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QUOTEs
(Most quotes verbatim William James,
some paraphrased.) |
COMMENTs
(Relevant to Pirsig, William James
Sidis, and Quantonics Thinking Modes.) |
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PAGE
LECTURE I
RELIGION AND NEUROLOGY....................................................................1
Introduction: the course is not anthropological, but deals
with personal documents, 1. Questions of fact and questions of
value, 4. In point of fact, the religious are often neurotic,
6. Criticism of medical materialism, which condemns religion
on that account, 10. Theory that religion has a sexual origin
refuted, 11. All states of mind are neurally conditioned, 14.
Their significance must be tested not by their origin but by
the value of their fruits, 15. Three criteria of value; origin
useless as a criterion, 118. Advantages of the psychopathic temperament
when a superior intellect goes with it, 22 especially for the
religious life, 24.
LECTURE II
CIRCUMSCRIPTION OF THE TOPIC..........................................................26
Futility of simple definitions of religion, 26. No one specific
'religions sentiment,' 27. Institutional and personal religion,
28. We confine ourselves to the personal branch, 29. Definition
of religion for the purpose of these lectures, 31. Meaning of
the term 'divine,' 31. The divine is what prompts solemn reactions,
38. Impossible to make our definitions sharp, 39. We must study
the more extreme cases, 40. Two ways of accepting the universe,
41. Religion is more enthusiastic than philosophy,
45. Its characteristic is enthusiasm in solemn emotion, 48. Its
ability to overcome unhappiness, 50. Need of such a faculty from
the biological point of view, 51.
LECTURE III
THE REALITY OF THE UNSEEN................................................................53
Percepts versus abstract concepts, 53. Influence of
the latter on belief, 54. Kant's theological Ideas, 55. We have
a sense of reality other than that given by the special senses,
58. Examples of 'sense of presence,' 59. The feeling of unreality,
63. Sense
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of a divine presence: examples, 65. Mystical experiences:
examples, 69. Other cases of sense of God's presence, 70. Convincingness
of unreasoned experience, 72. Inferiority of rationalism
in establishing belief, 73. Either enthusiasm or solemnity may
preponderate in the religions attitude of individuals, 75.
LECTURES IV AND V
THE RELIGION OF HEALTHY-MINDEDNESS........................................77
Happiness is man's chief concern, 78. 'Once-born' and
'twice-born' characters, 80. Walt Whitman, 84. Mixed nature of
Greek feeling, 86. Systematic healthy-mindedness, 87. Its reasonableness,
88. Liberal Christianity shows it, 91. Optimism as encouraged
by Popular Science, 92. The 'Mind-cure' movement, 94. Its creed,
97. Cases, 102. Its doctrine of evil, 106. Its analogy to Lutheran
theology, 108. Salvation by relaxation, 109. Its methods: suggestion,
112; meditation, 115; ' recollection,' 116 ; verification,
118. Diversity of possible schemes of adaptation to the universe,
122. APPENDIX: Two mind-cure cases, 123.
LECTURES VI AND VII
THE SICK Soul..............................................................................................127
Healthy-mindedness and, repentance, 127. Essential pluralism
of the healthy-minded philosophy, 131. Morbid-mindedness - its
two degrees, 134. The pain-threshold varies in individuals, 135.
Insecurity of natural goods, 136. Failure, or vain success of
every life, 138. Pessimism of all pure naturalism, 140. Hopelessness
of Greek and Roman view, 142. Pathological unhappiness, 144.
'Anhedonia,' 145. Querulous melancholy, 148. Vital zest is a
pure gift, 150. Loss of it makes physical world look different,
151. Tolstoy, 152. Bunyan, 157. Alline, 159. Morbid fear, 160.
Such cases need a supernatural religion for relief, 162. Antagonism
of healthy-mindedness and morbidness, 163. The problem of evil
cannot be escaped, 164.
LECTURE VIII
THE DIVIDED SELF, AND THE PROCESS OF ITS UNIFICATION....166
Heterogeneous personality, 167. Character gradually attains
unity, 170. Examples of divided self, 171. The unity attained
need not be religious, 175. 'Counter conversion' cases, 177.
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Other cases, 178. Gradual and sudden unification Tolstoy's
recovery, 184. Bunyan's, 186.
LECTURE IX
CONVERSION.............................................................................................189
Case of Stephen Bradley, 189. The psychology of character-changes,
193. Emotional excitements make new centres of personal energy,
196. Schematic ways of representing this, 197. Starbuck likens
conversion to normal moral ripening, 198. Leuba's ideas, 201.
Seemingly unconvertible persons, 204. Two types of conversion,
205. Subconscious incubation of motives, 206. Self-surrender,
208. Its importance in religious history, 211. Cases, 212.
LECTURE X
CONVERSION concluded...............................................................217
Cases of sudden conversion, 217. Is suddenness essential?
227. No, it depends on psychological idiosyncrasy, 230. Proved
existence of transmarginal, or subliminal, consciousness, 233.
'Automatisms,' 234. Instantaneous conversions seem due to the
possession of an active subconscious self by the subject, 236.
The value of conversion depends not on the process, but on the
fruits, 237. These are not superior in sudden conversion, 238.
Professor Coe's views, 240. Sanctification as a result, 241.
Our psychological account does not exclude direct presence of
the Deity, 242. Sense of higher control, 243. Relations of the
emotional 'faith-state' to intellectual beliefs, 246. Leuba quoted,
247. Characteristics of the faith-state: sense of truth the world
appears new, 248. Sensory and motor automatisms,
250. Permanency of conversions, 256.
LECTURES XI, XII, AND XIII
SAINTLINESS............................................................................................259
Sainte-Beuve on the State of Grace, 260. Types of character
as due to the balance of impulses and inhibitions, 261. Sovereign
excitements, 262. Irascibility, 264. Effects of higher excitement
in general, 266. The saintly life is ruled by spiritual excitement,
267. This may annul sensual impulses permanently, 268. Probable
subconscious influences involved, 270. Mechanical scheme for
representing permanent alteration in character, 270. Characteristics
of saintliness, 271. Sense of
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reality of a higher power, 274. Peace of mind, charity, 278.
Equanimity, fortitude, etc., 284. Connection of this with relaxation,
289. Purity of life, 290. Asceticism, 296. Obedience,
310. Poverty, 315. The sentiments of democracy and of humanity,
324. General effects of higher excitements, 325.
LECTURES XIV AND XV
THE VALUE OF SAINTLINESS...............................................326
It must be tested by the human value of its fruits, 327. The
reality of the God must, however, also he judged, 328. 'Unfit'
religions get eliminated by 'experience,' 331. Empiricism is
not skepticism, 332. Individual and tribal religion, 334. Loneliness
of religious originators, 335. Corruption follows success, 337.
Extravagances, 339. Excessive devoutness, as fanaticism, 340;
as theopathic absorption, 343. Excessive purity, 348. Excessive
charity, 355. The perfect man is adapted only to the perfect
environment, 356. Saints are leavens, 357. Excesses of asceticism,
360. Asceticism symbolically stands for the heroic life, 363.
Militarism and voluntary poverty as possible equivalents, 365.
Pros and cons of the saintly character, 369. Saints
'versus 'strong' men, 371. Their social function
must be considered, 374. Abstractly the saint is the highest
type, but in the present environment it may fail, so we make
ourselves saints at our peril, 375. The question of theological
truth, 377.
LECTURES XVI AND XVII
MYSTICISM................................................................................................379
Mysticism defined, 379. Four marks of mystic states, 380.They
form a distinct region of consciousness, 382. Examples of their
lower grades, 382. Mysticism and alcohol, 386. 'The anæsthetic
revelation,' 387. Religious mysticism, 393. Aspects of Nature,
394. Consciousness of God, 396. 'Cosmic consciousness,' 398.
Yoga, 400. Buddhistic mysticism, 401. Sufism, 402. Christian
mystics, 406. Their sense of revelation, 408. Tonic effects of
mystic states, 414. They describe by negatives, 416. Sense of
union with the Absolute, 419. Mysticism and music, 420. Three
conclusions, 422. (1) Mystical states carry authority for him
who has them, 423. (2) But for no one else, 424. (3) Nevertheless,
they break down the exclusive authority of rationalistic states,
427. They strengthen monistic and optimistic hypotheses, 428.
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LECTURE XVIII
Philosophy.....................................................................................................430
Primacy of feeling in religion, philosophy being a secondary
function, 430. Intellectualism professes to escape subjective
standards in her theological constructions, 433. 'Dogmatic theology,'
436. Criticism of its account of God's attributes, 442. 'Pragmatism'
as a test of the value of conceptions, 444. God's metaphysical
attributes have no practical significance, 445. His moral attributes
are proved by bad arguments ; collapse of systematic theology,
448. Does transcendental idealism fare better? Its principles,
449. Quotations from John Caird, 450. They are good as restatements
of religious experience, but uncoercive as reasoned proof, 453.
What philosophy can do for religion by transforming herself
into 'science of religions,' 455.
LECTURE XIX
OTHER CHARACTERISTICS....................................................................458
Æsthetic elements in religion, 458. Contrast
of Catholicism and Protestantism, 461. Sacrifice and Confession,
462. Prayer, 463. Religion holds that spiritual work is really
effected in prayer, 465. Three degrees of opinion as to what
is effected, 467. First degree, 468. Second degree, 472. Third
degree, 474. Automatisms, their frequency among religious leaders,
478. Jewish eases, 479. Mohammed, 481. Joseph Smith, 482. Religion
and the subconscious region in general, 483.
LECTURE XX
CONCLUSIONS...........................................................................................485
Summary of religious characteristics, 485. Men's religions
need not be identical, 487. 'The science of religions' can only
suggest, not proclaim, a religious creed. 489. Is religion a
'survival' of primitive thought? 490. Modern science rules out
the concept of personality, 491. Anthropomorphism and belief
in the personal characterized prescientific thought, 493. Personal
forces are real, in spite of this, 498. Scientific objects are
abstractions, only individualized experiences are concrete, 498.
Religion holds by the concrete, 500. Primarily religion is a
biological reaction, 504. Its simplest terms are an uneasiness
and a deliverance; description of the deliverance, 508. Ques-
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tion of the reality of the higher power, 510. The author's
hypotheses: 1. The subconscious self as intermediating between
nature and the higher region, 511; 2. The higher region, or 'God,'
515; 3. He produces real effects in nature,
518.
POSTSCRIPT 520
Philosophic position of the present work defined as piecemeal
supernaturalism, 520. Criticism of universalistic supernaturalism,
521. Different principles must occasion differences in fact,
522. What differences in fact can God's existence occasion? 523.
The question of immortality, 524. Question of God's uniqueness
and infinity: religious experience does not settle this question
in the affirmative, 525. The pluralistic hypothesis is more conformed
to common sense, 526.
INDEX 529
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