The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human NatureJames, William
ReligionComparative
The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature
James, William
Conversion; Experience (Religion); Philosophy and religion; Psychology, Religious; Religion
forgotten, the continued course of his life, but the final result
was, that he more than recovered his lost possessions, and died an
inveterate miser, worth £60,000.”(94)
Let me turn now to the kind of case, the religious case, namely, that
immediately concerns us. Here is one of the simplest possible type, an
account of the conversion to the systematic religion of healthy‐mindedness
of a man who must already have been naturally of the healthy‐minded type.
It shows how, when the fruit is ripe, a touch will make it fall.
Mr. Horace Fletcher, in his little book called Menticulture, relates that
a friend with whom he was talking of the self‐control attained by the
Japanese through their practice of the Buddhist discipline said:—
“ ‘You must first get rid of anger and worry.’ ‘But,’ said I, ‘is
that possible?’ ‘Yes,’ replied he; ‘it is possible to the
Japanese, and ought to be possible to us.’
“On my way back I could think of nothing else but the words ‘get
rid, get rid’; and the idea must have continued to possess me
during my sleeping hours, for the first consciousness in the
morning brought back the same thought, with the revelation of a
discovery, which framed itself into the reasoning, ‘If it is
possible to get rid of anger and worry, why is it necessary to
have them at all?’ I felt the strength of the argument, and at
once accepted the reasoning. The baby had discovered that it could
walk. It would scorn to creep any longer.
“From the instant I realized that these cancer spots of worry and
anger were removable, they left me. With the discovery of their
weakness they were exorcised. From that time life has had an
entirely different aspect.
“Although from that moment the possibility and desirability of
freedom from the depressing passions has been a reality to me, it
took me some months to feel absolute security in my new position;
but, as the usual occasions for worry and anger have presented
themselves over and over again, and I have been unable to feel
them in the slightest degree, I no longer dread or guard against
them, and I am amazed at my increased energy and vigor of mind; at
my strength to meet situations of all kinds, and at my disposition
to love and appreciate everything.
“I have had occasion to travel more than ten thousand miles by
rail since that morning. The same Pullman porter, conductor,
hotel‐waiter, peddler, book‐agent, cabman, and others who were
formerly a source of annoyance and irritation have been met, but I
am not conscious of a single incivility. All at once the whole
world has turned good to me. I have become, as it were, sensitive
only to the rays of good.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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