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Produktbild: The Varieties of Religious Experience

The Varieties of Religious Experience A Study in Human Nature

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Beschreibung

Produktdetails

Einband

Taschenbuch

Erscheinungsdatum

01.05.2004

Verlag

Touchstone

Seitenzahl

398

Maße (L/B/H)

21,2/14,2/3 cm

Gewicht

376 g

Sprache

Englisch

ISBN

978-0-7432-5787-9

Beschreibung

Produktdetails

Einband

Taschenbuch

Erscheinungsdatum

01.05.2004

Verlag

Touchstone

Seitenzahl

398

Maße (L/B/H)

21,2/14,2/3 cm

Gewicht

376 g

Sprache

Englisch

ISBN

978-0-7432-5787-9

Herstelleradresse

Libri GmbH
Europaallee 1
36244 Bad Hersfeld
DE

Email: GPSR Kontakt

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  • Produktbild: The Varieties of Religious Experience

  • Contents

    Introduction

    Author´s Preface

    1 Religion and Neurology

    Introduction: the course is not anthropological, but deals with personal documents -- Questions of fact and questions of value -- In point of fact, the religious are often neurotic -- Criticism of medical materialism, which condemns religion on that account -- Theory that religion has a sexual origin refuted -- All states of mind are neurally conditioned -- Their significance must be tested not by their origin but by the value of their fruits -- Three criteria of value; origin useless as a criterion -- Advantages of the psychopathic temperament when a superior intellect goes with it -- especially for the religious life.

    2 Circumscription of the Topic

    Futility of simple definitions of religion -- No one specific "religious sentiment" -- Institutional and personal religion -- We confine ourselves to the personal branch -- Definition of religion for the purpose of these lectures -- Meaning of the term "divine" -- The divine is what prompts solemn reactions -- Impossible to make our definitions sharp -- We must study the more extreme cases -- Two ways of accepting the universe -- Religion is more enthusiastic than philosophy -- Its characteristic is enthusiasm in solemn emotion -- Its ability to overcome unhappiness -- Need of such a faculty from the biological point of view.

    3 The Reality of the Unseen

    Percepts versus abstract concepts -- Influence of the latter on belief -- Kant´s theological Ideas -- We have a sense of reality other than that given by the special senses -- Examples of "sense of presence" -- The feeling of unreality -- Sense of a divine presence: examples -- Mystical experiences: examples -- Other cases of sense of God´s presence -- Convincingness of unreasoned experience -- Inferiority of rationalism in establishing belief -- Either enthusiasm or solemnity may preponderate in the religious attitude of individuals.

    4 and 5 The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness

    Happiness is man´s chief concern -- "Once-born" and "twice-born" characters -- Walt Whitman -- Mixed nature of Greek feeling -- Systematic healthy-mindedness -- Its reasonableness -- Liberal Christianity shows it -- Optimism as encouraged by Popular Science -- The "Mind-cure" movement -- Its creed -- Cases -- Its doctrine of evil -- Its analogy to Lutheran theology -- Salvation by relaxation -- Its methods: suggestion -- meditation -- "recollection" -- verification -- Diversity of possible schemes of adaptation to the universe -- Appendix: Two mind-cure cases.

    6 and 7 The Sick Soul

    Healthy-mindedness and repentance -- Essential pluralism of the healthy-minded philosophy -- Morbid-mindedness: its two degrees -- The pain-threshold varies in individuals -- Insecurity of natural goods -- Failure, or vain success of every life -- Pessimism of all pure naturalism -- Hopelessness of Greek and Roman view -- Pathological unhappiness -- "Anhedonia" -- Querulous melancholy -- Vital zest is a pure gift -- Loss of it makes physical world look different -- Tolstoy -- Bunyan -- Alline -- Morbid fear -- Such cases need a supernatural religion for relief -- Antagonism of healthy-mindedness and morbidness -- The problem of evil cannot be escaped.

    8 The Divided Self, and the Process of Its Unification

    Heterogeneous personality -- Character gradually attains unity -- Examples of divided self -- The unity attained need not be religious -- "Counter conversion" cases -- Other cases -- Gradual and sudden unification -- Tolstoy´s recovery -- Bunyan´s.

    9 Conversion

    Case of Stephen Bradley -- The psychology of character-changes -- Emotional excitements make new centres of personal energy -- Schematic ways of representing this -- Starbuck likens conversion to normal moral ripening -- Leuba´s ideas -- Seemingly unconvertible persons -- Two types of conversion -- Subconscious incubation of motives -- Self-surrender -- Its importance in religious history -- Cases.

    10 Conversion -- Concluded

    Cases of sudden conversion -- Is suddenness essential? -- No, it depends on psychological idiosyncrasy -- Proved existence of transmarginal, or subliminal, consciousness -- "Automatisms" -- Instantaneous conversions seem due to the possession of an active subconscious self by the subject -- The value of conversion depends not on the process, but on the fruits -- These are not superior in sudden conversion -- Professor Coe´s views -- Sanctification as a result -- Our psychological account does not exclude direct presence of the Deity -- Sense of higher control -- Relations of the emotional "faith-state" to intellectual beliefs -- Leuba quoted -- Characteristics of the faith-state: sense of truth; the world appears new -- Sensory and motor automatisms -- Permanency of conversions.

    11, 12, and 13 Saintliness

    Sainte-Beuve on the State of Grace -- Types of character as due to the balance of impulses and inhibitions -- Sovereign excitements -- Irascibility -- Effects of higher excitement in general -- The saintly life is ruled by spiritual excitement -- This may annul sensual impulses permanently -- Probable subconscious influences involved -- Mechanical scheme for representing permanent alteration in character -- Characteristics of saintliness -- Sense of reality of a higher power -- Peace of mind, charity -- Equanimity, fortitude, etc. -- Connection of this with relaxation -- Purity of life -- Asceticism -- Obedience -- Poverty -- The sentiments of democracy and of humanity -- General effects of higher excitements.

    14 and 15 The Value of Saintliness

    It must be tested by the human value of its fruits -- The reality of the God must, however, also be judged -- "Unfit" religions get eliminated by "experience" -- Empiricism is not skepticism -- Individual and tribal religion -- Loneliness of religious originators -- Corruption follows success -- Extravagances -- Excessive devoutness, as fanaticism -- As theopathic absorption -- Excessive purity -- Excessive charity -- The perfect man is adapted only to the perfect environment -- Saints are leavens -- Excesses of asceticism -- Asceticism symbolically stands for the heroic life -- Militarism and voluntary poverty as possible equivalents -- Pros and cons of the saintly character -- Saints versus "strong" men -- Their social function must be considered -- Abstractly the saint is the highest type, but in the present environment it may fail, so we make ourselves saints at our peril -- The question of theological truth.

    16 and 17 Mysticism

    Mysticism defined -- Four marks of mystic states -- They form a distinct region of consciousness -- Examples of their lower grades -- Mysticism and alcohol -- "The anæsthetic revelation" -- Religious mysticism -- Aspects of Nature -- Consciousness of God -- "Cosmic consciousness" -- Yoga -- Buddhistic mysticism -- Sufism -- Christian mystics -- Their sense of revelation -- Tonic effects of mystic states -- They describe by negatives -- Sense of union with the Absolute -- Mysticism and music -- Three conclusions -- (1) Mystical states carry authority for him who has them -- (2) But for no one else -- (3) Nevertheless, they break down the exclusive authority of rationalistic states -- They strengthen monistic and optimistic hypotheses.

    18 Philosophy

    Primacy of feeling in religion, philosophy being a secondary function -- Intellectualism professes to escape subjective standards in her theological constructions -- "Dogmatic theology" -- Criticism of its account of God´s attributes -- "Pragmatism" as a test of the value of conceptions -- God´s metaphysical attributes have no practical significance -- His moral attributes are proved by bad arguments; collapse of systematic theology -- Does transcendental idealism fare better? Its principles -- Quotations from John Caird -- They are good as restatements of religious experience, but uncoercive as reasoned proof -- What philosophy can do for religion by transforming herself into "science of religions."

    19 Other Characteristics

    Aesthetic elements in religion -- Contrast of Catholicism and Protestantism -- Sacrifice and Confession -- Prayer -- Religion holds that spiritual work is really effected in prayer -- Three degrees of opinion as to what is effected -- First degree -- Second degree -- Third degree -- Automatisms, their frequency among religious leaders -- Jewish cases -- Mohammed -- Joseph Smith -- Religion and the subconscious region in general.

    20 Conclusions

    Summary of religious characteristics -- Men´s religions need not be identical -- "The science of religions" can only suggest, not proclaim, a religious creed -- Is religion a "survival" of primitive thought? -- Modern science rules out the concept of personality -- Anthropomorphism and belief in the personal characterized pre-scientific thought -- Personal forces are real, in spite of this -- Scientific objects are abstractions, only individualized experiences are concrete -- Religion holds by the concrete -- Primarily religion is a biological reaction -- Its simplest terms are an uneasiness and a deliverance; description of the deliverance -- Question of the reality of the higher power -- The author´s hypotheses: 1. The subconscious self as intermediating between nature and the higher region -- 2. The higher region, or "God" -- 3. He produces real effects in nature.

    Postscript

    Philosophic position of the present work defined as piece-meal supernaturalism -- Criticism of universalistic supernaturalism -- Different principles must occasion differences in fact -- What differences in fact can God´s existence occasion? -- The question of immortality -- Question of God´s uniqueness and infinity: religious experience does not settle this question in the affirmative -- The pluralistic hypothesis is more conformed to common sense.

    Index