The Varieties of Religious Experience — William James

p. 100how widely their notion of the fall of man diverges from that of ordinary Christians.^ Their notion of man's higher nature is hardly less divergent, beino; decidedly pantheistic.

The spiritual in man appears in the mind-cure pHilosophy as partly conscious, but chiefly subconscious ; and through the subconscious part of it we are already one with the Divine without any miracle of grace, or abrupt creation of a / new inner man. As this view is variously expressed by different writers, we find in it traces of Christian mysticism, of transcendental idealism, of vedantism, and of the modern psychology of the subliminal self.

A quotation or two will put us at the central point of view : — " The great central fact of the universe is that spirit of infi^ nite life and power that is back of all, that manifests itself in and through all. This spirit of infinite life and power that is back of all is what 1 call God.

I care not what term you may use, be it Kindly Light, Providence, the Over-Soul, Omnipo- ^ Whether it differs so much from Christ's own notion is for the exeget- . ists to decide. According to Harnack, Jesus felt about evil and disease much as our mind-curers do. " What is the answer which Jesus sends to John the Baptist ?

" asks Harnack, and says it is this : " ' The blind see, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead rise up, and the gospel is preached to the poor. That is the ' coming of the kingdom,' or rather in these saving works the kingdom is already there. By the overcoming and removal of misery, of need, of sickness, by these, actual effects John is to see that the new time has arrived.

The casting out of devils is only a part of this work of redemption, hut Jesus points to that as the sense and seal of his mission. Thus to the wretched, sick, and poor did he address himself, but not as a moralist, and without a trace of sentimentalism.

He never makes groups and departments of the ills ; he never spends time in asking whether the sick one ' deserves ' to be cured ; and it never occurs to him to sympathize with the pain or the death. He nowhere says that sickness is a beneficent infliction, and that evil has a healthy use. No, he calls sickness sickness and health health.

All evil, all wretchedness, is for him something dreadful ; it is of the great kingdom of Satan ; but he feels the power of the Saviour within him. He knows that advance is possible only when weakness is overcome, when sickness is made well. Das Wesen des Christeuthums, 1900, p. 39.

THE EELIGION OF HEALTHY-MINDEDNESS 101 tence, or whatever term may be most convenient, so long as we are agreed in regard to the great central fact itself. God then fills the universe alone, so that all is from Him and in Him, and there is nothing that is outside. He is the life of our life, our very life itself.

We are partakers of the life of God ; and though we differ from Him in that we are individualized spirits, while He is the Infinite Spirit, including us, as well as all else\ beside, yet in essence the life of God and the life of man are identically the same, and so are one. They differ not in essence or quality ; they differ in degree.

" The great central fact in human life is the comingf into a .. conscious vital realization of our oneness with this Infinite Life, ^'^^'^•^^ and the opening of ourselves fully to this divine inflow.

In just the degree that we come into a conscious realization of our VlA^ ' oneness with the Infinite Life, and open ourselves to this divine i • ~T" inflow, do we actualize in ourselves the qualities and powers i^-^^^ " ^ of the Infinite Life, do we make ourselves channels through ■ ' ' ' ■■'- '^' which the Infinite Intelligence and Power can work.

In just the degree in which you realize your oneness with the Infinite i Spirit, you will exchange dis-ease for ease, in harmony for har- /r^,.;,£^' mony, suffering and pain for abounding health and strength. To recognize our own divinity, and our intimate relation to the Universal, is to attach the belts of our machinery to the powerhouse of the Universe.

One need remain in hell no longer than one chooses to ; we can rise to anj^ heaven we ourselves choose ; ^- - ■ and when we choose so to rise, all the higher powers of thei^j(,j^y^v;^ ^, , Universe combine to help us heavenward." ^ \U,.t.'>-^%'Ju<x!,* Let me now pass from these abstracter statements to -- , A some more concrete accounts of experience with the ^^^-^ "^ mind-cure religion.

I have many answers from corre- A / . q spondents — the only difficulty is to choose. The first ..^ two whom I shall quote are my personal friends. One of them, a woman, writing as follows, expresses well the feeKng of continuity with the Infinite Power, by which all mind-cure disciples are inspired. 1 R. W. Trine: In Tune with Jhejnfinite, 26th thousand, N. Y., 1899. I have strung scattered passages together.

p. 102" The first underlying cause of all sickness, weakness, or depression is the human sense of sejyarateness from that Divine Energy which we call God. The soul which can feel ^ and affirm in serene but jubilant confidence, as did the Naza- ^ rene : ' I and my Father are one,' has no further need of healer, «,T or of healing.

This is the whole truth in a nutshell, and other foundation for wholeness can no man lay than this fact of >-. J impregnable divine union. Disease can no longer attack one >^ whose feet are planted on this rock, who feels hourly, momently, -the influx of the Deific Breath. If one with Omnipotence, how ' ^ '^ can weariness enter the consciousness, how illness assail that indomitable spark ?

" This possibility of annulling forever the law of fatigue has been abundantly proven in my own case ; for my earlier life/ jears a record of many, many years of bedridden invalidism, %with spine and lower limbs paralyzed.

My thoughts were no more impure than they are to-day, although my belief in the ^ necessity of illness was dense and unenlightened ; but since my ^ resurrection in the flesh, I have worked as a healer unceasingly for fourteen years without a vacation, and can truthfully assert that I have never known a moment of fatigue or pain, although coming in touch constantly with excessive weakness, illness, and disease of all kinds.

For how can a conscious part of Deity be \ sick? — since 'Greater is he that Is with us than all that cany strive against us. " My second correspondent, also a woman, sends me the following statement : — " Life seemed difficult to me at one time.

I was always breaking down, and had several attacks of what is called nervous prostration, with terrible insomnia, being on the verge of insanity ; besides having many other troubles, especially of the digestive organs. I had been sent away from home in charge of doctors, had taken all the narcotics, stopped all work, been fed up, and in fact knew all the doctors within reach.

But I never recovered permanently till this New Thought took possession of me. " I think that the one thing which impressed me most was