Analysis Of The Study Of Religious Experience By William James

James focused on highly religious people and their spiritual experiences. While, he respected the validity of these events, James understood the potential pathological processes that followed. He theorized that religious experiences originated from the subconscious region of the brain. Certain individuals were more vulnerable to these interruptions from the sub-conscious resulting in manifestations, hallucinations, obsessive ideas and impulsivity. Direct communication with God was as a unique skill in which only a few possessed. Individuals with this capability were highly respected and believed to have superior powers. James believed these individuals were geniuses in their religious realm but demonstrated unstable behaviours. This is supported by George Fox’s journal in which he recounts his own spiritual experiences with God.

Fox was the founder of Quakerism and was believed to be a religious genius during his time. He describes a time in which God spoke to him and told him to walk barefoot through the streets of Lichfield: “Then was I commanded by the Lord to pull off my shoes. I stood still, for it was winter: but the word of the Lord was like a fire in me… the word of the Lord came to me again, saying: Cry, ‘Wo to the bloody city of Lichfield!’ So I went up and down the streets, crying with a loud voice, Wo to the bloody city of Lichfield!. ” (pg 11). During this experience, Fox also describes visions of blood running through streets: “ As I went thus crying through the streets, there seemed to me to be a channel of blood running down the streets, and the market-place appeared like a pool of blood. ”(pg 11). This overall religious experience was believed by Fox to be a genuine message from God however James understood this was created by the subconscious. In order to understand the role the subconscious plays in religious experiences, conscious and subconscious interactions must be examined. James introduces the concept of a field of conciseness. Each field has a point of interest in which desired information remains and disinterested information falls into margins. These margins were believed to be inaccessible.

However, it was later discovered that in some individuals, this was not the case. Some people demonstrated having thoughts, memories and emotions outside their primary conscious. James believed the discovery of the subconscious had major implications for future research on religious phenomena. He further theorized that everyone had some degree of subconscious processing and individuals with higher levels were more liable to experiencing interruptions in their primary conscious. These incursions could take the form of impulsive ideas, obsessive ideas, or hallucinations. If we return to the case of George Fox, Fox was experiencing impulsive ideas and hallucinations which resulted in his erratic behaviour. One may theorize that Fox was experiencing incursions from his subconscious. Religious conversation can be described as a process in which a person gains affirmations about religious apprehensions, James describes this process as a unification of a divided self resulting in an overall happier mind: “…hitherto divided, and consciously wrong inferior and unhappy, becomes unified and consciously right superior and happy”. ” (pg 200). He provides a psychological definition of conversation which helps to highlight the importance of the subconscious in religious experiences.

Ordinarily, people have diverse interests, however when they are entirely absorbed, all other interests become excluded. The passing from one interest to another is not remarkable, but when it becomes a becomes a permanent fixture and pushes other previously important life goals to the side, it is described as transformation. Religious ideas previously on the sidelines of consciousness become the most important goals in a persons’ life. Starbuck proposed two types of conversions: the "volitional type" and the "type by self-surrender”. The volitional conversation is gradual and involves the overall growth of a person’s moral and spiritual principles. While the later, is the result of a build up of “psychic energy” that bursts through the conscious and floods an individual with "divine grace" in an instantaneous conversion.