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
We shall erelong hear still more remarkable illustrations of
subconsciously maturing processes eventuating in results of which we
suddenly grow conscious. Sir William Hamilton and Professor Laycock of
Edinburgh were among the first to call attention to this class of effects;
but Dr. Carpenter first, unless I am mistaken, introduced the term
“unconscious cerebration,” which has since then been a popular phrase of
explanation. The facts are now known to us far more extensively than he
could know them, and the adjective “unconscious,” being for many of them
almost certainly a misnomer, is better replaced by the vaguer term
“subconscious” or “subliminal.”
Of the volitional type of conversion it would be easy to give
examples,(110) but they are as a rule less interesting than those of the
self‐surrender type, in which the subconscious effects are more abundant
and often startling. I will therefore hurry to the latter, the more so
because the difference between the two types is after all not radical.
Even in the most voluntarily built‐up sort of regeneration there are
passages of partial self‐surrender interposed; and in the great majority
of all cases, when the will has done its uttermost towards bringing one
close to the complete unification aspired after, it seems that the very
last step must be left to other forces and performed without the help of
its activity. In other words, self‐surrender becomes then indispensable.
“The personal will,” says Dr. Starbuck, “must be given up. In many cases
relief persistently refuses to come until the person ceases to resist, or
to make an effort in the direction he desires to go.”
“I had said I would not give up; but when my will was broken, it
was all over,” writes one of Starbuck’s correspondents.—Another
says: “I simply said: ‘Lord, I have done all I can; I leave the
whole matter with Thee;’ and immediately there came to me a great
peace.”—Another: “All at once it occurred to me that I might be
saved, too, if I would stop trying to do it all myself, and follow
Jesus: somehow I lost my load.”—Another: “I finally ceased to
resist, and gave myself up, though it was a hard struggle.
Gradually the feeling came over me that I had done my part, and
God was willing to do his.”(111)—“Lord, Thy will be done; damn or
save!” cries John Nelson,(112) exhausted with the anxious struggle
to escape damnation; and at that moment his soul was filled with
peace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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