The Varieties of Religious Experience - Penn State University

William Jameseffectively to direct the mind, the New Thought advises the practiceof concentration, or in other words, the attainment of self-control.One is to learn to marshal the tendencies of the mind, so that theymay be held together as a unit by the chosen ideal. To this end, oneshould set apart times for silent meditation, by one’s self, preferablyin a room where the surroundings are favorable to spiritual thought.In New Thought terms, this is called ‘entering the silence.’”59“The time will come when in the busy office or on the noisy streetyou can enter into the silence by simply drawing the mantle of yourown thoughts about you and realizing that there and everywherethe Spirit of Infinite Life, Love, Wisdom, Peace, Power, and Plentyis guiding, keeping, protecting, leading you. This is the spirit ofcontinual prayer.60 One of the most intuitive men we ever met hada desk at a city office where several other gentlemen were doingbusiness constantly, and often talking loudly. Entirely undisturbedby the many various sounds about him, this self-centred faithfulman would, in any moment of perplexity, draw the curtains of privacyso completely about him that he would be as fully inclosed inhis own psychic aura, and thereby as effectually removed from alldistractions, as though he were alone in some primeval wood. Takinghis difficulty with him into the mystic silence in the form of adirect question, to which he expected a certain answer, he wouldremain utterly passive until the reply came, and never once throughmany years’ experience did he find himself disappointed or misled.”61Wherein, I should like to know, does this intrinsically differ fromthe practice of “recollection” which plays so great a part in Catholicdiscipline? Otherwise called the practice of the presence of God(and so known among ourselves, as for instance in Jeremy Taylor),it is thus defined by the eminent teacher Alvarez de Paz in his workon Contemplation.“It is the recollection of God, the thought of God, which in allplaces and circumstances makes us see him present, lets us commune59 Dresser: Voices of Freedom, 33.60 Trine: In Tune with the Infinite, p. 214.61 Trine: p. 117.109