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
best thing is to describe the condition integrally as a characteristic
affection to which our nature is liable, a region in which we find
ourselves at home, a sea in which we swim; but not to pretend to explain
its parts by deriving them too cleverly from one another. Like love or
fear, the faith‐state is a natural psychic complex, and carries charity
with it by organic consequence. Jubilation is an expansive affection, and
all expansive affections are self‐forgetful and kindly so long as they
endure.
We find this the case even when they are pathological in origin. In his
instructive work, la Tristesse et la Joie,(161) M. Georges Dumas compares
together the melancholy and the joyous phase of circular insanity, and
shows that, while selfishness characterizes the one, the other is marked
by altruistic impulses. No human being so stingy and useless as was Marie
in her melancholy period! But the moment the happy period begins,
“sympathy and kindness become her characteristic sentiments. She displays
a universal goodwill, not only of intention, but in act.... She becomes
solicitous of the health of other patients, interested in getting them
out, desirous to procure wool to knit socks for some of them. Never since
she has been under my observation have I heard her in her joyous period
utter any but charitable opinions.”(162) And later, Dr. Dumas says of all
such joyous conditions that “unselfish sentiments and tender emotions are
the only affective states to be found in them. The subject’s mind is
closed against envy, hatred, and vindictiveness, and wholly transformed
into benevolence, indulgence, and mercy.”(163)
There is thus an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and
their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise.
Along with the happiness, this increase of tenderness is often noted in
narratives of conversion. “I began to work for others”;—“I had more tender
feeling for my family and friends”;—“I spoke at once to a person with whom
I had been angry”;—“I felt for every one, and loved my friends better”;—“I
felt every one to be my friend”;—these are so many expressions from the
records collected by Professor Starbuck.(164)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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