The Varieties of Religious Experience - Penn State University

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The Varieties of Religious Experience“My peace would be in and out twenty times a day; comfort nowand trouble presently; peace now and before I could go a furlong asfull of guilt and fear as ever heart could hold.” When a good textcomes home to him, “This,” he writes, “gave me good encouragementfor the space of two or three hours”; or “This was a good dayto me, I hope I shall not forget it”, or “The glory of these words wasthen so weighty on me that I was ready to swoon as I sat; yet, notwith grief and trouble, but with solid joy and peace”; or “This madea strange seizure on my spirit; it brought light with it, and commandeda silence in my heart of all those tumultuous thoughts thatbefore did use, like masterless hell-hounds, to roar and bellow andmake a hideous noise within me. It showed me that Jesus Christhad not quite forsaken and cast off my Soul.”Such periods accumulate until he can write: “And now remainedonly the hinder part of the tempest, for the thunder was gone beyondme, only some drops would still remain, that now and thenwould fall upon me”;—and at last: “Now did my chains fall off mylegs indeed; I was loosed from my afflictions and irons; my temptationsalso fled away; so that from that time, those dreadful Scripturesof God left off to trouble me; now went I also home rejoicing,for the grace and love of God… . Now could I see myself in Heavenand Earth at once; in Heaven by my Christ, by my Head, by myRighteousness and Life, though on Earth by my body or person…. Christ was a precious Christ to my soul that night; I could scarcelie in my bed for joy and peace and triumph through Christ.”Bunyan became a minister of the gospel, and in spite of his neuroticconstitution, and of the twelve years he lay in prison for hisnon-conformity, his life was turned to active use. He was a peacemakerand doer of good, and the immortal Allegory which he wrotehas brought the very spirit of religious patience home to Englishhearts.But neither Bunyan nor Tolstoy could become what we have calledhealthy-minded. They had drunk too deeply of the cup of bitternessever to forget its taste, and their redemption is into a universetwo stories deep. Each of them realized a good which broke theeffective edge of his sadness; yet the sadness was preserved as a minoringredient in the heart of the faith by which it was overcome.172
William JamesThe fact of interest for us is that as a matter of fact they could anddid find something welling up in the inner reaches of their consciousness,by which such extreme sadness could be overcome. Tolstoydoes well to talk of it as that by which men live; for that is exactlywhat it is, a stimulus, an excitement, a faith, a force that re-infusesthe positive willingness to live, even in full presence of the evil perceptionsthat erewhile made life seem unbearable. For Tolstoy’s perceptionsof evil appear within their sphere to have remained unmodified.His later works show him implacable to the whole system ofofficial values: the ignobility of fashionable life; the infamies of empire;the spuriousness of the church, the vain conceit of the professions;the meannesses and cruelties that go with great success; andevery other pompous crime and lying institution of this world. To allpatience with such things his experience has been for him a perroanentministry of death.Bunyan also leaves this world to the enemy.“I must first pass a sentence of death,” he says, “upon everythingthat can properly be called a thing of this life, even to reckon myself,my wife, my children, my health, my enjoyments, and all, asdead to me, and myself as dead to them; to trust in God throughChrist, as touching the world to come, and as touching this world,to count the grave my house, to make my bed in darkness, and tosay to corruption, Thou art my father and to the worm, Thou artmy mother and sister… . The parting with my wife and my poorchildren hath often been to me as the pulling of my flesh from mybones, especially my poor blind child who lay nearer my heart thanall I had besides. Poor child, thought I, what sorrow art thou like tohave for thy portion in this world! Thou must be beaten, must beg,suffer hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand calamities, though Icannot now endure that the wind should blow upon thee. But yet Imust venture you all with God, though it goeth to the quick toleave you.”97The “hue of resolution” is there, but the full flood of ecstatic liberationseems never to have poured over poor John Bunyan’s soul.97 In my quotations from Bunyan I have omitted certain interveningportions of the text.173
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The Varieties ofReligiousExperience
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ContentsPREFACE....................
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William JamesLECTURE II CIRCUMSCRIP
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William JamesLECTURES XI, XII, AND
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William Jameseses: 1. The subconsci
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William Jamesmy colleague Dickinson
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William Jamesits heroic obligations
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William Jamesas a guide to life and
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William Jamespower. Yet from the po
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William Jamesthors are actually abl
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William Jamesin favor of the sexual
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William Jamesof our states of mind,
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William Jamesstrictly to the medica
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William Jamesment from origin has s
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William Jamesthe bugaboo of morbid
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William Jamesreligious evolution. T
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William JamesLecture e IICIRCUMSCRI
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William Jamesnot prevent me from ta
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