The Varieties of Religious Experience Lectures 6 and 7 – The Sick Soul (Part 2)

                                     Lectures 6 and 7 – The Sick Soul (Part 2 pg 138-165)

With roots in failure of course old theologians found failures essential and that only through it do we find life's deeper significances. This is James's first stage of world sickness; increase human sensitivity to carry them a bit over the pain threshold (p139) and it becomes easy to diminish one’s own successes. As all goods perish, can they truly be the goods our souls need? We get another example; their worldly labors ceased to matter, and all seemed vain as ‘all things perish’ was persistent in thought. To them the darkest days are the ones to remember as there will be many. Certainly, if life is good its negations must be bad thus, one necessitates the other and happiness always carries its contradiction as certainly there is a fascination with human finiteness and life transiency. Healthy minded individuals would find this nonsense, drop the negatives, and enjoy life. But others may find this happiness ignorant and superficial and that our true struggles are deeper. But such transiency is certainly full of death and illness which can conceptually consume any normal individual subjective, pushing people for transcendence “a good that flies beyond the goods of nature” (p140). Such transients can lower an individual's pain threshold and, as James says, “bring the worm at the core of all our usual springs of delight into full view and turn us into melancholy metaphysicians” (p140). As we grow our pride is bound to shrink, according to James, generally due to an inner temperament clash between passionate youth and old age (p140), one bound to sorrows of the latter. So far as we have seen, once and twice borns realities depend on what significance and degree they frame their conceptuals and thus ascribe their values. To a twice born, death is inevitable; they may be able to laugh it off with wine but certainly are so conceptually close to death that they have that “melancholic metaphysical worm as a brother” (p141). Many of life's factors such as common experiences or sufferings necessitate oppositions, in this regard by James, there are contingencies, moral order and immortal significance respectively. However, we have seen natural science aims to remove these and make them subjectively anxiety ridden. Certainly, naturalism gives cosmological narratives just as religion but with more grim and cold fates.

Now, James addresses that it is too common for people to regard ancient Greeks as role models of healthy mindedness, but we know they generally separated goods and bads. So as goods were extravagant, bads were nihilistic and pessimistic and such extremes commonly reflect in Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam – or all of these also known as twice borns. However, concerning healthy mindedness the farthest the Greeks went was in two regards: stoic insensibility, arguing that life's only true good is one’s full autonomy, with all else being lies; and two, epicurean resignation, don't seek happiness rather escape unhappiness and avoid disappointment. With these regards representing parts of the “sobering process of man's primitive intoxication with sense happiness” (p143) and pushing both factors only grows twice borns necessities. Thus, by James, history concludes its once born era.

Now, generally the quickest way to a twice borns peak of happiness usually involves an individual being a victim of their own pathological melancholy, something completely opposed to healthy mindedness as such melancholy ignores good entirely and is a very rare threshold sensitivity that makes one oppressive to their own good fortunes. Next James wants to show us another example but with a patient suffering an extreme depression known as and anhedonia – a “passive joyless… discouragement… lack of taste and zest and spring” (p145). In this we have a little girl with a liver disease and a complete flip in reality, or her constitution, as such she shows zero concern for her mother and father. With another case of a grown adult also with every emotion devoid or dead to them. James argues such depression is also rarely seen in seasickness and certainly many religions and founders conceive following illnesses. We get another example, now with a Catholic philosopher overwhelming himself to exhaustion creating a phenomenal experience; a visceral universal tremor woke him and instantly they felt the rejection of God. Then believing that this must be hell as he felt every idea of heaven removed from him. Such melancholy is not merely lacking joy but also active with anguish and such anguish is carried through many individual agencies such as loathing, mistrust, exasperation, anxiety, and fear (p147). Rarely do these cross with religious conversion, with exasperation cases generally never. We get another example within a French asylum, a patient with little sleep and horrid visions is concerned of why this has happened, why to him, where is the justice, and as such they are say they are afraid of God as much as the devil. By all this James sees two main factors; with such a consequence of evil good is devoid and impossible and, two, his ‘querulous’ temperament prevents a true religious direction as James argues querulousness tends irreligious in constructing systems (p149).

Now, turning towards religious melancholy with Tolstoy in which we get, one, a case of anhedonia and a loss for life's values and, two, a good point of view between the gnawing of the consciousness and the striving for philosophical relief. James says to start this we should address spiritual judgments in the sense of value. Certainly, facts necessitate opposites but there is no way to rationalize the connection between facts and inner sentiments. Thus, all facts are relatively different for all people at different times, with James calling this our “animal and spiritual region” (p150). So, try to imagine oneself devoid of all emotions to perceive the world as such. There is certainly no negativity or deadness and thus no part is more important than another and no values can be forced. Thus, regards such as fear, love, and worship generally never stem from logic but rather organic factors. “The excited interest which these passions put into the world as our gifts to the world” (p151). For most of us the real world is an indistinguishable combination of physical facts and emotional values and “withdraw or prevent either factor…[and] pathological ensues” (p151). For Tolstoy, his life was completely withdrawn and thus altering his complete conception of reality. James gives us examples of melancholy sentiments: as if it were another world; life through a cloud; shadow people; as if all other people are actors (p152). And many times, out of desperation individuals seek religious regards. Finally, we've reached the Tolstoy example and at 50 years of age suddenly reaches a moment of ‘not knowing what to do’ or ‘how to live’ and to him life feels dead. He believed these concerns to be answerable, but it will ‘just take time’, a trait James claims is generally an early sign of a sick person. But this was caught too late and combined with the continuum of Tolstoy’s individual suffering and with him considering it as a passive disorder the crucial point intended his death. For Tolstoy, life is broken, and such invisible forces push him psychologically suicidal. It is not that he would want it to be but rather described it as the opposite feeling of the force to live. With fears to live, Tolstoy holds on in hope and in spite of his circumstances. This whole situation was odd as this happened when his life was full of wealth, values, intellect, and good mental and physical health. But, by this believes that one can only live so intoxicated on life for so long before sobering back to the curse of it. We get another Tolstoy example; the man is running from a beast in a desert and then sees a well. He then proceeds to jump in it but there is a dragon at the bottom so instead clings to the bush growing from the inner well wall. In this, his hands began to weaken as two mice came out to gnaw at the roots of the bush; demise is imminent. In realizing this the man finds honey on the leaves of the bush and “licks them off with rapture” (p154) until the pleasure ceases and he is left with nothing but the gaze of the mice and the dragon. So, why should I live with death being inevitable? In this case, devoid of an answer it becomes impossible to go on. But is this condition not natural for humans? That nothing can truly be answered but this absurdity of life as being certain. In his contextual regard Tolstoy saw four possibilities: sucking honey but gaining no knowledge after, reflective epicureanism and seizing momentary joy, “manly suicide”, or to look at the dragon and mice while clinging. Suicide is a constant inner narrative. For Tolstoy, his conscious eventually recognized his striving and that in this hope for better and from all his suicidal notions to him, must have been a thirst for God. Not of logic but from his heart, a dread hoping for assistance.

James will continue to address Tolstoy’s recovery later, but it is certainly odd to see this phenomenon of disenchantment with life and such a disregard for one's habitual values and lifestyle, to seem as such as a mockery. And the return of one’s happiness afterwards is generally vastly different than originally but also with a new reassessment of natural evils to be less of as personal roadblock and now “swallowed up in the supernatural good” (p157). Thus, feeling as a second birth, common to redemptive salvation. We get another example, this of John Bunyan’s religious melancholy more so troubling his personal identity, believing if he died tomorrow, he could not understand how Christ could love him. He was afraid of his words even just as a fear of misusing them. Then suddenly, he has a phenomenal experience and is momentarily with God, Christ, spirit, and ‘good’. But here he could feel it was his original affliction that separated all of this thus hating himself even more and feeling small to God. Sin will come naturally, he believed, for one as wicked as the devil, arguing that he feels forsaken (devoid) of God. Then he begins expressing sorrow of being human and begins to envy animals as those lucky with the lack of sin and the lack of hell. Bunyan did regain a light, but James will save this for later. We get another example, Henry Alline, an evangelist around 1800 of whom described religious melancholy as the beginning; all is a burden and life is a curse. His sins felt transparent to all and created a feeling of vanity with a lack of meaning, with him also envying animals, a trait seeming common in such situations. Concerning such examples of melancholy, James says the worst is that of panic fear. We get another example, this one of a person who is currently pessimistic and depressed and then has a phenomenal moment of darkness, fearing existence, and seeing the face of a person crazier that they were with in asylum. And this became the form they felt subjectively, and nothing could defend such fear. With this creating bodily reactions and then after a whole universal change with their dreads receding. Without God or scripture, they truly believed they would have gone insane. Of religious melancholy examples so far we have “one of the vanity of moral things; another the sense of sin;… describing the fear of the universe” (p161) with one way or another humans “original optimism and self-satisfaction get leveled with the dust” (p161).

None of the examples were intellectual panics but rather the reactions to the feeling of evil closing in on one’s subjective. The – help, I need help; but for such deliverance it must be a rather intense complaint. That is a big reason religion is not leaving, as some sensitivities find it necessary. To reflect, there is certainly an antagonistic nature between healthy mindedness devoid of evil and those that find it essential with the latter clearly craving a second birth. This morbid mindedness surely overlaps more experiences; averting evil is good for those it works for but certainly it does not work for everyone. But by such prior healthy mindedness we saw that it certainly works more than people generally give credit and it can be utilized more but however, it is generally transient just as melancholy. But healthy mindedness is not particularly philosophically sound, as the evil it ignores may be key parts of reality of which may be necessities of revelatory experiences or pursuits of deeper truths. Normal life certainly itself has regards as bad as pathological melancholy and affecting the individual as “the lunatics visions of horrors are all drawn from the material of daily fact” (p163). Thus, if you protest it you will end up right there. So, to this regard an animal's fear before being eaten is the right reaction. Certainly, maybe no religious reconciliation with life is possible (p164) and certainly some evils conceive higher forms of good but there are also some evils with no point in a good system in any way and in regard of such ignorant submission or willful neglect are only practical. With evil a genuine part of nature then philosophically there must be a rational significance; with healthy mindedness not attending to many regards it is a less complete system. With James agreeing, the most complete religious systems having pessimistic elements such as Buddhism and Christianity; religions of deliverance, that a person “must die to an unreal life before he can be born into the real life” (p165).

--Seth Graves-Huffman

Pizza Party

 

Philosophy & Religious Studies Department “Open House” 

with FREE Pizza 

Thursday, November 2nd, 2023 

4:30 pm – 5:30 pm 

JUB 202

A James seminar

 SYLLABUS

Texts:

William James: In The Maelstrom of American Modernism, by Robert Richardson (a must to understanding James)

Essay collections
William James Writings (2 volumes), The Library of America (recommended)

The Writings of William James, edited by John McDermott

The Heart of William James, edited by  Robert Richardson

I. James, the psychologist and ethical philosopher

Essays:

Habit

Stream of Consciousness

The Will to Believe

Is Life Worth Living?

The Sentiment of Rationality

The Dilemma of Determinism

The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life

II. Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals

The Stream of Consciousness

The Will

The Gospel of Relaxation

On A Certain Blindness in Human Beings

What Makes A Life Significant?

III. Pragmatism

All eight lectures

IV. The Varieties of Religious Experience

Lectures I, II, and XX

V. Radical Empiricism

Does Conscious Exist?

A World of Pure Experience

VI. Pluralism

Selected essays from A Pluralistic Universe

Ed Craig

     --and see 5 steps to know WJ...

The Varieties of Religious Experience Lectures 4 & 5 (Part 2), and Lectures 6 & 7 (Part 1)

 The Varieties of Religious Experience Lectures 4 & 5 (Part 2), and Lectures 6 & 7 (Part 1)

Lectures 4 and 5- The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness (Part 2)

Such healthy mindedness certainly relates with its contemporary Christian liberalism and by it is victorious over the hell-bent church traditionalism. As such healthy minded religions are tending away from sin and respecting dignity over despair thus to them older Christians are sickly. James says such a disregard of evil certainly could be a newer evolutionary direction for religion. Regarding evolutionary theory, it completely reset the approach to natural religious factors. In doing so, disrupting institutional religions and only helping a more organic and practical healthy minded religious approach. Thus, giving evolution the potential to substitute in for the religion of one’s context. We get another example, this of one with a reaction systematic and reflective, binding them to particular ideals rather not religious. To them religion means nothing and it is ridiculous for those that it does mean something. This person is very happy with life and especially so if they could pass away to sports, music, etc. Sin is a disease and “morbidness over it only increases the disease” (p93). Sin was useful in the past but will have a future one day where it is unnecessary. So, this certainly is a great example of optimism of scientific or evolutionary influence. However, in recent day a powerful and rather influential psychology movement grows, mind cure movements. With a strong Christian influence, it spreads to different movements and sects such as New Thought and Christian Science. Mind cure movements are an intentionally optimistic way of life with a speculative and practical side (p94). With the key feature of such movements being the belief in the “all saving power of healthy minded attitudes” (p95), with it one gains courage strength and trust in the face of life's adversities. But best judge it by its fruits. We certainly hear of odd, phenomenal stories of miraculous healing; with the blind able to see, people are able to walk again - the regenerative stories seem remarkably genuine; despite many scientific evaluations however, these lived experiences certainly provide a strong push for people's adoption of such healthy mindedness and we definitely see it interwoven in culture outside of religion as well. Surely there are ways it does not work and it is not for everyone but with that there is an odd credible notion given by many professionals with Dr. Goddard saying, “we do find sufficient evidence to convince us that the proper reform and mental attitude would relieve many a sufferer of ills that an ordinary physician cannot touch” (p97). Certainly, mind cure movements need to be analyzed. Their beliefs generally center around the idea that all religious experiences contain the dual nature of a shallow and profound sphere; with shallow/lower sphere concerning flesh sensations, instincts, desire, doubt, etc. (p97). Many religions, especially Christianity, hold high regards over this lower spear but mind cure movements would rather disregard it with the devil, with this being a philosophy entirely readdressing religious persuasion. Now we get another example, that fear forethought is for animals and now as humans to hold on to this is unnecessary, decaying, and ought be removed thus, aiming to recategorize things of reality. For many mind cure followers, fear forms misery habits. We get another example, to them life is a nonstop continuum of disease and death, so they ask, is there even a reason for health to exist? Well, it certainly at least neutralizes such morbid relations with reality. Mind cure movement certainly address the consciousness but generally pertain to the subconscious and by that they are consistently present with their divine. We get another example; they conceive a universe of infinite life and power as the background of all and manifesting itself throughout reality. Universe or God, as long as it regards ‘the great central fact’ that, with God filling the universe then the life of humans and God are one and the same but only differing by degree and ‘the great central fact’ is coming into consciousness of this oneness and being open to receive the divine, “we actualize in ourselves the qualities and powers of the infinite life” (p101), opening channels to the divine and allowing the spirit to exchange “dis-ease for ease” (p101). Divinity is attached to the universe, and one has the power to rise to heaven in their life on earth as “all the powers of the universe combined to help us heavenward” (p101). Now, James next aims at less abstract but more concrete examples. We have another example, they believe suffering stems from separation from the divine as “if one [is] with omnipotence, how can weariness enter the consciousness?” (p102). After many years nearly fully paralyzed and with a miraculous mental healing story, this person spent the last 14 years healing others without any fatigue or pain felt since. They find that they are much better with God than the universe against them. We have another example; with many life breakdowns and then the body wasting away eventually New Thought came back to their memory and that they should always have relation with the essence of life that we call God or the greater self, turn to the light within, and live with God or the divine’s self’s presence (p103). Bodily health problems only exist outside of divine reality, certainly there is a powerful ease for many here. We get another example, from birth till 40 they suffered intense illness and while one day growing much weaker, they hear an inner voice saying, “you will be healed and do work you've never dreamed of” (p104) and then assuming it must be God and believed so in spite of all their suffering. Two years later they met with a mental healer, and the moment conceives a revelation themselves with God and the power to heal. Thus, God made my stomach, so I ought to eat well and with intense focus they woke up the next day with a changed reality and slowly gained power to eat again. They practiced many methods such as meditation and at times experienced visceral visions that they defeated by refusal to acknowledge such morbidness that was present and rather pay attention to God's expression to better build a pure thought. So, with all examples thus far certainly it is hard not to consider mind cure within religious movements. However, concerning philosophy, evil certainly exists as a general effect in the world. And of course, there are mind cure movements such as Christian Science as radical to regard evil as a lie in this world, but as we shall see later this can be rather problematic. Concerning mind cure movements, we certainly see rapid changes in an individual’s stages of reality and generally for the better, rather than reducing oneself down to moralist rules. And many times, such rules themselves may be instigating the problems. A moralist aims never to relax and always be positive, but many conscious failures are prevalent unlike mind cure movements wild success stories. By this we need an anti-moralist approach - surrender but passively not actively, give up responsibilities and “resign to the care of your higher destiny” (p110) and once you are back you will still have all things once renounced but now with an internal ease. This is rather similar to “salvation through self-despair, the dying to be truly born” (p110) of Lutheran theology. As a process of critical change within an event so spontaneous it feels near supernatural regard, religious or not it is certainly a rather “fundamental form of human experience” (p110) and by analysis James aims soon to tackle this phenomenon of revivalist conversions but for now, mind cure movement methodologies. Generally, these are suggestive methods which certainly contain many therapeutic elements thus makes sense developing alongside religion. But with religions prior history it has been hard for contemporary people to practically receive suggestive benefits until now with mind cure movements more accessible. As this was a prior history regarding - sickness merely as a “visitation; sent by God” (p113). Suggestive influence assumes, that upon being received it is a revelation gospel within the hearts of many – “it has let loose the springs of higher life” (p113) such as personal faith, enthusiasm, action, etc. Next James aims for examples of people combining healthy mindedness with a readiness for healing via surrender. Protestantism is too pessimistic, and Catholicism is too institutional and moralistic for either to be able to afford such a combination. Our aim is to find a combination. We get another example, through meditative practice one can train to tune out all surrounding noise to a quiet headspace undisturbed within their “own psychic aura” (p116). This is rather similar to Catholic regards of recollection, that being to vividly place oneself in God's presence. We get another example, in that, recollection of God permits his presence in all places and at all times. One escapes all ills within such a recollection and should never leave it; always practice, if not then always remember. And this is certainly rather similar to mind cure movements. We get another example, this time of mind cure, “pure thinking can be encouraged, promoted, and strengthened” (p117) until it becomes habit and thus forming a channel of practical use, a mental frame that an individual floods with love and beauty. Turn your back on the lower and sensuous plane and one can lift themselves into the higher plane and make residence (p117). And just by believing this, their ‘law of attraction’ will argue there to be a universal receptivity to one's desires on the way. Nearing the end of this lecture James aims for the relation between systemic healthy mindedness and religious healthy mindedness with that of scientific method in scientific life (p118). It is growing in scientific thought to regard religion existing for evolutionary survival instincts and in asking for clarity of that, one may assert for primitive thought much of reality revolves around identity. By this there are two ways to it, one, the savage believes things operate by individual forces for one's own ends (p119), that nature obeys individual needs; and two, science has certainly argued identity as the result of mass coincidences and by such people do not operate within the universe outside of general universal laws. But concerning individuals ‘silencing’ that certainly is not merely learned behavior as it is an inner subjective relation and is hard to reduce as mere personality building. With science having an impersonal reality and with mind cure movements being extremely personal it assists in combating oppression from scientific philosophies. As having a belief in a higher power takes us further than belief in ourselves thus, conversions are clear within narratives. We get another example, a person with a bad ankle sprain and with a positive mental suggestion as a visceral experience, then dedicating all to God. Since then, no pain was ever felt there. We get another example, showing experiment and verification and also passivity with surrender. The person falls ill, remembering mind care movement, takes it has an opportunity and begins to refuse to speak of the bads thus having sublime life moments as if they “lie down in the stream of life and let it flow over me” (p121). This was certainly proof enough and they gave up all fear of disease, becoming a devotee. They were set with strong creative confidence with love, happiness, and faith and in the morning, they felt well again. Certainly, this is a method of experiment and verification and surely true to them to such an extent to convert their philosophies. And of course, this is only for particular temperaments and not everyone or every need will be satisfied. It is certainly good utilizing such as in our time many scientific claims are a bit premature to fully rest upon. Science's point of view is merely one perspective of the many sides of the universe. In the end all our verifications are experiences agreeing with isolated systems of ideas, not a good representation of reality. Science has given phones, electricity, and medicine while religion has given serenity, morals, happiness, and its own combat to illness, certainly both hold “genuine keys for unlocking the world's treasure house” (p122). Different necessities in life may require different approaches and thus different temperaments as they follow.

Lectures 6 and 7 – The Sick Soul (Part 1 pg 125-138)

James starts out with an example of Spinoza exuding a strong healthy mindedness in condemning evil and human repentance. As, in accepting such human mistakes only assumes them and the decay of consciousness thus creating more evil as we certainly get “along better by reason and love of truth than by worry of consciousness and remorse” (p128) of which would form a particular sadness. Turning to religion, ones like Christianity have constantly emphasized repentance. Such Spinoza healthy mindedness is rather rare. But many Catholic confessions are subtle middle grounds as once it's done they feel nearly as mentally clean as any mind cure follower. Martin Luther also did not particularly aim for healthy mindedness but certainly had many healthy minded ideals. We get an example of Luther in that, if flesh is sin then we are sin and cannot escape thus why torment oneself. Our fleshy actions may make us fall but with our faith we shall rise. Surely many healthy mindedness examples thus far have aimed to minimize evil but there are also stands those actually maximizing its persuasive element, with evil as life's essence. But first James has a notion concerning philosophy of God and evil in that, we can either take God as absolute and direct concerning evil or also as providential with evil occurring as life continues however, either way evil’s foundations relate with God. But if God is absolute good this is not possible. Thus, one unit is only as good as its worst parts as those are necessary for the individual to be exactly as they are. There is no easy answer in this but plural providential has more wiggle room connecting lower and higher regards than absolute unitary fact. Then evil is not essential and hopefully something we can ditch entirely thus, healthy mindedness tending plural as to more easily disregard evil. Now let us turn towards those less adamant to throw away the burden of evil from their consciousness; believing that we are contingently tied to evil's presence and with despair imminent. As healthy mindedness had levels of shallow and profound so too do these morbid states of mind; for some evil is just about environmental relation needs adjustment; for some evil is not between oneself and the external but the natural wrongs in one’s nature thus, supernatural help is required. For many Latin religions sin is rather plural and for many Germanic it is singular and rather capital ‘S’. Such is a bit more pessimistic, and James will use it to analyze. Recent psychology has made use of the word threshold - a symbolic notion when one mind state passes into another mind state (p134). Such as, how much stimuli are needed to get one's attention. A high threshold could certainly tune out all background noise while the low threshold one is easily interrupted. There are certainly many different thresholds such as fear, misery, or pain - but for some it is a rather high threshold to meet. With healthy mindedness on a bright side and melancholy on a dark side it makes sense that people tend towards the religious side of healthy mindedness but this of course shows different types of religion to different needs. But now it is time to address the side opposed to healthy mindedness, the one of sick souls and their own forms of consciousness, turning towards twice borns. Can sentiments of pity, pain, and fear translate into something profound or worthwhile? Well, how can such insecure experiences have such anchorage to persist? An anchor is certainly only as strong as its weakest link and certainly many factors damper life but once the music stops it always starts again, it just comes in intervals (p136). Healthy mindedness as a bell is now a bell born with a crack. Healthy mindedness ditches such sobering intervals in the gratitude for God to keep them from such bad but “is not its blessedness a fragile fiction?” (p137) as certainly life is not merely successes. Another example, this one of Luther praying for the Lord to take him now and if he had to do another 40 years on earth, he would rather give up his place in paradise. With mistakes, misfortunes, missed opportunities, this world molds insecurities subtlety to pivotal experiences certainly seeming as integral parts of human ontology. In this we are not intended for success but failure. With roots in failure of course old theologians found essential and that only through it do we find life's deeper significances.

--Seth Graves-Huffman

"Our national disease"

To H. G. Wells.

CHOCORUA, Sept. 11, 1906.

Dear Mr. Wells,—I've read your "Two Studies in Disappointment" in "Harper's Weekly," and must thank you from the bottom of my heart. Rem acu tetegisti! Exactly that callousness to abstract justice is the sinister feature and, to me as well as to you, the incomprehensible feature, of our U. S. civilization. How you hit upon it so neatly and singled it out so truly (and talked of it so tactfully!) God only knows: He evidently created you to do such things! I never heard of the MacQueen case before, but I've known of plenty of others. When the ordinary American hears of them, instead of the idealist within him beginning to "see red" with the higher indignation, instead of the spirit of English history growing alive in his breast, he begins to pooh-pooh and minimize and tone down the thing, and breed excuses from his general fund of optimism and respect for expediency. "It's probably right enough"; "Scoundrelly, as you say," but understandable, "from the point of view of parties interested"—but understandable in onlooking citizens only as a symptom of the moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess Success. That—with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word success—is our national disease. Hit it hard! Your book must have a great effect. Do you remember the glorious remarks about success in Chesterton's "Heretics"? You will undoubtedly have written the medicinal book about America. And what good humor! and what tact! Sincerely yours,

WM. JAMES.

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/38091/pg38091-images.html#page_259

Moral holidays

Following up our discussion of "moral holidays" as a way of reconciling the pursuit of happiness with the perennial fight against injustice and pursuit of meaning and purpose etc.--

...[For those who believe in a divine providence, or a rationalistic/Hegelian Absolute] we have a right ever and anon to take a moral holiday, to let the world wag in its own way, feeling that its issues are in better hands than ours and are none of our business.

The universe is a system of which the individual members may relax their anxieties occasionally, in which the don't-care mood is also right for men, and moral holidays in order—that, if I mistake not, is part, at least, of what the Absolute is 'known-as,' that is the great difference in our particular experiences which his being true makes for us, that is part of his cash-value when he is pragmatically interpreted. Farther than that the ordinary lay-reader in philosophy who thinks favorably of absolute idealism does not venture to sharpen his conceptions. He can use the Absolute for so much, and so much is very precious. He is pained at hearing you speak incredulously of the Absolute, therefore, and disregards your criticisms because they deal with aspects of the conception that he fails to follow...

I said just now that what is better for us to believe is true UNLESS THE BELIEF INCIDENTALLY CLASHES WITH SOME OTHER VITAL BENEFIT. Now in real life what vital benefits is any particular belief of ours most liable to clash with? What indeed except the vital benefits yielded by OTHER BELIEFS when these prove incompatible with the first ones? In other words, the greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths. Truths have once for all this desperate instinct of self-preservation and of desire to extinguish whatever contradicts them. My belief in the Absolute, based on the good it does me, must run the gauntlet of all my other beliefs. Grant that it may be true in giving me a moral holiday. Nevertheless, as I conceive it,—and let me speak now confidentially, as it were, and merely in my own private person,—it clashes with other truths of mine whose benefits I hate to give up on its account. It happens to be associated with a kind of logic of which I am the enemy, I find that it entangles me in metaphysical paradoxes that are inacceptable, etc., etc.. But as I have enough trouble in life already without adding the trouble of carrying these intellectual inconsistencies, I personally just give up the Absolute. I just TAKE my moral holidays; or else as a professional philosopher, I try to justify them by some other principle. --William James, Pragmatism II

==  ==

...let me explain why 'moral holidays' were the only gift of the absolute which I picked out for emphasis. I was primarily concerned in my lectures with contrasting the belief that the world is still in process of making with the belief that there is an 'eternal' edition of it ready-made and complete. The former, or 'pluralistic' belief, was the one that my pragmatism favored...

...If, as pluralists, we grant ourselves moral holidays, they can only be provisional breathing-spells, intended to refresh us for the morrow's fight...

...The pragmatism or pluralism which I defend has to fall back on a certain ultimate hardihood, a certain willingness to live without assurances or guarantees. To minds thus willing to live on possibilities that are not certainties, quietistic religion, sure of salvation any how, has a slight flavor of fatty degeneration about it which has caused it to be looked askance on, even in the church... --William James, The Meaning of Truth 11

==

John Lachs at Harvard, 2014--

If You’ve Ever Heard a Voice That Wasn’t There, This Could Be Why

The varieties of hallucinatory experience…

"…There is actually a continuum of these experiences," Dr. Orepic said. "So all of us hallucinate — at certain times, like if you're tired, you'll hallucinate more, for instance — and some people are more prone to do so…"

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/science/hearing-voices-hallucination-robot.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
If You've Ever Heard a Voice That Wasn't There, This Could Be Why

WJ the evolutionist, vs. “vicarious salvation”

"On June 16, the day before the last lecture, James sat down in Edinburgh with the whole scheme of his project in his head and wrote a long letter to Henry Rankin, his Christian correspondent, who had been an important interlocutor—and representative of at least half of his ideal audience—all along. He acknowledged Rankin's Christian beliefs, but went on to say,

"I believe myself to be (probably) permanently incapable of believing the Christian system of vicarious salvation, and wedded to a more continuously evolutionary mode of thought."

The parenthetical "probably" is deeply characteristic. James had a genius for isolating himself in a middle position. He could explain the appeal of religion to people who thought of themselves as unbelievers, and he could explain to the religious how the entire subject could be grasped and accepted as processes that took place in the human mind, broadly conceived—yet he is too religious for the unbelievers and not religious enough for the believers."

— William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism by Robert D. Richardson
https://a.co/4xzwgN0

The Varieties of Religious Experience Lectures 3, and 4 & 5 (Part 1)

 

The Varieties of Religious Experience Lectures 3, and 4 & 5 (Part 1)

Lecture 3- The Reality of the Unseen

The human relation with objects adopts many attitudes including moral, practical, or even religious. We are most commonly aware of these relations by our senses but also by our mere thoughts and oddly, many times these thoughts may have a stronger effect on us and our attitudes than the former objective sensations. If someone insulted me, I may be more upset about it the next day in memory then when I was in the moment that it occurred in. For most western religions, especially Christianity, visions are rather rare thus most followers, institutional ones, generally base religious ideas within the practical present. Certainly, religion has concrete objects but it feels more full of abstract objects; God's attributes such as justice, holiness, mercy, etc. (p54). All of which greatly influence pragmatic practicalities such as meditation. In a reassessment to abstract objects James offers a Kantian approach, objects of belief in God, such as design, soul, freedom, are not exactly objects of knowledge at all (p54-55) as they do not concern sense, thus there is no significance in discussing. But, James defends, there is certainly meaning in our practices; we can act as if there were a God, feel as if one were free, consider plans for immortality (p55), as these words make a significant practical difference in lives. With Kant, just an idea of what these objects ‘might be’ gives positive reason to conceive it. For James, Kant is another outer limit of religions exaggerations, or sentiments of reality; these sentiments attach to personal objects of belief that can be a lasting mark for the rest of one's life. Abstractions enliven human’s realities and actions and as such we treat them as objects and permit worldly space and realities for them. As we saw prior, this can also be a less religious and more moralist, Emersonian, take, with a universe of concrete objects swimming in the higher universe of abstract ideas. Now James offers a particular take of an author on Greek gods as being only “half-metaphoric personifications” (p58) of abstract laws that separate nature, ie., feeling the smile of the sun, the bite of winter, and so on - with these Greeks offers us at least reference to a human sphere of subjectivity. With this, the Greek pantheon at least argues human beings a sense of feeling, one deeper and more special than most experienced from our normal sensations. If we take this as so, maybe we can awaken this by exciting our normal senses, thus by Kant, if something else equally excites our senses it would appear real. And, if religious concepts do touch this deep subjective, they will certainly be believed in in spite of criticism, and this is interestingly true with visions and hallucinations. Generally, these are relative and imperfect events and often particular realities and sensations occur of which can be as unique as the feeling of a presence not there. The majority of this lecture James gives personal testimonials, religious and not, that are relative to the discussion. These realities almost give chills on their events and the genuinity of the individuals. Starting with a non-religious individual, an academic actually, in a hotel out of town they feel an odd presence about, turning into a difficult psychological situation. Later they meet similar means but with a complete bliss of joy with a will to believe such a beautiful reality that they experienced is more real than anything else they have ever known. Not religious, but it certainly could be. He then gives several more examples of people experiencing ‘odd presences’ that some interpret is God, some spiritual; another example of a blind person, without any ability to distinguish lights or colors, sees a vision of a bearded man in a suit slipped under his door (p62). As if an abstract conception exuded feelings of space and reality, an idea living within reality. Thus at least arguing a human reality with mental function to sense presence, a sense deeper than our usual ones. James continues examples, not only positive conceptions of presence but also negative; an individual reflects on life and they are more ready to take it as it is not and this reality must be a dream, James argues this finds a correlation with suicide, but that is for later discussion. Now it is becoming clear that with a religious temperament people may “possess objects of belief as a quasi-reality directly apprehended” (p64) and often one sense of presences’ apprehended fluctuates so thus too does one's use(s) positively and negatively. One example of a negative use was from a person reminiscing of a past in which they related with the universe as an ‘It’ and without ‘It’ now they feel void and know what is not there. Another example, with the person feeling all around them the limits of what they cannot feel thus feeling the two realities meet, feeling unity with a negative presence. They said to be more willing to doubt themselves than with the presence felt. All examples thus far have certainly shown how vast the range of the human ontological imagination is, unpicturable beings with an intensity near hallucination and at many times with personified relations, commonly as lovers in a cosmic relation. And experiences for people generally bring an overwhelming convincingness thus it is fair to say that of all the examples thus far, as fallible as they may be, are at least genuine perception of truth attempting to be shared. The most common way to oppose such mysticism in philosophy is by using rationalism, as rationalism emphasizes ‘beliefs ought to be able to be articulated’. Thus, James argues four necessities for the grounds of rationalism: one, definite stable abstract principles, two, definite facts of sensations, three, definite hypothesis based on such facts, and four, definite inferences logically drawn (p73). Things that are too vague to define do not belong in a rational system, with philosophy and science being a resultant of rational realities. But, surely at some extent we see the superficiality relative within it, the part constantly challenging for proofs and logic chopping (p73). Rationalism in general has a hard time converting another's perspective if the individual’s ‘intuitions’ are opposed to rationalism's points. Certainly one's consciousness is its totality including subconscious, desires, impulses, etc., thus compromising much of a beings ‘innate’ reality and the attitudes reacting to conflicting rationalism. This rational inferiority is clear when arguing for or against religion, referring back to Kant, it should not be rationally argued. Within metaphysics and religion both articulate reasons but these rationalisms have come only once our unarticulated feelings have made their impression upon us with a general point made (p74). Then intuition can work with reason, growing together. Thus, how religious systems grow, age, and change with time. James's aim here was in no way to claim the subconscious as superior rather, he is just laying out realities. However, certainly with what we have seen “so much for our sense of reality with religious objects” (p75). Now, as we saw, many factors necessitate their opposites, as to not take a life too serious one must be able to understand it first as serious. Thus, the evenly tempered solemn religious follower takes their peace carefully as they still walk with danger in mind and the fact that not all can be held in check, “lie low rather, lie low; for you were in the hands of a living God” (p76). Next, we get a great example with an author’s take on the Book of Job; for them, the real problem with people’s general conclusions is that people take it too serious rather than reflecting solemnities attachment of ‘to not take life too serious’ to then be able to analyze what is apparent to them. That, life is a burden for man and that man is not a pure reflection of creation but rather sees it where he applies himself. It is that man must apply choice as “it is transcendent everywhere” (p76). It is even tempting to call such authors takes as religious, as Professor Seeley argues, “any habitual or regulated admiration is worthy of being called religion” (p77), even such as music, math, and ‘civilizations’, as much as they are admired and believed in.

Lectures 4 and 5- The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness (Part 1 p78-90)

To ask someone ‘what is the primary concern in life?’ We commonly hear answers concerning happiness. Truly the value of happiness polarizes around the lives and morals of humans daily. And it is certainly fair to say if happiness produces such admiration it can nearly be warranted a religion. Regardless, we should keep looking into religion specifically as if the two can be somewhat synonymous and if so then the more complexity in religion the greater the possible depths to human happiness. Often people seek the more complex when the gift of life slows its satisfaction. Concerning life's chief value of happiness, with religion generally happiness will satisfy the individual enough to work as proof, typically within immediate inferences and experiences. James shares an individual’s testimony concerning their close presence with God and the feelings of happiness they experienced were near impossible to articulate their overwhelming value. With this they believe such relations and feelings to be the “most indispensable proof of God's reality” (p79). To them nothing else is nearly as convincing. Now James aims to go to more simple religious examples. For many happiness is immediately particular thus it is rather transient such as causing emotions which may later evolve into forms of “enthusiasm and freedom” (p79). We are not only concerning a hedonistic reality of happiness but also of those that positively refuse any unhappiness ever present to the individual. Within the complete depths of human history there's always been groups of people with the aim of avoiding anything bad in life by accepting all that is natural. James gives a great example of Saint Augustine, “if you but love (God), you may do so as you incline” (p80), with James arguing this as one of the most morally profound observations to those that can grasp its meaning (p80). It is an example of a definite religious attitude, with evil to be overcome it exudes optimism. James then introduces Newman’s ‘once-borns’ and ‘twice-borns’ with once-borns put into a world of happiness and a contentment with it as they “no more shrink from God, then a child from an emperor, before whom the parents tremble” (p81). To them, God's character is harmonious with nature and present in its kindness and beauty. They certainly have very little concern with sin affecting them. And oddly this certainly relates with ancients of whom in “classics you find no consciousness of sin” (p81). They we were certainly conscious of vices but not as being an offence to God rather than themselves. Also, ancients did not often complain about evil rather than accept it, but some people do not learn evil to exist at all. With an example of a Unitarian preacher, we have someone arguing the importance of raising children in a simple and rational religious household, and that nothing could be better. If so, they may never know religious struggles and when met with future endeavors they are ready to use God's infinite strength in any difficulty. Thus, the child has a much greater chance at making it than twice-born, where the world is wrath and good is impossible (p83). Certainly, first-born’s feel to exude an almost pathological happiness compared to twice-borns great embrace of despair. Next, we get a testimonial of a disciple of Walt Whitman and the kind of person he actually was. Whitman had such an intense appreciation for anything natural and oddly, seemed to appreciate and love all people the same. They never heard Whitman complain about anything or anyone, almost as if he did not possess the ability to. It was also hard to tell if he truly feared. Walt Whitman’s literature success certainly has some relation to his cool temperaments, and he works through us, the reader, as a meliorist. While not directly religious Walt Whitman held strong life convictions and certainly understood and recognized sin but possessed such confident composure to write in spite of sin. Whitman refuses to adopt any conception of a sad mortality, and as we speak of removing unhappiness from happiness we can turn back again to the ancients, Greeks and Romans, in their consistency in keeping happiness and sorrow directly separate. For many ancients good was good and bad was bad and they did not deny the despairs of nature with no aim to escape from this world to a better one, possibly through imagination. To Walt Whitman, however, good was perfect and bad was perfect, Whitman disposes the reader to optimism and by that regard James respects him within a “genuine lineage of the prophets” (p87). Now it is looking possible to narrow a definition for ‘healthy-mindedness’: “the tendency which looks on all things and sees that they are good” (p87), with an ability to differentiate between voluntary and non-voluntary healthy-mindedness. Involuntary would be immediate happiness, voluntary or systemic as using an abstraction of conceiving a ‘good’. In this, one must pick several attributes as the essences for the short time being thus disregarding all other aspects. So, a volunteer systemic healthy-mindedness puts good as the primary importance and meaning to life and deliberately excludes evil from any perspective. Now, with happiness being an emotional state it certainly has criticisms and blindness especially concerning conflicting facts. Within happiness evil cannot exist, as to be actively happy they do not have time for it. Thus, explaining the odd behaviors of some as they put in maximum effort to ignore evil. This act of their continued silencing is near religious in nature. Concerning evil, it has a lot to do with an inner temperament, such as a fight or flight. But, to turn away from evil, the facts may remain, but the evil character no longer exists (p89). Now, in adopting optimism and turning back to philosophy, unhappiness begins to have an ugly nature. Attempting to restrict it may cause more problems and considering it bad only causes more evil to exist in situations thus, obviously we ought to reduce this. However, James argues when looking at ‘the bad’ philosophically speaking, it is easy to see the sublime of the reverse side of ‘good’. But this only brings evil back into sight thus to combat this one needs a true systemic conception of optimism for such moments that arise, similar to Walt Whitman with a frame entirely of good. With examples like a patriot, a lover, or a devote, all certainly have significant different conceptions of what evil is or is not thus, too many a sense of victory in the gravestone. In these states goods and bads are consumed within a “higher denomination, an omnipotent which engulfs the evil and which the human being welcomes as the crowning experience of his life” (p90). In the beginning we saw a primary concern in human lives is happiness and we can now see that a systemic healthy-mindedness religious attitude certainly lines up with those life concerns. As we commonly know we do not pay attention to disease death etc., as much as we can generally help it. With that we see the world of poetry or literature looks much more desirable than that of the real world.

--Seth Graves-Huffman

“A superb demonstration”? -or “a good front”?

The grieving part of him knew the "demonstration" was rooted in delusion:

"James's friend F.W.H. Myers—a year younger than James and already very sick with a bad heart and arteries and an associated respiratory problem called Cheyne-Stokes breathing—contracted double pneumonia and died in Rome on January 17. James wrote Eleanor Sidgwick (the widow of his friend Henry Sidgwick and a close friend of the Myerses) that, instead of the usual sickroom atmosphere of "physical misery and moral suffering," Myers's eagerness to go, and his mental clarity up to the time the death agony began, had been a "superb" thing to see, "a demonstration ad oculos of the practical influence of a living belief in future existence."

James was, in part, putting on a good front. Another glimpse of the effect of Myers's death on James is provided by a young doctor, Axel Munthe, who, along with Baldwin, attended Myers. Munthe says, in The Story of San Michele, that he saw James sitting with notebook and pencil outside the room in which Myers was dying, waiting for some communication from the other side. "When I went away William James was still sitting leaning back in his chair, his hands over his face, his open notebook on his knees. The page was blank." 8"

— William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism by Robert D. Richardson
https://a.co/ivqaJpL

Heather Cox Richardson with Rebecca Solnit / Democracy Awakening

Two smart meliorists, on the instructive past and hopeful (but insecure) future of democracy

https://youtu.be/SYtE8_f3-oE?si=eaJQb_CijJIEPwRS

James’s point in The Varieties of Religious Experience

"James is the author of The Varieties of Religious Experience, the founding text of the modern study of religion, a book so pervasive in religious studies that one hears occasional mutterings in the schools about King James—and they don’t mean the Bible. James’s point in this book is that religious authority resides not in books, bibles, buildings, inherited creeds, or historical prophets, not in authoritative figures—whether parish ministers, popes, or saints—but in the actual religious experiences of individuals. Such experiences have some features in common; they also vary from person to person and from culture to culture. The Varieties of Religious Experience is also, and not least, the acknowledged inspiration for the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is James’s understanding of conversion that AA has found especially helpful.16"

"Wendell Holmes had said that the life of the law had not been logic, it had been experience. James now said, similarly, that the life of religion is not theology, it is experience."

"James further refuses what he bluntly calls “medical materialism,” the view that the spiritual authority of a Saint Teresa can be undermined by classing her as a hysteric, that of a Saint Francis by calling him a hereditary degenerate, that of a George Fox by pointing to his disordered colon. “In the natural sciences and industrial arts it never occurs to anyone to try to refute opinions by showing up their author’s neurotic constitution . . . It should be no otherwise with religious opinions.”9 None of the reductive explanations of medical materialism can stand up to actual experience on its own ground. James moves on briskly to say, “Immediate luminousness. . .philosophical reasonableness and moral helpfulness [his italics] are the only available criteria” for judging religious experience. The continuing authority of James’s own work comes in large part from his steady insistence on asking what the effect is of this or that religious belief on our own lives. His mantra is “By their fruits ye shall know them, not by their roots.” Religion, like medicine or chemistry or anything else, must be evaluated by its results or outcomes, its effect on people’s lives."

"...the practical result of presenting a wide sampling of voices is to give these lectures an authority no logical argument could match for immediacy, conviction, personal intensity, and sheer range of articulated experience. Fifty-five different sources are cited or quoted in the mysticism lecture alone, for instance, and forty-seven in the two lectures on the religion of healthy-mindedness. Such a mass of testimony is not easily talked down by general propositions."

"William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism" by Robert D. Richardson: https://a.co/ceqtrDp

Jimmy the meliorist (but is he a "monist" in the Jamesian sense?)

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Following up last week's discussion...

A monist, as I understand James's articulation of the concept, thinks the world is intrinsically unified and complete because it resides timelessly in the mind and everlasting arms of the divine. "He's got the whole world in His hands," the Southern Baptists taught us to sing. And that's required, for a monist, if we're to be allowed our moral holidays. Anti-monists like WJ "just take" theirs, no ultimate/divine/Absolute rationale required.

A Jamesian pragmatic pluralistic meliorist, on the other hand, thinks "shipwreck" is always possible. The world needs unification, amelioration, improvement...

So (for instance) Jimmy Carter, in Jamesian terms, being a meliorist, cannot be that kind of monist. Of course they're still monotheists, and they'll still affirm One God etc. But for the purposes of the melioristic fight for unification, they're not "monists"...

Pragmatism, pending the final empirical ascertainment of just what the balance of union and disunion among things may be, must obviously range herself upon the pluralistic side. Some day, she admits, even total union, with one knower, one origin, and a universe consolidated in every conceivable way, may turn out to be the most acceptable of all hypotheses. Meanwhile the opposite hypothesis, of a world imperfectly unified still, and perhaps always to remain so, must be sincerely entertained. This latter hypothesis is pluralism's doctrine. Since absolute monism forbids its being even considered seriously, branding it as irrational from the start, it is clear that pragmatism must turn its back on absolute monism, and follow pluralism's more empirical path. Lecture IV

And to men of this complexion, religious monism comes with its consoling words: "All is needed and essential—even you with your sick soul and heart. All are one with God, and with God all is well. The everlasting arms are beneath, whether in the world of finite appearances you seem to fail or to succeed." There can be no doubt that when men are reduced to their last sick extremity absolutism is the only saving scheme. Pluralistic moralism simply makes their teeth chatter, it refrigerates the very heart within their breast...

...Of course as human beings we can be healthy minds on one day and sick souls on the next; and as amateur dabblers in philosophy we may perhaps be allowed to call ourselves monistic pluralists, or free-will determinists, or whatever else may occur to us of a reconciling kind. But as philosophers aiming at clearness and consistency, and feeling the pragmatistic need of squaring truth with truth, the question is forced upon us of frankly adopting either the tender or the robustious type of thought. In particular THIS query has always come home to me: May not the claims of tender-mindedness go too far? May not the notion of a world already saved in toto anyhow, be too saccharine to stand? May not religious optimism be too idyllic? Must ALL be saved? Is NO price to be paid in the work of salvation? Is the last word sweet? Is all 'yes, yes' in the universe? Doesn't the fact of 'no' stand at the very core of life? Doesn't the very 'seriousness' that we attribute to life mean that ineluctable noes and losses form a part of it, that there are genuine sacrifices somewhere, and that something permanently drastic and bitter always remains at the bottom of its cup?

I can not speak officially as a pragmatist here; all I can say is that my own pragmatism offers no objection to my taking sides with this more moralistic view, and giving up the claim of total reconciliation. The possibility of this is involved in the pragmatistic willingness to treat pluralism as a serious hypothesis. In the end it is our faith and not our logic that decides such questions, and I deny the right of any pretended logic to veto my own faith. I find myself willing to take the universe to be really dangerous and adventurous, without therefore backing out and crying 'no play.' I am willing to think that the prodigal-son attitude, open to us as it is in many vicissitudes, is not the right and final attitude towards the whole of life. I am willing that there should be real losses and real losers, and no total preservation of all that is. I can believe in the ideal as an ultimate, not as an origin, and as an extract, not the whole. When the cup is poured off, the dregs are left behind forever, but the possibility of what is poured off is sweet enough to accept.

...The way of escape from evil on this system is NOT by getting it 'aufgehoben,' or preserved in the whole as an element essential but 'overcome.' It is by dropping it out altogether, throwing it overboard and getting beyond it, helping to make a universe that shall forget its very place and name.

It is then perfectly possible to accept sincerely a drastic kind of a universe from which the element of 'seriousness' is not to be expelled. Whoso does so is, it seems to me, a genuine pragmatist. He is willing to live on a scheme of uncertified possibilities...

...Their words may have sounded monistic when they said "there is no God but God"; but the original polytheism of mankind has only imperfectly and vaguely sublimated itself into monotheism, and monotheism itself, so far as it was religious and not a scheme of class-room instruction for the metaphysicians, has always viewed God as but one helper, primus inter pares, in the midst of all the shapers of the great world's fate... VIII

The Varieties of Religious Experience - Lectures 1 & 2

The Varieties of Religious Experience Lectures 1 & 2

Lecture 1- Religion and Neurology

-This lecture is a psychological inquiry aimed at real lived religious behaviors by two means, analyzing ‘what are the real propensities?’ and ‘what is their philosophical significance?’. It is common that religious explanations have come from empirical reality initially and we now hold existential critiques of factors missed. Meanings of our critics were not logically answered then rather they moreso utilized a spiritual judgment such as trusting in the Bible, and if we are able to combine such spiritual judgments with prior existential critiques, we get some revelation value in our realizations. Existentialism alone is bad at determining values. But for James’s venture we must analyze religion rather existentially but with some religious flavor added. As for some people religion is exceptional and ecstatic and for others it is conventional and something they follow by habit thus rather a second hand lived religious experience. Also, we must account prior historical geniuses in the religious line. Many expressed highly genuine and phenomenal experiences but of course this is tough to measure. When we analyze religion as existential, we must acknowledge these pathological aspects as also being a part of humans and not just religion. When an object is first perceived the first aim is declassify it, but to some of us objects offer great importance and devotion thus making it ‘sui generis’, or unique to itself (p9), and is better left at that, ie., we would fight our own classification as we find ourselves to be unique. The next aim may be to inquire causal origins, in this James utilizes Spinoza, in that human desires relate with causation just as objects and lines do. A common religious causation point of view is that the causes of low origin disrupt those of higher spirituality and this conception usually is forced on the sentimental find those less sentimental, ie., a high emotional temperament may mean high reverence, but a bad digestion may mean universal instability. These rough causations also project back to critics as well; many aim to reduce religion to sexuality or religious reverence to mere pleasure. It is common for people to discredit minds, we do it to others but fight it upon us as we believe our own mental states to have substantial value for lived truths (p13). Medical materialism may help, that being a psychological experience from the mind that affects the body. This helps to legitimize many religious experiences like the genuinity of reality shared by many religious geniuses such as the founder of the Quaker religion; it also helps to show the relation between distress and organs. Medical materialism completely changes the perception of such people as at least being a true and genuine experience that they had. Religion must also begin considering organic processes, such as with the use of science to observe for an individual's religious conviction that their blood pressure may rise. However, if we do take religion organically it certainly argues a spiritual superiority in that science could never determine revelation as that all depends on and comes from the individual perceivers body. In making use of spiritual judgment, it disregards and fights others discrediting states commonly reorganizing their own conceptual realities, ie., something now disliked relates to a disliked organ. Even if not religious, it's common for us to want to assume superior minds to exist. Individuals’ relativity and experiences make it hard to compare, rather, it is an internal judgment of personal happiness that labels X as good. But certainly, the most good isn't the most true, a drunk experience may hold some good but only for so long. But afterwards they may continue to follow the internal voices remembered from the experience. Now, it would be good turning back to the pathological realities involved, we have the empirical argument that a genius is a hereditary degeneration, such a positive trait in social culture that one would never consider it addressing their work concerning pathological influences. Then should we disregard geniuses? No, our academic spiritual needs prevent us. No one refutes arguments based on the authors neurotic psyche rather, we accept it. This should be the same with religion and should be much more inclined to accept them as much of their religious values derive from immediate spiritual experiences. This immediate experience being roughly comprised by philosophical reasonableness and moral helpfulness, such that the universal instability relates to one's bad gut health. But concerning the causes and their origins, it has always been a philosophical dream and quest as well as religions. Medical materialism is useful here as it removes the question of origin and rather concerns itself with how X works on the whole, our empirical criterion. In studying, such as Christian mysticism, there has always been a problem with legitimacy concerning experiences and visions shared and we should use the empirical criterion to analyze “by their fruits…not by their roots” (p20). With Saint Teresa, the more imperfect sleep the more unhealthy thus the more imperfect imagination the less healthy the soul (p21). James suggests judging religion by results so he says we should look at exaggerated extremes of a pathological regard for better religious analysis. Many pathological realities involve negative consequences but also at many times combined with people of superior intellect who greatly impact their contemporaries. Regarding pathological realities, to one brain they respond to ‘what should I do next?’ And for another they respond to ‘what must I do next?’. Now we should look at religious phenomena things such as melancholy and religious evolution, happiness from religious beliefs, and trances that bring religious truths. Whether religious or not they still gain each trait, such as happiness or melancholy. Now that we have disregarded causal origins we are only concerned about the practicality of experiences. It would also be helpful to see the true religious divide in such examples like religious melancholy versus moral melancholy, but with our mass of worldly phenomena religious examples must be utilized in comparison.

Lecture 2- Circumscription of the Topic

-You cannot identify religion by a single essence, it is better to leave it as a collective name. It is common that dogmatism tends to oversimplify and try to identify a single unifier but instead we can see it has many overlapping traits, similar to asking one to define a government. Now, concerning things like religious love or reverence, they most likely relate with an intended object. Thus, it is not merely an object with religious value, but it invokes emotional responses by the individual that they define as divine. Rather than a common essence to religious emotions it is better to view us as having a storehouse of emotions which objects can draw from (p28). In this lecture. James aims to narrow a definition for religion to work with and first in defining we must separate institution from personal. For a religious institution one’s practices and efforts are for the deity and thus their external reality, for personal religion one participates for themselves and thus their internal reality. For James institutional is diluted through officials and thus becomes secondary. Personal religion is a more primary and primordial direct connection with the divine thus James will only regard the personal religion for this lecture. Now we reach a narrowed definition for religion: the feelings, acts, and experiences within an individual solitude regarding what they apprehend as the divine (p31) and, interacting with it either morally, physically, or ritually. Defining the divine is rather open as well as commonly we see past humans such as the Buddha revered to the same degree as a God, or there is also Emersonian religion with the divine as translated into a moral universal order, as if it were a God, either way one could trust it the same. It is rather ridiculous to try to regard such inner experiences as not being religious. Much of religion relates with a deep and primal nature and this is sure to crossover with humans’ attitude towards life and the world, as that being their total reaction. Questions like: ‘what is the character of the universe we live in?’ (p35), define individuality. So, why not consider them religious? But surely some find it difficult to consider something religious for everyday attitudes. James shares a good Voltaire example, that in the face of war he thanks God, gives a laugh, and calls life of farce, as something not to take serious (p36). This totalizing of the universe with regards to his emotional reaction is his total reaction to the universe. As the universe is found ‘not to be taken too serious’ that necessitates the prior reality of serious to the mental conception; however, religion defines it always carries a ‘serious state of mind’, religion favors reality over personal individual flavor. At times of joy, they fight Snickers and at times of sorrow they fight screams (p38), these being some good examples of religious solemn experiences. Thus, narrowing religions definition even more to the divine as not only the primarily real but also as the primarily real one “feels impelled to respond to solemnly” (p38) by their own choice. Does it make a difference to call this religious or not? Well, those that do operate so with some vibrant religious energy or a very wholesome mood. Surely in distinguishing these two, personal religion must have elements to it that morality does not. If so, how do we separate them? A common phrase for both is ‘accept the universe’, ok but is this done wholesomely or grudgingly? Do we accept it as if forced into submission? For the religious, they accept it positively as a necessity with enthusiasm. Thus, making a massive practical difference to reality with the religious one as an active participant. But we are still aiming to find particular essences solely found within religious experiences. In prior comparison of the religious and the moralist we saw the division of philosophy from religion. A stoic, moral, or philosophical life is less swayed by attention to means rather than objective ends, ‘the good side of war’, that calls for volunteers (p45). If one is sick, and they cannot fight in war, they certainly can fight in moral warfare. They could train against personal indifferences for a possible better future, hold silence for life's tragedies, trust in ethics, and so much more, all by their own choice. Where the moralist practically lacks, religion flourishes; where things work out, morality works, but when things do not there is certainly decay and morality struggles. We all struggle with existential dreads and certainly crave universal security but many times at our most dreadful last resorts volunteerism arises, substituting well-being where there is not. By one's choice they may substitute mental pursuits and worldly actions for their reverence and trust in God as their personal dreads become a realm of safety. In morality fear is held, in this case it is “positively expunged and washed away” (p47). Religion helps add a degree of enchantment to life by means of extension of the reality of a subjective reach for things like emotion, power, freedom, etc. By religions solemn nature for many it would be ridiculous to reduce it to happiness. In religions consent to evil, it no longer uses happiness as an escapism. For them, utilizing higher elements helps keep lower ones in check thus, a world is richer with a devil than not but just as long as we have a good footing. Truly a religious only essence is here, nowhere else does one grow happier by feeding on negativity. Religion truly helps to ease the necessities in life with a solemn regard.

--Seth Graves-Huffman