William James s Varieties of Religious Experience. Lectures IV through X

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1 William James s Varieties of Religious Experience Lectures IV through X Lecture IV and V: Religion of Healthy Mindedness I. Main Thesis: There is a form of religious consciousness that consists in the absence of suffering and the tendency to look upon all things and see them as good. (Goodness is maximized) (James, Varieties, pp. 96, ) II. Two Types of Healthy Mindedness A. Involuntary Variety: A way of feeling happy about things immediately. (p. 101) B. Systematical Variety: A way of conceiving of things as good upon reflection. (p. 101) In the systematical variety, healthy mindedness takes the form of an intellectual operation in which some good feature of the world has been made essential to the world and the negative elements of the world have been made accidental or basically marginalized. (p. 101) Walt Whitman is James example of the involuntary healthy mindedness. (pp ). The mind cure movement also represents healthy mindedness. (pp ) III. Other Features of Healthy Mindedness A. Healthy Mindedness is compatible with general tendencies in human nature, for example, the tendency to marginalize the presence of evil or suffering. (pp ) B. The more overt religious expressions of healthy mindedness take the form of unitive experiences with the world, theologically designated pantheism. (pp ) C. In the healthy minded person religious consciousness emerges without internal struggle against the world or the self. (p ) Lecture VI and VII: the Sick Soul I. Main Thesis: there is a form of religious consciousness that consists in the absence of joyous feelings and the tendency to look upon the world as evil. (Evil is maximized) (pp ) II. Sick Souls: Tolstoy, Henry Alline, John Bunyan, David Brainerd, and Jonathan Edwards are all examples of the sick soul. The religious elements are least apparent in Tolstoy. In the last four examples the sick soul is related to a religion of deliverance, specifically Christianity (though James also included Buddhism as a religion that emphasizes deliverance from radical evil or suffering). 1

2 III. Types and Degrees: There are voluntary and involuntary forms of the sick soul, as well as greater or lesser forms of sickness. Just how bad is the evil? (p. 151) IV. The New Birth: the sick soul is designated the twice born when deliverance has been reached. This contrasts with the healthy minded person who is only once born since he is already at peace with the world. There is no need to be born again. V. The Journey of the Sick Soul 1. Loss of an appetite for life s values. 2. The world loses its meaning or becomes a stranger. What was once self-evident is lost in a thick cloud of obscurity. Nothing makes sense in the world anymore. This sense of alienation becomes a catalyst for the search for relief. 3. One is prompted to ask the question: why? What s the point? What next? 4. One must either confront the meaninglessness of the world or find meaning in some transcendent sphere. The former threatens suicide as a solution, whereas the latter opens up a conception of the world as ultimately concealing a kind of mystery in which the evils of the world are ultimately compensated for in a realm above the world. Remember Tolstoy working hard each night to keep himself from hanging himself from the roof beam in his room. (p ) VI. Tolstoy and Bunyan: Contrasts A. Bunyan s sick soul is situated within the context of a developed theology and is fueled by Bunyan s sense of sin and alienation from God. B. Bunyan struggles with evil internalized; Tolstoy struggle with evil externalized in human institutions of various sorts. (pp ). As James says, Bunyan s troubles were over the condition of his own personal self. (p. 176) VII. Best Religions? James claims (p. 184) that the most complete religions are those in which the pessimistic elements are most thoroughly developed. In religions of deliverance, the importance of deliverance is proportional to the degree of sickness. Ergo, the greater the sin or evil in a person s consciousness, the greater his deliverance when once achieved. Lecture VIII: the Divided Self and Process of Unification I. The Innate Character of Healthy Mindedness and Sick Soul James claims that we are by our inner constitution prone to develop impulses, desires, and thought life which are naturally harmonious, whereas others are so constituted as to be predisposed toward varying degrees of discordancy, e.g., conflicts within themselves, conflicts between themselves and the world. (pp ; cf ) 2

3 The psychological basis for the twice born character seems to be a certain discordancy or heteriogeneity in the native temperament of the subject, an incompletely unified moral and intellectual constitution. (p. 186) II. Religious Expression of Duality: Self is described in dualistic terms, as consisting of contradictory wills or desires. James cites St. Augustine and Henry Alline as the central examples of this. (pp ) Augustine found himself morally conflicted; Alline found himself conflicted even though he perceived himself as a moral person. III. Distinctions Found in the process of Unification (p. 195) A. Gradual Unification vs. Sudden Unification *Tolstoy and Bunyan serve as examples of gradual conversion; Augustine arguably a sudden type. B. Altered Feelings vs. Altered powers of action C. New intellectual insights vs. mystical experiences beyond intellect. D. Unification is not necessarily religious (pp ) E. Unification does not necessarily result in Healthy mindedness; cf. Tolstoy and Bunyan (p. 208) Edwin Diller Starbuck s Contribution Lectures IX and X: Conversion Main Thesis: Conversion (religious unification of the personality) is the result of a powerful incursion from elements within the subconscious region of the mind. I. Frederic Myers and the Subliminal Realm of Mind: James relies heavily on the contribution of the unconscious or subconscious mind to psychology by Cambridge psychologist Frederic Myers. A. The mind may be depicted as a field of consciousness, a structure in which some ideas (interests and feelings) are central and others peripheral. (pp ). The habitual center of one s personal energy refers to the focal or central region of consciousness, the hot spot as James calls it. B. In conversion, religious ideas move from being peripheral to being central. The person s outlook and behavior is thereby modified. To say that a man is converted means, in these terms, that religious ideas, previously peripheral in his consciousness, now take central place, and that the religious aims for the habitual center of his energy. (p. 218) II. Edwin Diller Starbuck s Contribution 3

4 A. Conversion seems a natural phenomenon in adolescence. (pp ) More evidence that the dynamics of religious experience may be traced to more generic features of our personalities and their natural development. B. Two Kinds of Conversion: Volitional conversion is a conversion brought about through intentional actions of the subject, whereas self surrender is a sudden overtaking of the individual by a seeming higher agent (God). (pp ) In self surrender conversions a person has an awareness of some higher power acting on the person. Personal will is transcended from the outside inward, as opposed to volitional type in which transformation works from the inside outward. According to Starbuck, sudden conversions seem to have a permanent imprint on the person, even where there is outward backsliding from externally observed forms of religion. III. James on Transcending Personal Will (pp ) James argues that self surrender type conversions occur when the individual perceives his own will as belonging to the realm from which deliverance is sought. He cannot save himself, for his own will and works are expressions of an imperfect self. Examples: David Brainerd IV. Leuba s Contribution Conversion is fundamentally moral and may take place without any significant theology or doctrine. (pp ; cf ) V. James on Subconscious Incubation For James, conversion occurs because of perturbations in the unconscious or subliminal realm that contains thoughts, desires, memories, feelings that have been deposited by life s experiences. The more developed this region of the mind is the more radical the conversion is, taking on physical extremes such as fainting or hallucinations. VI. James on the Central Features of the State of Assurance (the Converted) (pp ) A. Loss of worry B. Sense of perceiving new truths previously unknown C. Objective change in which the world often appears to undergo D. Photisms (perception of light) or other physical manifestations (e.g., trance like states) 4

5 E. Extreme happiness VI. Are Conversions the Result of Divine Influences? (pp , ) James contends that nothing he has said about the psychology of conversion is incompatible with supposing that people are actually in touch with the divine through conversion experiences or other states of religious consciousness. James suggests that God, if there is a such being, may work in and through the subliminal realm to bring about conversion. He draws an analogy with sense perception: Just as our primary wide awake consciousness throws open our senses to the touch of things material, so it is logically conceivable than if there be higher spiritual agencies that can directly touch us, the psychological conditions of their doing so might be our possession of a subconscious region which alone should yield access to them. (pp ) So James does not rule out the possibility that religious experiences involve genuine contact with God, but they would do so by way of God operating directing on the subliminal or subconscious realm. James says that a more definitive conclusion must wait until the latter part of his lectures. 5