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[clinton/website/src/unknownlamer.org.git] / William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience.muse

* William James - [[http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/621][Varieties of Religious Experience]] (=In progress=)

;  - book version of lecture series
;  - large set of quotes with commentary
;    - Most are similar in nature (too many)
;    - Seemingly suspect in quality
;      - Always *perfectly* support his argument (selection process)
;      - Many accounts from personal correspondence
;    - Some are quite interesting
;         - Luther, Tolstoy, ...
;  - arguments a bit weak
;    - e.g. cites Freud as being true (Lecture X)
;    - Seems to take the (then new) discipline of psychology far too
;      seriously
;    - Uses questionable arguments
;      - Model of the subconcious (Lecture IX), etc.
;  - Depsite flaws still somewhat interesting
;    - Some quotations are interesting

The *Varieties of Religious Experience* is a set of twenty lectures on
religious experience from a psychological perspective. The quality of
the method used is a bit suspect, but my understanding is that it was
one of the first pyschological surveys of religion, and so could
perhaps be forgiven of a few flaws.

I found parts to be boring, and others to have flawed reasoning, but
with a few lectures that were interesting. At the very least the
lectures give a reasonable glimpse into the religous fashion of the
late 1800s. There is a small bit of social commentary thrown in that
is cited by John Gatto in his *Underground History of American
Education*, which is why I chose to read this.

** Lectures I and II

The first two lectures lay the groundwork for the lecture series. The
first covers a few views on what religious experience is, and gives
refutations (although not terribly good ones now, perhaps they were
seen as fine in the early 1900s) to a few deterministic theories. The
second lecture defines the scope of the topic to be covered, and
limits the definitions of religion and spirituality.

; Quote defintions of religion and spirituality
<quote>
Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall
mean for us *the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in
their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in
relation to whatever they may consider the divine*.  Since the
relation may be either moral, physical, or ritual, it is evident that
out of religion in the sense in which we take it, theologies,
philosophies, and ecclesiastical organizations may secondarily grow.
In these lectures, however, as I have already said, the immediate
personal experiences will amply fill our time, and we shall hardly
consider theology or ecclesiasticism at all.
</quote>

In the second lecture James's first extremely arbitrary distinction is
made; he compares the stoicism espoused by Marcus Aurelius to
Christian writings and draws what I think is a nonexistent difference
between the two. It is my opinion that the Stoic is just as religious
by James's definition as the Christian; the stoic merely sees the
Universe as his god and makes conformance to the natural order his
ideal. The Stoic actively embraces the natural order just as the
Christian actively loves his god; the difference is merely in whether
God is seen as a definite individual or not.

<quote>
If we compare stoic with Christian ejaculations we see much more
than a difference of doctrine; rather is it a difference of
emotional mood that parts them.  When Marcus Aurelius reflects on
the eternal reason that has ordered things, there is a frosty
chill about his words which you rarely find in a Jewish, and
never in a Christian piece of religious writing.  The universe is
"accepted" by all these writers; but how devoid of passion or
exultation the spirit of the Roman Emperor is!  Compare his fine
sentence:  "If gods care not for me or my children, here is a
reason for it," with Job's cry:  "Though he slay me, yet will I
trust in him!" and you immediately see the difference I mean. 
The anima mundi, to whose disposal of his own personal destiny
the Stoic consents, is there to be respected and submitted to,
but the Christian God is there to be loved; and the difference of
emotional atmosphere is like that between an arctic climate and
the tropics, though the outcome in the way of accepting actual
conditions uncomplainingly may seem in abstract terms to be much
the same.
</quote>

** Lecture III: "The Reality of the Unseen"

The third lecture consists of a brief overview of various
interpretations of the structure of the unseen world. An argument for
a dualistic universe is then given using a few passages on spiritual
encounters as supposed proof. James criticizes strict rationalism as
well.

<quote>
Nevertheless, if we look on man's whole mental life as it exists, on
the life of men that lies in them apart from their learning and
science, and that they inwardly and privately follow, we have to
confess that the part of it of which rationalism can give an account
is relatively superficial.  It is the part that has the prestige
undoubtedly, for it has the loquacity, it can challenge you for
proofs, and chop logic, and put you down with words.  But it will fail
to convince or convert you all the same, if your dumb intuitions are
opposed to its conclusions.  If you have intuitions at all, they come
from a deeper level of your nature than the loquacious level which
rationalism inhabits.  Your whole subconscious life, your impulses,
your faiths, your needs, your divinations, have prepared the premises,
of which your consciousness now feels the weight of the result; and
something in you absolutely *knows* that that result must be truer than
any logic-chopping rationalistic talk, however clever, that may
contradict it.  This inferiority of the rationalistic level in
founding belief is just as manifest when rationalism argues for
religion as when it argues against it.  That vast literature of proofs
of God's existence drawn from the order of nature, which a century ago
seemed so overwhelmingly convincing, to-day does little more than
gather dust in libraries, for the simple reason that our generation
has ceased to believe in the kind of God it argued for.  Whatever sort
of a being God may be, we *know* to-day that he is nevermore that mere
external inventor of "contrivances" intended to make manifest his
"glory" in which our great-grandfathers took such satisfaction, though
just how we know this we cannot possibly make clear by words either to
others or to ourselves.  I defy any of you here fully to account for
your persuasion that if a God exist he must be a more cosmic and
tragic personage than that Being.
</quote>

** Lectures IV and V: "The Religion of Healthy Mindedness"

Lecture IV is an interesting read and surveys a few positive minded
philosophies, but Lecture V focuses entirely on the *mind-cure*
movement. William James then gives a terrible argument for the
validity of *mind-cure*, and compares it to science while neglecting the
complete lack of objectivity in the methods of test the effects of
*mind-cure*.

<quote>
It is a deliberately optimistic scheme of life, with both a
speculative and a practical side.  In its gradual development during
the last quarter of a century, it has taken up into itself a number
of contributory elements, and it must now be reckoned with as a
genuine religious power.  It has reached the stage, for example, when
the demand for its literature is great enough for insincere stuff,
mechanically produced for the market, to be to a certain extent
supplied by publishers--a phenomenon never observed, I imagine, until
a religion has got well past its earliest insecure beginnings.

...

The plain fact remains that the spread of the movement has been
due to practical fruits, and the extremely practical turn of
character of the American people has never been better shown than
by the fact that this, their only decidedly original contribution
to the systematic philosophy of life, should be so intimately
knit up with concrete therapeutics.  To the importance of
mind-cure the medical and clerical professions in the United
States are beginning, though with much recalcitrancy and
protesting, to open their eyes.  It is evidently bound to develop
still farther, both speculatively and practically, and its latest
writers are far and away the ablest of the group. It matters
nothing that, just as there are hosts of persons who cannot pray,
so there are greater hosts who cannot by any possibility be
influenced by the mind-curers' ideas.  For our immediate purpose,
the important point is that so large a number should exist who 
*can* be so influenced.  They form a psychic type to be studied
with respect.
</quote>

The lectures are ended with an argument for the validity of *mind-cure*
that compares it directly to science with a clear anti-science bias.

<quote>
These are exceedingly trivial instances [*the first-hand accounts of
mind-cure working given in the lecture*], but in them, if we
have anything at all, we have the method of experiment and
verification.  For the point I am driving at now, it makes no
difference whether you consider the patients to be deluded
victims of their imagination or not.  That they seemed to
*themselves* to have been cured by the experiments tried was enough
to make them converts to the system.  And although it is evident
that one must be of a certain mental mould to get such results
(for not every one can get thus cured to his own satisfaction any
more than every one can be cured by the first regular
practitioner whom he calls in), yet it would surely be pedantic
and over-scrupulous for those who *can* get their savage and
primitive philosophy of mental healing verified in such
experimental ways as this, to give them up at word of command for
more scientific therapeutics.

What are we to think of all this?  Has science made too wide a
claim? 

I believe that the claims of the sectarian scientist are, to say
the least, premature.  The experiences which we have been
studying during this hour (and a great many other kinds of
religious experiences are like them) plainly show the universe to
be a more many-sided affair than any sect, even the scientific
sect, allows for.  What, in the end, are all our verifications
but experiences that agree with more or less isolated systems of
ideas (conceptual systems) that our minds have framed?  But why
in the name of common sense need we assume that only one such
system of ideas can be true?  The obvious outcome of our total
experience is that the world can be handled according to many
systems of ideas, and is so handled by different men, and will
each time give some characteristic kind of profit, for which he
cares, to the handler, while at the same time some other kind of
profit has to be omitted or postponed.  Science gives to all of
us telegraphy, electric lighting, and diagnosis, and succeeds in
preventing and curing a certain amount of disease. Religion in
the shape of mind-cure gives to some of us serenity, moral poise,
and happiness, and prevents certain forms of disease as well as
science does, or even better in a certain class of persons. 
Evidently, then, the science and the religion are both of them
genuine keys for unlocking the world's treasure-house to him who
can use either of them practically.  Just as evidently neither is
exhaustive or exclusive of the other's simultaneous use.  And
why, after all, may not the world be so complex as to consist of
many interpenetrating spheres of reality, which we can thus
approach in alternation by using different conceptions and
assuming different attitudes, just as mathematicians handle the
same numerical and spatial facts by geometry, by analytical 
geometry, by algebra, by the calculus, or by quaternions, and
each time come out right?  On this view religion and science,
each verified in its own way from hour to hour and from life to
life, would be co-eternal.  Primitive thought, with its belief in
individualized personal forces, seems at any rate as far as ever
from being driven by science from the field to-day.  Numbers of
educated people still find it the directest experimental channel
by which to carry on their intercourse with reality
</quote>

He draws a very strong conclusion that would be difficult to draw from
even quality evidence and objective trials; this drawn from subjective
personal accounts with no controlled testing method. A representative
example follows of his evidence follows.

<quote>
"One of my first experiences in applying my teaching was two
months after I first saw the healer.  I fell, spraining my right
ankle, which I had done once four years before, having then had
to use a crutch and elastic anklet for some months, and carefully
guarding it ever since.  As soon as I was on my feet I made the
positive suggestion (and felt it through all my being):  'There
is nothing but God, and all life comes from him perfectly.  I
cannot be sprained or hurt, I will let him take care of it.'
Well, I never had a sensation in it, and I walked two miles that
day."
</quote>

Ignoring any other problems in William James's argument, it is clear
that his conclusion is far too heavy to rest upon the evidence he has
chosen to use.

** Lectures VI and VII: "The Sick Soul"

The lectures on the Sick Soul are filled with rather weak quotations
(excepting a few short passages of Tolstoy). The reader is reminded
over and over how terrible and painful it is to be working through
these horrid expressions of melancholy which aren't really so
terrible.

James's view is that a state of melancholy is merely a transitional
stage that comes before a second mental birth occurs, and allows for a
deep religious belief to set in. Most of the remainder of the lecture
series is dedicated to analyzing the mind of the Second Born which he
sees are far deeper spiritually than the simple positive Once Born
type (depsite his previous praise of *mind-cure*).

** Lecture VIII: "The Divided Self, and the Process of Its Unificiation"

Here the lectures return to things mildly interesting with an overview
of heterogenous personalities and a few passages on unificiation of
conflicting desires. James splits unificiations into gradual and
sudden ones giving examples of each. This lecture is the bridge
between lectures V through VII and the material on conversion.

** Lectures IX and X: "Conversion"

; IX
 - conversion allows for unification of divided self
 - Definition of Association
 - Conversion is sudden change of *the habitual center of  personal energy*
 - Examples of conversion
   - Common people, stereotypical conversion types
   - Seemingly of suspect quality
 - Note of the trouble of not being able to be religious
   - Painted in a negative light!
; X
 - Focus on instantaneous conversion
   - Give prototypical example

<quote>
"Coming out of the cafe I met the carriage of Monsieur B. [the
proselyting friend].  He stopped and invited me in for a drive,
but first asked me to wait for a few minutes whilst he attended
to some duty at the church of San Andrea delle Fratte.  Instead
of waiting in the carriage, I entered the church myself to look
at it.  The church of San Andrea was poor, small, and empty; I
believe that I found myself there almost alone.  No work of art
attracted my attention; and I passed my eyes mechanically over
its interior without being arrested by any particular thought.  I
can only remember an entirely black dog which went trotting and
turning before me as I mused.  In an instant the dog had
disappeared, the whole church had vanished, I no longer saw
anything, . . . or more truly I saw, O my God, one thing alone. 
"Heavens, how can I speak of it?  Oh no! human words cannot
attain to expressing the inexpressible.  Any description, however
sublime it might be, could be but a profanation of the
unspeakable truth.

"I was there prostrate on the ground, bathed in my tears, with my
heart beside itself, when M. B. called me back to life.  I could
not reply to the questions which followed from him one upon the
other.  But finally I took the medal which I had on my breast,
and with all the effusion of my soul I kissed the image of the
Virgin, radiant with grace, which it bore.  Oh, indeed, it was
She! It was indeed She! [What he had seen had been a vision of
the Virgin.]

"I did not know where I was:  I did not know whether I was
Alphonse or another.  I only felt myself changed and believed
myself another me; I looked for myself in myself and did not find
myself.  In the bottom of my soul I felt an explosion of the most
ardent joy; I could not speak; I had no wish to reveal what had
happened.  But I felt something solemn and sacred within me which
made me ask for a priest.  I was led to one; and there alone,
after he had given me the positive order, I spoke as best I
could, kneeling, and with my heart still trembling.  I could give
no account to myself of the truth of which I had acquired a
knowledge and a faith.  All that I can say is that in an instant
the bandage had fallen from my eyes, and not one bandage only,
but the whole manifold of bandages in which I had been brought
up.  One after another they rapidly disappeared, even as the mud
and ice disappear under the rays of the burning sun."
</quote>

  - Notes recent protestant phenomemon of instantaneous conversion
  - Gives psychological explanation for instant conversion
    - Field of conciousness
    - Subconcious on margin
      - Subconcious life can affect concious existance
      - Note: cites Freud & friends as reliable

<quote>
In the wonderful explorations by Binet, Janet, Breuer, Freud,
Mason, Prince, and others, of the subliminal consciousness of
patients with hysteria, we have revealed to us whole systems of
underground life, in the shape of memories of a painful sort
which lead a parasitic existence, buried outside of the primary
fields of consciousness, and making irruptions thereinto with
hallucinations, pains, convulsions, paralyses of feeling and of
motion, and the whole procession of symptoms of hysteric disease
of body and of mind.  Alter or abolish by suggestion these
subconscious memories, and the patient immediately gets well. 
His symptoms were automatisms, in Mr. Myers's sense of the word. 
These clinical records sound like fairy-tales when one first
reads them, yet it is impossible to doubt their accuracy; and,
the path having been once opened by these first observers,
similar observations have been made elsewhere.  They throw, as I
said, a wholly new light upon our natural constitution.
</quote>

   - Conversion is a transfer of energies from the subconcious
     - Changes center of focus in the field of conciousness
 - Disproves religious nature of instant conversion argument
   - Notes that there are no discernable differences between instant
     converts and slow converts

<quote>
The believers in the non-natural character of sudden conversion
have had practically to admit that there is no unmistakable
class-mark distinctive of all true converts.  The super-normal
incidents, such as voices and visions and overpowering
impressions of the meaning of suddenly presented scripture texts,
the melting emotions and tumultuous affections connected with the
crisis of change, may all come by way of nature, or worse still,
be counterfeited by Satan.  The real witness of the spirit to the
second birth is to be found only in the disposition of the
genuine child of God, the permanently patient heart, the love of
self eradicated.  And this, it has to be admitted, is also found
in those who pass no crisis, and may even be found outside of
Christianity altogether.
</quote>

 - Instant conversion is a natural result of exposing a person with a
   rich subconcious existence to religion and is merely one type of
   conversion

<quote>
Sharp distinctions are difficult in these regions, and Professor Coe's
numbers are small.  But his methods were careful, and the results
tally with what one might expect; and they seem, on the whole, to
justify his practical conclusion, which is that if you should expose
to a converting influence a subject in whom three factors unite:
first, pronounced emotional sensibility; second, tendency to
automatisms; and third, suggestibility of the passive type; you might
then safely predict the result: there would be a sudden conversion, a
transformation of the striking kind.
</quote>

 - Finishes with discussion of pre-conversion emotion
   - Usually melancholy
   - Disguist at sin
 - Post Conversion feeling
   - New self
   - Clean

** Lectures XI - XIII: Saintliness

 - Descriptive assement of fruits of conversion
   - general discussion of what causes differing character
     - Impulse vs Inhibition
       - Strong emotions shut down inhibition
   - Application of general principles to the results of conversion
     - Top over point -> God works through Subliminal
     - Ignore how the Subliminal works
       - [It seems that this is done to avoid concluding that there is
         no god]
       - [Minimization of importance of natural processes in
         post-convesion]
     - Saintliness
       - Four universal inner conditions
       - Four results of the inner conditions
       - EXAMPLES
         - Prescence of a higher & friendly power
         - Charity (agape) love
           - Charity not unique to theistic religions, therefore it
             should be seen as coordinate rather than subordinate to
             the topic of the lecture series (page 296)
         - Inward Tranquillity
           - Sombre constitution results in resignation and submission
           - Cheerful constitution results in joyous consent
         - Purity
           - Internal discord leads to suffering
         - Ascetecism
           - result of extreme pursuit of purity
           - List of sources of ascetic behavior
           - Ascetecism in monks
             - Obedience
               - Low reasons
                 - Obedience expedient in ecclesiastical organizations
                 - External counsel at certain times is better than
                   internal
               - High Reason
                 - Inner softening
               - Catholic view as sacrifice
                 - [quote p.274 "sacrifice which man offers to God..."]
                 - passages by member of the order of St Ignatius
             - Poverty
               - Things steal freedom, therefore a life of doing/being
                 is superior

** Lectures XIV-XV: The Value of Saintliness

 - Critique of Saintliness
   - Using empirical methods (unlike Catholics)
     - Humans cannot differentiate between natural and supernatural
       effects
   - (Defense of Methodology)
     - Current religious views result of empiricism
       - Rejection of former gods over time as they cease to serve our
         needs
     - Must be skeptical (not unreasonably so however) of current
       beliefs
       - Humans are fallible; admitting this brings us closer to truth
         by enabling discussion of flaws in beliefs
       - Quite probably that no one religion is entirely correct
 - Concerned with personal religious experiences, and not with
   instutitional religion [reiteration from second lecture]
   - Ideas of a prophet -> heterodoxy -> heresy (if accepted by
     others) -> orthodxy (if survives persection)
     - Cycle then begins anew
   - Religion itself cannot be blamed for evils committed
 - Extreme Saintliness due to excess
   - In men, excess is due to lack of balance, or excessively strong
     personality elements mixed with weak ones
     - If all faculities are strong and cooperate one has a strong
       character rather than one plagued by excess
     - Extremely saintly people have strong spiritual faculities, but
       deficient ability to perceive extravagane
       - Leads to excessie self-denial
       - Still useful as archetypes
 - Four Virtues & Unbalanced Forms
   - Devoutness
     - Fanatacism
       - Strong character mixed with narrow mind
     - Theopathy (cointed by WJ to describe excess devoutness)
       - Excess of devotion with feeble mind
       - Person becomes absorbed in inward love of/from God
   - Purity
     - Narrow mindedness results on love of God replacing all other
       love
     - In aggressive types stamps external disorder from existence
     - In passive types disorder is eliminated internall by secluding
       self
       - Example: Lous of Gonzaga
       - Such a life was seen as good in the 16th century, but in the
         early 20th was seen as repulsive due to secular changes (more
         value being placed on helping society than merely saving
         oneself)
   - Charity / Tenderness
     - Saintly 'Resist No Evil' versus Worldy Pragmatic Standpoint
       - No simple answer
     - Perfect conduct relation between actor, objects acted upon, and
       recipients of the action
       - Best intentions fail when executed incorrectly or addressed
         to the wrong recipient
       - Thus cannot judge charity by actor alone
     - Saintly charity works in a perfect world
       - Excessive in the World That Is
       - Evil takes advantage of charity
       - However, the world would be far worse without charitable
         people
         - Treating others charitably inspires others to become
           better
         - Exposure to an excessively charitable person softens a
           person
         - Without this type all would lie in spiritual stagnation
       - Therefore even excessive charity has value
         - Force destroys enemies
         - Prudence at best resists enemies
         - Non-resistance / Charity turns enemies into friends
       - Though excessive, the saint makes the world a better place
         - Compare to Utopianists and Anarchists
   - Ascetecism
     - Virtue most prone to excess
     - It seems at first those wo are excessively ascetic are still
       inwardly attached to the world
       - If one were truly liberated he would not need excessive
         moritification
     - Different view: Ascetic sees wrongs in the world, and rather
       than ignore them he conquers them internally
       - One who does not fear Death seems strong
     - Ascetecism is a profounder way of handling excistence than
       simple optimistic naturalism
       - In the modern time, people should throw away useless
         asceticism and embrace useful aspects
       - Attributes of early 20th century life and weakened churching
         breed weaker character
         - Militarism used as a subtitute for religious ascetecism
           - Poor subtitute
             - Speaks to the base and brutish aspects of human nature
         - Ascetic poverty much superior to militarism/war
           - WJ believes it **must** be embraced to fight evils of the
             time [quote page 319-320]
           - Desire to gain wealth breeds cowardice and corruption
             - Wealthy man enslaved to riches
             - Poor man lacks chains
  - Single attributes of saintliness are found in the non-religious
    - Combination of all forms is religious in nature
      - Flows from sense of divine order
  - Saintly person palces happiness internally rather than deriving
    from comfort
  - Saintly attributes mixed with narrow mind results in terrible
    excessive forms
    - We should not, however, place blame for narrow mindedness
      entirely on the individual
      - Essentials vs Accidents of saintliness
  - Dislike of Saintly character
    - Man traditionally worships strong leaders
    - Saints are weak and passive
    - Male vs Female nature [think Yin vs Yang]
  - Many suppose there is one ideal type of character
    - Empiricism rejects this as foolish
    - On the one hande the saintly character is better than the
      strongman becaue he is adapted to life in a perfect society
    - On the other in the real world he would be ill adapted
    - Mixture of the two characters useful [think Nietzsche's
      uebermensch or Taoist]
  - Saintly character has real value