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Will get back to the discussion as soon as I can, but meanwhile, here's the week 5 thread.

These lectures are an exercise in the description of the many positive consequences of religious experiences leading to a change in lifestyle. It struck me as a mini "Consolations of Religious Experience". He alludes to the potential of a great and positive world-wide change but continues to provide examples of individual emotional reliefs and reforms of petty vices. He conspicuously avoids any significant mention of negative consequences. The closest he gets to any negative consequences are the extreme asceticism and self-tortures of Suso, of which we are told eventually worked itself out when God eventually revealed to him that he could "leave these exercises off". James also seems to be struggling to keep to his wide definition of religion when in the middle of an overwhelming amount of Christian examples he rather weakly reminds us:

But these affections are certainly not mere derivatives of theism. We find them in Stoicism, in Hinduism, and in Buddhism in the highest possible degree. They harmonize with paternal theism beautifully; but they harmonize with all reflection whatever upon the dependence of mankind on general causes; and we must, I think, consider them not subordinate but coördinate parts of that great complex excitement in the study of which we are engaged. Religious rapture, moral enthusiasm, ontological wonder, cosmic emotion, are all unifying states of mind,. . .

James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (p. 218). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

I wonder what kind of impact this statment had at the time?

If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door, then. But just how anything operates in this region is still unexplained,. . .

James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (p. 212). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

Despite the big if in front of it and the admission that it is not known how the subliminal works, it seems too easy for some believers to take this not only as a psychological explanation of how God speaks to them but also as Psychology's endorsement of their beliefs.

David wrote: "....unifying states of mind..."

There's again that "states of mind" clause of James's that I continue to find so frustratingly ephemeral.

It seems to me that James is still discussing fairly common experiences that fall into a category of conversion that could be shared with any number of types of conversion topics. I'm waiting to see if and when he begins to talk about mystics and the mystical experiences that don't really fit easily into any common psychological event (like the ones Evelyn Underhill discusses in Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness).

There was one testimony by a man who James guessed must have seen a vision of Mary that seemed to touch on the mystical type of experience I am thinking of; one of the qualities these mystical experiences do seem to have in common is the inability to describe them, and the reluctance to speak about them.

I am continually reminded during these readings that we are listening to someone who lived in such a different time & space, as James says,

"Even without Carlyle, most of us find it necessary to our soul's health to start the day with a rather cool immersion."

These type of comments help me to ignore the bad science. Clearly everyone, or at least everyone in that lecture hall, started their day with a cold shower (or dunking, or sponging). Maybe because hot water was at a premium. Or maybe James was making a joke! In any case, this reference to a cool immersion was an understanding shared by that audience at that time. I think there are a lot of anachronistic assumptions like this throughout these lectures.

With all these examples of saintliness, some more extreme than others, it seemed to me James was hovering somewhat on the fringe of the essence of it, namely detachment.
Even though we don't look upon ourselves anymore in the wretched context of sin as some of the examples given or employ devices for mortification, what all of them seek is detachment from vices in order to serve a higher good.

I wonder how common examples like Suso's were. He seemed a bit nutty to me. When I read this I thought of something I read a while back of St. Benedict of Nursia (6th century). He was talking of fasting, and he was concerned that some of the brothers were getting too attached to it, inclined to overdoing it. In other words, even within the religious life excesses can occur. The mortifications have their uses in promoting detachment, but if done excessively they become a perverse act of pride. This is far from saintliness. At least this is how I understand it.

I really wish James would have used a few more sane examples of saintliness, where the detachment the person is living is notable, even astonishing, but not unhinged, somebody like a Mother Teresa. Maybe I am just reacting as a modern reader here aware of the secular nature of our culture. But without the necessary background how can anyone look upon the example given of John of the Cross as normal? There is not enough context given to explain let alone understand the religious life in the first place. Did James understand it himself?

Kerstin wrote: "The mortifications have their uses in promoting detachment, but if done excessively they become a perverse act of pride..."

They also become attached (addicted) to the endorphins they are releasing.

Janice(JG) wrote: "Kerstin wrote: "The mortifications have their uses in promoting detachment, but if done excessively they become a perverse act of pride..."

They also become attached (addicted) to the endorphins they are releasing. t..."

Now that makes perfect sense!

I have also increasingly seen the word 'addiction' being used instead of 'concupiscence.' What then is sinful behavior makes much more sense for us today. It isn't that pleasure, power, honor, and wealth are bad in themselves, it is the abuse of these, making them ersatz gods, that gets us into trouble.

David wrote: " He conspicuously avoids any significant mention of negative consequences. The closest he gets to any negative consequences are the extreme asceticism and self-tortures of Suso, of which we are told eventually worked itself out when God eventually revealed to him that he could "leave these exercises off". ."

This struck me also. But then I am reminded that there are dangers of extremism everywhere. The one that kept coming to mind as a recent example is the sudden popularity of dark erotica. Why do people look at the self- sacrificing ascetics as abnormal and strange, but embrace the extremes of sexual experiences (sadism and masochism in all it's elaborate sexual forms) as normal? It seems to me they are both physical abuse...

I also started wondering about the relationship between asceticism and masochism. At what point does asceticism become masochistic and the ascetic begins to receive pleasure from pain? Or I guess it is a different kind of pleasure. The pleasure is not physical but emotional or spiritual. I don't know. All of these kinds of thinking are so foreign to me, personally.

The mortifications that were used among the religious seems at worst masochistic and at best an effort to submit to God by emptying oneself. I don't think all ascetics used physical mortifications, as I understand it many lived in the simplest of ways denying themselves the pleasure of material things or ownership of "things" to keep their minds focused on God and nurture the spirit within.

Kerstin wrote: "I have also increasingly seen the word 'addiction' being used instead of 'concupiscence.' What then is sinful behavior makes much more sense for us today. It isn't that pleasure, power, honor, and wealth are bad in themselves, it is the abuse of these, making them ersatz gods, that gets us into trouble."

"concupiscence" sent me to the dictionary. Here is what I found:

: strong or ardent desire:
a : a longing of the soul for what will give it delight or for what is agreeable especially to the senses �� used chiefly by Scholastic philosophers
b : sexual desire : lust

Origin of CONCUPISCENCE

Middle English, from Middle French, from Late Latin concupiscentia, from Latin concupiscent-, concupiscens + -ia -y

First Known Use: 14th century

More: (view spoiler)[Related to CONCUPISCENCE:

Synonyms: desire, eroticism, horniness, hots, itch, lech, letch, libidinousness, lust, lustfulness, lustihood, passion, salaciousness

Related Words: libido; ardor, heat, rut; erotomania, hypersexuality, lecherousness, lechery, nymphomania, satyriasis; venery

Near Antonyms: abstinence, celibacy, chastity; frigidity, frigidness
(hide spoiler)]

On-line M-W (subscription)

I found it interesting that in one of the early lectures (I'd need to go check to recall which one) James made an especial effort to not link religious experiences with sexual experience, but more generally with other bodily reactions and feelings as well. I wondered to what extent that was driven by an attempt to disassociate with the writings of Freud -- even though his book publications didn't come until later, what were the rumblings already within the academic communities. At the time I read those passages, I wondered at any influence of Puritanical attitudes inherited from the New England/Boston environment in which James lived and taught.

A fascinating exercise is to google a series of paintings through the ages of the Annunciation to Mary and to consider therewith the passage Luke 1:26-38 ().

Likewise, to consider Bernini's sculpture in Rome of St. Theresa of Ávila:
Or Caravaggio's Mary Magdalen in Ecstasy.

The linking of religious and physical ecstasy has deep artistic roots. Do those belong within the scope of what James considers? Has he done so?

(Similar visual artistic exercises can be done readily today. The depiction of Jesus at baptism by his cousin John is one that varies widely in physical presentation of his figure -- and of John's.)

(A favorite of mine is this at the Frick: "St. Francis in the Desert" by Bellini. )

(Another exercise of possible interest: google "images desert fathers".
Scroll down for some fascinating images of ascetic settings and considerations of being a hermit: )

These derive from Abrahamic, primarily Christian, traditions.

Genni wrote: "I also started wondering about the relationship between asceticism and masochism. At what point does asceticism become masochistic and the ascetic begins to receive pleasure from pain? Or I guess it is a different kind of pleasure. The pleasure is not physical but emotional or spiritual."

Does this make it harder to divorce religious experience from medical materialism and physiological origins as James requires us to do? Does it open the door to negating or reducing any spiritual value one may seek to find in the experience? Why or why not?

I'm hoping when we get to James's "Mysticism" lecture, we will find the answers to some of these questions.

David wrote: "Does this make it harder to divorce religious experience from medical materialism and physiological origins as James requires us to do? Does it open the door to negating or reducing any spiritual value one may seek to find in the experience? Why or why not? "

Honestly, I had not understood James to say that we had to divorce from medical materialism or physiological origins. I had only understood him to say that, even IF physiological links are found, that doesn't mean they are not spiritual in origin. But, I have been reading really quickly to try to catch up. I am open to correction.

Genni wrote: "Honestly, I had not understood James to say that we had to divorce from medical materialism or physiological origins."

James criticizes the judgments of medical materialism on religious experiences at length in lecture I. He also says this which should be a sufficient reminder:

It should be no otherwise with religious opinions. Their value can only be ascertained by spiritual judgments directly passed upon them, judgments based on our own immediate feeling primarily; and secondarily on what we can ascertain of their experiential relations to our moral needs and to the rest of what we hold as true. Immediate luminousness, in short, philosophical reasonableness, and moral helpfulness are the only available criteria.

James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (p. 19). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

Sorry I've been so absent in the discussions lately. I've been recently diagnosed with AV malformation and have been going through lots of imaging tests and reading this chapter in absolute bed rest, I couldn't help noticing something similar between Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son and Cotton Mather's resignation to let his wife go. Yes, Cotton Mather's wife was already gravely ill and it was more like a matter of 'letting go' and Abraham's was more like filicide, but I still can't help being irked by this overlapping view of 'self-sacrifice' and 'sacrifice of the loved ones'. But then, if I was Abraham I would kill myself instead of my son, and in Mather's case, I can't be sick instead of my wife, so the choice would be more of whether to stand by her or let her go. So sacrifice has always seemed to me like a matter of choice and will.
I, like many modern people, feel some resistance to this extreme self-surrender and self-sacrificing ascetism.

However, as we eventually found out that the extent of my condition is too extensive to be operable, my husband and I talked over our wills and what to do when the time does come. Would I really cling on to life even if my consciousness and my mental functions are all gone? Would I let my family keep suffering by interminably extending my life? I don't think so.

The discovery of this condition has been somewhat of a revelation to me regarding self-surrender. We all give up something of this and that, eventually through our lives. But when it comes to my whole self or something that I considered as part of my self (like my motor/language functions, my consciousness, etc.) it's something completely different. I've always denied self-sacrifice as extreme or preposterous, but what if you find out that you've got no choice? I wonder if that's what the ascetics felt like. As if everything was not up to their will, but up to God's will. Of course, it might have also been for the addictive endorphins. :-)

So good to be out of the hospital and back in the discussions. I will catch up with you later.

Borum, I pray that your AVM will be benign and symptomless and leave you many years to enjoy with y our husband.

Borum wrote: "...I've always denied self-sacrifice as extreme or preposterous, but what if you find out that you've got no choice?..."

Borum -- thank you for sharing with us. It feels awkward to me to offer either prayer or blessing to a relative stranger on so public a forum as this, but let me only say, may you and your family find support and care for the journey ahead.

Borum wrote: "I've always denied self-sacrifice as extreme or preposterous, but what if you find out that you've got no choice? I wonder if that's what the ascetics felt like. As if everything was not up to their will, but up to God's will.."

We have no choice about birth or death, but we do have a choice how to face life and death. I think that's basically what VRE is about.

The Stoics acknowledge that they have control over nothing except their own will, and choose to face life and death with equanimity. Many Christian mystics face suffering and death with alacrity, even joy, because of their experience of the love of God, as demonstrated by St. Paul:

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Roger wrote: "Borum, I pray that your AVM will be benign and symptomless and leave you many years to enjoy with y our husband."

Borum, I second Roger's prayer wholeheartedly!!

Borum wrote: "Sorry I've been so absent in the discussions lately. I've been recently diagnosed with AV malformation and have been going through lots of imaging tests and reading this chapter in absolute bed res..."

I have sent a request for healing to the Healing Circle on Kauai. Blessings to you.

Borum, may the Lord give you comfort, may all the saints pray for you and all you love!

Thank you all for your prayers and support. Apart from the somewhat icky feeling of living with a Russian Roulette in my brain that might burst and bleed, the doctors say that although it's not curable, it's highly probable that I would live a long life without any brain hemorrhage if I avoid stress and high blood pressure. This is going to slow down my reading quite a bit but I'm keeping my hopes high (and my stress level way down low)! :-)

Nemo wrote: "Borum wrote: "I've always denied self-sacrifice as extreme or preposterous, but what if you find out that you've got no choice? I wonder if that's what the ascetics felt like. As if everything was ..."

I know! I think James's book is basically about the personal effect of religion on the individual and subjective view of reality. I'm confident that although I can't change the reality by myself, all these prayers and positive thinking will have a good influence in my subjective being and change me for the better, whether physical or spiritual.