The varieties of religious experience : a study in human nature : being the Gifford Lectures on natural religion delivered at Edinburgh in 1901-1902 / by William James.

  • James, William, 1842-1910.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The varieties of religious experience : a study in human nature : being the Gifford Lectures on natural religion delivered at Edinburgh in 1901-1902 / by William James. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    I had a revelation last Friday evening. I was at Mary's, and happening to say something of the presence of spirits (of whom, I said, I was often dimly aware), Mr. Putnam entered into an argument with me on spiritual matters. As I was speaking, the whole system rose up before me like a vague destiny looming from the Abyss. I never before so clearly felt the Spirit of God in me and around me. The whole room seemed to me full of God. The air seemed to waver to and fro with the presence of Something I knew not what. I spoke with the calmness and clearness of a prophet. I cannot tell you what this revelation was. I have not yet studied it enough. But I shall perfect it one day, and then you shall hear it and acknowledge its grandeur. 1 Here is a longer and more developed experience from a manuscript communication by a clergyman, — I take it from Starbuck's manuscript collection : — I remember the night, and almost the very spot on the hill- top, where my soul opened out, as it were, into the Infinite, and there was a rushing together of the two worlds, the inner and the outer. It was deep calling unto deep, — the deep that my own struggle had opened up within being answered by the unfathomable deep without, reaching beyond the stars. I stood alone with Him who had made me, and all the beauty of the world, and love, and sorrow, and even temptation. I did not seek Him, but felt the perfect unison of my spirit with His. The ordinary sense of things around me faded. For the moment nothing but an ineffable joy and exaltation remained. It is impossible fully to describe the experience. It was like the effect of some great orchestra when all the separate notes have melted into one swelling harmony that leaves the listener con- scious of nothing save that his soul is being wafted upwards, and almost bursting with its own emotion. The perfect stillness of the night was thrilled by a more solemn silence. The dark- ness held a presence that was all the more felt because it was not seen. I could not any more have doubted that He was 1 Letters of Lowell, i. 75.