The Varieties of Religious Experience - Penn State University

The Varieties of Religious Experiencewould in time give me perfect health. Within ten days I was able toeat anything provided for others, and after two weeks I began tohave my own positive mental suggestions of Truth, which were tome like stepping-stones. I will note a few of them, they came abouttwo weeks apart.“1st. I am Soul, therefore it is well with me.“2d. I am Soul, therefore I am well.“3d. A sort of inner vision of myself as a four-footed beast with aprotuberance on every part of my body where I had suffering, withmy own face, begging me to acknowledge it as myself. I resolutelyfixed my attention on being well, and refused to even look at myold self in this form.“4th. Again the vision of the beast far in the background, with faintvoice. Again refusal to acknowledge.“5th. Once more the vision, but only of my eyes with the longinglook; and again the refusal. Then came the conviction, the innerconsciousness, that I was perfectly well and always had been, for Iwas Soul, an expression of God’s Perfect Thought. That was to methe perfect and completed separation between what I was and whatI appeared to be. I succeeded in never losing sight after this of myreal being, by constantly affirming this truth, and by degrees (thoughit took me two years of hard work to get there) I expressed healthcontinuously throughout my whole body.“In my subsequent nineteen years’ experience I have never knownthis Truth to fail when I applied it, though in my ignorance I haveoften failed to apply it, but through my failures I have learned thesimplicity and trustfulness of the little child.”But I fear that I risk tiring you by so many examples, and I mustlead you back to philosophic generalities again. You see already bysuch records of experience how impossible it is not to class mindcureas primarily a religious movement. Its doctrine of the oneness100