1 <?xml version=
"1.0" encoding=
"utf-8" ?>
2 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC
"-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
3 "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
4 <html xmlns=
"http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
6 <title>William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience
</title>
7 <meta name=
"generator" content=
"muse.el" />
8 <meta http-equiv=
"Content-Type"
9 content=
"text/html; charset=utf-8" />
10 <link rel=
"stylesheet" href=
"default.css" media=
"screen" />
13 <h1>William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience
</h1>
14 <div class=
"contents">
17 <a href=
"#sec1">William James - Varieties of Religious Experience (
<code>In progress
</code>)
</a>
22 <a href=
"#sec2">Lectures I and II
</a>
25 <a href=
"#sec3">Lecture III:
&quot;The Reality of the Unseen
&quot;
</a>
28 <a href=
"#sec4">Lectures IV and V:
&quot;The Religion of Healthy Mindedness
&quot;
</a>
31 <a href=
"#sec5">Lectures VI and VII:
&quot;The Sick Soul
&quot;
</a>
34 <a href=
"#sec6">Lecture VIII:
&quot;The Divided Self, and the Process of Its Unificiation
&quot;
</a>
37 <a href=
"#sec7">Lectures IX and X:
&quot;Conversion
&quot;
</a>
40 <a href=
"#sec8">Lectures XI - XIII: Saintliness
</a>
43 <a href=
"#sec9">Lectures XIV-XV: The Value of Saintliness
</a>
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>
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>
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>
84 <h3><a name=
"sec2" id=
"sec2"></a>
85 Lectures I and II
</h3>
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>
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>
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>
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 "accepted
" by all these writers; but how devoid of passion or
129 exultation the spirit of the Roman Emperor is! Compare his fine
130 sentence:
"If gods care not for me or my children, here is a
131 reason for it,
" with Job's cry:
"Though he slay me, yet will I
132 trust in him!
" 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
144 <h3><a name=
"sec3" id=
"sec3"></a>
145 Lecture III:
&quot;The Reality of the Unseen
&quot;
</h3>
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
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
"contrivances
" intended to make manifest his
179 "glory
" 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>
188 <h3><a name=
"sec4" id=
"sec4"></a>
189 Lectures IV and V:
&quot;The Religion of Healthy Mindedness
&quot;
</h3>
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>
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
—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
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>
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
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>
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>
300 "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
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
318 <h3><a name=
"sec5" id=
"sec5"></a>
319 Lectures VI and VII:
&quot;The Sick Soul
&quot;
</h3>
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
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>
335 <h3><a name=
"sec6" id=
"sec6"></a>
336 Lecture VIII:
&quot;The Divided Self, and the Process of Its Unificiation
&quot;
</h3>
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>
345 <h3><a name=
"sec7" id=
"sec7"></a>
346 Lectures IX and X:
&quot;Conversion
&quot;
</h3>
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
356 <li>Common people, stereotypical conversion types
</li>
357 <li>Seemingly of suspect quality
</li>
359 <li>Note of the trouble of not being able to be religious
362 <li>Painted in a negative light!
</li>
365 <li>Focus on instantaneous conversion
368 <li>Give prototypical example
</li>
374 "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 "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">"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
399 <p class=
"quoted">"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.
"</p>
418 <li>Notes recent protestant phenomemon of instantaneous conversion
</li>
419 <li>Gives psychological explanation for instant conversion
422 <li>Field of conciousness
</li>
423 <li>Subconcious on margin
426 <li>Subconcious life can affect concious existance
</li>
427 <li>Note: cites Freud
& friends as reliable
</li>
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>
454 <li>Conversion is a transfer of energies from the subconcious
457 <li>Changes center of focus in the field of conciousness
460 <li>Disproves religious nature of instant conversion argument
</li>
463 <li>Notes that there are no discernable differences between instant
464 converts and slow converts
</li>
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>
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
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>
506 <li>Finishes with discussion of pre-conversion emotion
509 <li>Usually melancholy
</li>
510 <li>Disguist at sin
</li>
512 <li>Post Conversion feeling
521 <h3><a name=
"sec8" id=
"sec8"></a>
522 Lectures XI - XIII: Saintliness
</h3>
525 <li>Descriptive assement of fruits of conversion
528 <li>general discussion of what causes differing character
531 <li>Impulse vs Inhibition
534 <li>Strong emotions shut down inhibition
</li>
537 <li>Application of general principles to the results of conversion
540 <li>Top over point -
> God works through Subliminal
</li>
541 <li>Ignore how the Subliminal works
544 <li>[It seems that this is done to avoid concluding that there is
546 <li>[Minimization of importance of natural processes in
552 <li>Four universal inner conditions
</li>
553 <li>Four results of the inner conditions
</li>
557 <li>Prescence of a higher
& friendly power
</li>
558 <li>Charity (agape) love
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>
565 <li>Inward Tranquillity
568 <li>Sombre constitution results in resignation and submission
</li>
569 <li>Cheerful constitution results in joyous consent
</li>
574 <li>Internal discord leads to suffering
</li>
579 <li>result of extreme pursuit of purity
</li>
580 <li>List of sources of ascetic behavior
</li>
581 <li>Ascetecism in monks
590 <li>Obedience expedient in ecclesiastical organizations
</li>
591 <li>External counsel at certain times is better than
597 <li>Inner softening
</li>
599 <li>Catholic view as sacrifice
602 <li>[quote p
.274 "sacrifice which man offers to God...
"]
</li>
603 <li>passages by member of the order of St Ignatius
</li>
609 <li>Things steal freedom, therefore a life of doing/being
621 <h3><a name=
"sec9" id=
"sec9"></a>
622 Lectures XIV-XV: The Value of Saintliness
</h3>
625 <li>Critique of Saintliness
628 <li>Using empirical methods (unlike Catholics)
631 <li>Humans cannot differentiate between natural and supernatural
634 <li>(Defense of Methodology)
637 <li>Current religious views result of empiricism
640 <li>Rejection of former gods over time as they cease to serve our
643 <li>Must be skeptical (not unreasonably so however) of current
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>
653 <li>Concerned with personal religious experiences, and not with
654 instutitional religion [reiteration from second lecture]
657 <li>Ideas of a prophet -
> heterodoxy -
> heresy (if accepted by
658 others) -
> orthodxy (if survives persection)
661 <li>Cycle then begins anew
</li>
663 <li>Religion itself cannot be blamed for evils committed
</li>
665 <li>Extreme Saintliness due to excess
668 <li>In men, excess is due to lack of balance, or excessively strong
669 personality elements mixed with weak ones
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
678 <li>Leads to excessie self-denial
</li>
679 <li>Still useful as archetypes
</li>
683 <li>Four Virtues
& Unbalanced Forms
692 <li>Strong character mixed with narrow mind
</li>
694 <li>Theopathy (cointed by WJ to describe excess devoutness)
697 <li>Excess of devotion with feeble mind
</li>
698 <li>Person becomes absorbed in inward love of/from God
</li>
704 <li>Narrow mindedness results on love of God replacing all other
706 <li>In aggressive types stamps external disorder from existence
</li>
707 <li>In passive types disorder is eliminated internall by secluding
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
718 <li>Charity / Tenderness
721 <li>Saintly 'Resist No Evil' versus Worldy Pragmatic Standpoint
724 <li>No simple answer
</li>
726 <li>Perfect conduct relation between actor, objects acted upon, and
727 recipients of the action
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>
734 <li>Saintly charity works in a perfect world
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
743 <li>Treating others charitably inspires others to become
745 <li>Exposure to an excessively charitable person softens a
747 <li>Without this type all would lie in spiritual stagnation
</li>
749 <li>Therefore even excessive charity has value
752 <li>Force destroys enemies
</li>
753 <li>Prudence at best resists enemies
</li>
754 <li>Non-resistance / Charity turns enemies into friends
</li>
756 <li>Though excessive, the saint makes the world a better place
759 <li>Compare to Utopianists and Anarchists
</li>
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
771 <li>If one were truly liberated he would not need excessive
774 <li>Different view: Ascetic sees wrongs in the world, and rather
775 than ignore them he conquers them internally
778 <li>One who does not fear Death seems strong
</li>
780 <li>Ascetecism is a profounder way of handling excistence than
781 simple optimistic naturalism
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
790 <li>Militarism used as a subtitute for religious ascetecism
796 <li>Speaks to the base and brutish aspects of human nature
</li>
799 <li>Ascetic poverty much superior to militarism/war
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
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
814 - Saintly attributes mixed with narrow mind results in terrible
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>
841 <!-- Page published by Emacs Muse ends here -->
843 <p class=
"cke-buttons">
844 <!-- validating badges, any browser, etc -->
845 <a href=
"http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img
846 src=
"http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-xhtml10"
847 alt=
"Valid XHTML 1.0!" /></a>
849 <a href=
"http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/"><img
850 src=
"img/buttons/w3c_ab.png" alt=
"[ Viewable With Any Browser
853 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/"><img
854 src=
"img/buttons/debian.png" alt=
"[ Powered by Debian ]" /></a>
856 <a href=
"http://hcoop.net/">
857 <img src=
"img/buttons/hcoop.png"
858 alt=
"[ Hosted by HCoop]" />
861 <a href=
"http://www.fsf.org/register_form?referrer=114">
862 <img src=
"img/buttons/fsf_member.png"
863 alt=
"[ FSF Associate Member ]" />
867 <p class=
"cke-footer"> To set your mind free you must first just listen
868 Don't waste your life on worthless hate and contradiction
870 <p class=
"cke-timestamp">Last Modified: