The Varieties of Religious Experience

I've been reading a book by William James called "The Varieties of Religious Experience". I've only read about 1/3 of it, but here's a bit of what I've learned so far. First, I've learned that James was absolutely brilliant. And that has made the book a joy to read.

Portrait of William James

James gave a series of lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 1901 and 1902 where he had been invited to lecture on Natural Religion. The book is a collection of his twenty lectures given during that appointment and attempts to explore humanity's religious appetites or man's religious constitution. After reading through his initial lectures in which he bounds the problem and sets up metrics for analyzing various human experiences, he begins to survey what he calls 'The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness'. It is a kind of mindset that sees the world as wholly good, ignores the evil, and strives by optimism, faith, etc. to achieve happiness. The two lectures he dedicates to this topic are well worth reading and remind me of my friend the Witch Doctor and his oriental-inspired healthy mindedness. I see a lot of value in this kind of mentality.

Once-Born

Quoting Francis W. Newman, James says, " 'God has two families of children on this earth, ... the once-born and the twice-born,' and the once-born he describes as follows: 'They see God, not as a strict Judge, not as a Glorious Potentate; but as the animating Spirit of a beautiful harmonious world, Beneficent and Kind, Merciful as well as Pure. The same characters generally have no metaphysical tendencies: they do not look back into themselves. Hence they are not distressed by their own imperfections: yet it would be absurd to call them self-righteous; for they hardly think of themselves at all. This childlike quality of their nature makes the opening of religion very happy to them: for they no more shrink from God, than a child from an emperor, before whom the parent trembles: in fact, they have no vivid conception of any of the qualities in which the severer Majesty of God consists. He is to them the impersonation of Kindness and Beauty. They read his character, not in the disordered world of man, but in romantic and harmonious nature. Of human sin they know perhaps little in their own hearts and not very much in the world; and human suffering does but melt them to tenderness. Thus, when they approach God, no inward disturbance ensues; and without being as yet spiritual, they have a certain complacency and perhaps romantic sense of excitement in their simple worship.'"

The twice-born is not defined until later. As the quintessential representative of the once-born mentality, James offers us Walt Whitman. An extract of his comments about the poet: "Walt Whitman owes his importance in literature to the systematic expulsion from his writings of all contractile elements. The only sentiments he allowed himself to express were of an expansive order; and he expressed these in the first person, not as your mere monstrously conceited individual might so express them, but vicariously for all men, so that a passionate and mystic ontological emotion suffuses his words, and ends by persuading the reader that men and women, life and death, and all things are divinely good."

Portrait of Walt Whitman

Having read Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass' fairly recently, I enjoyed reading James' characterization of Whitman and have to agree. His writings fill me with wonderment, awe, and joy. He is truly a great poet. And his mentality seems to pattern itself after the 'once-born' description by Newman.

James also describes something he calls the mind-cure movement and gives several examples of how positive thinking and other mystical things seems to restore people to health. Once again, I was reminded of my Witch Doctor friend. He has helped me to be healthier through means that I can't really explain. But I can't deny the positive effect on my health and my life.

Twice-Born

After surveying the once-born, James takes us into the dark by describing what he calls 'The Sick Soul'. I suppose if I had never experienced depression, I wouldn't have enjoyed reading those two lectures. But something inside me thrills when I read of others who have faced similar darkness and attempt to wrap some meaning around their experiences. I first encountered this thrill in the midst of my own depression when I read Tolstoy's "Confession". So I was thrilled once again when James used Tolstoy and his book as an example of the opposite of healthy-minded religion. He begins his lecture talking about depression generally and cites examples of religious people who become torn and depressed, failing to see their connection to anything of lasting value.

Portrait of Leo Tolstoy

In addition to Tolstoy, James uses such notable persons as Goethe, Martin Luther, Solomon (author of Ecclesiastes), and John Bunyan (author of Pilgrim's Progress) as examples of highly religious people who represent this mentality so opposed to the healthy-mindedness described above. After describing some elements of this opposite mentality, James tells us, "The surest way to the rapturous sorts of happiness of which the twice-born make report has as an historic matter of fact been through a more radical pessimism than anything that we have yet considered. We have seen how the lustre and enchantment may be rubbed off from the goods of nature. But there is a pitch of unhappiness so great that the goods of nature may be entirely forgotten, and all sentiment of their existence vanish from the mental field. For this extremity of pessimism to be reached, something more is needed than observation of life and reflection upon death. The individual must in his own person become the prey of a pathological melancholy. As the healthy-minded enthusiast succeeds in ignoring evil's very existence, so the subject of melancholy is forced in spite of himself to ignore that of all good whatever: for him it may no longer have the least reality."

Quoting a less well known character, Father Gratry, we read "... every idea of heaven was taken away from me: I could no longer conceive of anything of the sort. Heaven did not seem to me worth going to. It was like a vacuum; a mythological elysium, an abode of shadows less real than the earth. I could conceive no joy, no pleasure in inhabiting it. Happiness, joy, light, affection, love - all these words were now devoid of sense. Without doubt I could still have talked of all these things, but I had become incapable of feeling anything in them, of understanding anything about them, of hoping anything from them, or of believing them to exist. There was my great and inconsolable grief! I neither perceived nor conceived any longer the existence of happiness or perfection. An abstract heaven over a naked rock. Such was my present abode for eternity."

Speaking of such states of mind, James tells us "there are some subjects whom all this leaves a prey to the profoundest astonishment. The strangeness is wrong. The unreality cannot be. A mystery is concealed, and a metaphysical solution must exist. If the natural world is so double-faced and unhomelike, what world, what thing is real? An urgent wondering and questioning is set up, a poring theoretic activity, and in a desperate effort to get into right relations with the matter, the sufferer is often led to what becomes for him a satisfying religious solution."

He continues later, "When disillusionment has gone as far as this, there is seldom a restitutio ad integrum. One has tasted of the fruit of the tree, and the happiness of Eden never comes again. The happiness that comes, when any does come - and often enough it fails to return in an acute form, though its form is sometimes very acute - is not the simple, ignorance of ill, but something vastly more complex, including natural evil as one of its elements, but finding natural evil no such stumbling-block and terror because it now sees it swallowed up in supernatural good. The process is one of redemption, not of mere reversion to natural health, and the sufferer, when saved, is saved by what seems to him a second birth, a deeper kind of conscious being than he could enjoy before."

Now we have a definition of 'twice-born' religionists. Those who pass through the valley of darkness come out of that darkness with a renewed perspective, broader than the simple healthy-mindedness that dismisses or ignores evil, these twice-borns recognize evil as part of a larger whole, but subject to a more powerful good. This seems to me more of a mature faith whose seeds germinated in darkness, despair, and doubt, but lead the sufferer to a greater understanding of light and joy.

Speaking again of the once-borns, James says, "The method of averting one's attention from evil, and living simply in the light of good is splendid as long as it will work. It will work with many persons; it will work far more generally than most of us are ready to suppose; and within the sphere of its successful operation there is nothing to be said against it as a religious solution. But it breaks down impotently as soon as melancholy comes; and even though one be quite free from melancholy one's self, there is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it refutes positively to account for are a genuine portion of reality; and they may after all be the best key to life's significance, and possibly the only openers of our eyes to the deepest levels of truth." [emphasis mine]

Wrapping up his lectures on 'The Sick Soul', James says, "The completest religions would therefore seem to be those in which the pessimistic elements are best developed. Buddhism, of course, and Christianity are the best known to us of these. They are essentially religions of deliverance: the man must die to an unreal life before he can be born into the real life."

In a weird way, that last quote reminds me of the movies "The Matrix" and "Inception". The process of a second birth, as James describes it, seems crucial to transcending the vain and transitory aspects of this life to be awakened to a new, more complete reality. Pretty cool.

Steve Jobs

We took the family to the library last week. On the way out, a book caught my eye and I grabbed it. A biography on Steve Jobs by Patricia Lakin. I read through it that night.

I had heard a lot about Steve, but hadn't ever read much about his life. He's extremely impressive. Like anyone else, he had his weaknesses, but here's a little of what I found worth knowing and trying to emulate.

He summed up certain portions of his life in a commencement speech at Stanford in 2005. Summarizing that speech, Patricia tells us,

He told the graduates three stories. The first, he said, was about connecting the dots. For the first time Steve publicly spoke of his adoption by his devoted and loving parents, Paul and Clara. He then told of dropping out of college but dropping in on an amazing calligraphy class at Reed. He urged the graduates to let their life's path be guided by their gut intuitions and their passions. If they did, they'd look back and realize how their own random "dots" or life experiences would connect for them in meaningful and surprising ways. As for choosing a life path, he felt the key was finding what you love and pursuing it passionately.

In the calligraphy class, Steve learned a lot about fonts, spacings, and artistic beauty, all of which were instrumental in designing the Mac computer, particularly in creating a set of fonts based on the calligraphy he learned. Those fonts Apple created were copied by Windows, so Steve's random calligraphy class has touched millions, perhaps billions, of people. Patricia continues,

The second story told of his love for the work he was doing, his shame at being ousted from Apple, but how freeing it ultimately was. He said, "The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life." In addition to talking about starting NeXT and acquiring Pixar, he mentioned his wife and children as being an important part of this creative period.

Steve's third story was about death. He regarded is as a great "invention," for it cleared out the old generation and made room for the new. He also recounted his philosophy of using death to evaluate how he was about to spend his day. "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life ... Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.... There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Regarding death, Steve said in that speech,

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

For all Steve's weaknesses - and like all of us, he had many - I think his philosophy and approach to life had a lot to do with his success. The world is a different place because of him. I think I could be more productive and have a more positive impact on the world if I imbibed more of his philosophy on death, passion, and trust.

One last quote from that speech:

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Thanks Steve. And thanks Patricia for giving me a little insight into Steve's life. As a final tribute to Steve, Patricia ends her book with the words from one of Apple's ads called "Think Different:"

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

Gandhi on Exercise

In reading Gandhi's autobiography, he has written several times of his habit of taking walks. He wrote once of a conversation he had with a friend and mentor named Gokhale, who was extremely busy with public service. The conversation follows.

" 'But you do not even go out for walks,' said I. 'Is it surprising that you should be always ailing? Should public work leave no time for physical exercise?'

" 'When do you ever find me free to go out for a walk?' he replied.

"I had such a great regard for Gokhale that I never strove with him. Though this reply was far from satisfying me, I remained silent. I believed then and I believe even now, that, no matter what amount of work one has, one should always find some time for exercise, just as one does for one's meals. It is my humble opinion that, far from taking away from one's capacity for work, it adds to it."

When I was in school, working full-time to support my family, attempting to engage in other activities in my Church and community, and trying to be a decent husband and father, I felt like I didn't have time for exercise. After finishing school some months ago, I began to work out two or three times a week. I started swimming mostly and I LOVED the feeling of getting in shape again.

Recently, I've been so busy with work that I've neglected to exercise again. When I neglect it, I find my body and mind become stagnant. It's harder for me to focus and get work done. Everything starts to suffer when one part of my life gets out of whack. Physical exercise is so much more important than I've often imagined. I love the feeling of energy and vitality that flows through my body when I've had a good workout. I need to be more faithful in doing it.

Gandhi on Journalism

Gandhi published a weekly journal for years called Indian Opinion. His description of that experience reminded me of my hopes for this blog. It also contained some wonderful thoughts on journalism in general.

He writes, "Indian Opinion ... was a mirror of part of my life. Week after week I poured out my soul in its columns .... I cannot recall a word in those articles set down without thought or deliberation, or a word of conscious exaggeration, or anything merely to please. Indeed the journal became for me a training in self-restraint, and for friends a medium through which to keep in touch with my thoughts. .... For me it became a means for the study of human nature in all its casts and shades, as I always aimed at establishing an intimate and clean bond between the editor and the readers. I was inundated with letters containing the outpouring of my correspondents' hearts. They were friendly, critical or bitter, according to the temper of the writer. It was a fine education for me to study, digest and answer all this correspondence."

Later, he says, "In the very first month of Indian Opinion, I realized that the sole aim of journalism should be service. The newspaper press is a great power, but just as an unchained torrent of water submerges whole countrysides and devastates crops, even so an uncontrolled pen serves but to destroy. If the control is from without, it proves more poisonous than want of control. It can be profitable only when exercised from within. If this line of reasoning is correct, how many of the journals in the world would stand the test? But who would stop those that are useless? And who should be the judge? The useful and the useless must, like good and evil generally, go on together, and man must make his choice."

Once again, the emphasis is mine. I can't claim to have the wisdom of a Gandhi, but I hope that my attempt to publish my thoughts will be found useful and good. And although popular opinion is almost never a just judge, I hope that you, dear reader, will make a positive judgment of my work by your choice to continue to read my thoughts ... and to share yours with me.

The Doer and The Deed

I started reading Gandhi's autobiography a month or two ago. The whole book is incredible. Almost every chapter has a piece of wisdom that I find profound enough to mark and plan to study later. A few days ago, I read a part that I thought was the most powerful yet. I'll share it here without further comment, though the emphasis is mine.

"Man and his deed are two distinct things. Whereas a good deed should call forth approbation and a wicked deed disapprobation, the doer of the deed, whether good or wicked, always deserves respect or pity as the case may be. 'Hate the sin and not the sinner' is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practised, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.

"... It is quire proper to resist and attack a system, but to resist and attack its author is tantamount to resisting and attacking oneself. For we are all tarred with the same brush, and are children of one and the same Creator, and as such the divine powers within us are infinite. To slight a single human being is to slight those divine powers, and thus to harm not only that being but with him the whole world."

The Power of Truth

In thinking about the content of a previous post on this blog and the central idea of an ancient prayer I quoted there, I did some research and came across the following quote, which is, I think, a great expression of faith in the power of truth. I believe truth will ultimately emerge triumphant even if it loses a few battles here and there. The prayer I mentioned is also found at the end of the quote below.

The quote is by Hugh B. Brown, who died before I had a chance to know him. I've researched him a little since finding this quote and I have been extremely impressed with him as a man. I may have more quotes coming from him in the future, but this is one of my favorites so far.

"We are grateful in the Church and in this great university that the freedom, dignity and integrity of the individual is basic in Church doctrine as well as in democracy. Here we are free to think and express our opinions. Fear will not stifle thought, as is the case in some areas which have not yet emerged from the Dark Ages. God himself refuses to trammel man's free agency even though its exercise sometimes teaches painful lessons. Both creative science and revealed religion find their fullest and truest expression in the climate of freedom.
 
"I hope that you will develop the questing spirit. Be unafraid of new ideas for they are the stepping stones of progress. You will of course respect the opinions of others but be unafraid to dissent—if you are informed.
 
"Now I have mentioned freedom to express your thoughts, but I caution you that your thoughts and expressions must meet competition in the market place of thought, and in that competition truth will emerge triumphant. Only error needs to fear freedom of expression. Seek truth in all fields, and in that search you will need at least three virtues; courage, zest, and modesty. The ancients put that thought in the form of a prayer. They said, 'From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth, from the laziness that is content with half truth, from the arrogance that thinks it has all truth—O God of truth deliver us'."

-Hugh B. Brown, speech at BYU, March 1958

Chronological Snobbery

Emily bought me some lectures on CD for my birthday to help make my commute a little less boring. She bought me a course on C.S. Lewis and one on Philosophy. I LOVE the writings of C.S. Lewis. I have read many of his books, but not most of them. He wrote too much for me to ever read all of what he wrote. His letters alone fill volumes and he was very prolific in his published works. I started listening to the lectures on Lewis last week and it has been a lot of fun.

This morning, the lecturer taught about a concept Lewis called "Chronological Snobbery" or the idea that newer is better, that we now know what those poor ignorant ancients never grasped, and we can laugh at their cute ideas of nature, of humanity, and of the universe while recognizing our own moral and intellectual superiority. Related to the ideas of Darwin that we, as a species, are constantly evolving, chronological snobbery asserts that humanity progresses in knowledge and the past is not something we learn wisdom from so much as something to scoff at.

Lewis admits that in some areas, human beings have progressed and continue to progress, but he blasts the idea in general and asserts that it is logically untenable. One argument he presents goes something like this. If we are indeed constantly evolving, then the arrogant assumption that we now have it right is an incredible leap of faith. What about ten years from now when we learn something new? As an example, in post-Newtonian physics, scientists were pretty sure they had the mechanics of the Universe pretty well figured out. They had equations and models to represent the reality they observed and empirical and theoretical results seemed to match pretty well. Those models led to amazing advances in technology, some of which still continue today based on that foundation of Newtonian physics. But Einstein came along and said, "That's great, but it's not quite right." as he offered us his theories of special and general relativity. These theories break down to Newtonian physics under certain assumptions, but he challenged "laws" of physics that had been accepted for centuries. His theories are now widely accepted.

Poor ignorant Newton. Now we've got it figured out. But who's to say Einstein got it right? Scientists from Newton to Einstein were pretty smug about the ignorance of their predecessors and their own enlightenment. Why, in our arrogance, do we assume that Einstein got the whole story or that his models are even valid, or if they are, that they are exclusively valid? Each new generation, each age, makes their models of life and the universe over again in their own image. The medieval literati employed a hierarchical model of nature and the universe. We employ a democratic model with "laws" that nature obeys.

Lewis challenges the modern views on many things and often harks back to the medieval ages. The lecturer even stated that Lewis challenged some very common assumptions on medieval thinking and labeled them as propaganda. He claims that the idea that people before Columbus thought the world was flat is a lie and he quotes from many sources demonstrating an awareness that the world was round. He also attacks the idea that medieval people had no concept of the vastness of space. Lewis provides quotes to challenge that assumption. He says that the intelligentsia understood these things in a way similar to our modern understanding. He claims the common man really didn't think of them at all. Those ideas surprised me a little, but I'll have to look into that more to be sure for myself.

Lewis had more to say on the subject of chronological snobbery than I can post about, but if I made my posts long enough to really explore what Lewis said, no one would want to read my blog. I'm sure he defended his position much better than I have. But this is my blog, not his. And my thoughts superimposed on his ideas are the best I can offer.

If you haven't read Lewis, give him a try. He'll challenge your way of thinking. That's always a fun experience for me. I don't agree with everything of his that I've read, but then again, I've never read a book I agree with 100%. Give him a try and see if he doesn't challenge you to revise the way you see the world just a little bit. After listening to these lectures, I'm ready to re-read some of his stuff with new eyes and tackle some of his works that I haven't gotten to yet.

A Man For All Seasons

When I was an undergrad, I took a class with my older brother called "History of Civilization." In it, we read Thomas More's "Utopia" and later watched the movie "A Man For All Seasons" starring Paul Scofield playing Sir Thomas More. The movie focuses on the last 6-7 years of More's life. It made a powerful impression on me at the time. I remember thinking about it for weeks afterward.



In one of the greatest compliments I have ever received, a group of fellow students dubbed me a "man for all seasons" during my Junior year of college. It was a culmination of several things that they had seen me do and they were impressed enough to give me that title, which they stubbornly used the rest of the year. They were very complimentary. I don't think I deserved the title and I'm more certain now than ever that I don't deserve to be compared with a man such as Thomas More.

A few months ago, I re-read Utopia and watched the movie again. Once again, I was in awe of this man who, under threat of imprisonment and death, refused to compromise his integrity. The film is filled with some fantastic dialogue that brings out his wit and wisdom. I wish I could be as wise as they depicted him to be. He eventually died as a martyr for what he believed. The film shows some of his human frailty, but also his sincerity and integrity. I know the film isn't perfectly accurate historically, but from what I've learned of him, he was an incredible man.

After this second time of reading the book and watching the film, I described my experience and thoughts to a Catholic friend of mine. This is a man who has served to significantly increase my respect for the Catholic Church by the way he lives his life. He has nine children and told me that More is the Patron Saint of large families, so I guess he's pretty well acquainted with him. He told me that "Seasons" was a film that one particular Seminary required every graduating Priest to watch. I can see why. If you haven't seen it, check it out. It's deep and a bit somber, but has a few light-hearted moments. Not a film for those times when you're in a silly mood, but a powerful one.

Martin Luther King

I had the day off yesterday for Martin Luther King Day. I'm going to call him MLK because we're good friends. Is it just me or was MLK an amazing guy? Here was a guy living in Atlanta, in the middle of some of the worst racial tension since the Jews called the Samaritans half-bloods and he preaches love and equality. He leads people in a non-violent revolution of sorts and significantly changes the landscape of the entire South. I live in the South now and although I see remnants of racial prejudice (and other types of prejudice, of course), black and white people live together pretty well from what I can see. There will always be problems with society until we get rid of all the humans, but things have improved significantly in that arena in the last 50-60 years.



King got some of his inspiration from Mohandas Gandhi. My wife and I watched the movie "Gandhi" a few months ago and we loved it! I bought his autobiography and I'm excited to read it. Gandhi got some of his inspiration from Leo Tolstoy, particularly from his book "The Kingdom of God is Within You." I've read everything of Tolstoy's that I could find. His later works are brilliant. I highly recommend "Confession" and "What Then Must We Do." Tolstoy has become my favorite author. Tolstoy received some of his inspiration from Henry David Thoreau, particularly his short essay entitled "Civil Disobedience," an excellent work. I've also read everything I could find from Thoreau. He's a close second to Tolstoy on my list.

I love to read. I could write more listing some of my favorite works and authors, but I'll get to them some other time. For now, I'm hoping to learn more about Gandhi and King. Happy Birthday, MLK.