From William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) at pages 393:
…there appears to be a certain uniform deliverance in which religions all appear to meet. It consists of two parts: 1. An uneasiness; and 2. Its solution.
1. The uneasiness, reduced to its simplest terms, is a sense that there is something wrong about us as we naturally stand.
2. The solution is a sense that we are saved from the wrongness by making proper connection with the higher powers.”
From William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) at pages 377, 386, 388, 391, 396, 398, 401 :
[377]Summing up in the broadest possible way the characteristics of the religious life, as we have found them, it includes the following beliefs:
1. That the visible world is part of a more spiritual universe from which it draws its chief significance.
2. That union or harmonious relation with that higher universe is our true end; 3. That prayer or inner communion with the spirit thereof – be that spirit God or law – is a process wherein work is really done, and spiritual energy flows in and produces effects, psychological or material, within the phenomenal world. Religion includes also the following psychological characteristics: – 4. A new zest which adds itself like a gift to life, and takes the form either of lyrical enchantment or of appeal to earnestness and heroism. 5. An assurance of safety and a temper of peace, and, in relation to others, a preponderance of loving affections.
From Williams James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) at page 508:
That there is something wrong about us as we naturally stand” nan
by Mark I. Vuletic (hume@vuletic.com)///This paper will describe William James’s account of the subconscious and explain what relation James believes the subconscious bears to mystical experiences.///Consciousness and the Subconscious///In Chapter 10 of The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James introduces the notion of the “field of consciousness.” An agent’s field of consciousness is his “total mental state, the entire wave of consciousness or field of objects present to [his] thought at any time”(James, 1902, 231). The field consists of every idea or perception – whether lucid or hazy – that the agent is aware of at each point in time. Mental objects are situated in the field according to how directly the idea is perceived – ideas and perceptions at the forefront of one’s mind occupy the focal point of the field, while more peripheral thoughts occupy exterior regions. Objects “all the way” in the back of one’s mind, of which the agent has only the faintest perception, are situated on the very fringe of the field of consciousness – an area James calls the “margin.” As one should expect, the field of consciousness is dynamic – the objects it contains move from the margin to the focal point and vice versa as one’s attention shifts. In fact, the boundary marked by the margin expands and contracts depending upon one’s general state of health, as physical and psychological ailments can limit the number of objects one can perceive with clarity.///The field and its margin do not, however, comprise the only domain of human consciousness – there is a domain outside the margin, which serves as a storehouse for all of the mental objects we are not aware of at each point in time. As one’s attention shifts, some objects are moved from the field into this domain, and some are extracted from this domain and moved into the field. As James describes it, “our whole past store of memories floats beyond [the] margin, ready at a touch to come in; and the entire mass of residual powers, impulses, and knowledges that constitute our empirical self stretches continuously beyond it”(James, 1902, 232). The domain beyond the margin is what James calls the subconscious.///Postulating the subconscious does more than just give inactive memories and bits of knowledge a place to go – James believes it also explains where sudden impulses and flashes of insight come from, because extraction of an object from the subconscious is not always a process the conscious agent has control over. In James’s words, “one’s ordinary fields of consciousness are liable to incursions from [the subconscious] of which the subject does not guess the source, and which, therefore, take for him the form of unaccountable impulses to act, or inhibitions of action, of obsessive ideas, or even of hallucinations of sight or hearing”(James, 1902, 234) – phenomena which James collectively calls “automatisms.”///The subconscious, however, is not a mere storehouse of ideas. It is an active place that manipulates the ideas it contains, much as an agent consciously manipulates the objects of which he is aware. This corresponds to how the subconscious can work on problems we have set aside, and then suddenly shove the answer into our conscious minds. James believes that the subconscious manipulation (or “incubation”) and subsequent unleashing of ideas accounts for instantaneous conversion, and some of the phenomena that accompany them – while the agent is going about his daily business, his subconscious develops a set of theological or transcendental “experiences” behind his back, and finally deposits the finished product into the agent’s field, where it immediately becomes a part of his conscious mental state. The subject will convert slowly if he does not tend to perform such subconscious activity or if his margin is resistant to the described incursions, but the subconscious generally, if not always, remains the culprit in conversion.///Mystical Experiences and the Subconscious///While the subconscious incubation of ideas accounts for striking conversions and automatisms, it is not, in James’s opinion, sufficient to account for certain types of mystical experiences. “Prolonged subconscious incubation” is needed to set up a conversion, and such a prolonged period is not demonstrable in the experiences that James classifies as mystical (James, 1902, 236 footnote). Yet, although the subconscious is not responsible for creating mystical experiences, James believes it has an even more extraordinary role in these experiences – it is a gateway through which a real, mystical, ultimate reality touches the mind of the agent.///James believes that core qualities of the mystical experience are that the agent becomes aware “that there is something wrong about us as we naturally stand”(James, 1902, 508), realizes that there is a “higher” part of himself (that part which recognizes that there is something wrong with him as he “naturally” stands) and “becomes conscious that this higher part is conterminous and continuous with a MORE of the same quality, which is operative in the universe outside of him, and which he can keep in working touch with, and in a fashion get on board of and save himself when all his lower being has gone to pieces in the wreck”(James, 1902, 508). Once James is finished with his descriptive project, and wishes to ask whether the union with the “more” that the agent experiences is real, and what the nature of such a union could possibly be, he finds a ready answer in the subconscious – the subconscious, after all, is some kind of an extension of our own mind that we are seldom aware of, and in this way is already a “more” of some type (James, 1902, 511). So James takes the subconscious domain one step further and claims “that whatever it may be on its farther side, the ‘more’ with which in religious experience we feel ourselves connected is on its hither side the subconscious continuation of our own conscious life.”(James, 1902, 512) That is to say, that human consciousness is the extremity of an underlying greater consciousness that we perceive by a flow of mental objects from it through the subconscious into our fields. To James, this not only account for the origin of mystical experiences, but also explains why different agents give somewhat different accounts of the “higher reality” they became aware of (why Christians describe it in terms of union with God, Hindus in Vedantic terms, etc.) – it is because the mental objects emanating from the underlying “greater consciousness” are mediated by the agent’s subconscious, which manipulates the perception of the mystical ‘more’ so that it corresponds to some extent with the agent’s prior beliefs (513-514). So the universality and peculiarity of the core aspects of the mystical experience, coupled with what James believes to be inadequate time for “incubation” of these experiences by the subconscious alone, leads him to declare that “we have in the fact that the conscious person is continuous with a wider self through which saving experiences come, a positive content of religious experience which, it seems to me, is literally and objectively true as far as it goes.”(515)///References///James, William.
1902. The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Penguin (1982).
From William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902):
The very movement itself of the soul, putting itself into a personal relation of contact with the mysterious power – of which it feels the presence.”
From William James, The Letters of Williams James, Letter to Henry W. Rankin" (June 16, 1901) at pages 148-150.
Written after James had delivered 9 of his 10 Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh University:
From Aldous Huxley, Those Barren Leaves (1925):
The actual technique of prayer – the kneeling, the hiding of the face in the hands, the uttering of words in an audible voice, the words being addressed into empty space – helps by its mere dissimilarity from ordinary actions of everyday life to put one into a devout frame of mind.”
From Stephen B. Hoyt, quoting church records in The First Six Ministers, 1733-1854 in Canaan Parish 1733-1933, Part I:
Justus Mitchell, son of Reuben Mitchell of Woodbury, born 1754, graduated at Yale College 1776; was licensed to preach by the Litchfield County Association; began to preach here as a candidate 1782; received a call from the Society two months later, and was ordained in January, 1783. He died suddenly, February 24, 1806, in his 52nd year and the 23rd of his ministry.”
We know that he married Martha, daughter of Rev. Josiah Sherman, who outlived him by twenty-five years, but that he was a single man when he came here is probable since the record of Mrs. Mitchell’s union with the church by the name “Patty” does not occur until six years after he came.///This leads one to speculate on the question of how this young minister succeeded in remaining single, subjected to the weekly charms of the decorous maidens who must have listened to him preach every Sunday. Perhaps he had already become engaged to Miss Sherman, but one had to travel on horseback in those days to do his courting, and six years would suggest that Mr. Mitchell must have been a most patient and loyal suitor to Patty Sherman. ///His ministry covered an eventful period. The United States had been born and every community was experiencing growing pains. Mr. Mitchell’s pre- eminent gift as an educator and organizer was a great blessing to this little parish which during his term reached a population of about 1,200.”
1991
From Karen Horney, Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realization (May 1991) at page 13:
The neurotic process is a special form of human development, and – because of the waste of constructive energies which it involves – is a particularly unfortunate one. It is not only different in quality from healthy human growth but, to a greater extent than we have realized antithetical to it in many ways. Under favorable conditions man’s energies are put into the realization of his own potentialities. Such a development is far from uniform.
From inner stress, however, a person may become alienated from his real self. He will then shift the major part of his energies to the task of molding himself, by a rigid system of inner dictates, into a being of absolute perfection. For nothing short of godlike perfection can fulfill his idealized image of himself and satisfy his pride in the exalted attributes which (so he feels) he has, could have, or should have.///This trend in neurotic development (which is presented in detail in this book) engages our attention over and beyond the clinical or theoretical interest in pathological phenomena. For it involves a fundamental problem of morality – that of man’s desire, drive, or religious obligation to attain perfection. No serious student concerned with man’s development will doubt the undesirability of pride or arrogance, or that of the drive for perfection when pride is the motivating force. But there is a wide divergence of opinion about the desirability or necessity of a disciplinary inner control system for the sake of insuring moral conduct. Granted that these inner dictates have a cramping effect upon man’s spontaneity, should we not, in accordance with the Christian injunction (“Be ye perfect…”), strive for perfection? Would it not be hazardous, indeed ruinous, to man’s moral and social life to dispense with such dictates.///This is not the place to discuss the many ways in which this question has been raised and answered throughout human history, nor am I equipped to do so. I merely want to point out that one of the essential factors upon which the answer hinges is the quality of our belief about human nature.///Broadly speaking, there are three major concepts of the goal of morality which rest upon these different interpretations of essential human nature. Superimposed checks and controls cannot be relinquished by anyone who believes – in whatever terms – that man is by nature sinful or ridden by primitive instincts (Freud). The goal of morality must then be the taming or overcoming of the status naturae and not its development.///The goal must be different for those who believe that there is inherent in human nature both something essentially “good” and something “bad,” sinful or destructive. It will center upon the insurance of the eventual victory of the inherent good, as refined, directed, or reinforced by such elements as faith, ///reason, will or grace – in accordance with the particular dominating religious or ethical concept. Here the emphasis is not exclusively upon combatting and suppressing evil, since there is also a positive program. Yet the positive program rests either upon supernatural aids of some sort or upon a strenuous ideal of reason or will, which in itself suggests the use of prohibitive and checking inner dictates.///Lastly, the problem of morality is again different when we believe that inherent in man are evolutionary constructive forces, which urge him to realize his given potentialities. This belief does not mean that man is essentially good -which would presuppose a given knowledge of what is good or bad. It means that man, by his very nature and of his own accord, strives toward self-realization, and that his set of values evolves from such striving. Apparently he cannot, for example, develop his full human potentialities unless he is truthful to himself; unless he is active and productive; unless he relates himself to others in the spirit of mutuality. Apparently he cannot grow if he indulges in a “dark idolatry of self” (Shelley) and consistently attributes all his own shortcomings to the deficiencies of others. He can grow, in the true sense, only if he assumes responsibility for himself.///We arrive thus at a morality of evolution, in which the criterion for what we cultivate or reject in ourselves lies in the question: is a particular attitude or drive inductive or obstructive to my human growth? As the frequency of neuroses shows, all kinds of pressure can easily divert our constructive energies into unconstructive or destructive channels. But, with such a belief in an autonomous striving toward self-realization, we do not need an inner strait jacket with which to shackle our spontaneity, nor the whip of inner dictates to drive us to perfection. There is no doubt that such disciplinary methods can succeed in suppressing undesirable factors, but there is also no doubt that they are injurious to our growth. We do not need them because we see a better possibility of dealing with the destructive forces in ourselves: that of actually outgrowing them. The way toward this goal is an ever increasing awareness and understanding of ourselves. Self-knowledge, then, is not an aim in itself, but a means of liberating the forces of spontaneous growth.
1991
From Karen Horney, Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realization (May 1991):
Seen from another perspective, the neurotic process presented in this book is a problem of the self. It is a process of abandoning the real self for an idealized one; of trying to actualize this pseudoself instead of our given human potentials; of a destructive warfare between the two selves; of allaying this warfare the best, or at any rate the only, way we can; and finally, through having our constructive forces mobilized by life or by therapy, of finding our real selves.
Finally we can look at the process from the perspective of moral or spiritual values. From this standpoint is has all the elements of a true human tragedy. However great man’s possibilities for becoming destructive, the history of mankind also shows an alive and untiring striving toward greater knowledge about himself and the world around him, toward deeper religious experiences, toward developing greater spiritual powers and greater moral courage toward greater achievements in all fields and toward better ways of living. And his very best energies go into these strivings. By dint of his intellect and the power of his imagination, man can visualize things not yet existing. He reaches beyond what he is or can do at any given time. He has limitations, but his limits are not fast and final. Usually he lags behind what he wants to achieve within or outside himself. This in itself is not a tragic situation. But the inner psychic process which is the neurotic equivalent to healthy, human striving is tragic. Man under the pressure of inner distress reaches out for the ultimate and the infinite which – though his limits are not fixed – it is not given to reach; and in this very process he destroys himself, shifting his very best drive for self-realization to the actualization of his idealized image and thereby wasting the potentialities he actually possesses.///Freud had a pessimistic outlook on human nature and, on the grounds of his premises, was bound to have it. As he saw it, man is doomed to dissatisfaction whichever way he turns. He cannot live out satisfactorily to his primitive instinctual drives without wrecking himself and civilization. He cannot be happy alone or with others. He has but the alternative of suffering himself or making others suffer. It is all to Freud’s credit that, seeing things this way, he did not compromise with a glib solution. Actually within the framework of his thinking there is no escape from one of these two alternative evils. At best there may be a less unfavorable distribution of forces, better control, and sublimation.///Freud was pessimistic but he did not see the human tragedy in neurosis. We see tragic waste in human experience only if there are constructive, creative strivings and these are wrecked by obstructive or destructive forces. And not only did Freud not have any clear vision of constructive forces in man; he had to deny their authentic character. For in his system of thought there were only destructive and libidinal forces, their derivatives and their combinations. Creativity and love (eros) for him were sublimated forms of libidinal drives. In most general terms, what we regard as a healthy striving toward self-realization for Freud was – and could be – only an expression of narcissistic libido. Albert Schweitzer sees the terms “optimistic” and “pessimistic” in the sense of “world and a life affirmation” and “world and life negation.” Freud’s philosophy, in this deep sense, is a pessimistic one. Ours, with all its cognizance of the tragic element in neurosis, is an optimistic one.”