The Varieties of Religious Experience — William James
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p. 97To come now to a little closer quarters with their creed. The fundamental pillar on which it rests is nothing more than the general basis of all religious experience, the fact that man has a dual nature, and is connected with two spheres of thought,~a shallower and a profounder sphere, in either of which he may learn to live more habitually.
The sliallower"anc[ lower sphere is that of the fleshly sensations, instincts, and desires, of egotism, doubt, and the lower personal interests. But whereas Christian theology has always considered frospeculation as to the way in which the suggestive ideas may work (p. 67 of the reprint).
As regards the general phenomenon of mental cure itself, Dr. Goddard writes : " In spite of the severe criticism we have made of reports of cure, there still remains a vast amount of material, showing a powerful influence of the mind in disease. Many cases are of diseases that have Been diagnosed and treated by the best physicians of the country, or which prominent hospitals have tried their hand at curing, but without success.
People of culture and education have been treated by this method with satisfactory results. Diseases of long standing have been ameliorated, and even cured. . . . We have traced the mental element through primitive medicine and folk-medicine of to-day, patent medicine, and witchcraft.
We are convinced that it is impossible to account for the existence of these practices, if they did not cure disease, and that if they cured disease, it must have been the mental element that was effective. The same argument applies to those modern schools of mental therapeutics — Divine Healing and Christian Science.
It is hardly conceivable that the large body ^ of intelligent people who comprise the body known distinctively as Mental ^ Scientists should continue to exist if the whole thing were a delusion. It is not a thing of a day ; it is not confined to a few ; it is not local. It is true that many failures are recorded, but that only adds to the argument.
There must be many and striking successes to counterbalance the failures, otherwise the failures would have ended the delusion. . . . Christian Sd^enee, iflUA*' Divine Healing, or Mental Science do not, and never can in the very nature ty^ ,., of things, cure all diseases ; nevertheless, the practical applications of the ' > C—- general principles of the broadest mental science will tend to prevent disease. . . .
We do find sufficient evidence to convince us that the proper reform in mental attitude would relieve many a sufferer of ills that, the ordinary physician cannot touch ; would even delay the approach of death to many a victim beyond the power of absolute cure, and the faithful adherence to a trvier philosophy of life will keep many a man Well, and .,, g/ give the doctor time to devote to alleviating ills that are un preventable " 1 (pp. 33, 34 of reprint). / p. 98wardness to be the essential vice of this part of human nature, the mind-curers say that the mark of the beast in it is fear ; and this is what gives such an entirely new religious turn to their persuasion.
" Fear," to quote a writer of the school, " has had its uses in the evolutionary process, and seems to constitute the whole of forethought in most animals ; but that it should remain any part of the mental equipment of human civilized life is an absurdity. I find that the fear element of forethought is not stimulating to those more civilized persons to whom duty and attraction are the natural motives, but is weakening and deterrent.
As soon as it becomes unnecessary, fear becomes a positive deterrent, and should be entirely removed, as dead flesh is removed from living tissue. To assist in the analysis of fear, and in the denunciation of its expressions, I have coined the word fearthought to stand for the unprofitable element of forethought, and have defined the word ' worry ' ^fâoHJlPU^ht in contradistinction to foretliought.
I have also defined fearthought as the self-imr)0sed or self-jjerTnitted suggestion of inferiority^ in order to place it where it really belongs, in the category of harmful, unnecessary, and therefore not respectable things. 1 The ^ misery-habit,' the ^ martyr-habit,' engendered by the prevalent ' fearthought,' get pungent criticism from the mind-cure writers : — " Consider for a moment the habits of life into which we are born.
There are certain social conventions or customs and alleged requirements, there is a theological bias, a general view of the world. There are conservative ideas in regard to our early training, our education, marriage, and occupation in life.
Following close upon this, there is a long series of anticipations, namely, that we shall suffer certain children's diseases, diseases of middle life, and of old age ; the thought that we shall grow ^ Horace Fletcher : Happiness as found in Forethought minus Fearthought, Menticulture Series, ii. Chicago and New York, Stone, 1897, pp. 21-25, abridged.
p. 99old, lose our faculties, and again become childlike ; while crowning all is the fear of death.
Then there is a long line of particular fears and trouble-bearing expectations, such, for example, as ideas associated with certain articles of food, the dread of the east wind, the terrors of hot weather, the aches and pains associated with cold weather, the fear of catching cold if one sits in a draught, the coming of hay-fever upon the 14th of August in the middle of the day, and so on through a long list of fears, dreads, worriments, anxieties, anticipations, expectations, pessimisms, morbidities, and the whole ghostly train of fateful shapes which our fellow-men, and especially physicians, are ready to help us conjure up, an array worthy to rank with Bradley's ' unearthly ballet of bloodless categories.
" Yet this is not all. This vast array is swelled by innumerable volunteers from daily life, — the fear of accident, the possibility of calamity, the loss of property, the chance of robbery, of fire, or the outbreak of war. And it is not deemed sufficient to fear for ourselves. When a friend is taken ill, we must forthwith fear the worst and apprehend death.
If one meets with sorrow ... sympathy means to enter into and increase the suffering." ^ " Man," to quote another writer, " often has fear stamped upon him before his entrance into the outer world ; he is reared in fear ; all his life is passed in bondage to fear of disease and death, and thus his whole mentality becomes cramped, limited, and depressed, and his body follows its shrunken pattern and specification. . . .
Think of the millions of sensitive and responsive souls among our ancestors who have been under the dominion of such a perpetual nightmare ! Is it not surprising that health exists at all?
Nothing but the boundless^ divine love, exuberance, and vitality, constantly poured in, eyen though unconsciously to us, could in some degree neutralize such an. ocean of morbidity." ^ /l<-f j« Although the disciples of the mind-cure often use Christian terminology, one sees from such quotations 1 H. W. Dresser : Voices of Freedom, New York, 1899, p. 38. 2 Henry Wood : Ideal Suggestion through Mental Photography, Boston, 1899, p. 54.
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