The psychology of religion : an empirical study of the growth of religious consciousness / by Edwin Diller Starbuck ; with a preface by William James.

  • Starbuck, Edwin Diller, 1866-1947.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The psychology of religion : an empirical study of the growth of religious consciousness / by Edwin Diller Starbuck ; with a preface by William James. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    will be fairly clear. The words in which the experiences were described were usually the index to the groups ; but when they were graphically set forth with a variety of designations for the same experience, it was necessary to judge them for the classification. Joy and peace are distinguished in part by the intensity of the experience, the former being the stronger. The difference between joy and happiness is something like that between ' Oh, what joy ! ’ and ‘ Aha, what happiness ! ’ Of the dis- tinction between calmness and peace, the former is written more in the minor key, containing, as it does, a slight undertone of the pain of the pre-conversion period. The last column gives the relative prominence of the feelings. Joy, peace and happiness are three of the most frequent groups. Closely akin to these are bodily lightness and weeping and shouting, in which the buoy- ancy is expressed in physical terms. This is the most common quality of feeling—a spiritual uplift, freedom and harmony. The sense of peace is the point at which this kind of feeling shades off into relief—a feeling which, with its physiological correlative, being freed from a load on the body or heart, is rather frequent. Joy and happiness seem to indicate the completed escape from the old life and a looking toward the new, while in relief there is a sufficient tang of the old to furnish terms in which to read the new. One of the most common feelings is that of acceptance and one- ness with God or Christ. The joy, the relief, and the acceptance are qualities of feeling, perhaps, which give the truest picture of what is going on in conversion— the free exercise of new powers, an escape from some- thing, and the birth into Larger Life, with the corre- sponding sense of warmth and harmony. The last three groups in the table—calmness, responsibility and partial disappointment—are relatively less frequent. The meaning of them, the old life not quite stripped off, or the new not fully realised, will be seen more clearly in the next table.