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  13     <h1>William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience</h1>
  14    <div class="contents">
  15 <dl>
  16 <dt>
  17 <a href="#sec1">William James - Varieties of Religious Experience (<code>In progress</code>)</a>
  18 </dt>
  19 <dd>
  20 <dl>
  21 <dt>
  22 <a href="#sec2">Lectures I and II</a>
  23 </dt>
  24 <dt>
  25 <a href="#sec3">Lecture III: &amp;quot;The Reality of the Unseen&amp;quot;</a>
  26 </dt>
  27 <dt>
  28 <a href="#sec4">Lectures IV and V: &amp;quot;The Religion of Healthy Mindedness&amp;quot;</a>
  29 </dt>
  30 <dt>
  31 <a href="#sec5">Lectures VI and VII: &amp;quot;The Sick Soul&amp;quot;</a>
  32 </dt>
  33 <dt>
  34 <a href="#sec6">Lecture VIII: &amp;quot;The Divided Self, and the Process of Its Unificiation&amp;quot;</a>
  35 </dt>
  36 <dt>
  37 <a href="#sec7">Lectures IX and X: &amp;quot;Conversion&amp;quot;</a>
  38 </dt>
  39 <dt>
  40 <a href="#sec8">Lectures XI - XIII: Saintliness</a>
  41 </dt>
  42 <dt>
  43 <a href="#sec9">Lectures XIV-XV: The Value of Saintliness</a>
  44 </dt>
  45 </dl>
  46 </dd>
  47 </dl>
  48 </div>
  49
  50
  51 <!-- Page published by Emacs Muse begins here --><h2><a name="sec1" id="sec1"></a>
  52 William James - <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/621">Varieties of Religious Experience</a> (<code>In progress</code>)</h2>
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  71 <p>The <em>Varieties of Religious Experience</em> is a set of twenty lectures on
  72 religious experience from a psychological perspective. The quality of
  73 the method used is a bit suspect, but my understanding is that it was
  74 one of the first pyschological surveys of religion, and so could
  75 perhaps be forgiven of a few flaws.</p>
  76
  77 <p>I found parts to be boring, and others to have flawed reasoning, but
  78 with a few lectures that were interesting. At the very least the
  79 lectures give a reasonable glimpse into the religous fashion of the
  80 late 1800s. There is a small bit of social commentary thrown in that
  81 is cited by John Gatto in his <em>Underground History of American
  82 Education</em>, which is why I chose to read this.</p>
  83
  84 <h3><a name="sec2" id="sec2"></a>
  85 Lectures I and II</h3>
  86
  87 <p class="first">The first two lectures lay the groundwork for the lecture series. The
  88 first covers a few views on what religious experience is, and gives
  89 refutations (although not terribly good ones now, perhaps they were
  90 seen as fine in the early 1900s) to a few deterministic theories. The
  91 second lecture defines the scope of the topic to be covered, and
  92 limits the definitions of religion and spirituality.</p>
  93
  94
  95 <blockquote>
  96 <p class="quoted">
  97 Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall
  98 mean for us <em>the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in
  99 their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in
 100 relation to whatever they may consider the divine</em>.  Since the
 101 relation may be either moral, physical, or ritual, it is evident that
 102 out of religion in the sense in which we take it, theologies,
 103 philosophies, and ecclesiastical organizations may secondarily grow.
 104 In these lectures, however, as I have already said, the immediate
 105 personal experiences will amply fill our time, and we shall hardly
 106 consider theology or ecclesiasticism at all.</p>
 107
 108 </blockquote>
 109
 110 <p>In the second lecture James's first extremely arbitrary distinction is
 111 made; he compares the stoicism espoused by Marcus Aurelius to
 112 Christian writings and draws what I think is a nonexistent difference
 113 between the two. It is my opinion that the Stoic is just as religious
 114 by James's definition as the Christian; the stoic merely sees the
 115 Universe as his god and makes conformance to the natural order his
 116 ideal. The Stoic actively embraces the natural order just as the
 117 Christian actively loves his god; the difference is merely in whether
 118 God is seen as a definite individual or not.</p>
 119
 120 <blockquote>
 121 <p class="quoted">
 122 If we compare stoic with Christian ejaculations we see much more
 123 than a difference of doctrine; rather is it a difference of
 124 emotional mood that parts them.  When Marcus Aurelius reflects on
 125 the eternal reason that has ordered things, there is a frosty
 126 chill about his words which you rarely find in a Jewish, and
 127 never in a Christian piece of religious writing.  The universe is
 128 &quot;accepted&quot; by all these writers; but how devoid of passion or
 129 exultation the spirit of the Roman Emperor is!  Compare his fine
 130 sentence:  &quot;If gods care not for me or my children, here is a
 131 reason for it,&quot; with Job's cry:  &quot;Though he slay me, yet will I
 132 trust in him!&quot; and you immediately see the difference I mean.
 133 The anima mundi, to whose disposal of his own personal destiny
 134 the Stoic consents, is there to be respected and submitted to,
 135 but the Christian God is there to be loved; and the difference of
 136 emotional atmosphere is like that between an arctic climate and
 137 the tropics, though the outcome in the way of accepting actual
 138 conditions uncomplainingly may seem in abstract terms to be much
 139 the same.</p>
 140
 141 </blockquote>
 142
 143
 144 <h3><a name="sec3" id="sec3"></a>
 145 Lecture III: &amp;quot;The Reality of the Unseen&amp;quot;</h3>
 146
 147 <p class="first">The third lecture consists of a brief overview of various
 148 interpretations of the structure of the unseen world. An argument for
 149 a dualistic universe is then given using a few passages on spiritual
 150 encounters as supposed proof. James criticizes strict rationalism as
 151 well.</p>
 152
 153 <blockquote>
 154 <p class="quoted">
 155 Nevertheless, if we look on man's whole mental life as it exists, on
 156 the life of men that lies in them apart from their learning and
 157 science, and that they inwardly and privately follow, we have to
 158 confess that the part of it of which rationalism can give an account
 159 is relatively superficial.  It is the part that has the prestige
 160 undoubtedly, for it has the loquacity, it can challenge you for
 161 proofs, and chop logic, and put you down with words.  But it will fail
 162 to convince or convert you all the same, if your dumb intuitions are
 163 opposed to its conclusions.  If you have intuitions at all, they come
 164 from a deeper level of your nature than the loquacious level which
 165 rationalism inhabits.  Your whole subconscious life, your impulses,
 166 your faiths, your needs, your divinations, have prepared the premises,
 167 of which your consciousness now feels the weight of the result; and
 168 something in you absolutely <em>knows</em> that that result must be truer than
 169 any logic-chopping rationalistic talk, however clever, that may
 170 contradict it.  This inferiority of the rationalistic level in
 171 founding belief is just as manifest when rationalism argues for
 172 religion as when it argues against it.  That vast literature of proofs
 173 of God's existence drawn from the order of nature, which a century ago
 174 seemed so overwhelmingly convincing, to-day does little more than
 175 gather dust in libraries, for the simple reason that our generation
 176 has ceased to believe in the kind of God it argued for.  Whatever sort
 177 of a being God may be, we <em>know</em> to-day that he is nevermore that mere
 178 external inventor of &quot;contrivances&quot; intended to make manifest his
 179 &quot;glory&quot; in which our great-grandfathers took such satisfaction, though
 180 just how we know this we cannot possibly make clear by words either to
 181 others or to ourselves.  I defy any of you here fully to account for
 182 your persuasion that if a God exist he must be a more cosmic and
 183 tragic personage than that Being.</p>
 184
 185 </blockquote>
 186
 187
 188 <h3><a name="sec4" id="sec4"></a>
 189 Lectures IV and V: &amp;quot;The Religion of Healthy Mindedness&amp;quot;</h3>
 190
 191 <p class="first">Lecture IV is an interesting read and surveys a few positive minded
 192 philosophies, but Lecture V focuses entirely on the <em>mind-cure</em>
 193 movement. William James then gives a terrible argument for the
 194 validity of <em>mind-cure</em>, and compares it to science while neglecting the
 195 complete lack of objectivity in the methods of test the effects of
 196 <em>mind-cure</em>.</p>
 197
 198 <blockquote>
 199 <p class="quoted">
 200 It is a deliberately optimistic scheme of life, with both a
 201 speculative and a practical side.  In its gradual development during
 202 the last quarter of a century, it has taken up into itself a number
 203 of contributory elements, and it must now be reckoned with as a
 204 genuine religious power.  It has reached the stage, for example, when
 205 the demand for its literature is great enough for insincere stuff,
 206 mechanically produced for the market, to be to a certain extent
 207 supplied by publishers&mdash;a phenomenon never observed, I imagine, until
 208 a religion has got well past its earliest insecure beginnings.</p>
 209 <p class="quoted">...</p>
 210 <p class="quoted">The plain fact remains that the spread of the movement has been
 211 due to practical fruits, and the extremely practical turn of
 212 character of the American people has never been better shown than
 213 by the fact that this, their only decidedly original contribution
 214 to the systematic philosophy of life, should be so intimately
 215 knit up with concrete therapeutics.  To the importance of
 216 mind-cure the medical and clerical professions in the United
 217 States are beginning, though with much recalcitrancy and
 218 protesting, to open their eyes.  It is evidently bound to develop
 219 still farther, both speculatively and practically, and its latest
 220 writers are far and away the ablest of the group. It matters
 221 nothing that, just as there are hosts of persons who cannot pray,
 222 so there are greater hosts who cannot by any possibility be
 223 influenced by the mind-curers' ideas.  For our immediate purpose,
 224 the important point is that so large a number should exist who
 225 <em>can</em> be so influenced.  They form a psychic type to be studied
 226 with respect.</p>
 227
 228 </blockquote>
 229
 230 <p>The lectures are ended with an argument for the validity of <em>mind-cure</em>
 231 that compares it directly to science with a clear anti-science bias.</p>
 232
 233 <blockquote>
 234 <p class="quoted">
 235 These are exceedingly trivial instances [<em>the first-hand accounts of
 236 mind-cure working given in the lecture</em>], but in them, if we
 237 have anything at all, we have the method of experiment and
 238 verification.  For the point I am driving at now, it makes no
 239 difference whether you consider the patients to be deluded
 240 victims of their imagination or not.  That they seemed to
 241 <em>themselves</em> to have been cured by the experiments tried was enough
 242 to make them converts to the system.  And although it is evident
 243 that one must be of a certain mental mould to get such results
 244 (for not every one can get thus cured to his own satisfaction any
 245 more than every one can be cured by the first regular
 246 practitioner whom he calls in), yet it would surely be pedantic
 247 and over-scrupulous for those who <em>can</em> get their savage and
 248 primitive philosophy of mental healing verified in such
 249 experimental ways as this, to give them up at word of command for
 250 more scientific therapeutics.</p>
 251 <p class="quoted">What are we to think of all this?  Has science made too wide a
 252 claim?</p>
 253 <p class="quoted">I believe that the claims of the sectarian scientist are, to say
 254 the least, premature.  The experiences which we have been
 255 studying during this hour (and a great many other kinds of
 256 religious experiences are like them) plainly show the universe to
 257 be a more many-sided affair than any sect, even the scientific
 258 sect, allows for.  What, in the end, are all our verifications
 259 but experiences that agree with more or less isolated systems of
 260 ideas (conceptual systems) that our minds have framed?  But why
 261 in the name of common sense need we assume that only one such
 262 system of ideas can be true?  The obvious outcome of our total
 263 experience is that the world can be handled according to many
 264 systems of ideas, and is so handled by different men, and will
 265 each time give some characteristic kind of profit, for which he
 266 cares, to the handler, while at the same time some other kind of
 267 profit has to be omitted or postponed.  Science gives to all of
 268 us telegraphy, electric lighting, and diagnosis, and succeeds in
 269 preventing and curing a certain amount of disease. Religion in
 270 the shape of mind-cure gives to some of us serenity, moral poise,
 271 and happiness, and prevents certain forms of disease as well as
 272 science does, or even better in a certain class of persons.
 273 Evidently, then, the science and the religion are both of them
 274 genuine keys for unlocking the world's treasure-house to him who
 275 can use either of them practically.  Just as evidently neither is
 276 exhaustive or exclusive of the other's simultaneous use.  And
 277 why, after all, may not the world be so complex as to consist of
 278 many interpenetrating spheres of reality, which we can thus
 279 approach in alternation by using different conceptions and
 280 assuming different attitudes, just as mathematicians handle the
 281 same numerical and spatial facts by geometry, by analytical
 282 geometry, by algebra, by the calculus, or by quaternions, and
 283 each time come out right?  On this view religion and science,
 284 each verified in its own way from hour to hour and from life to
 285 life, would be co-eternal.  Primitive thought, with its belief in
 286 individualized personal forces, seems at any rate as far as ever
 287 from being driven by science from the field to-day.  Numbers of
 288 educated people still find it the directest experimental channel
 289 by which to carry on their intercourse with reality</p>
 290
 291 </blockquote>
 292
 293 <p>He draws a very strong conclusion that would be difficult to draw from
 294 even quality evidence and objective trials; this drawn from subjective
 295 personal accounts with no controlled testing method. A representative
 296 example follows of his evidence follows.</p>
 297
 298 <blockquote>
 299 <p class="quoted">
 300 &quot;One of my first experiences in applying my teaching was two
 301 months after I first saw the healer.  I fell, spraining my right
 302 ankle, which I had done once four years before, having then had
 303 to use a crutch and elastic anklet for some months, and carefully
 304 guarding it ever since.  As soon as I was on my feet I made the
 305 positive suggestion (and felt it through all my being):  'There
 306 is nothing but God, and all life comes from him perfectly.  I
 307 cannot be sprained or hurt, I will let him take care of it.'
 308 Well, I never had a sensation in it, and I walked two miles that
 309 day.&quot;</p>
 310
 311 </blockquote>
 312
 313 <p>Ignoring any other problems in William James's argument, it is clear
 314 that his conclusion is far too heavy to rest upon the evidence he has
 315 chosen to use.</p>
 316
 317
 318 <h3><a name="sec5" id="sec5"></a>
 319 Lectures VI and VII: &amp;quot;The Sick Soul&amp;quot;</h3>
 320
 321 <p class="first">The lectures on the Sick Soul are filled with rather weak quotations
 322 (excepting a few short passages of Tolstoy). The reader is reminded
 323 over and over how terrible and painful it is to be working through
 324 these horrid expressions of melancholy which aren't really so
 325 terrible.</p>
 326
 327 <p>James's view is that a state of melancholy is merely a transitional
 328 stage that comes before a second mental birth occurs, and allows for a
 329 deep religious belief to set in. Most of the remainder of the lecture
 330 series is dedicated to analyzing the mind of the Second Born which he
 331 sees are far deeper spiritually than the simple positive Once Born
 332 type (depsite his previous praise of <em>mind-cure</em>).</p>
 333
 334
 335 <h3><a name="sec6" id="sec6"></a>
 336 Lecture VIII: &amp;quot;The Divided Self, and the Process of Its Unificiation&amp;quot;</h3>
 337
 338 <p class="first">Here the lectures return to things mildly interesting with an overview
 339 of heterogenous personalities and a few passages on unificiation of
 340 conflicting desires. James splits unificiations into gradual and
 341 sudden ones giving examples of each. This lecture is the bridge
 342 between lectures V through VII and the material on conversion.</p>
 343
 344
 345 <h3><a name="sec7" id="sec7"></a>
 346 Lectures IX and X: &amp;quot;Conversion&amp;quot;</h3>
 347
 348
 349 <ul>
 350 <li>conversion allows for unification of divided self</li>
 351 <li>Definition of Association</li>
 352 <li>Conversion is sudden change of <em>the habitual center of  personal energy</em></li>
 353 <li>Examples of conversion
 354
 355 <ul>
 356 <li>Common people, stereotypical conversion types</li>
 357 <li>Seemingly of suspect quality</li>
 358 </ul></li>
 359 <li>Note of the trouble of not being able to be religious
 360
 361 <ul>
 362 <li>Painted in a negative light!</li>
 363 </ul></li>
 364
 365 <li>Focus on instantaneous conversion
 366
 367 <ul>
 368 <li>Give prototypical example</li>
 369 </ul></li>
 370 </ul>
 371
 372 <blockquote>
 373 <p class="quoted">
 374 &quot;Coming out of the cafe I met the carriage of Monsieur B. [the
 375 proselyting friend].  He stopped and invited me in for a drive,
 376 but first asked me to wait for a few minutes whilst he attended
 377 to some duty at the church of San Andrea delle Fratte.  Instead
 378 of waiting in the carriage, I entered the church myself to look
 379 at it.  The church of San Andrea was poor, small, and empty; I
 380 believe that I found myself there almost alone.  No work of art
 381 attracted my attention; and I passed my eyes mechanically over
 382 its interior without being arrested by any particular thought.  I
 383 can only remember an entirely black dog which went trotting and
 384 turning before me as I mused.  In an instant the dog had
 385 disappeared, the whole church had vanished, I no longer saw
 386 anything, . . . or more truly I saw, O my God, one thing alone.
 387 &quot;Heavens, how can I speak of it?  Oh no! human words cannot
 388 attain to expressing the inexpressible.  Any description, however
 389 sublime it might be, could be but a profanation of the
 390 unspeakable truth.</p>
 391 <p class="quoted">&quot;I was there prostrate on the ground, bathed in my tears, with my
 392 heart beside itself, when M. B. called me back to life.  I could
 393 not reply to the questions which followed from him one upon the
 394 other.  But finally I took the medal which I had on my breast,
 395 and with all the effusion of my soul I kissed the image of the
 396 Virgin, radiant with grace, which it bore.  Oh, indeed, it was
 397 She! It was indeed She! [What he had seen had been a vision of
 398 the Virgin.]</p>
 399 <p class="quoted">&quot;I did not know where I was:  I did not know whether I was
 400 Alphonse or another.  I only felt myself changed and believed
 401 myself another me; I looked for myself in myself and did not find
 402 myself.  In the bottom of my soul I felt an explosion of the most
 403 ardent joy; I could not speak; I had no wish to reveal what had
 404 happened.  But I felt something solemn and sacred within me which
 405 made me ask for a priest.  I was led to one; and there alone,
 406 after he had given me the positive order, I spoke as best I
 407 could, kneeling, and with my heart still trembling.  I could give
 408 no account to myself of the truth of which I had acquired a
 409 knowledge and a faith.  All that I can say is that in an instant
 410 the bandage had fallen from my eyes, and not one bandage only,
 411 but the whole manifold of bandages in which I had been brought
 412 up.  One after another they rapidly disappeared, even as the mud
 413 and ice disappear under the rays of the burning sun.&quot;</p>
 414
 415 </blockquote>
 416
 417 <ul>
 418 <li>Notes recent protestant phenomemon of instantaneous conversion</li>
 419 <li>Gives psychological explanation for instant conversion
 420
 421 <ul>
 422 <li>Field of conciousness</li>
 423 <li>Subconcious on margin
 424
 425 <ul>
 426 <li>Subconcious life can affect concious existance</li>
 427 <li>Note: cites Freud &amp; friends as reliable</li>
 428 </ul></li>
 429 </ul></li>
 430 </ul>
 431
 432 <blockquote>
 433 <p class="quoted">
 434 In the wonderful explorations by Binet, Janet, Breuer, Freud,
 435 Mason, Prince, and others, of the subliminal consciousness of
 436 patients with hysteria, we have revealed to us whole systems of
 437 underground life, in the shape of memories of a painful sort
 438 which lead a parasitic existence, buried outside of the primary
 439 fields of consciousness, and making irruptions thereinto with
 440 hallucinations, pains, convulsions, paralyses of feeling and of
 441 motion, and the whole procession of symptoms of hysteric disease
 442 of body and of mind.  Alter or abolish by suggestion these
 443 subconscious memories, and the patient immediately gets well.
 444 His symptoms were automatisms, in Mr. Myers's sense of the word.
 445 These clinical records sound like fairy-tales when one first
 446 reads them, yet it is impossible to doubt their accuracy; and,
 447 the path having been once opened by these first observers,
 448 similar observations have been made elsewhere.  They throw, as I
 449 said, a wholly new light upon our natural constitution.</p>
 450
 451 </blockquote>
 452
 453 <ul>
 454 <li>Conversion is a transfer of energies from the subconcious
 455
 456 <ul>
 457 <li>Changes center of focus in the field of conciousness
 458
 459 <ul>
 460 <li>Disproves religious nature of instant conversion argument</li>
 461 </ul></li>
 462 </ul></li>
 463 <li>Notes that there are no discernable differences between instant
 464 converts and slow converts</li>
 465 </ul>
 466
 467 <blockquote>
 468 <p class="quoted">
 469 The believers in the non-natural character of sudden conversion
 470 have had practically to admit that there is no unmistakable
 471 class-mark distinctive of all true converts.  The super-normal
 472 incidents, such as voices and visions and overpowering
 473 impressions of the meaning of suddenly presented scripture texts,
 474 the melting emotions and tumultuous affections connected with the
 475 crisis of change, may all come by way of nature, or worse still,
 476 be counterfeited by Satan.  The real witness of the spirit to the
 477 second birth is to be found only in the disposition of the
 478 genuine child of God, the permanently patient heart, the love of
 479 self eradicated.  And this, it has to be admitted, is also found
 480 in those who pass no crisis, and may even be found outside of
 481 Christianity altogether.</p>
 482
 483 </blockquote>
 484
 485 <ul>
 486 <li>Instant conversion is a natural result of exposing a person with a
 487 rich subconcious existence to religion and is merely one type of
 488 conversion</li>
 489 </ul>
 490
 491 <blockquote>
 492 <p class="quoted">
 493 Sharp distinctions are difficult in these regions, and Professor Coe's
 494 numbers are small.  But his methods were careful, and the results
 495 tally with what one might expect; and they seem, on the whole, to
 496 justify his practical conclusion, which is that if you should expose
 497 to a converting influence a subject in whom three factors unite:
 498 first, pronounced emotional sensibility; second, tendency to
 499 automatisms; and third, suggestibility of the passive type; you might
 500 then safely predict the result: there would be a sudden conversion, a
 501 transformation of the striking kind.</p>
 502
 503 </blockquote>
 504
 505 <ul>
 506 <li>Finishes with discussion of pre-conversion emotion
 507
 508 <ul>
 509 <li>Usually melancholy</li>
 510 <li>Disguist at sin</li>
 511 </ul></li>
 512 <li>Post Conversion feeling
 513
 514 <ul>
 515 <li>New self</li>
 516 <li>Clean</li>
 517 </ul></li>
 518 </ul>
 519
 520
 521 <h3><a name="sec8" id="sec8"></a>
 522 Lectures XI - XIII: Saintliness</h3>
 523
 524 <ul>
 525 <li>Descriptive assement of fruits of conversion
 526
 527 <ul>
 528 <li>general discussion of what causes differing character
 529
 530 <ul>
 531 <li>Impulse vs Inhibition
 532
 533 <ul>
 534 <li>Strong emotions shut down inhibition</li>
 535 </ul></li>
 536 </ul></li>
 537 <li>Application of general principles to the results of conversion
 538
 539 <ul>
 540 <li>Top over point -&gt; God works through Subliminal</li>
 541 <li>Ignore how the Subliminal works
 542
 543 <ul>
 544 <li>[It seems that this is done to avoid concluding that there is
 545 no god]</li>
 546 <li>[Minimization of importance of natural processes in
 547 post-convesion]</li>
 548 </ul></li>
 549 <li>Saintliness
 550
 551 <ul>
 552 <li>Four universal inner conditions</li>
 553 <li>Four results of the inner conditions</li>
 554 <li>EXAMPLES
 555
 556 <ul>
 557 <li>Prescence of a higher &amp; friendly power</li>
 558 <li>Charity (agape) love
 559
 560 <ul>
 561 <li>Charity not unique to theistic religions, therefore it
 562 should be seen as coordinate rather than subordinate to
 563 the topic of the lecture series (page 296)</li>
 564 </ul></li>
 565 <li>Inward Tranquillity
 566
 567 <ul>
 568 <li>Sombre constitution results in resignation and submission</li>
 569 <li>Cheerful constitution results in joyous consent</li>
 570 </ul></li>
 571 <li>Purity
 572
 573 <ul>
 574 <li>Internal discord leads to suffering</li>
 575 </ul></li>
 576 <li>Ascetecism
 577
 578 <ul>
 579 <li>result of extreme pursuit of purity</li>
 580 <li>List of sources of ascetic behavior</li>
 581 <li>Ascetecism in monks
 582
 583 <ul>
 584 <li>Obedience
 585
 586 <ul>
 587 <li>Low reasons
 588
 589 <ul>
 590 <li>Obedience expedient in ecclesiastical organizations</li>
 591 <li>External counsel at certain times is better than
 592 internal</li>
 593 </ul></li>
 594 <li>High Reason
 595
 596 <ul>
 597 <li>Inner softening</li>
 598 </ul></li>
 599 <li>Catholic view as sacrifice
 600
 601 <ul>
 602 <li>[quote p.274 &quot;sacrifice which man offers to God...&quot;]</li>
 603 <li>passages by member of the order of St Ignatius</li>
 604 </ul></li>
 605 </ul></li>
 606 <li>Poverty
 607
 608 <ul>
 609 <li>Things steal freedom, therefore a life of doing/being
 610 is superior</li>
 611 </ul></li>
 612 </ul></li>
 613 </ul></li>
 614 </ul></li>
 615 </ul></li>
 616 </ul></li>
 617 </ul></li>
 618 </ul>
 619
 620
 621 <h3><a name="sec9" id="sec9"></a>
 622 Lectures XIV-XV: The Value of Saintliness</h3>
 623
 624 <ul>
 625 <li>Critique of Saintliness
 626
 627 <ul>
 628 <li>Using empirical methods (unlike Catholics)
 629
 630 <ul>
 631 <li>Humans cannot differentiate between natural and supernatural
 632 effects</li>
 633 </ul></li>
 634 <li>(Defense of Methodology)
 635
 636 <ul>
 637 <li>Current religious views result of empiricism
 638
 639 <ul>
 640 <li>Rejection of former gods over time as they cease to serve our
 641 needs</li>
 642 </ul></li>
 643 <li>Must be skeptical (not unreasonably so however) of current
 644 beliefs
 645
 646 <ul>
 647 <li>Humans are fallible; admitting this brings us closer to truth
 648 by enabling discussion of flaws in beliefs</li>
 649 <li>Quite probably that no one religion is entirely correct</li>
 650 </ul></li>
 651 </ul></li>
 652 </ul></li>
 653 <li>Concerned with personal religious experiences, and not with
 654 instutitional religion [reiteration from second lecture]
 655
 656 <ul>
 657 <li>Ideas of a prophet -&gt; heterodoxy -&gt; heresy (if accepted by
 658 others) -&gt; orthodxy (if survives persection)
 659
 660 <ul>
 661 <li>Cycle then begins anew</li>
 662 </ul></li>
 663 <li>Religion itself cannot be blamed for evils committed</li>
 664 </ul></li>
 665 <li>Extreme Saintliness due to excess
 666
 667 <ul>
 668 <li>In men, excess is due to lack of balance, or excessively strong
 669 personality elements mixed with weak ones
 670
 671 <ul>
 672 <li>If all faculities are strong and cooperate one has a strong
 673 character rather than one plagued by excess</li>
 674 <li>Extremely saintly people have strong spiritual faculities, but
 675 deficient ability to perceive extravagane
 676
 677 <ul>
 678 <li>Leads to excessie self-denial</li>
 679 <li>Still useful as archetypes</li>
 680 </ul></li>
 681 </ul></li>
 682 </ul></li>
 683 <li>Four Virtues &amp; Unbalanced Forms
 684
 685 <ul>
 686 <li>Devoutness
 687
 688 <ul>
 689 <li>Fanatacism
 690
 691 <ul>
 692 <li>Strong character mixed with narrow mind</li>
 693 </ul></li>
 694 <li>Theopathy (cointed by WJ to describe excess devoutness)
 695
 696 <ul>
 697 <li>Excess of devotion with feeble mind</li>
 698 <li>Person becomes absorbed in inward love of/from God</li>
 699 </ul></li>
 700 </ul></li>
 701 <li>Purity
 702
 703 <ul>
 704 <li>Narrow mindedness results on love of God replacing all other
 705 love</li>
 706 <li>In aggressive types stamps external disorder from existence</li>
 707 <li>In passive types disorder is eliminated internall by secluding
 708 self
 709
 710 <ul>
 711 <li>Example: Lous of Gonzaga</li>
 712 <li>Such a life was seen as good in the 16th century, but in the
 713 early 20th was seen as repulsive due to secular changes (more
 714 value being placed on helping society than merely saving
 715 oneself)</li>
 716 </ul></li>
 717 </ul></li>
 718 <li>Charity / Tenderness
 719
 720 <ul>
 721 <li>Saintly 'Resist No Evil' versus Worldy Pragmatic Standpoint
 722
 723 <ul>
 724 <li>No simple answer</li>
 725 </ul></li>
 726 <li>Perfect conduct relation between actor, objects acted upon, and
 727 recipients of the action
 728
 729 <ul>
 730 <li>Best intentions fail when executed incorrectly or addressed
 731 to the wrong recipient</li>
 732 <li>Thus cannot judge charity by actor alone</li>
 733 </ul></li>
 734 <li>Saintly charity works in a perfect world
 735
 736 <ul>
 737 <li>Excessive in the World That Is</li>
 738 <li>Evil takes advantage of charity</li>
 739 <li>However, the world would be far worse without charitable
 740 people
 741
 742 <ul>
 743 <li>Treating others charitably inspires others to become
 744 better</li>
 745 <li>Exposure to an excessively charitable person softens a
 746 person</li>
 747 <li>Without this type all would lie in spiritual stagnation</li>
 748 </ul></li>
 749 <li>Therefore even excessive charity has value
 750
 751 <ul>
 752 <li>Force destroys enemies</li>
 753 <li>Prudence at best resists enemies</li>
 754 <li>Non-resistance / Charity turns enemies into friends</li>
 755 </ul></li>
 756 <li>Though excessive, the saint makes the world a better place
 757
 758 <ul>
 759 <li>Compare to Utopianists and Anarchists</li>
 760 </ul></li>
 761 </ul></li>
 762 </ul></li>
 763 <li>Ascetecism
 764
 765 <ul>
 766 <li>Virtue most prone to excess</li>
 767 <li>It seems at first those wo are excessively ascetic are still
 768 inwardly attached to the world
 769
 770 <ul>
 771 <li>If one were truly liberated he would not need excessive
 772 moritification</li>
 773 </ul></li>
 774 <li>Different view: Ascetic sees wrongs in the world, and rather
 775 than ignore them he conquers them internally
 776
 777 <ul>
 778 <li>One who does not fear Death seems strong</li>
 779 </ul></li>
 780 <li>Ascetecism is a profounder way of handling excistence than
 781 simple optimistic naturalism
 782
 783 <ul>
 784 <li>In the modern time, people should throw away useless
 785 asceticism and embrace useful aspects</li>
 786 <li>Attributes of early 20th century life and weakened churching
 787 breed weaker character
 788
 789 <ul>
 790 <li>Militarism used as a subtitute for religious ascetecism
 791
 792 <ul>
 793 <li>Poor subtitute
 794
 795 <ul>
 796 <li>Speaks to the base and brutish aspects of human nature</li>
 797 </ul></li>
 798 </ul></li>
 799 <li>Ascetic poverty much superior to militarism/war
 800
 801 <ul>
 802 <li>WJ believes it <strong>must</strong> be embraced to fight evils of the
 803 time [quote page 319-320]</li>
 804 <li>Desire to gain wealth breeds cowardice and corruption
 805
 806 <ul>
 807 <li>Wealthy man enslaved to riches</li>
 808 <li>Poor man lacks chains
 809 - Single attributes of saintliness are found in the non-religious
 810 - Combination of all forms is religious in nature
 811 - Flows from sense of divine order
 812 - Saintly person palces happiness internally rather than deriving
 813 from comfort
 814 - Saintly attributes mixed with narrow mind results in terrible
 815 excessive forms
 816 - We should not, however, place blame for narrow mindedness
 817 entirely on the individual
 818 - Essentials vs Accidents of saintliness
 819 - Dislike of Saintly character
 820 - Man traditionally worships strong leaders
 821 - Saints are weak and passive
 822 - Male vs Female nature [think Yin vs Yang]
 823 - Many suppose there is one ideal type of character
 824 - Empiricism rejects this as foolish
 825 - On the one hande the saintly character is better than the
 826 strongman becaue he is adapted to life in a perfect society
 827 - On the other in the real world he would be ill adapted
 828 - Mixture of the two characters useful [think Nietzsche's
 829 uebermensch or Taoist]
 830 - Saintly character has real value</li>
 831 </ul></li>
 832 </ul></li>
 833 </ul></li>
 834 </ul></li>
 835 </ul></li>
 836 </ul></li>
 837 </ul>
 838
 839
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