The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature

The reader will here please notice that in my exclusive reliance in the last lecture on the subconscious “incubation” of motives deposited by a growing experience, I followed the method of employing accepted principles of explanation as far as one can. The subliminal region, whatever else it may be, is at any rate a place now admitted by psychologists to exist for the accumulation of vestiges of sensible experience (whether inattentively or attentively registered), and for their elaboration according to ordinary psychological or logical laws into results that end by attaining such a “tension” that they may at times enter consciousness with something like a burst. It thus is “scientific” to interpret all otherwise unaccountable invasive alterations of consciousness as results of the tension of subliminal memories reaching the bursting-point. But candor obliges me to confess that there are occasional bursts into consciousness of results of which it is not easy to demonstrate any prolonged subconscious incubation. Some of the cases I used to illustrate the sense of presence of the unseen in Lecture III were of this order (compare pages 59, 61, 62, 67); and we shall see other experiences of the kind when we come to the subject of mysticism. The case of Mr. Bradley, that of M. Ratisbonne, possibly that of Colonel Gardiner, possibly that of Saint Paul, might not be so easily explained in this simple way. The result, then, would have to be ascribed either to a merely physiological nerve storm, a “discharging lesion” like that of epilepsy; or, in case it were useful and rational, as in the two latter cases named, to some more mystical or theological hypothesis. I make this remark in order that the reader may realize that the subject is really complex. But I shall keep myself as far as possible at present to the more “scientific” view; and only as the plot thickens in subsequent lectures shall I consider the question of its absolute sufficiency as an explanation of all the facts. That subconscious incubation explains a great number of them, there can be no doubt.

124

Edwards says elsewhere: “I am bold to say that the work of God in the conversion of one soul, considered together with the source, foundation, and purchase of it, and also the benefit, end, and eternal issue of it, is a more glorious work of God than the creation of the whole material universe.”

125

Emerson writes: “When we see a soul whose acts are regal, graceful, and pleasant as roses, we must thank God that such things can be and are, and not turn sourly on the angel and say: Crump is a better man, with his grunting resistance to all his native devils.” True enough. Yet Crump may really be the better Crump, for his inner discords and second birth; and your once-born “regal” character, though indeed always better than poor Crump, may fall far short of what he individually might be had he only some Crump-like capacity for compunction over his own peculiar diabolisms, graceful and pleasant and invariably gentlemanly as these may be.

126

In his book, The Spiritual Life, New York, 1900.

127

Op. cit., p. 112.

128

Op. cit., p. 144.

129

I piece together a quotation made by W. Monod, in his book La Vie, and a letter printed in the work: Adolphe Monod: I., Souvenirs de sa Vie, 1885, p. 433.

130

Commentary on Galatians, ch. iii. verse 19, and ch. ii. verse 20, abridged.

131

In some conversions, both steps are distinct; in this one, for example:—

“Whilst I was reading the evangelical treatise, I was soon struck by an expression: ‘the finished work of Christ.’ ‘Why,’ I asked of myself, ‘does the author use these terms? Why does he not say “the atoning work”?’ Then these words, ‘It is finished,’ presented themselves to my mind. ‘What is it that is finished?’ I asked, and in an instant my mind replied: ‘A perfect expiation for sin; entire satisfaction has been given; the debt has been paid by the Substitute. Christ has died for our sins; not for ours only, but for those of all men. If, then, the entire work is finished, all the debt paid, what remains for me to do?’ In another instant the light was shed through my mind by the Holy Ghost, and the joyous conviction was given me that nothing more was to be done, save to fall on my knees, to accept this Saviour and his love, to praise God forever.” Autobiography of Hudson Taylor. I translate back into English from the French translation of Challand (Geneva, no date), the original not being accessible.

132

Tolstoy's case was a good comment on those words. There was almost no theology in his conversion. His faith-state was the sense come back that life was infinite in its moral significance.

133

American Journal of Psychology, vii. 345-347, abridged.

134

Above, p. 152.

135

Dwight: Life of Edwards, New York, 1830, p. 61, abridged.

136

W. F. Bourne: The King's Son, a Memoir of Billy Bray, London, Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1887, p. 9.

137

Consult William B. Sprague: Lectures on Revivals of Religion, New York, 1832, in the long Appendix to which the opinions of a large number of ministers are given.

138

Memoirs, p. 34.

139

These reports of sensorial photism shade off into what are evidently only metaphorical accounts of the sense of new spiritual illumination, as, for instance, in Brainerd's statement: “As I was walking in a thick grove, unspeakable glory seemed to open to the apprehension of my soul. I do not mean any external brightness, for I saw no such thing, nor any imagination of a body of light in the third heavens, or anything of that nature, but it was a new inward apprehension or view that I had of God.”

In a case like this next one from Starbuck's manuscript collection, the lighting up of the darkness is probably also metaphorical:—

“One Sunday night, I resolved that when I got home to the ranch where I was working, I would offer myself with my faculties and all to God to be used only by and for him.... It was raining and the roads were muddy; but this desire grew so strong that I kneeled down by the side of the road and told God all about it, intending then to get up and go on. Such a thing as any special answer to my prayer never entered my mind, having been converted by faith, but still being most undoubtedly saved. Well, while I was praying, I remember holding out my hands to God and telling him they should work for him, my feet walk for him, my tongue speak for him, etc., etc., if he would only use me as his instrument and give me a satisfying experience—when suddenly the darkness of the night seemed lit up—I felt, realized, knew, that God heard and answered my prayer. Deep happiness came over me; I felt I was accepted into the inner circle of God's loved ones.”

In the following case also the flash of light is metaphorical:—

“A prayer meeting had been called for at close of evening service. The minister supposed me impressed by his discourse (a mistake—he was dull). He came and, placing his hand upon my shoulder, said: ‘Do you not want to give your heart to God?’ I replied in the affirmative. Then said he, ‘Come to the front seat.’ They sang and prayed and talked with me. I experienced nothing but unaccountable wretchedness. They declared that the reason why I did not ‘obtain peace’ was because I was not willing to give up all to God. After about two hours the minister said we would go home. As usual, on retiring, I prayed. In great distress, I at this time simply said, ‘Lord, I have done all I can, I leave the whole matter with thee.’ Immediately, like a flash of light, there came to me a great peace, and I arose and went into my parents' bedroom and said, ‘I do feel so wonderfully happy.’ This I regard as the hour of conversion. It was the hour in which I became assured of divine acceptance and favor. So far as my life was concerned, it made little immediate change.”

140

I add in a note a few more records:—

“One morning, being in deep distress, fearing every moment I should drop into hell, I was constrained to cry in earnest for mercy, and the Lord came to my relief, and delivered my soul from the burden and guilt of sin. My whole frame was in a tremor from head to foot, and my soul enjoyed sweet peace. The pleasure I then felt was indescribable. The happiness lasted about three days, during which time I never spoke to any person about my feelings.” Autobiography of Dan Young, edited by W. P. Strickland, New York, 1860.

“In an instant there rose up in me such a sense of God's taking care of those who put their trust in him that for an hour all the world was crystalline, the heavens were lucid, and I sprang to my feet and began to cry and laugh.” H. W. Beecher, quoted by Leuba.

“My tears of sorrow changed to joy, and I lay there praising God in such ecstasy of joy as only the soul who experiences it can realize.”—“I cannot express how I felt. It was as if I had been in a dark dungeon and lifted into the light of the sun. I shouted and I sang praise unto him who loved me and washed me from my sins. I was forced to retire into a secret place, for the tears did flow, and I did not wish my shopmates to see me, and yet I could not keep it a secret.”—“I experienced joy almost to weeping.”—“I felt my face must have shone like that of Moses. I had a general feeling of buoyancy. It was the greatest joy it was ever my lot to experience.”—“I wept and laughed alternately. I was as light as if walking on air. I felt as if I had gained greater peace and happiness than I had ever expected to experience.” Starbuck's correspondents.

141

Psychology of Religion, pp. 360, 357.

142

Sainte-Beuve: Port-Royal, vol. i. pp. 95 and 106, abridged.

143

“ ‘Love would not be love,’ says Bourget, ‘unless it could carry one to crime.’ And so one may say that no passion would be a veritable passion unless it could carry one to crime.” (Sighele: Psychologie des Sectes, p. 136.) In other words, great passions annul the ordinary inhibitions set by “conscience.” And conversely, of all the criminal human beings, the false, cowardly, sensual, or cruel persons who actually live, there is perhaps not one whose criminal impulse may not be at some moment overpowered by the presence of some other emotion to which his character is also potentially liable, provided that other emotion be only made intense enough. Fear is usually the most available emotion for this result in this particular class of persons. It stands for conscience, and may here be classed appropriately as a “higher affection.” If we are soon to die, or if we believe a day of judgment to be near at hand, how quickly do we put our moral house in order—we do not see how sin can evermore exert temptation over us! Old-fashioned hell-fire Christianity well knew how to extract from fear its full equivalent in the way of fruits for repentance, and its full conversion value.

144

Example: Benjamin Constant was often marveled at as an extraordinary instance of superior intelligence with inferior character. He writes (Journal, Paris, 1895, p. 56), “I am tossed and dragged about by my miserable weakness. Never was anything so ridiculous as my indecision. Now marriage, now solitude; now Germany, now France, hesitation upon hesitation, and all because at bottom I am unable to give up anything.” He can't “get mad” at any of his alternatives; and the career of a man beset by such an all-round amiability is hopeless.

145

The great thing which the higher excitabilities give is courage; and the addition or subtraction of a certain amount of this quality makes a different man, a different life. Various excitements let the courage loose. Trustful hope will do it; inspiring example will do it; love will do it; wrath will do it. In some people it is natively so high that the mere touch of danger does it, though danger is for most men the great inhibitor of action. “Love of adventure” becomes in such persons a ruling passion. “I believe,” says General Skobeleff, “that my bravery is simply the passion and at the same time the contempt of danger. The risk of life fills me with an exaggerated rapture. The fewer there are to share it, the more I like it. The participation of my body in the event is required to furnish me an adequate excitement. Everything intellectual appears to me to be reflex; but a meeting of man to man, a duel, a danger into which I can throw myself headforemost, attracts me, moves me, intoxicates me. I am crazy for it, I love it, I adore it. I run after danger as one runs after women; I wish it never to stop. Were it always the same, it would always bring me a new pleasure. When I throw myself into an adventure in which I hope to find it, my heart palpitates with the uncertainty; I could wish at once to have it appear and yet to delay. A sort of painful and delicious shiver shakes me; my entire nature runs to meet the peril with an impetus that my will would in vain try to resist.” (Juliette Adam: Le Général Skobeleff, Nouvelle Revue, 1886, abridged.) Skobeleff seems to have been a cruel egoist; but the disinterested Garibaldi, if one may judge by his “Memorie,” lived in an unflagging emotion of similar danger-seeking excitement.

146

See the case on p. 70, above, where the writer describes his experiences of communion with the Divine as consisting “merely in the temporary obliteration of the conventionalities which usually cover my life.”

147

Above, p. 201. “The only radical remedy I know for dipsomania is religiomania,” is a saying I have heard quoted from some medical man.

148

Doddridge's Life of Colonel James Gardiner, London Religious Tract Society, pp. 23-32.

149

Here, for example, is a case, from Starbuck's book, in which a “sensory automatism” brought about quickly what prayers and resolves had been unable to effect. The subject is a woman. She writes:—

“When I was about forty I tried to quit smoking, but the desire was on me, and had me in its power. I cried and prayed and promised God to quit, but could not. I had smoked for fifteen years. When I was fifty-three, as I sat by the fire one day smoking, a voice came to me. I did not hear it with my ears, but more as a dream or sort of double think. It said, ‘Louisa, lay down smoking.’ At once I replied, ‘Will you take the desire away?’ But it only kept saying: ‘Louisa, lay down smoking.’ Then I got up, laid my pipe on the mantel-shelf, and never smoked again or had any desire to. The desire was gone as though I had never known it or touched tobacco. The sight of others smoking and the smell of smoke never gave me the least wish to touch it again.” The Psychology of Religion, p. 142.

150

Professor Starbuck expresses the radical destruction of old influences physiologically, as a cutting off of the connection between higher and lower cerebral centres. “This condition,” he says, “in which the association-centres connected with the spiritual life are cut off from the lower, is often reflected in the way correspondents describe their experiences.... For example: ‘Temptations from without still assail me, but there is nothing within to respond to them.’ The ego [here] is wholly identified with the higher centres, whose quality of feeling is that of withinness. Another of the respondents says: ‘Since then, although Satan tempts me, there is as it were a wall of brass around me, so that his darts cannot touch me.’ ”—Unquestionably, functional exclusions of this sort must occur in the cerebral organ. But on the side accessible to introspection, their causal condition is nothing but the degree of spiritual excitement, getting at last so high and strong as to be sovereign; and it must be frankly confessed that we do not know just why or how such sovereignty comes about in one person and not in another. We can only give our imagination a certain delusive help by mechanical analogies.

If we should conceive, for example, that the human mind, with its different possibilities of equilibrium, might be like a many-sided solid with different surfaces on which it could lie flat, we might liken mental revolutions to the spatial revolutions of such a body. As it is pried up, say by a lever, from a position in which it lies on surface A, for instance, it will linger for a time unstably halfway up, and if the lever cease to urge it, it will tumble back or “relapse” under the continued pull of gravity. But if at last it rotate far enough for its centre of gravity to pass beyond surface A altogether, the body will fall over, on surface B, say, and abide there permanently. The pulls of gravity towards A have vanished, and may now be disregarded. The polyhedron has become immune against farther attraction from their direction.

In this figure of speech the lever may correspond to the emotional influences making for a new life, and the initial pull of gravity to the ancient drawbacks and inhibitions. So long as the emotional influence fails to reach a certain pitch of efficacy, the changes it produces are unstable, and the man relapses into his original attitude. But when a certain intensity is attained by the new emotion, a critical point is passed, and there then ensues an irreversible revolution, equivalent to the production of a new nature.

151

I use this word in spite of a certain flavor of “sanctimoniousness” which sometimes clings to it, because no other word suggests as well the exact combination of affections which the text goes on to describe.

152

“It will be found,” says Dr. W. R. Inge (in his lectures on Christian Mysticism, London, 1899, p. 326), “that men of preëminent saintliness agree very closely in what they tell us. They tell us that they have arrived at an unshakable conviction, not based on inference but on immediate experience, that God is a spirit with whom the human spirit can hold intercourse; that in him meet all that they can imagine of goodness, truth, and beauty; that they can see his footprints everywhere in nature, and feel his presence within them as the very life of their life, so that in proportion as they come to themselves they come to him. They tell us what separates us from him and from happiness is, first, self-seeking in all its forms; and, secondly, sensuality in all its forms; that these are the ways of darkness and death, which hide from us the face of God; while the path of the just is like a shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”

153

The “enthusiasm of humanity” may lead to a life which coalesces in many respects with that of Christian saintliness. Take the following rules proposed to members of the Union pour l'Action morale, in the Bulletin de l'Union, April 1-15, 1894. See, also, Revue Bleue, August 13, 1892.

“We would make known in our own persons the usefulness of rule, of discipline, of resignation and renunciation; we would teach the necessary perpetuity of suffering, and explain the creative part which it plays. We would wage war upon false optimism; on the base hope of happiness coming to us ready made; on the notion of a salvation by knowledge alone, or by material civilization alone, vain symbol as this is of civilization, precarious external arrangement, ill-fitted to replace the intimate union and consent of souls. We would wage war also on bad morals, whether in public or in private life; on luxury, fastidiousness, and over-refinement; on all that tends to increase the painful, immoral, and anti-social multiplication of our wants; on all that excites envy and dislike in the soul of the common people, and confirms the notion that the chief end of life is freedom to enjoy. We would preach by our example the respect of superiors and equals, the respect of all men; affectionate simplicity in our relations with inferiors and insignificant persons; indulgence where our own claims only are concerned, but firmness in our demands where they relate to duties towards others or towards the public.

“For the common people are what we help them to become; their vices are our vices, gazed upon, envied, and imitated; and if they come back with all their weight upon us, it is but just.”

154

Above, pp. 248 ff.

155

H. Thoreau: Walden, Riverside edition, p. 206, abridged.

156

C. H. Hilty: Glück, vol. i. p. 85.

157

The Mystery of Pain and Death, London, 1892, p. 258.

158

Compare Madame Guyon: “It was my practice to arise at midnight for purposes of devotion.... It seemed to me that God came at the precise time and woke me from sleep in order that I might enjoy him. When I was out of health or greatly fatigued, he did not awake me, but at such times I felt, even in my sleep, a singular possession of God. He loved me so much that he seemed to pervade my being, at a time when I could be only imperfectly conscious of his presence. My sleep is sometimes broken,—a sort of half sleep; but my soul seems to be awake enough to know God, when it is hardly capable of knowing anything else.” T. C. Upham: The Life and Religious Experiences of Madame de la Mothe Guyon, New York, 1877, vol. i. p. 260.

159

I have considerably abridged the words of the original, which is given in Edwards's Narrative of the Revival in New England.

160

Bougaud: Hist. de la Bienheureuse Marguerite Marie, 1894, p. 125.

161

Paris, 1900.

162

Page 130.

163

Page 167.

164

Op. cit., p. 127.

165

The barrier between men and animals also. We read of Towianski, an eminent Polish patriot and mystic, that “one day one of his friends met him in the rain, caressing a big dog which was jumping upon him and covering him horribly with mud. On being asked why he permitted the animal thus to dirty his clothes, Towianski replied: ‘This dog, whom I am now meeting for the first time, has shown a great fellow-feeling for me, and a great joy in my recognition and acceptance of his greetings. Were I to drive him off, I should wound his feelings and do him a moral injury. It would be an offense not only to him, but to all the spirits of the other world who are on the same level with him. The damage which he does to my coat is as nothing in comparison with the wrong which I should inflict upon him, in case I were to remain indifferent to the manifestations of his friendship. We ought,’ he added, ‘both to lighten the condition of animals, whenever we can, and at the same time to facilitate in ourselves that union of the world of all spirits, which the sacrifice of Christ has made possible.’ ” André Towianski, Traduction de l'Italien, Turin, 1897 (privately printed). I owe my knowledge of this book and of Towianski to my friend Professor W. Lutoslawski, author of “Plato's Logic.”

166

J. Patterson's Life of Richard Weaver, pp. 66-68, abridged.

167

As where the future Buddha, incarnated as a hare, jumps into the fire to cook himself for a meal for a beggar—having previously shaken himself three times, so that none of the insects in his fur should perish with him.

168

Bulletin de l'Union pour l'Action Morale, September, 1894.

169

B. Pascal: Prières pour les Maladies, §§ xiii., xiv., abridged.

170

From Thomas C. Upham's Life and Religious Opinions and Experiences of Madame de la Mothe Guyon, New York, 1877, ii. 48, i. 141, 413, abridged.

171

Op. cit., London, 1901, p. 130.

172

Claparède et Goty: Deux Héroines de la Foi, Paris, 1880, p. 112.

173

Compare these three different statements of it: A. P. Call: As a Matter of Course, Boston, 1894; H. W. Dresser: Living by the Spirit, New York and London, 1900; H. W. Smith: The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, published by the Willard Tract Repository, and now in thousands of hands.