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  16     <h1>William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience</h1>
  17    <div class="contents">
  18 <dl>
  19 <dt>
  20 <a href="#sec1">William James - Varieties of Religious Experience (<code>In progress</code>)</a>
  21 </dt>
  22 <dd>
  23 <dl>
  24 <dt>
  25 <a href="#sec2">Lectures I and II</a>
  26 </dt>
  27 <dt>
  28 <a href="#sec3">Lecture III: &amp;quot;The Reality of the Unseen&amp;quot;</a>
  29 </dt>
  30 <dt>
  31 <a href="#sec4">Lectures IV and V: &amp;quot;The Religion of Healthy Mindedness&amp;quot;</a>
  32 </dt>
  33 <dt>
  34 <a href="#sec5">Lectures VI and VII: &amp;quot;The Sick Soul&amp;quot;</a>
  35 </dt>
  36 <dt>
  37 <a href="#sec6">Lecture VIII: &amp;quot;The Divided Self, and the Process of Its Unificiation&amp;quot;</a>
  38 </dt>
  39 <dt>
  40 <a href="#sec7">Lectures IX and X: &amp;quot;Conversion&amp;quot;</a>
  41 </dt>
  42 <dt>
  43 <a href="#sec8">Lectures XI - XIII: Saintliness</a>
  44 </dt>
  45 <dt>
  46 <a href="#sec9">Lectures XIV-XV: The Value of Saintliness</a>
  47 </dt>
  48 </dl>
  49 </dd>
  50 </dl>
  51 </div>
  52
  53
  54 <!-- Page published by Emacs Muse begins here --><h2><a name="sec1" id="sec1"></a>
  55 William James - <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/621">Varieties of Religious Experience</a> (<code>In progress</code>)</h2>
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  74 <p>The <em>Varieties of Religious Experience</em> is a set of twenty lectures on
  75 religious experience from a psychological perspective. The quality of
  76 the method used is a bit suspect, but my understanding is that it was
  77 one of the first pyschological surveys of religion, and so could
  78 perhaps be forgiven of a few flaws.</p>
  79
  80 <p>I found parts to be boring, and others to have flawed reasoning, but
  81 with a few lectures that were interesting. At the very least the
  82 lectures give a reasonable glimpse into the religous fashion of the
  83 late 1800s. There is a small bit of social commentary thrown in that
  84 is cited by John Gatto in his <em>Underground History of American
  85 Education</em>, which is why I chose to read this.</p>
  86
  87 <h3><a name="sec2" id="sec2"></a>
  88 Lectures I and II</h3>
  89
  90 <p class="first">The first two lectures lay the groundwork for the lecture series. The
  91 first covers a few views on what religious experience is, and gives
  92 refutations (although not terribly good ones now, perhaps they were
  93 seen as fine in the early 1900s) to a few deterministic theories. The
  94 second lecture defines the scope of the topic to be covered, and
  95 limits the definitions of religion and spirituality.</p>
  96
  97
  98 <blockquote>
  99 <p class="quoted">
 100 Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall
 101 mean for us <em>the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in
 102 their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in
 103 relation to whatever they may consider the divine</em>.  Since the
 104 relation may be either moral, physical, or ritual, it is evident that
 105 out of religion in the sense in which we take it, theologies,
 106 philosophies, and ecclesiastical organizations may secondarily grow.
 107 In these lectures, however, as I have already said, the immediate
 108 personal experiences will amply fill our time, and we shall hardly
 109 consider theology or ecclesiasticism at all.</p>
 110
 111 </blockquote>
 112
 113 <p>In the second lecture James's first extremely arbitrary distinction is
 114 made; he compares the stoicism espoused by Marcus Aurelius to
 115 Christian writings and draws what I think is a nonexistent difference
 116 between the two. It is my opinion that the Stoic is just as religious
 117 by James's definition as the Christian; the stoic merely sees the
 118 Universe as his god and makes conformance to the natural order his
 119 ideal. The Stoic actively embraces the natural order just as the
 120 Christian actively loves his god; the difference is merely in whether
 121 God is seen as a definite individual or not.</p>
 122
 123 <blockquote>
 124 <p class="quoted">
 125 If we compare stoic with Christian ejaculations we see much more
 126 than a difference of doctrine; rather is it a difference of
 127 emotional mood that parts them.  When Marcus Aurelius reflects on
 128 the eternal reason that has ordered things, there is a frosty
 129 chill about his words which you rarely find in a Jewish, and
 130 never in a Christian piece of religious writing.  The universe is
 131 &quot;accepted&quot; by all these writers; but how devoid of passion or
 132 exultation the spirit of the Roman Emperor is!  Compare his fine
 133 sentence:  &quot;If gods care not for me or my children, here is a
 134 reason for it,&quot; with Job's cry:  &quot;Though he slay me, yet will I
 135 trust in him!&quot; and you immediately see the difference I mean.
 136 The anima mundi, to whose disposal of his own personal destiny
 137 the Stoic consents, is there to be respected and submitted to,
 138 but the Christian God is there to be loved; and the difference of
 139 emotional atmosphere is like that between an arctic climate and
 140 the tropics, though the outcome in the way of accepting actual
 141 conditions uncomplainingly may seem in abstract terms to be much
 142 the same.</p>
 143
 144 </blockquote>
 145
 146
 147 <h3><a name="sec3" id="sec3"></a>
 148 Lecture III: &amp;quot;The Reality of the Unseen&amp;quot;</h3>
 149
 150 <p class="first">The third lecture consists of a brief overview of various
 151 interpretations of the structure of the unseen world. An argument for
 152 a dualistic universe is then given using a few passages on spiritual
 153 encounters as supposed proof. James criticizes strict rationalism as
 154 well.</p>
 155
 156 <blockquote>
 157 <p class="quoted">
 158 Nevertheless, if we look on man's whole mental life as it exists, on
 159 the life of men that lies in them apart from their learning and
 160 science, and that they inwardly and privately follow, we have to
 161 confess that the part of it of which rationalism can give an account
 162 is relatively superficial.  It is the part that has the prestige
 163 undoubtedly, for it has the loquacity, it can challenge you for
 164 proofs, and chop logic, and put you down with words.  But it will fail
 165 to convince or convert you all the same, if your dumb intuitions are
 166 opposed to its conclusions.  If you have intuitions at all, they come
 167 from a deeper level of your nature than the loquacious level which
 168 rationalism inhabits.  Your whole subconscious life, your impulses,
 169 your faiths, your needs, your divinations, have prepared the premises,
 170 of which your consciousness now feels the weight of the result; and
 171 something in you absolutely <em>knows</em> that that result must be truer than
 172 any logic-chopping rationalistic talk, however clever, that may
 173 contradict it.  This inferiority of the rationalistic level in
 174 founding belief is just as manifest when rationalism argues for
 175 religion as when it argues against it.  That vast literature of proofs
 176 of God's existence drawn from the order of nature, which a century ago
 177 seemed so overwhelmingly convincing, to-day does little more than
 178 gather dust in libraries, for the simple reason that our generation
 179 has ceased to believe in the kind of God it argued for.  Whatever sort
 180 of a being God may be, we <em>know</em> to-day that he is nevermore that mere
 181 external inventor of &quot;contrivances&quot; intended to make manifest his
 182 &quot;glory&quot; in which our great-grandfathers took such satisfaction, though
 183 just how we know this we cannot possibly make clear by words either to
 184 others or to ourselves.  I defy any of you here fully to account for
 185 your persuasion that if a God exist he must be a more cosmic and
 186 tragic personage than that Being.</p>
 187
 188 </blockquote>
 189
 190
 191 <h3><a name="sec4" id="sec4"></a>
 192 Lectures IV and V: &amp;quot;The Religion of Healthy Mindedness&amp;quot;</h3>
 193
 194 <p class="first">Lecture IV is an interesting read and surveys a few positive minded
 195 philosophies, but Lecture V focuses entirely on the <em>mind-cure</em>
 196 movement. William James then gives a terrible argument for the
 197 validity of <em>mind-cure</em>, and compares it to science while neglecting the
 198 complete lack of objectivity in the methods of test the effects of
 199 <em>mind-cure</em>.</p>
 200
 201 <blockquote>
 202 <p class="quoted">
 203 It is a deliberately optimistic scheme of life, with both a
 204 speculative and a practical side.  In its gradual development during
 205 the last quarter of a century, it has taken up into itself a number
 206 of contributory elements, and it must now be reckoned with as a
 207 genuine religious power.  It has reached the stage, for example, when
 208 the demand for its literature is great enough for insincere stuff,
 209 mechanically produced for the market, to be to a certain extent
 210 supplied by publishers&mdash;a phenomenon never observed, I imagine, until
 211 a religion has got well past its earliest insecure beginnings.</p>
 212 <p class="quoted">...</p>
 213 <p class="quoted">The plain fact remains that the spread of the movement has been
 214 due to practical fruits, and the extremely practical turn of
 215 character of the American people has never been better shown than
 216 by the fact that this, their only decidedly original contribution
 217 to the systematic philosophy of life, should be so intimately
 218 knit up with concrete therapeutics.  To the importance of
 219 mind-cure the medical and clerical professions in the United
 220 States are beginning, though with much recalcitrancy and
 221 protesting, to open their eyes.  It is evidently bound to develop
 222 still farther, both speculatively and practically, and its latest
 223 writers are far and away the ablest of the group. It matters
 224 nothing that, just as there are hosts of persons who cannot pray,
 225 so there are greater hosts who cannot by any possibility be
 226 influenced by the mind-curers' ideas.  For our immediate purpose,
 227 the important point is that so large a number should exist who
 228 <em>can</em> be so influenced.  They form a psychic type to be studied
 229 with respect.</p>
 230
 231 </blockquote>
 232
 233 <p>The lectures are ended with an argument for the validity of <em>mind-cure</em>
 234 that compares it directly to science with a clear anti-science bias.</p>
 235
 236 <blockquote>
 237 <p class="quoted">
 238 These are exceedingly trivial instances [<em>the first-hand accounts of
 239 mind-cure working given in the lecture</em>], but in them, if we
 240 have anything at all, we have the method of experiment and
 241 verification.  For the point I am driving at now, it makes no
 242 difference whether you consider the patients to be deluded
 243 victims of their imagination or not.  That they seemed to
 244 <em>themselves</em> to have been cured by the experiments tried was enough
 245 to make them converts to the system.  And although it is evident
 246 that one must be of a certain mental mould to get such results
 247 (for not every one can get thus cured to his own satisfaction any
 248 more than every one can be cured by the first regular
 249 practitioner whom he calls in), yet it would surely be pedantic
 250 and over-scrupulous for those who <em>can</em> get their savage and
 251 primitive philosophy of mental healing verified in such
 252 experimental ways as this, to give them up at word of command for
 253 more scientific therapeutics.</p>
 254 <p class="quoted">What are we to think of all this?  Has science made too wide a
 255 claim?</p>
 256 <p class="quoted">I believe that the claims of the sectarian scientist are, to say
 257 the least, premature.  The experiences which we have been
 258 studying during this hour (and a great many other kinds of
 259 religious experiences are like them) plainly show the universe to
 260 be a more many-sided affair than any sect, even the scientific
 261 sect, allows for.  What, in the end, are all our verifications
 262 but experiences that agree with more or less isolated systems of
 263 ideas (conceptual systems) that our minds have framed?  But why
 264 in the name of common sense need we assume that only one such
 265 system of ideas can be true?  The obvious outcome of our total
 266 experience is that the world can be handled according to many
 267 systems of ideas, and is so handled by different men, and will
 268 each time give some characteristic kind of profit, for which he
 269 cares, to the handler, while at the same time some other kind of
 270 profit has to be omitted or postponed.  Science gives to all of
 271 us telegraphy, electric lighting, and diagnosis, and succeeds in
 272 preventing and curing a certain amount of disease. Religion in
 273 the shape of mind-cure gives to some of us serenity, moral poise,
 274 and happiness, and prevents certain forms of disease as well as
 275 science does, or even better in a certain class of persons.
 276 Evidently, then, the science and the religion are both of them
 277 genuine keys for unlocking the world's treasure-house to him who
 278 can use either of them practically.  Just as evidently neither is
 279 exhaustive or exclusive of the other's simultaneous use.  And
 280 why, after all, may not the world be so complex as to consist of
 281 many interpenetrating spheres of reality, which we can thus
 282 approach in alternation by using different conceptions and
 283 assuming different attitudes, just as mathematicians handle the
 284 same numerical and spatial facts by geometry, by analytical
 285 geometry, by algebra, by the calculus, or by quaternions, and
 286 each time come out right?  On this view religion and science,
 287 each verified in its own way from hour to hour and from life to
 288 life, would be co-eternal.  Primitive thought, with its belief in
 289 individualized personal forces, seems at any rate as far as ever
 290 from being driven by science from the field to-day.  Numbers of
 291 educated people still find it the directest experimental channel
 292 by which to carry on their intercourse with reality</p>
 293
 294 </blockquote>
 295
 296 <p>He draws a very strong conclusion that would be difficult to draw from
 297 even quality evidence and objective trials; this drawn from subjective
 298 personal accounts with no controlled testing method. A representative
 299 example follows of his evidence follows.</p>
 300
 301 <blockquote>
 302 <p class="quoted">
 303 &quot;One of my first experiences in applying my teaching was two
 304 months after I first saw the healer.  I fell, spraining my right
 305 ankle, which I had done once four years before, having then had
 306 to use a crutch and elastic anklet for some months, and carefully
 307 guarding it ever since.  As soon as I was on my feet I made the
 308 positive suggestion (and felt it through all my being):  'There
 309 is nothing but God, and all life comes from him perfectly.  I
 310 cannot be sprained or hurt, I will let him take care of it.'
 311 Well, I never had a sensation in it, and I walked two miles that
 312 day.&quot;</p>
 313
 314 </blockquote>
 315
 316 <p>Ignoring any other problems in William James's argument, it is clear
 317 that his conclusion is far too heavy to rest upon the evidence he has
 318 chosen to use.</p>
 319
 320
 321 <h3><a name="sec5" id="sec5"></a>
 322 Lectures VI and VII: &amp;quot;The Sick Soul&amp;quot;</h3>
 323
 324 <p class="first">The lectures on the Sick Soul are filled with rather weak quotations
 325 (excepting a few short passages of Tolstoy). The reader is reminded
 326 over and over how terrible and painful it is to be working through
 327 these horrid expressions of melancholy which aren't really so
 328 terrible.</p>
 329
 330 <p>James's view is that a state of melancholy is merely a transitional
 331 stage that comes before a second mental birth occurs, and allows for a
 332 deep religious belief to set in. Most of the remainder of the lecture
 333 series is dedicated to analyzing the mind of the Second Born which he
 334 sees are far deeper spiritually than the simple positive Once Born
 335 type (depsite his previous praise of <em>mind-cure</em>).</p>
 336
 337
 338 <h3><a name="sec6" id="sec6"></a>
 339 Lecture VIII: &amp;quot;The Divided Self, and the Process of Its Unificiation&amp;quot;</h3>
 340
 341 <p class="first">Here the lectures return to things mildly interesting with an overview
 342 of heterogenous personalities and a few passages on unificiation of
 343 conflicting desires. James splits unificiations into gradual and
 344 sudden ones giving examples of each. This lecture is the bridge
 345 between lectures V through VII and the material on conversion.</p>
 346
 347
 348 <h3><a name="sec7" id="sec7"></a>
 349 Lectures IX and X: &amp;quot;Conversion&amp;quot;</h3>
 350
 351
 352 <ul>
 353 <li>conversion allows for unification of divided self</li>
 354 <li>Definition of Association</li>
 355 <li>Conversion is sudden change of <em>the habitual center of  personal energy</em></li>
 356 <li>Examples of conversion
 357
 358 <ul>
 359 <li>Common people, stereotypical conversion types</li>
 360 <li>Seemingly of suspect quality</li>
 361 </ul></li>
 362 <li>Note of the trouble of not being able to be religious
 363
 364 <ul>
 365 <li>Painted in a negative light!</li>
 366 </ul></li>
 367
 368 <li>Focus on instantaneous conversion
 369
 370 <ul>
 371 <li>Give prototypical example</li>
 372 </ul></li>
 373 </ul>
 374
 375 <blockquote>
 376 <p class="quoted">
 377 &quot;Coming out of the cafe I met the carriage of Monsieur B. [the
 378 proselyting friend].  He stopped and invited me in for a drive,
 379 but first asked me to wait for a few minutes whilst he attended
 380 to some duty at the church of San Andrea delle Fratte.  Instead
 381 of waiting in the carriage, I entered the church myself to look
 382 at it.  The church of San Andrea was poor, small, and empty; I
 383 believe that I found myself there almost alone.  No work of art
 384 attracted my attention; and I passed my eyes mechanically over
 385 its interior without being arrested by any particular thought.  I
 386 can only remember an entirely black dog which went trotting and
 387 turning before me as I mused.  In an instant the dog had
 388 disappeared, the whole church had vanished, I no longer saw
 389 anything, . . . or more truly I saw, O my God, one thing alone.
 390 &quot;Heavens, how can I speak of it?  Oh no! human words cannot
 391 attain to expressing the inexpressible.  Any description, however
 392 sublime it might be, could be but a profanation of the
 393 unspeakable truth.</p>
 394 <p class="quoted">&quot;I was there prostrate on the ground, bathed in my tears, with my
 395 heart beside itself, when M. B. called me back to life.  I could
 396 not reply to the questions which followed from him one upon the
 397 other.  But finally I took the medal which I had on my breast,
 398 and with all the effusion of my soul I kissed the image of the
 399 Virgin, radiant with grace, which it bore.  Oh, indeed, it was
 400 She! It was indeed She! [What he had seen had been a vision of
 401 the Virgin.]</p>
 402 <p class="quoted">&quot;I did not know where I was:  I did not know whether I was
 403 Alphonse or another.  I only felt myself changed and believed
 404 myself another me; I looked for myself in myself and did not find
 405 myself.  In the bottom of my soul I felt an explosion of the most
 406 ardent joy; I could not speak; I had no wish to reveal what had
 407 happened.  But I felt something solemn and sacred within me which
 408 made me ask for a priest.  I was led to one; and there alone,
 409 after he had given me the positive order, I spoke as best I
 410 could, kneeling, and with my heart still trembling.  I could give
 411 no account to myself of the truth of which I had acquired a
 412 knowledge and a faith.  All that I can say is that in an instant
 413 the bandage had fallen from my eyes, and not one bandage only,
 414 but the whole manifold of bandages in which I had been brought
 415 up.  One after another they rapidly disappeared, even as the mud
 416 and ice disappear under the rays of the burning sun.&quot;</p>
 417
 418 </blockquote>
 419
 420 <ul>
 421 <li>Notes recent protestant phenomemon of instantaneous conversion</li>
 422 <li>Gives psychological explanation for instant conversion
 423
 424 <ul>
 425 <li>Field of conciousness</li>
 426 <li>Subconcious on margin
 427
 428 <ul>
 429 <li>Subconcious life can affect concious existance</li>
 430 <li>Note: cites Freud &amp; friends as reliable</li>
 431 </ul></li>
 432 </ul></li>
 433 </ul>
 434
 435 <blockquote>
 436 <p class="quoted">
 437 In the wonderful explorations by Binet, Janet, Breuer, Freud,
 438 Mason, Prince, and others, of the subliminal consciousness of
 439 patients with hysteria, we have revealed to us whole systems of
 440 underground life, in the shape of memories of a painful sort
 441 which lead a parasitic existence, buried outside of the primary
 442 fields of consciousness, and making irruptions thereinto with
 443 hallucinations, pains, convulsions, paralyses of feeling and of
 444 motion, and the whole procession of symptoms of hysteric disease
 445 of body and of mind.  Alter or abolish by suggestion these
 446 subconscious memories, and the patient immediately gets well.
 447 His symptoms were automatisms, in Mr. Myers's sense of the word.
 448 These clinical records sound like fairy-tales when one first
 449 reads them, yet it is impossible to doubt their accuracy; and,
 450 the path having been once opened by these first observers,
 451 similar observations have been made elsewhere.  They throw, as I
 452 said, a wholly new light upon our natural constitution.</p>
 453
 454 </blockquote>
 455
 456 <ul>
 457 <li>Conversion is a transfer of energies from the subconcious
 458
 459 <ul>
 460 <li>Changes center of focus in the field of conciousness
 461
 462 <ul>
 463 <li>Disproves religious nature of instant conversion argument</li>
 464 </ul></li>
 465 </ul></li>
 466 <li>Notes that there are no discernable differences between instant
 467 converts and slow converts</li>
 468 </ul>
 469
 470 <blockquote>
 471 <p class="quoted">
 472 The believers in the non-natural character of sudden conversion
 473 have had practically to admit that there is no unmistakable
 474 class-mark distinctive of all true converts.  The super-normal
 475 incidents, such as voices and visions and overpowering
 476 impressions of the meaning of suddenly presented scripture texts,
 477 the melting emotions and tumultuous affections connected with the
 478 crisis of change, may all come by way of nature, or worse still,
 479 be counterfeited by Satan.  The real witness of the spirit to the
 480 second birth is to be found only in the disposition of the
 481 genuine child of God, the permanently patient heart, the love of
 482 self eradicated.  And this, it has to be admitted, is also found
 483 in those who pass no crisis, and may even be found outside of
 484 Christianity altogether.</p>
 485
 486 </blockquote>
 487
 488 <ul>
 489 <li>Instant conversion is a natural result of exposing a person with a
 490 rich subconcious existence to religion and is merely one type of
 491 conversion</li>
 492 </ul>
 493
 494 <blockquote>
 495 <p class="quoted">
 496 Sharp distinctions are difficult in these regions, and Professor Coe's
 497 numbers are small.  But his methods were careful, and the results
 498 tally with what one might expect; and they seem, on the whole, to
 499 justify his practical conclusion, which is that if you should expose
 500 to a converting influence a subject in whom three factors unite:
 501 first, pronounced emotional sensibility; second, tendency to
 502 automatisms; and third, suggestibility of the passive type; you might
 503 then safely predict the result: there would be a sudden conversion, a
 504 transformation of the striking kind.</p>
 505
 506 </blockquote>
 507
 508 <ul>
 509 <li>Finishes with discussion of pre-conversion emotion
 510
 511 <ul>
 512 <li>Usually melancholy</li>
 513 <li>Disguist at sin</li>
 514 </ul></li>
 515 <li>Post Conversion feeling
 516
 517 <ul>
 518 <li>New self</li>
 519 <li>Clean</li>
 520 </ul></li>
 521 </ul>
 522
 523
 524 <h3><a name="sec8" id="sec8"></a>
 525 Lectures XI - XIII: Saintliness</h3>
 526
 527 <ul>
 528 <li>Descriptive assement of fruits of conversion
 529
 530 <ul>
 531 <li>general discussion of what causes differing character
 532
 533 <ul>
 534 <li>Impulse vs Inhibition
 535
 536 <ul>
 537 <li>Strong emotions shut down inhibition</li>
 538 </ul></li>
 539 </ul></li>
 540 <li>Application of general principles to the results of conversion
 541
 542 <ul>
 543 <li>Top over point -&gt; God works through Subliminal</li>
 544 <li>Ignore how the Subliminal works
 545
 546 <ul>
 547 <li>[It seems that this is done to avoid concluding that there is
 548 no god]</li>
 549 <li>[Minimization of importance of natural processes in
 550 post-convesion]</li>
 551 </ul></li>
 552 <li>Saintliness
 553
 554 <ul>
 555 <li>Four universal inner conditions</li>
 556 <li>Four results of the inner conditions</li>
 557 <li>EXAMPLES
 558
 559 <ul>
 560 <li>Prescence of a higher &amp; friendly power</li>
 561 <li>Charity (agape) love
 562
 563 <ul>
 564 <li>Charity not unique to theistic religions, therefore it
 565 should be seen as coordinate rather than subordinate to
 566 the topic of the lecture series (page 296)</li>
 567 </ul></li>
 568 <li>Inward Tranquillity
 569
 570 <ul>
 571 <li>Sombre constitution results in resignation and submission</li>
 572 <li>Cheerful constitution results in joyous consent</li>
 573 </ul></li>
 574 <li>Purity
 575
 576 <ul>
 577 <li>Internal discord leads to suffering</li>
 578 </ul></li>
 579 <li>Ascetecism
 580
 581 <ul>
 582 <li>result of extreme pursuit of purity</li>
 583 <li>List of sources of ascetic behavior</li>
 584 <li>Ascetecism in monks
 585
 586 <ul>
 587 <li>Obedience
 588
 589 <ul>
 590 <li>Low reasons
 591
 592 <ul>
 593 <li>Obedience expedient in ecclesiastical organizations</li>
 594 <li>External counsel at certain times is better than
 595 internal</li>
 596 </ul></li>
 597 <li>High Reason
 598
 599 <ul>
 600 <li>Inner softening</li>
 601 </ul></li>
 602 <li>Catholic view as sacrifice
 603
 604 <ul>
 605 <li>[quote p.274 &quot;sacrifice which man offers to God...&quot;]</li>
 606 <li>passages by member of the order of St Ignatius</li>
 607 </ul></li>
 608 </ul></li>
 609 <li>Poverty
 610
 611 <ul>
 612 <li>Things steal freedom, therefore a life of doing/being
 613 is superior</li>
 614 </ul></li>
 615 </ul></li>
 616 </ul></li>
 617 </ul></li>
 618 </ul></li>
 619 </ul></li>
 620 </ul></li>
 621 </ul>
 622
 623
 624 <h3><a name="sec9" id="sec9"></a>
 625 Lectures XIV-XV: The Value of Saintliness</h3>
 626
 627 <ul>
 628 <li>Critique of Saintliness
 629
 630 <ul>
 631 <li>Using empirical methods (unlike Catholics)
 632
 633 <ul>
 634 <li>Humans cannot differentiate between natural and supernatural
 635 effects</li>
 636 </ul></li>
 637 <li>(Defense of Methodology)
 638
 639 <ul>
 640 <li>Current religious views result of empiricism
 641
 642 <ul>
 643 <li>Rejection of former gods over time as they cease to serve our
 644 needs</li>
 645 </ul></li>
 646 <li>Must be skeptical (not unreasonably so however) of current
 647 beliefs
 648
 649 <ul>
 650 <li>Humans are fallible; admitting this brings us closer to truth
 651 by enabling discussion of flaws in beliefs</li>
 652 <li>Quite probably that no one religion is entirely correct</li>
 653 </ul></li>
 654 </ul></li>
 655 </ul></li>
 656 <li>Concerned with personal religious experiences, and not with
 657 instutitional religion [reiteration from second lecture]
 658
 659 <ul>
 660 <li>Ideas of a prophet -&gt; heterodoxy -&gt; heresy (if accepted by
 661 others) -&gt; orthodxy (if survives persection)
 662
 663 <ul>
 664 <li>Cycle then begins anew</li>
 665 </ul></li>
 666 <li>Religion itself cannot be blamed for evils committed</li>
 667 </ul></li>
 668 <li>Extreme Saintliness due to excess
 669
 670 <ul>
 671 <li>In men, excess is due to lack of balance, or excessively strong
 672 personality elements mixed with weak ones
 673
 674 <ul>
 675 <li>If all faculities are strong and cooperate one has a strong
 676 character rather than one plagued by excess</li>
 677 <li>Extremely saintly people have strong spiritual faculities, but
 678 deficient ability to perceive extravagane
 679
 680 <ul>
 681 <li>Leads to excessie self-denial</li>
 682 <li>Still useful as archetypes</li>
 683 </ul></li>
 684 </ul></li>
 685 </ul></li>
 686 <li>Four Virtues &amp; Unbalanced Forms
 687
 688 <ul>
 689 <li>Devoutness
 690
 691 <ul>
 692 <li>Fanatacism
 693
 694 <ul>
 695 <li>Strong character mixed with narrow mind</li>
 696 </ul></li>
 697 <li>Theopathy (cointed by WJ to describe excess devoutness)
 698
 699 <ul>
 700 <li>Excess of devotion with feeble mind</li>
 701 <li>Person becomes absorbed in inward love of/from God</li>
 702 </ul></li>
 703 </ul></li>
 704 <li>Purity
 705
 706 <ul>
 707 <li>Narrow mindedness results on love of God replacing all other
 708 love</li>
 709 <li>In aggressive types stamps external disorder from existence</li>
 710 <li>In passive types disorder is eliminated internall by secluding
 711 self
 712
 713 <ul>
 714 <li>Example: Lous of Gonzaga</li>
 715 <li>Such a life was seen as good in the 16th century, but in the
 716 early 20th was seen as repulsive due to secular changes (more
 717 value being placed on helping society than merely saving
 718 oneself)</li>
 719 </ul></li>
 720 </ul></li>
 721 <li>Charity / Tenderness
 722
 723 <ul>
 724 <li>Saintly 'Resist No Evil' versus Worldy Pragmatic Standpoint
 725
 726 <ul>
 727 <li>No simple answer</li>
 728 </ul></li>
 729 <li>Perfect conduct relation between actor, objects acted upon, and
 730 recipients of the action
 731
 732 <ul>
 733 <li>Best intentions fail when executed incorrectly or addressed
 734 to the wrong recipient</li>
 735 <li>Thus cannot judge charity by actor alone</li>
 736 </ul></li>
 737 <li>Saintly charity works in a perfect world
 738
 739 <ul>
 740 <li>Excessive in the World That Is</li>
 741 <li>Evil takes advantage of charity</li>
 742 <li>However, the world would be far worse without charitable
 743 people
 744
 745 <ul>
 746 <li>Treating others charitably inspires others to become
 747 better</li>
 748 <li>Exposure to an excessively charitable person softens a
 749 person</li>
 750 <li>Without this type all would lie in spiritual stagnation</li>
 751 </ul></li>
 752 <li>Therefore even excessive charity has value
 753
 754 <ul>
 755 <li>Force destroys enemies</li>
 756 <li>Prudence at best resists enemies</li>
 757 <li>Non-resistance / Charity turns enemies into friends</li>
 758 </ul></li>
 759 <li>Though excessive, the saint makes the world a better place
 760
 761 <ul>
 762 <li>Compare to Utopianists and Anarchists</li>
 763 </ul></li>
 764 </ul></li>
 765 </ul></li>
 766 <li>Ascetecism
 767
 768 <ul>
 769 <li>Virtue most prone to excess</li>
 770 <li>It seems at first those wo are excessively ascetic are still
 771 inwardly attached to the world
 772
 773 <ul>
 774 <li>If one were truly liberated he would not need excessive
 775 moritification</li>
 776 </ul></li>
 777 <li>Different view: Ascetic sees wrongs in the world, and rather
 778 than ignore them he conquers them internally
 779
 780 <ul>
 781 <li>One who does not fear Death seems strong</li>
 782 </ul></li>
 783 <li>Ascetecism is a profounder way of handling excistence than
 784 simple optimistic naturalism
 785
 786 <ul>
 787 <li>In the modern time, people should throw away useless
 788 asceticism and embrace useful aspects</li>
 789 <li>Attributes of early 20th century life and weakened churching
 790 breed weaker character
 791
 792 <ul>
 793 <li>Militarism used as a subtitute for religious ascetecism
 794
 795 <ul>
 796 <li>Poor subtitute
 797
 798 <ul>
 799 <li>Speaks to the base and brutish aspects of human nature</li>
 800 </ul></li>
 801 </ul></li>
 802 <li>Ascetic poverty much superior to militarism/war
 803
 804 <ul>
 805 <li>WJ believes it <strong>must</strong> be embraced to fight evils of the
 806 time [quote page 319-320]</li>
 807 <li>Desire to gain wealth breeds cowardice and corruption
 808
 809 <ul>
 810 <li>Wealthy man enslaved to riches</li>
 811 <li>Poor man lacks chains
 812 - Single attributes of saintliness are found in the non-religious
 813 - Combination of all forms is religious in nature
 814 - Flows from sense of divine order
 815 - Saintly person palces happiness internally rather than deriving
 816 from comfort
 817 - Saintly attributes mixed with narrow mind results in terrible
 818 excessive forms
 819 - We should not, however, place blame for narrow mindedness
 820 entirely on the individual
 821 - Essentials vs Accidents of saintliness
 822 - Dislike of Saintly character
 823 - Man traditionally worships strong leaders
 824 - Saints are weak and passive
 825 - Male vs Female nature [think Yin vs Yang]
 826 - Many suppose there is one ideal type of character
 827 - Empiricism rejects this as foolish
 828 - On the one hande the saintly character is better than the
 829 strongman becaue he is adapted to life in a perfect society
 830 - On the other in the real world he would be ill adapted
 831 - Mixture of the two characters useful [think Nietzsche's
 832 uebermensch or Taoist]
 833 - Saintly character has real value</li>
 834 </ul></li>
 835 </ul></li>
 836 </ul></li>
 837 </ul></li>
 838 </ul></li>
 839 </ul></li>
 840 </ul>
 841
 842
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 870 <p class="cke-footer">The body bags and little rags of children torn in two,
 871 And the jellied brains of those who remain to put the finger right on you
 872 As the madmen play on words and make us all dance to their song
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