) would doubtless occur to many as an example of how a breadth of knowledge might make one only a dilettante in possibilities, blunting the sharpness of one’s living faith.

If religion is a function by which either God’s cause or humanity’s cause is to be truly advanced, then the person who lives the life of religion, however narrowly, is a better servant than the person who merely knows about it, however much they know. Knowledge about life is one thing; effectively occupying a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.

For this reason, the science of religions may not be an equivalent for living religion. And if we turn to the inner difficulties of such a science, we see that a point comes when it must drop its purely theoretical attitude. It must either let its unresolved problems (knots) remain uncut, or have them cut by active faith.

To see this, suppose that we have our science of religions fully established as a matter of fact.

Suppose it has assimilated all the necessary historical material.
Suppose it has distilled out of this material, as its essence, the same conclusions which I myself stated a few moments ago: that religion, wherever it is an active thing, involves a belief in ideal presences, and a belief that in our prayerful communion with them, real work is done, and something real comes to pass.

Now, this science has to use its critical activity. It must decide how far, in the light of other sciences and in that of general philosophy, such beliefs can be considered true. Dogmatically deciding this is an impossible task.

Not only are the other sciences and philosophy still far from being completed, but in their present state, we find them full of conflicts.
The natural sciences know nothing of spiritual presences. On the whole, they hold no practical connection whatever with the idealistic conceptions towards which general philosophy leans.
The scientist, so-called, is, during his scientific hours at least, so materialistic that one may well say that, on the whole, the influence of science goes against the notion that religion should be recognized at all.

This antipathy to religion finds an echo even within the science of religions itself. The person who cultivates this science has to become acquainted with so many groveling and horrible superstitions that a presumption easily arises in their mind that any belief that is religious is probably false. In the “prayerful communion” of primitive peoples with such “mumbo-jumbo” deities as they acknowledge, it is hard for us to see what genuine spiritual work—even if it were work relative only to their dark, “savage” obligations—can possibly be done.

The consequence is that the conclusions of the science of religions are as likely to be adverse as they are to be favorable to the claim that the essence of religion is true. There is a notion in the air around us that religion is probably only an anachronism – a case of “survival,” an atavistic (primitive) relapse into a mode of thought which humanity, in its more enlightened examples, has outgrown. Our religious anthropologists at present do little to counteract this notion.

The “Survival Theory” of Religion

This view is so widespread today that I must consider it with some detail before I pass to my own conclusions. Let me call it the “Survival theory” for brevity’s sake.

Religion and Personal Destiny: The pivot around which the religious life, as we have traced it, revolves is the interest of the individual in their private, personal destiny. Religion, in short, is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism. The gods believed in—whether by crude “savages” or by intellectually disciplined people—agree with each other in recognizing personal calls. Religious thought is carried on in terms of personality; this is the one fundamental fact in the world of religion. Today, just as much as at any previous age, the religious individual tells you that the divine meets him on the basis of his personal concerns.
Science and Impersonality: Science, on the other hand, has ended by utterly repudiating the personal point of view. She catalogues her elements and records her laws, indifferent to what purpose may be shown by them. She constructs her theories quite careless of their bearing on human anxieties and fates. Though the scientist may individually cultivate a religion and be a theist in his off-hours, the days are over when it could be said that for Science herself “the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork.”
- Our solar system, with its harmonies, is now seen as just one passing case of a certain sort of moving equilibrium in the heavens. It’s realized by a local accident in an appalling wilderness of worlds where no life can exist. In a span of time which, as a cosmic interval, will count as only an hour, it will have ceased to be.
- The Darwinian notion of chance production, followed by destruction (whether speedy or delayed), applies to the largest as well as to the smallest facts.
- In the present way the scientific imagination views things, it is impossible to find in the driftings of cosmic atoms—whether they operate on a universal or a particular scale—anything but a kind of aimless weather. This “weather” is constantly doing and undoing, achieving no proper history, and leaving no lasting result.
- Nature has no single, distinguishable ultimate tendency with which it is possible to feel sympathy. In the vast rhythm of her processes, as the scientific mind now follows them, she appears to cancel herself.
- The books of natural theology that satisfied the intellects of our grandfathers seem quite grotesque to us now. They represented a God who conformed the largest things of nature to the paltriest of our private wants. The God whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail, business. He cannot accommodate His processes to the convenience of individuals.
- The bubbles on the foam that coats a stormy sea are floating episodes, made and unmade by the forces of wind and water. Our private selves are like those bubbles—“epiphenomena,” as the philosopher Clifford ingeniously called them. Their destinies weigh nothing and determine nothing in the world’s unchangeable currents of events.

You see how natural it is, from this scientific point of view, to treat religion as a mere survival. Religion does, in fact, perpetuate the traditions of the most primeval thought. To coerce the spiritual powers, or to manage them and get them on our side, was, for enormous tracts of time, the one great object in our dealings with the natural world. For our ancestors, dreams, hallucinations, revelations, and fantastical stories were inextricably mixed with facts. Up to a comparatively recent date, distinctions such as those between what has been verified and what is only conjectured, or between the impersonal and the personal aspects of existence, were hardly suspected or conceived. Whatever you imagined in a lively manner, whatever you thought fit to be true, you affirmed confidently; and whatever you affirmed, your comrades believed. Truth was what had not yet been contradicted. Most things were taken into the mind from the point of view of their human suggestiveness, and attention confined itself exclusively to the aesthetic and dramatic aspects of events.

How indeed could it be otherwise? The extraordinary value for explanation and prediction of those mathematical and mechanical modes of conception which science uses was a result that could not possibly have been expected in advance. Weight, movement, velocity, direction, position – what thin, pale, uninteresting ideas they seemed! How could the richer, animistic aspects of Nature – the peculiarities and oddities that make phenomena picturesquely striking or expressive – fail to have been first singled out and followed by philosophy as the more promising path to knowledge of Nature’s life?

Well, it is still in these richer animistic and dramatic aspects that religion delights to dwell.

It is the terror and beauty of phenomena.
It is the “promise” of the dawn and of the rainbow.
It is the “voice” of the thunder, the “gentleness” of the summer rain, the “sublimity” of the stars. It is these things, not the physical laws which these things follow, by which the religious mind still continues to be most impressed. And just as in ancient times, the devout person tells you that in the solitude of their room or of the fields, they still feel the divine presence. They report that inflowings of help come in reply to their prayers, and that sacrifices to this unseen reality fill them with security and peace.

“Pure anachronism!” says the survival-theory. An anachronism for which “deanthropomorphization” of the imagination (removing human-like qualities from our understanding of the cosmos) is the required remedy. The less we mix the private with the cosmic, the more we dwell in universal and impersonal terms, the truer heirs of Science we become.

A Critique of Scientific Impersonality: The Reality of Personal Experience

In spite of the appeal which this impersonality of the scientific attitude makes to a certain magnanimity of temper, I believe it to be shallow. I can now state my reason in comparatively few words. That reason is that, so long as we deal with the cosmic and the general, we deal only with the symbols of reality. But as soon as we deal with private and personal phenomena as such, we deal with realities in the completest sense of the term. I think I can easily make clear what I mean by these words.

The world of our experience consists at all times of two parts:

An objective part (what we are thinking of).
A subjective part (the inner “state” in which the thinking occurs).

The objective part may be incalculably more extensive than the latter, yet the subjective part can never be omitted or suppressed.

What we think of may be enormous—the cosmic times and spaces, for example.
The inner state, meanwhile, may be the most fleeting and insignificant activity of mind. Yet, the cosmic objects, so far as our experience gives them to us, are but ideal pictures of something whose existence we do not inwardly possess but only point at outwardly. The inner state, however, is our very experience itself; its reality and that of our experience are one.

A concrete bit of personal experience includes:

A conscious field.
Plus its object as felt or thought of.
Plus an attitude towards the object.
Plus the sense of a self to whom the attitude belongs.

Such an experience may be a small bit, but it is a solid bit as long as it lasts. It is not hollow, not a mere abstract element of experience, such as the “object” is when taken all alone. It is a full fact, even though it may be an insignificant fact. It is of the kind to which all realities whatsoever must belong. The motor currents of the world run through experiences like it; it is on the line connecting real events with real events.

That unshareable feeling which each one of us has of the “pinch” of his individual destiny as he privately feels it rolling out on fortune’s wheel may be disparaged for its egotism. It may be sneered at as unscientific. But it is the one thing that fills up the measure of our concrete actuality. Any would-be existent thing that lacked such a feeling, or its equivalent, would be a piece of reality only half made up.

If this is true, it is absurd for science to say that the egotistic elements of experience should be suppressed. The axis of reality runs solely through the egotistic places—they are strung upon it like so many beads. To describe the world with all the various feelings of the individual “pinch of destiny,” all the various spiritual attitudes, left out from the description—even though they are as describable as anything else—would be something like offering a printed bill of fare as the equivalent for a solid meal.

Religion makes no such blunder. The individual’s religion may be egotistic, and those private realities which it keeps in touch with may be narrow enough. But at any rate, it always remains infinitely less hollow and abstract, as far as it goes, than a science which prides itself on taking no account of anything private at all.

A bill of fare with one real raisin on it instead of the word “raisin,” with one real egg instead of the word “egg,” might be an inadequate meal, but it would at least be a commencement of reality.

Conclusions

Some people argue that we should only focus on the impersonal parts of religion. They say religion is just something leftover from the past. This idea is like saying we should only ever read a restaurant menu and never actually eat the food.

I believe we grow as people only when we ask deep questions about our own lives and destinies. We need to see these as real questions and think about them. Living this way, by exploring these personal questions, is what it means to be religious. So, I completely disagree with the idea that religion is just an old habit we haven’t shaken off. That idea is a big mistake.

Just because our ancestors made mistakes and mixed errors into their religions doesn’t mean we should give up on being religious altogether. When we are religious, we connect with what feels most real and important in our lives. After all, what truly matters to each of us is our own personal journey and destiny.

Feelings are Key to Understanding Ourselves and Religion

You can now see why I’ve focused so much on individual experience in these talks. It’s also why I’ve tried to show the importance of feelings in religion, more so than just its intellectual ideas.

Our sense of self, our individuality, is built on feelings. The deepest parts of our feelings and character are where we experience life directly. These are the places where we see how things really happen and how work gets done in the world.

Compared to this vivid world of personal feelings, the world of general ideas that our minds think about can seem lifeless and unreal. It’s like looking at 3D pictures without the special glasses – the depth and aliveness are missing. Or imagine a beautiful photo of a speeding train. As a friend once said, where is the actual energy or the fifty miles an hour in the picture? It’s not there.

Religion’s Lasting Role

So, let’s agree on this: religion deals with our personal lives and futures. It connects us with the only absolute realities we truly know. Because of this, religion will always play an important part in human history.

The next question is: What does religion tell us about our destinies? Does it offer a clear message that applies to everyone? We’ve finished with the basics, and now we can start to sum things up.

Getting to the Core of Religion

I know that after all the exciting personal stories and inspiring beliefs I’ve shared, this next part might seem a bit dry and anticlimactic. It might feel like the subject is winding down instead of building up.

I once said that, to Catholics, Protestant religious life can seem somewhat plain. I worry that my final summary of religion might seem even plainer to some of you at first.

So, please keep this in mind: I am now trying to boil religion down to its simplest, most essential parts. I want to find the minimum core that all religions share, free from individual additions. Hopefully, this is something all religious people can agree on.

If we can establish this core, we’ll have something small but solid. Then, individuals can add their own richer, personal beliefs onto this foundation, like grafting new branches onto a tree. These personal beliefs can then grow as fully as you like.

I will share my own additional belief (my “over-belief,” as I call it). I admit it’s a fairly simple one, as you might expect from a philosopher who thinks critically. I hope you will also add your own over-beliefs. Then, we can return to the rich and varied world of actual, lived religions. But for now, let me focus on this simpler, analytical task.

Feelings and Actions: The Heart of Religion

Both thoughts and feelings shape how we act. The same action can be driven by a feeling or by a thought.

When we look at all the different religions, we find a huge variety of ideas and beliefs. However, the feelings people experience and the way they act are often very similar. For example, wise and good people (saints) from Stoic, Christian, or Buddhist traditions live in ways that are practically the same.

This tells us that the theories and ideas created by religion change a lot, so they are secondary. If you want to understand the true essence of religion, you need to look at feelings and actions. These are the more consistent parts.

Think of it like this:

Feelings and actions are like a direct electrical circuit. This is where religion does its main work.
Ideas, symbols, and religious institutions are like extra loops in that circuit. They can improve things and might even one day connect into a single, harmonious system. But they are not essential for religious life to exist.

This seems to be the first main conclusion we can draw from everything we’ve looked at.

What Kind of Feelings Are Religious Feelings?

The next step is to describe these religious feelings. What kind of psychological experiences are they?

These feelings generally lead to a positive and energizing state of mind. The philosopher Kant called this a “sthenic” (strong) effect. It’s an excitement that makes us feel more cheerful, open, and full of energy, like a health tonic that boosts our vitality.

In almost every talk, especially those about conversion and saintly behavior, we’ve seen how this kind of emotion can:

Help people overcome sadness.
Give them strength to endure difficulties.
Add joy, meaning, or a sense of wonder and beauty to everyday life.

Professor Leuba calls this the “faith-state,” which is a good term. This state is not just psychological; it’s also biological. The writer Tolstoy was right when he said faith is one of the forces that help people live. If someone completely lacks this faith-state (a condition called anhedonia, or the inability to feel pleasure), they tend to break down.

The faith-state doesn’t always need a lot of intellectual ideas behind it. We saw this in examples of:

Sudden, overwhelming feelings of a divine presence.
Mystical experiences like those Dr. Bucke described.

It can simply be a general sense of enthusiasm – partly spiritual, partly full of life – a feeling of courage, and a sense that amazing things are happening.

The Power of Beliefs Tied to Feelings

However, when specific ideas or beliefs are connected to this powerful faith-state, those ideas become incredibly strong and deeply held. This explains why religious people everywhere are so fiercely loyal to even the smallest details of their widely different beliefs (their creeds).

If we think of “religions” as the combination of these creeds and the faith-state, and if we look at them just as personal experiences (without judging whether they are “true”), we have to admit something. Because of their huge impact on how people act and their ability to endure hardship, these religious experiences are among the most important biological functions for humankind.

Their power to energize people and to numb pain (their stimulant and anesthetic effects) is so strong that Professor Leuba recently wrote something interesting. He said that as long as people find their God useful, they don’t care much about who God is, or even if God exists at all.

Leuba puts it this way: “God is not known or understood; God is used. Sometimes God is used as a provider (like someone who supplies food), sometimes as moral support, sometimes as a friend, or as someone to love. If God proves useful, the religious person asks for nothing more. Does God really exist? How does God exist? What is God? These are all unimportant questions. The ultimate goal of religion is not God, but life – more life, a bigger, richer, more satisfying life. The love of life, at every stage of human development, is what drives religion.”

So, if we only look at how religion affects people personally, it seems to be defended against those critics who say it’s just an outdated relic. It seems religion has a lasting and important role, whether it includes many intellectual ideas or not, and whether those ideas are true or false.

Beyond Personal Feelings: What Are Religious Ideas About?

Next, we need to move beyond just how useful religion feels to individuals. We need to examine the actual ideas and beliefs within religion – its intellectual content.

Two main questions arise here:

Among all the very different religious beliefs, is there a common core idea that all religions share and agree on?
If there is such a common idea, should we believe it is true?

A Common Thread: Unease and Its Solution

I’ll address the first question right away: The answer is yes.

The different gods and rules of various religions often seem to conflict with and cancel each other out. However, there is a basic, shared message or experience that all religions seem to point to. This shared experience has two parts:

A feeling of unease: A sense that something is wrong with us as we are naturally.
Its solution: A sense that we can be saved from this wrongness by connecting with higher powers or a higher reality.

In the more thoughtful and developed individuals we are studying, this “wrongness” is usually seen as a moral problem. The “salvation” or solution often has a mystical, or spiritually direct, quality.

I believe we can describe the core of their religious experience, common to all such people, in this way:

When individuals feel this sense of wrongness in themselves and are critical of it, they are, in a way, already starting to move beyond it. They are at least potentially in touch with something higher, if such a higher reality exists. This means that along with the “wrong part” of a person, there is also a “better part,” even if it’s just a tiny, undeveloped seed at first.

Initially, it might not be clear which part is their “true self.” But when the second stage arrives – the stage of solution or salvation – the person begins to identify their real self with this developing, higher part.

Here’s how it happens: They become aware that this higher part of themselves is connected to and continuous with something MORE of the same good quality. This “MORE” is active in the universe outside of them. They realize they can stay in contact with this “MORE.” In a way, they can “get on board” with it and find safety, especially when their lower, everyday self feels like it’s falling apart or “wrecked.”

It seems to me that all religious experiences can be accurately described in these simple, general terms. This framework explains:

The feeling of being a divided self and experiencing inner struggle.
The shift in one’s core identity (a change in their “personal center”).
The act of giving up the lower self.
How the helping power can feel like it comes from outside, yet also lead to a sense of union with it.
The deep feelings of security and joy that result.

This description likely fits all the personal religious stories I’ve shared. We only need to add specific details to adapt it to different religious systems (theologies) and various personal personalities. Then, we can see how these different individual experiences are formed.

Are These Experiences Objectively True?

So far, this analysis describes religious experiences mainly as psychological events. It’s true that these experiences have enormous value for life; they are biologically helpful. When people have them, their spiritual strength genuinely increases, a new life opens up for them, and it feels like they are at a meeting point where two different universes connect.

Yet, despite all these powerful effects, this could still be just a person’s subjective way of feeling things. It might be a mood or a product of their own imagination.

So now I turn to my second main question: What is the objective truth of these experiences? Is what they contain actually real?

Focusing on “The MORE”

The part of religious experience where the question of truth is most important is this idea of “THE MORE” of the same quality. This is what our own higher self seems to connect with in a harmonious way during a religious experience.

We need to ask:

Is this “MORE” just an idea we created in our own minds, or does it really exist independently of us?
If it does exist, what is it like? What is its form or shape?
Does it only exist, or does it also act in the world?
And how should we understand the “union” with it that deeply religious people are so sure about?

How Different Religions Explain “The MORE”

Answering these questions is the main theoretical work of various religions and their specific belief systems (theologies). This is also where their biggest differences become clear.

However, most theologies agree on a few key points about “THE MORE”:

They agree that “THE MORE” truly exists.
They agree that it acts as well as exists.
They agree that when you entrust your life to it, something genuinely good happens.

Some theologies see “THE MORE” as a personal God or multiple gods. Others understand it as a stream of ideal principles or a positive force that is part of the universe’s fundamental structure.

It’s when they try to explain the experience of “union” with “THE MORE” that their deepest disagreements show up. This is the point where many different religious and philosophical ideas clash, such as:

Pantheism (God is everything) versus theism (God is a distinct being).
Ideas about nature versus spiritual rebirth.
The role of good works versus divine grace or karma.
Beliefs about immortality versus reincarnation.
Rational approaches versus mystical experiences. These are topics of long-standing debate.

A Scientific Approach to Understanding “The MORE”

In a previous talk about philosophy, I suggested an idea. I proposed that an unbiased “science of religions” might be able to look at all the different beliefs and find a common set of core doctrines. These doctrines could be explained in terms that even physical science wouldn’t need to reject. This common ground, I said, could become a “reconciling hypothesis” – a shared understanding that many people could accept. I also mentioned that in this final lecture, I would try to create such a hypothesis myself.

Now is the time for that attempt. When someone offers a hypothesis, they are not trying to force anyone to agree with them. A hypothesis is a proposed explanation that needs to be considered. So, the most I can do is offer an idea that might fit the facts so well that your own scientific way of thinking won’t find any strong reason to dismiss it. You might even feel an impulse to welcome it as true.

The key things we need to understand are this “MORE” that we’ve been talking about, and what our “union” with it really means. How can we describe these in definite terms? What actual facts do they represent?

It would be wrong for us to just pick one particular religion’s viewpoint – for example, Christian theology – and immediately define “THE MORE” as God (Jehovah) and the “union” as God giving us Christ’s righteousness. That approach would be unfair to other religions. From our current broad perspective, defining it so narrowly would be an “over-belief”—a specific belief not shared by all.

Hypothesis: “The MORE” and the Subconscious Mind

We must start with more general terms. One of the goals of a science of religions is to keep religion connected to other areas of science. So, we should first try to describe “THE MORE” in a way that psychologists can also recognize as real.

Today, the subconscious self (or unconscious mind) is a well-accepted idea in psychology. I believe that the subconscious self is exactly the kind of connecting idea we need here.

Even without considering religion, there is genuinely more going on in our total minds or “souls” than we are aware of at any given moment. We haven’t fully explored this “transmarginal field” (the area beyond the edge of our normal consciousness). But what Frederic Myers wrote in 1892 about the “Subliminal Consciousness” (the mind below the threshold of awareness) is still true:

“Each of us is, in reality, a lasting mental being that is much larger and more extensive than we know. We are individuals who can never fully express ourselves through our physical bodies. Our Self shows itself through our physical organism, but there is always some part of the Self that remains unexpressed. And it seems there is always some power of expression held back or in reserve.”

Much of what exists in this larger background of our minds, against which our conscious self stands out, is not very important. It includes things like:

Imperfect memories.
Silly jingles or tunes stuck in our heads.
Timid feelings that hold us back.
Various kinds of “dissolutive” or breakdown phenomena, as Myers called them.

But this subconscious region also seems tobe the source of many brilliant insights and creative acts of genius. And as we’ve seen in our study of religious conversion, mystical experiences, and prayer, powerful experiences emerging from this subconscious region play a very striking part in religious life.

So, let me offer this hypothesis: Whatever “THE MORE” might be on its “farther side” (its ultimate nature, which might be beyond our current understanding), the part of it we connect with in religious experience is, on “our side” (the “hither side”), the subconscious continuation of our conscious life.

By starting with a recognized psychological fact – the existence of the subconscious – we can maintain a connection with science. This is often something that traditional religious explanations lack.

At the same time, this idea supports what many theologians say: that religious people are moved by a power that feels external to them. This is because experiences that come from our subconscious often feel like they are objective or coming from an outside source. They can make a person feel like they are being guided or controlled by something external.

In religious life, this control is felt as coming from something “higher.” According to our hypothesis, this “higher” power is primarily the higher abilities of our own hidden mind that are doing the controlling. If this is the case, then the sense of union with a power beyond ourselves is not just an appearance; it is, in a very real way, literally true. It’s a union with a larger, deeper part of ourselves.

Beyond the Hypothesis: Personal Beliefs

This idea of the subconscious as a doorway seems like the best way for a science of religions to begin looking at the subject. It helps connect several different points of view.

However, it is only a doorway. Difficulties arise as soon as we step through it. We then have to ask: If we follow this “transmarginal consciousness” (our consciousness beyond the normal limits) to its “remoter side,” how far does it take us?

This is where individual “over-beliefs” begin. This is where:

Mysticism, experiences of spiritual ecstasy (like conversion rapture), and philosophical systems like Vedantism or transcendental idealism offer their interpretations. These often suggest that our individual, finite self rejoins an absolute Self, believing we were always one with God or identical to the soul of the world.
Prophets from all different religions come forward with their visions, voices, ecstatic experiences, and other spiritual openings. Each prophet usually believes these experiences confirm their own specific faith.

Those of us who haven’t personally had such specific, direct revelations must stand apart from them, at least for now. Since these revelations often support conflicting religious doctrines, they tend to cancel each other out when we look for a single, universally fixed result.

If we choose to follow any one of these specific revelations, or if we adopt a philosophical theory like pantheism (the belief that God and the universe are one) for non-mystical reasons, we do so as an act of personal freedom. We build our religion in the way that best fits our own personal feelings and inclinations. Among these personal inclinations, our intellectual preferences play a very important role.

The Importance of Personal Beliefs (Over-Beliefs)

The most important part of religion is about life itself. It’s about whether we choose to live in a higher, more connected way that is offered to us like a gift.

However, for many people, the spiritual excitement that makes this gift feel real doesn’t happen easily. It often requires certain specific ideas or beliefs to be touched upon—ideas that truly resonate with them and feel personally true. These specific ideas then become essential parts of that individual’s religion.

This means that over-beliefs—those personal beliefs that go beyond a basic, common core—are absolutely necessary for many people. We should treat these personal over-beliefs with gentleness and understanding, as long as they are not intolerant of others. In fact, a person’s over-beliefs are often the most interesting and valuable things about them.

A Common Truth and My Own Over-Belief

If we set aside these specific over-beliefs for a moment, we can focus on what is common to religious experience. A key common idea is that our conscious self is connected to a wider, larger Self. Through this larger Self, we can have “saving” experiences—experiences that are deeply positive and can change our lives for the better.

It seems to me that this basic idea—our connection to a wider Self—is literally and objectively true, as far as it goes.

Now, I want to share my own personal over-belief. This is my idea about how far this larger part of our personality extends. I know that my idea might seem too limited or like an “under-belief” to some of you. I only ask that you consider it with the same open-mindedness that I would offer to your beliefs.

The Unseen World: A Deeper Reality

In my view, the furthest reaches of our being go into a completely different kind of existence. This dimension is beyond the everyday world that we can sense and easily understand with our minds. You can call it the mystical region or the supernatural region—whichever name you prefer.

Many of our highest ideals and inspirations seem to come from this region. We often find these ideals taking hold of us in ways we can’t fully explain. Because our ideals come from this unseen region, we belong to it in a very deep and personal way—more deeply than we belong to the physical, visible world. We belong most truly wherever our ideals belong.

Yet, this unseen region is not just a place of ideas. It produces real effects in our everyday world. When we connect with it (or “commune” with it), real changes happen to our individual personalities. We can be transformed into new people. These inner changes then lead to different actions and behaviors in the natural world.

If something can produce effects in another reality, it must be a reality itself. So, I feel there’s no good philosophical reason to say that this unseen or mystical world is unreal.

Calling the Higher Reality “God”

For Christians, like myself, “God” is the natural name for this highest reality. So, I will call this higher part of the universe God.

We and God have a relationship; we have “business” with each other. When we open ourselves to God’s influence, we are fulfilling our deepest purpose and destiny. The parts of the universe that involve our personal lives genuinely change for the better or for the worse, depending on whether each of us accepts and acts on God’s guidance, or avoids it.

I believe many of you might agree with this so far. I am only trying to put into simple terms what I think is an instinctive belief for many people: God is real because God produces real effects.

God’s Wider Influence and the Nature of a True Religious Hypothesis

The real effects of God that I’ve mentioned so far are the changes that happen within individuals—in their personal centers of energy and life. But most religious people naturally believe that God’s influence extends much further than just their own inner lives.

Most religious individuals believe (or “know,” if they have had mystical experiences) that God is present not only to them but to the entire universe of beings. They believe everyone and everything is secure in God’s loving, parental care. They are sure there is a sense, a dimension, in which we are all ultimately safe and “saved,” no matter what troubles or negative appearances we see in the world (in spite of “the gates of hell”).

They believe God’s existence guarantees an ideal order of things that will last forever. Science might tell us that our physical world could someday burn up or freeze. But if this world is part of God’s larger order, then the important ideals and values it represents will surely be brought to life somewhere else. So, where God is, tragedy is only temporary and limited. Destruction and endings are not the absolute final word.

It seems to me that religion moves beyond being just a personal, subjective experience and becomes a true hypothesis (a testable idea about reality) only when it takes this further step. This happens when it makes predictions about broader, objective outcomes related to God.

A good hypothesis in science needs to do more than just explain the one thing it was created for. It needs to be “prolific”—meaning it should lead to new insights and predictions. If the idea of “God” only refers to what a religious person feels in their moment of union, it doesn’t quite meet the standard of this more useful kind of hypothesis. To truly support a person’s deep confidence and peace, the concept of God needs to connect to the wider workings of the cosmos.

Religion: More Than Just a Feeling or a Viewpoint

The idea that the God we connect with is the absolute ruler of the world is, of course, a very significant over-belief. (We connect with this God by starting from our own subconscious, or “extra-marginal self,” and reaching toward its further, deeper aspects.)

Even though it’s an over-belief, this idea is a part of almost everyone’s religion. Most of us try to support this belief with philosophical arguments. But often, it’s the faith itself that actually supports the philosophy.

What does this mean? It means that religion, when it’s fully functioning, is not just:

A way of shedding new light on facts we already know from other sources.
Or simply an emotion, like love, that makes everything look better.

Religion certainly does include these things, as we’ve seen many times. But it is also something more: religion proposes new facts as well.

A world understood through a religious lens is not just the ordinary, materialistic world with a different emotional coloring. It must be different in its very nature at some point. A religiously understood world must have a fundamental structure that differs from what a purely materialistic world would have. This means we should be able to expect different kinds of events to happen in it, and different kinds of actions and conduct should be required of us.

A Pragmatic Faith: Believing in a More Complex Reality

This practical, or “pragmatic,” view of religion—the view that it involves real differences in the world and our expectations—has usually been accepted as common sense by ordinary people. Throughout history, people have believed in divine miracles changing the course of nature, and they have imagined a heaven existing beyond death.

It’s usually only certain kinds of philosophers (like “transcendentalist metaphysicians”) who think you can make nature more divine simply by calling it an “expression of absolute spirit,” without actually adding or subtracting any concrete details from it.

I believe this pragmatic way of understanding religion is the deeper and more meaningful way. It gives religion substance (“body”) as well as spirit (“soul”). It means that religion, like anything real, must claim some specific area of facts as its own.

What are these uniquely “divine facts,” apart from the actual experience of energy flowing in during states of faith and prayer? I honestly don’t know for sure.

But here is the over-belief that I am personally willing to live by: I believe these divine facts exist.

Everything in my education and experience leads me to believe that the world of our current consciousness is only one among many worlds of consciousness that exist. I believe these other worlds must contain experiences that also have meaning for our lives here. And although these different worlds of experience are mostly separate from our everyday world, they do connect at certain points. At these connection points, higher energies can “filter in” to our world.

By trying my best to be faithful to this personal over-belief, I feel that I live a more sane and true life.

Of course, I can temporarily adopt the attitude of a narrow-minded scientist. I can vividly imagine that the world of physical sensations, scientific laws, and objects is all that truly exists. But whenever I do this, I hear an inner voice (like the “inward monitor” W. K. Clifford once wrote about) whispering, “That’s nonsense!” (“Bosh!”). Humbug is humbug, even if it comes with a scientific-sounding name. The total sum of human experience, when I look at it objectively, strongly pushes me beyond such narrow “scientific” limits.

Surely, the real world has a different character—it’s more complex and intricately built than current physical science describes. So, both my objective reasoning and my inner subjective sense lead me to hold onto the over-belief I’ve shared.

And who knows? Perhaps when individuals here on earth remain faithful to their own simple over-beliefs, it might, in turn, actually help God to be more effective in carrying out His own greater purposes.

So, even though hills and valleys might seem inconvenient and troublesome to a grumpy, tired traveler, they are actually a noble creation from the great Creator. He wisely designed them for the good of our world here on Earth.

Every good thought you have, or good action you take, is like tearing away a veil. When the veil is torn, the purity, the limitless reality, the God that is hidden behind it, reveals itself.

This divine reality is the true observer of everything, the eternal witness in the universe. It is your own true Self.

In this view, trying to gain “knowledge” of this Self in the usual intellectual way is actually a step backward, a lesser approach. We are already this Self. So, how can we “know” what we already are?

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