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  18     <h1>William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience</h1>
  19    <div class="contents">
  20 <dl>
  21 <dt>
  22 <a href="#sec1">William James - Varieties of Religious Experience (<code>In progress</code>)</a>
  23 </dt>
  24 <dd>
  25 <dl>
  26 <dt>
  27 <a href="#sec2">Lectures I and II</a>
  28 </dt>
  29 <dt>
  30 <a href="#sec3">Lecture III: &amp;quot;The Reality of the Unseen&amp;quot;</a>
  31 </dt>
  32 <dt>
  33 <a href="#sec4">Lectures IV and V: &amp;quot;The Religion of Healthy Mindedness&amp;quot;</a>
  34 </dt>
  35 <dt>
  36 <a href="#sec5">Lectures VI and VII: &amp;quot;The Sick Soul&amp;quot;</a>
  37 </dt>
  38 <dt>
  39 <a href="#sec6">Lecture VIII: &amp;quot;The Divided Self, and the Process of Its Unificiation&amp;quot;</a>
  40 </dt>
  41 <dt>
  42 <a href="#sec7">Lectures IX and X: &amp;quot;Conversion&amp;quot;</a>
  43 </dt>
  44 <dt>
  45 <a href="#sec8">Lectures XI - XIII: Saintliness</a>
  46 </dt>
  47 <dt>
  48 <a href="#sec9">Lectures XIV-XV: The Value of Saintliness</a>
  49 </dt>
  50 </dl>
  51 </dd>
  52 </dl>
  53 </div>
  54
  55
  56 <!-- Page published by Emacs Muse begins here -->
  57 <h2><a name="sec1" id="sec1"></a>
  58 William James - <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/621">Varieties of Religious Experience</a> (<code>In progress</code>)</h2>
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  76
  77 <p>The <em>Varieties of Religious Experience</em> is a set of twenty lectures on
  78 religious experience from a psychological perspective. The quality of
  79 the method used is a bit suspect, but my understanding is that it was
  80 one of the first pyschological surveys of religion, and so could
  81 perhaps be forgiven of a few flaws.</p>
  82
  83 <p>I found parts to be boring, and others to have flawed reasoning, but
  84 with a few lectures that were interesting. At the very least the
  85 lectures give a reasonable glimpse into the religous fashion of the
  86 late 1800s. There is a small bit of social commentary thrown in that
  87 is cited by John Gatto in his <em>Underground History of American
  88 Education</em>, which is why I chose to read this.</p>
  89
  90 <h3><a name="sec2" id="sec2"></a>
  91 Lectures I and II</h3>
  92
  93 <p class="first">The first two lectures lay the groundwork for the lecture series. The
  94 first covers a few views on what religious experience is, and gives
  95 refutations (although not terribly good ones now, perhaps they were
  96 seen as fine in the early 1900s) to a few deterministic theories. The
  97 second lecture defines the scope of the topic to be covered, and
  98 limits the definitions of religion and spirituality.</p>
  99
 100
 101 <blockquote>
 102 <p class="quoted">
 103 Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall
 104 mean for us <em>the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in
 105 their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in
 106 relation to whatever they may consider the divine</em>.  Since the
 107 relation may be either moral, physical, or ritual, it is evident that
 108 out of religion in the sense in which we take it, theologies,
 109 philosophies, and ecclesiastical organizations may secondarily grow.
 110 In these lectures, however, as I have already said, the immediate
 111 personal experiences will amply fill our time, and we shall hardly
 112 consider theology or ecclesiasticism at all.</p>
 113
 114 </blockquote>
 115
 116 <p>In the second lecture James's first extremely arbitrary distinction is
 117 made; he compares the stoicism espoused by Marcus Aurelius to
 118 Christian writings and draws what I think is a nonexistent difference
 119 between the two. It is my opinion that the Stoic is just as religious
 120 by James's definition as the Christian; the stoic merely sees the
 121 Universe as his god and makes conformance to the natural order his
 122 ideal. The Stoic actively embraces the natural order just as the
 123 Christian actively loves his god; the difference is merely in whether
 124 God is seen as a definite individual or not.</p>
 125
 126 <blockquote>
 127 <p class="quoted">
 128 If we compare stoic with Christian ejaculations we see much more
 129 than a difference of doctrine; rather is it a difference of
 130 emotional mood that parts them.  When Marcus Aurelius reflects on
 131 the eternal reason that has ordered things, there is a frosty
 132 chill about his words which you rarely find in a Jewish, and
 133 never in a Christian piece of religious writing.  The universe is
 134 &quot;accepted&quot; by all these writers; but how devoid of passion or
 135 exultation the spirit of the Roman Emperor is!  Compare his fine
 136 sentence:  &quot;If gods care not for me or my children, here is a
 137 reason for it,&quot; with Job's cry:  &quot;Though he slay me, yet will I
 138 trust in him!&quot; and you immediately see the difference I mean.
 139 The anima mundi, to whose disposal of his own personal destiny
 140 the Stoic consents, is there to be respected and submitted to,
 141 but the Christian God is there to be loved; and the difference of
 142 emotional atmosphere is like that between an arctic climate and
 143 the tropics, though the outcome in the way of accepting actual
 144 conditions uncomplainingly may seem in abstract terms to be much
 145 the same.</p>
 146
 147 </blockquote>
 148
 149
 150 <h3><a name="sec3" id="sec3"></a>
 151 Lecture III: &amp;quot;The Reality of the Unseen&amp;quot;</h3>
 152
 153 <p class="first">The third lecture consists of a brief overview of various
 154 interpretations of the structure of the unseen world. An argument for
 155 a dualistic universe is then given using a few passages on spiritual
 156 encounters as supposed proof. James criticizes strict rationalism as
 157 well.</p>
 158
 159 <blockquote>
 160 <p class="quoted">
 161 Nevertheless, if we look on man's whole mental life as it exists, on
 162 the life of men that lies in them apart from their learning and
 163 science, and that they inwardly and privately follow, we have to
 164 confess that the part of it of which rationalism can give an account
 165 is relatively superficial.  It is the part that has the prestige
 166 undoubtedly, for it has the loquacity, it can challenge you for
 167 proofs, and chop logic, and put you down with words.  But it will fail
 168 to convince or convert you all the same, if your dumb intuitions are
 169 opposed to its conclusions.  If you have intuitions at all, they come
 170 from a deeper level of your nature than the loquacious level which
 171 rationalism inhabits.  Your whole subconscious life, your impulses,
 172 your faiths, your needs, your divinations, have prepared the premises,
 173 of which your consciousness now feels the weight of the result; and
 174 something in you absolutely <em>knows</em> that that result must be truer than
 175 any logic-chopping rationalistic talk, however clever, that may
 176 contradict it.  This inferiority of the rationalistic level in
 177 founding belief is just as manifest when rationalism argues for
 178 religion as when it argues against it.  That vast literature of proofs
 179 of God's existence drawn from the order of nature, which a century ago
 180 seemed so overwhelmingly convincing, to-day does little more than
 181 gather dust in libraries, for the simple reason that our generation
 182 has ceased to believe in the kind of God it argued for.  Whatever sort
 183 of a being God may be, we <em>know</em> to-day that he is nevermore that mere
 184 external inventor of &quot;contrivances&quot; intended to make manifest his
 185 &quot;glory&quot; in which our great-grandfathers took such satisfaction, though
 186 just how we know this we cannot possibly make clear by words either to
 187 others or to ourselves.  I defy any of you here fully to account for
 188 your persuasion that if a God exist he must be a more cosmic and
 189 tragic personage than that Being.</p>
 190
 191 </blockquote>
 192
 193
 194 <h3><a name="sec4" id="sec4"></a>
 195 Lectures IV and V: &amp;quot;The Religion of Healthy Mindedness&amp;quot;</h3>
 196
 197 <p class="first">Lecture IV is an interesting read and surveys a few positive minded
 198 philosophies, but Lecture V focuses entirely on the <em>mind-cure</em>
 199 movement. William James then gives a terrible argument for the
 200 validity of <em>mind-cure</em>, and compares it to science while neglecting the
 201 complete lack of objectivity in the methods of test the effects of
 202 <em>mind-cure</em>.</p>
 203
 204 <blockquote>
 205 <p class="quoted">
 206 It is a deliberately optimistic scheme of life, with both a
 207 speculative and a practical side.  In its gradual development during
 208 the last quarter of a century, it has taken up into itself a number
 209 of contributory elements, and it must now be reckoned with as a
 210 genuine religious power.  It has reached the stage, for example, when
 211 the demand for its literature is great enough for insincere stuff,
 212 mechanically produced for the market, to be to a certain extent
 213 supplied by publishers&mdash;a phenomenon never observed, I imagine, until
 214 a religion has got well past its earliest insecure beginnings.</p>
 215 <p class="quoted">...</p>
 216 <p class="quoted">The plain fact remains that the spread of the movement has been
 217 due to practical fruits, and the extremely practical turn of
 218 character of the American people has never been better shown than
 219 by the fact that this, their only decidedly original contribution
 220 to the systematic philosophy of life, should be so intimately
 221 knit up with concrete therapeutics.  To the importance of
 222 mind-cure the medical and clerical professions in the United
 223 States are beginning, though with much recalcitrancy and
 224 protesting, to open their eyes.  It is evidently bound to develop
 225 still farther, both speculatively and practically, and its latest
 226 writers are far and away the ablest of the group. It matters
 227 nothing that, just as there are hosts of persons who cannot pray,
 228 so there are greater hosts who cannot by any possibility be
 229 influenced by the mind-curers' ideas.  For our immediate purpose,
 230 the important point is that so large a number should exist who
 231 <em>can</em> be so influenced.  They form a psychic type to be studied
 232 with respect.</p>
 233
 234 </blockquote>
 235
 236 <p>The lectures are ended with an argument for the validity of <em>mind-cure</em>
 237 that compares it directly to science with a clear anti-science bias.</p>
 238
 239 <blockquote>
 240 <p class="quoted">
 241 These are exceedingly trivial instances [<em>the first-hand accounts of
 242 mind-cure working given in the lecture</em>], but in them, if we
 243 have anything at all, we have the method of experiment and
 244 verification.  For the point I am driving at now, it makes no
 245 difference whether you consider the patients to be deluded
 246 victims of their imagination or not.  That they seemed to
 247 <em>themselves</em> to have been cured by the experiments tried was enough
 248 to make them converts to the system.  And although it is evident
 249 that one must be of a certain mental mould to get such results
 250 (for not every one can get thus cured to his own satisfaction any
 251 more than every one can be cured by the first regular
 252 practitioner whom he calls in), yet it would surely be pedantic
 253 and over-scrupulous for those who <em>can</em> get their savage and
 254 primitive philosophy of mental healing verified in such
 255 experimental ways as this, to give them up at word of command for
 256 more scientific therapeutics.</p>
 257 <p class="quoted">What are we to think of all this?  Has science made too wide a
 258 claim?</p>
 259 <p class="quoted">I believe that the claims of the sectarian scientist are, to say
 260 the least, premature.  The experiences which we have been
 261 studying during this hour (and a great many other kinds of
 262 religious experiences are like them) plainly show the universe to
 263 be a more many-sided affair than any sect, even the scientific
 264 sect, allows for.  What, in the end, are all our verifications
 265 but experiences that agree with more or less isolated systems of
 266 ideas (conceptual systems) that our minds have framed?  But why
 267 in the name of common sense need we assume that only one such
 268 system of ideas can be true?  The obvious outcome of our total
 269 experience is that the world can be handled according to many
 270 systems of ideas, and is so handled by different men, and will
 271 each time give some characteristic kind of profit, for which he
 272 cares, to the handler, while at the same time some other kind of
 273 profit has to be omitted or postponed.  Science gives to all of
 274 us telegraphy, electric lighting, and diagnosis, and succeeds in
 275 preventing and curing a certain amount of disease. Religion in
 276 the shape of mind-cure gives to some of us serenity, moral poise,
 277 and happiness, and prevents certain forms of disease as well as
 278 science does, or even better in a certain class of persons.
 279 Evidently, then, the science and the religion are both of them
 280 genuine keys for unlocking the world's treasure-house to him who
 281 can use either of them practically.  Just as evidently neither is
 282 exhaustive or exclusive of the other's simultaneous use.  And
 283 why, after all, may not the world be so complex as to consist of
 284 many interpenetrating spheres of reality, which we can thus
 285 approach in alternation by using different conceptions and
 286 assuming different attitudes, just as mathematicians handle the
 287 same numerical and spatial facts by geometry, by analytical
 288 geometry, by algebra, by the calculus, or by quaternions, and
 289 each time come out right?  On this view religion and science,
 290 each verified in its own way from hour to hour and from life to
 291 life, would be co-eternal.  Primitive thought, with its belief in
 292 individualized personal forces, seems at any rate as far as ever
 293 from being driven by science from the field to-day.  Numbers of
 294 educated people still find it the directest experimental channel
 295 by which to carry on their intercourse with reality</p>
 296
 297 </blockquote>
 298
 299 <p>He draws a very strong conclusion that would be difficult to draw from
 300 even quality evidence and objective trials; this drawn from subjective
 301 personal accounts with no controlled testing method. A representative
 302 example follows of his evidence follows.</p>
 303
 304 <blockquote>
 305 <p class="quoted">
 306 &quot;One of my first experiences in applying my teaching was two
 307 months after I first saw the healer.  I fell, spraining my right
 308 ankle, which I had done once four years before, having then had
 309 to use a crutch and elastic anklet for some months, and carefully
 310 guarding it ever since.  As soon as I was on my feet I made the
 311 positive suggestion (and felt it through all my being):  'There
 312 is nothing but God, and all life comes from him perfectly.  I
 313 cannot be sprained or hurt, I will let him take care of it.'
 314 Well, I never had a sensation in it, and I walked two miles that
 315 day.&quot;</p>
 316
 317 </blockquote>
 318
 319 <p>Ignoring any other problems in William James's argument, it is clear
 320 that his conclusion is far too heavy to rest upon the evidence he has
 321 chosen to use.</p>
 322
 323
 324 <h3><a name="sec5" id="sec5"></a>
 325 Lectures VI and VII: &amp;quot;The Sick Soul&amp;quot;</h3>
 326
 327 <p class="first">The lectures on the Sick Soul are filled with rather weak quotations
 328 (excepting a few short passages of Tolstoy). The reader is reminded
 329 over and over how terrible and painful it is to be working through
 330 these horrid expressions of melancholy which aren't really so
 331 terrible.</p>
 332
 333 <p>James's view is that a state of melancholy is merely a transitional
 334 stage that comes before a second mental birth occurs, and allows for a
 335 deep religious belief to set in. Most of the remainder of the lecture
 336 series is dedicated to analyzing the mind of the Second Born which he
 337 sees are far deeper spiritually than the simple positive Once Born
 338 type (depsite his previous praise of <em>mind-cure</em>).</p>
 339
 340
 341 <h3><a name="sec6" id="sec6"></a>
 342 Lecture VIII: &amp;quot;The Divided Self, and the Process of Its Unificiation&amp;quot;</h3>
 343
 344 <p class="first">Here the lectures return to things mildly interesting with an overview
 345 of heterogenous personalities and a few passages on unificiation of
 346 conflicting desires. James splits unificiations into gradual and
 347 sudden ones giving examples of each. This lecture is the bridge
 348 between lectures V through VII and the material on conversion.</p>
 349
 350
 351 <h3><a name="sec7" id="sec7"></a>
 352 Lectures IX and X: &amp;quot;Conversion&amp;quot;</h3>
 353
 354
 355 <ul>
 356 <li>conversion allows for unification of divided self</li>
 357 <li>Definition of Association</li>
 358 <li>Conversion is sudden change of <em>the habitual center of  personal energy</em></li>
 359 <li>Examples of conversion
 360
 361 <ul>
 362 <li>Common people, stereotypical conversion types</li>
 363 <li>Seemingly of suspect quality</li>
 364 </ul></li>
 365 <li>Note of the trouble of not being able to be religious
 366
 367 <ul>
 368 <li>Painted in a negative light!</li>
 369 </ul></li>
 370
 371 <li>Focus on instantaneous conversion
 372
 373 <ul>
 374 <li>Give prototypical example</li>
 375 </ul></li>
 376 </ul>
 377
 378 <blockquote>
 379 <p class="quoted">
 380 &quot;Coming out of the cafe I met the carriage of Monsieur B. [the
 381 proselyting friend].  He stopped and invited me in for a drive,
 382 but first asked me to wait for a few minutes whilst he attended
 383 to some duty at the church of San Andrea delle Fratte.  Instead
 384 of waiting in the carriage, I entered the church myself to look
 385 at it.  The church of San Andrea was poor, small, and empty; I
 386 believe that I found myself there almost alone.  No work of art
 387 attracted my attention; and I passed my eyes mechanically over
 388 its interior without being arrested by any particular thought.  I
 389 can only remember an entirely black dog which went trotting and
 390 turning before me as I mused.  In an instant the dog had
 391 disappeared, the whole church had vanished, I no longer saw
 392 anything, . . . or more truly I saw, O my God, one thing alone.
 393 &quot;Heavens, how can I speak of it?  Oh no! human words cannot
 394 attain to expressing the inexpressible.  Any description, however
 395 sublime it might be, could be but a profanation of the
 396 unspeakable truth.</p>
 397 <p class="quoted">&quot;I was there prostrate on the ground, bathed in my tears, with my
 398 heart beside itself, when M. B. called me back to life.  I could
 399 not reply to the questions which followed from him one upon the
 400 other.  But finally I took the medal which I had on my breast,
 401 and with all the effusion of my soul I kissed the image of the
 402 Virgin, radiant with grace, which it bore.  Oh, indeed, it was
 403 She! It was indeed She! [What he had seen had been a vision of
 404 the Virgin.]</p>
 405 <p class="quoted">&quot;I did not know where I was:  I did not know whether I was
 406 Alphonse or another.  I only felt myself changed and believed
 407 myself another me; I looked for myself in myself and did not find
 408 myself.  In the bottom of my soul I felt an explosion of the most
 409 ardent joy; I could not speak; I had no wish to reveal what had
 410 happened.  But I felt something solemn and sacred within me which
 411 made me ask for a priest.  I was led to one; and there alone,
 412 after he had given me the positive order, I spoke as best I
 413 could, kneeling, and with my heart still trembling.  I could give
 414 no account to myself of the truth of which I had acquired a
 415 knowledge and a faith.  All that I can say is that in an instant
 416 the bandage had fallen from my eyes, and not one bandage only,
 417 but the whole manifold of bandages in which I had been brought
 418 up.  One after another they rapidly disappeared, even as the mud
 419 and ice disappear under the rays of the burning sun.&quot;</p>
 420
 421 </blockquote>
 422
 423 <ul>
 424 <li>Notes recent protestant phenomemon of instantaneous conversion</li>
 425 <li>Gives psychological explanation for instant conversion
 426
 427 <ul>
 428 <li>Field of conciousness</li>
 429 <li>Subconcious on margin
 430
 431 <ul>
 432 <li>Subconcious life can affect concious existance</li>
 433 <li>Note: cites Freud &amp; friends as reliable</li>
 434 </ul></li>
 435 </ul></li>
 436 </ul>
 437
 438 <blockquote>
 439 <p class="quoted">
 440 In the wonderful explorations by Binet, Janet, Breuer, Freud,
 441 Mason, Prince, and others, of the subliminal consciousness of
 442 patients with hysteria, we have revealed to us whole systems of
 443 underground life, in the shape of memories of a painful sort
 444 which lead a parasitic existence, buried outside of the primary
 445 fields of consciousness, and making irruptions thereinto with
 446 hallucinations, pains, convulsions, paralyses of feeling and of
 447 motion, and the whole procession of symptoms of hysteric disease
 448 of body and of mind.  Alter or abolish by suggestion these
 449 subconscious memories, and the patient immediately gets well.
 450 His symptoms were automatisms, in Mr. Myers's sense of the word.
 451 These clinical records sound like fairy-tales when one first
 452 reads them, yet it is impossible to doubt their accuracy; and,
 453 the path having been once opened by these first observers,
 454 similar observations have been made elsewhere.  They throw, as I
 455 said, a wholly new light upon our natural constitution.</p>
 456
 457 </blockquote>
 458
 459 <ul>
 460 <li>Conversion is a transfer of energies from the subconcious
 461
 462 <ul>
 463 <li>Changes center of focus in the field of conciousness
 464
 465 <ul>
 466 <li>Disproves religious nature of instant conversion argument</li>
 467 </ul></li>
 468 </ul></li>
 469 <li>Notes that there are no discernable differences between instant
 470 converts and slow converts</li>
 471 </ul>
 472
 473 <blockquote>
 474 <p class="quoted">
 475 The believers in the non-natural character of sudden conversion
 476 have had practically to admit that there is no unmistakable
 477 class-mark distinctive of all true converts.  The super-normal
 478 incidents, such as voices and visions and overpowering
 479 impressions of the meaning of suddenly presented scripture texts,
 480 the melting emotions and tumultuous affections connected with the
 481 crisis of change, may all come by way of nature, or worse still,
 482 be counterfeited by Satan.  The real witness of the spirit to the
 483 second birth is to be found only in the disposition of the
 484 genuine child of God, the permanently patient heart, the love of
 485 self eradicated.  And this, it has to be admitted, is also found
 486 in those who pass no crisis, and may even be found outside of
 487 Christianity altogether.</p>
 488
 489 </blockquote>
 490
 491 <ul>
 492 <li>Instant conversion is a natural result of exposing a person with a
 493 rich subconcious existence to religion and is merely one type of
 494 conversion</li>
 495 </ul>
 496
 497 <blockquote>
 498 <p class="quoted">
 499 Sharp distinctions are difficult in these regions, and Professor Coe's
 500 numbers are small.  But his methods were careful, and the results
 501 tally with what one might expect; and they seem, on the whole, to
 502 justify his practical conclusion, which is that if you should expose
 503 to a converting influence a subject in whom three factors unite:
 504 first, pronounced emotional sensibility; second, tendency to
 505 automatisms; and third, suggestibility of the passive type; you might
 506 then safely predict the result: there would be a sudden conversion, a
 507 transformation of the striking kind.</p>
 508
 509 </blockquote>
 510
 511 <ul>
 512 <li>Finishes with discussion of pre-conversion emotion
 513
 514 <ul>
 515 <li>Usually melancholy</li>
 516 <li>Disguist at sin</li>
 517 </ul></li>
 518 <li>Post Conversion feeling
 519
 520 <ul>
 521 <li>New self</li>
 522 <li>Clean</li>
 523 </ul></li>
 524 </ul>
 525
 526
 527 <h3><a name="sec8" id="sec8"></a>
 528 Lectures XI - XIII: Saintliness</h3>
 529
 530 <ul>
 531 <li>Descriptive assement of fruits of conversion
 532
 533 <ul>
 534 <li>general discussion of what causes differing character
 535
 536 <ul>
 537 <li>Impulse vs Inhibition
 538
 539 <ul>
 540 <li>Strong emotions shut down inhibition</li>
 541 </ul></li>
 542 </ul></li>
 543 <li>Application of general principles to the results of conversion
 544
 545 <ul>
 546 <li>Top over point -&gt; God works through Subliminal</li>
 547 <li>Ignore how the Subliminal works
 548
 549 <ul>
 550 <li>[It seems that this is done to avoid concluding that there is
 551 no god]</li>
 552 <li>[Minimization of importance of natural processes in
 553 post-convesion]</li>
 554 </ul></li>
 555 <li>Saintliness
 556
 557 <ul>
 558 <li>Four universal inner conditions</li>
 559 <li>Four results of the inner conditions</li>
 560 <li>EXAMPLES
 561
 562 <ul>
 563 <li>Prescence of a higher &amp; friendly power</li>
 564 <li>Charity (agape) love
 565
 566 <ul>
 567 <li>Charity not unique to theistic religions, therefore it
 568 should be seen as coordinate rather than subordinate to
 569 the topic of the lecture series (page 296)</li>
 570 </ul></li>
 571 <li>Inward Tranquillity
 572
 573 <ul>
 574 <li>Sombre constitution results in resignation and submission</li>
 575 <li>Cheerful constitution results in joyous consent</li>
 576 </ul></li>
 577 <li>Purity
 578
 579 <ul>
 580 <li>Internal discord leads to suffering</li>
 581 </ul></li>
 582 <li>Ascetecism
 583
 584 <ul>
 585 <li>result of extreme pursuit of purity</li>
 586 <li>List of sources of ascetic behavior</li>
 587 <li>Ascetecism in monks
 588
 589 <ul>
 590 <li>Obedience
 591
 592 <ul>
 593 <li>Low reasons
 594
 595 <ul>
 596 <li>Obedience expedient in ecclesiastical organizations</li>
 597 <li>External counsel at certain times is better than
 598 internal</li>
 599 </ul></li>
 600 <li>High Reason
 601
 602 <ul>
 603 <li>Inner softening</li>
 604 </ul></li>
 605 <li>Catholic view as sacrifice
 606
 607 <ul>
 608 <li>[quote p.274 &quot;sacrifice which man offers to God...&quot;]</li>
 609 <li>passages by member of the order of St Ignatius</li>
 610 </ul></li>
 611 </ul></li>
 612 <li>Poverty
 613
 614 <ul>
 615 <li>Things steal freedom, therefore a life of doing/being
 616 is superior</li>
 617 </ul></li>
 618 </ul></li>
 619 </ul></li>
 620 </ul></li>
 621 </ul></li>
 622 </ul></li>
 623 </ul></li>
 624 </ul>
 625
 626
 627 <h3><a name="sec9" id="sec9"></a>
 628 Lectures XIV-XV: The Value of Saintliness</h3>
 629
 630 <ul>
 631 <li>Critique of Saintliness
 632
 633 <ul>
 634 <li>Using empirical methods (unlike Catholics)
 635
 636 <ul>
 637 <li>Humans cannot differentiate between natural and supernatural
 638 effects</li>
 639 </ul></li>
 640 <li>(Defense of Methodology)
 641
 642 <ul>
 643 <li>Current religious views result of empiricism
 644
 645 <ul>
 646 <li>Rejection of former gods over time as they cease to serve our
 647 needs</li>
 648 </ul></li>
 649 <li>Must be skeptical (not unreasonably so however) of current
 650 beliefs
 651
 652 <ul>
 653 <li>Humans are fallible; admitting this brings us closer to truth
 654 by enabling discussion of flaws in beliefs</li>
 655 <li>Quite probably that no one religion is entirely correct</li>
 656 </ul></li>
 657 </ul></li>
 658 </ul></li>
 659 <li>Concerned with personal religious experiences, and not with
 660 instutitional religion [reiteration from second lecture]
 661
 662 <ul>
 663 <li>Ideas of a prophet -&gt; heterodoxy -&gt; heresy (if accepted by
 664 others) -&gt; orthodxy (if survives persection)
 665
 666 <ul>
 667 <li>Cycle then begins anew</li>
 668 </ul></li>
 669 <li>Religion itself cannot be blamed for evils committed</li>
 670 </ul></li>
 671 <li>Extreme Saintliness due to excess
 672
 673 <ul>
 674 <li>In men, excess is due to lack of balance, or excessively strong
 675 personality elements mixed with weak ones
 676
 677 <ul>
 678 <li>If all faculities are strong and cooperate one has a strong
 679 character rather than one plagued by excess</li>
 680 <li>Extremely saintly people have strong spiritual faculities, but
 681 deficient ability to perceive extravagane
 682
 683 <ul>
 684 <li>Leads to excessie self-denial</li>
 685 <li>Still useful as archetypes</li>
 686 </ul></li>
 687 </ul></li>
 688 </ul></li>
 689 <li>Four Virtues &amp; Unbalanced Forms
 690
 691 <ul>
 692 <li>Devoutness
 693
 694 <ul>
 695 <li>Fanatacism
 696
 697 <ul>
 698 <li>Strong character mixed with narrow mind</li>
 699 </ul></li>
 700 <li>Theopathy (cointed by WJ to describe excess devoutness)
 701
 702 <ul>
 703 <li>Excess of devotion with feeble mind</li>
 704 <li>Person becomes absorbed in inward love of/from God</li>
 705 </ul></li>
 706 </ul></li>
 707 <li>Purity
 708
 709 <ul>
 710 <li>Narrow mindedness results on love of God replacing all other
 711 love</li>
 712 <li>In aggressive types stamps external disorder from existence</li>
 713 <li>In passive types disorder is eliminated internall by secluding
 714 self
 715
 716 <ul>
 717 <li>Example: Lous of Gonzaga</li>
 718 <li>Such a life was seen as good in the 16th century, but in the
 719 early 20th was seen as repulsive due to secular changes (more
 720 value being placed on helping society than merely saving
 721 oneself)</li>
 722 </ul></li>
 723 </ul></li>
 724 <li>Charity / Tenderness
 725
 726 <ul>
 727 <li>Saintly 'Resist No Evil' versus Worldy Pragmatic Standpoint
 728
 729 <ul>
 730 <li>No simple answer</li>
 731 </ul></li>
 732 <li>Perfect conduct relation between actor, objects acted upon, and
 733 recipients of the action
 734
 735 <ul>
 736 <li>Best intentions fail when executed incorrectly or addressed
 737 to the wrong recipient</li>
 738 <li>Thus cannot judge charity by actor alone</li>
 739 </ul></li>
 740 <li>Saintly charity works in a perfect world
 741
 742 <ul>
 743 <li>Excessive in the World That Is</li>
 744 <li>Evil takes advantage of charity</li>
 745 <li>However, the world would be far worse without charitable
 746 people
 747
 748 <ul>
 749 <li>Treating others charitably inspires others to become
 750 better</li>
 751 <li>Exposure to an excessively charitable person softens a
 752 person</li>
 753 <li>Without this type all would lie in spiritual stagnation</li>
 754 </ul></li>
 755 <li>Therefore even excessive charity has value
 756
 757 <ul>
 758 <li>Force destroys enemies</li>
 759 <li>Prudence at best resists enemies</li>
 760 <li>Non-resistance / Charity turns enemies into friends</li>
 761 </ul></li>
 762 <li>Though excessive, the saint makes the world a better place
 763
 764 <ul>
 765 <li>Compare to Utopianists and Anarchists</li>
 766 </ul></li>
 767 </ul></li>
 768 </ul></li>
 769 <li>Ascetecism
 770
 771 <ul>
 772 <li>Virtue most prone to excess</li>
 773 <li>It seems at first those wo are excessively ascetic are still
 774 inwardly attached to the world
 775
 776 <ul>
 777 <li>If one were truly liberated he would not need excessive
 778 moritification</li>
 779 </ul></li>
 780 <li>Different view: Ascetic sees wrongs in the world, and rather
 781 than ignore them he conquers them internally
 782
 783 <ul>
 784 <li>One who does not fear Death seems strong</li>
 785 </ul></li>
 786 <li>Ascetecism is a profounder way of handling excistence than
 787 simple optimistic naturalism
 788
 789 <ul>
 790 <li>In the modern time, people should throw away useless
 791 asceticism and embrace useful aspects</li>
 792 <li>Attributes of early 20th century life and weakened churching
 793 breed weaker character
 794
 795 <ul>
 796 <li>Militarism used as a subtitute for religious ascetecism
 797
 798 <ul>
 799 <li>Poor subtitute
 800
 801 <ul>
 802 <li>Speaks to the base and brutish aspects of human nature</li>
 803 </ul></li>
 804 </ul></li>
 805 <li>Ascetic poverty much superior to militarism/war
 806
 807 <ul>
 808 <li>WJ believes it <strong>must</strong> be embraced to fight evils of the
 809 time [quote page 319-320]</li>
 810 <li>Desire to gain wealth breeds cowardice and corruption
 811
 812 <ul>
 813 <li>Wealthy man enslaved to riches</li>
 814 <li>Poor man lacks chains
 815 - Single attributes of saintliness are found in the non-religious
 816 - Combination of all forms is religious in nature
 817 - Flows from sense of divine order
 818 - Saintly person palces happiness internally rather than deriving
 819 from comfort
 820 - Saintly attributes mixed with narrow mind results in terrible
 821 excessive forms
 822 - We should not, however, place blame for narrow mindedness
 823 entirely on the individual
 824 - Essentials vs Accidents of saintliness
 825 - Dislike of Saintly character
 826 - Man traditionally worships strong leaders
 827 - Saints are weak and passive
 828 - Male vs Female nature [think Yin vs Yang]
 829 - Many suppose there is one ideal type of character
 830 - Empiricism rejects this as foolish
 831 - On the one hande the saintly character is better than the
 832 strongman becaue he is adapted to life in a perfect society
 833 - On the other in the real world he would be ill adapted
 834 - Mixture of the two characters useful [think Nietzsche's
 835 uebermensch or Taoist]
 836 - Saintly character has real value</li>
 837 </ul></li>
 838 </ul></li>
 839 </ul></li>
 840 </ul></li>
 841 </ul></li>
 842 </ul></li>
 843 </ul>
 844
 845
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 872
 873 <p class="cke-footer">    To Wise Man's Son and Wednesday's Child all is white that is not black
 874       They dance in symbiotic deadlock; one step forward two steps back
 875      Playing karmic snakes and ladders (All your sins will find you out)
 876      When all your gains are lost in vain on cosmic wings and roundabouts
 877 </p>
 878 <p class="cke-timestamp">Last Modified:
 879     January 21, 2013</p>
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