Subconscious Religion
In Leipzig, Germany, in 1866 there stood an old three-story mansion,
used as a manufactory of mechanical toys. An American student attending
the university was invited to visit the showrooms in the upper story and
became intently interested in the surprising exhibition of inventive
genius. As the visitor descended to the second and first floors he
visited the rooms where machinery of many kinds was turning out various
parts of the toys. But when he ventured to descend to the cellar to look
at the power plant he found "No admission" on every door. But he was
more disappointed when he was told that the "designing room," where the
toys were invented and the drawings made, was in the subcellar. In order
to preserve their patents and their secret processes, even the workmen
on the upper floors were forbidden ever to look into the subcellar.
That illustrative fact came forcibly to mind when meditating long over a
letter written by a praying student and author who said that he felt
sure that the only direct passage between the human soul and the world
spirits is through the subconscious mind. From that subcellar of the
soul come ideas, impulses, and suggestions which most largely influence
our actions. But we are forbidden to enter that department to examine
the plans or listen to the wireless dispatches from the spirit world so
continuously received there. "No admission" is posted on every door to
the subcellar designing room of the human soul. We get the blue prints
of new plans, or read suggestions for new or improved work sent up to
our brains. But who makes them we do not know. In the impenetrable
regions of our mental and spiritual nature are formulated many ideas and
moral laws which we must blindly obey. A man is what he thinks, and the
larger portion of his thinking is originated or molded in his
subconscious self. That is evidently the meaning of the reference by
Peter to the "hidden man of the heart." It is amazing to the careful
student of our mental constitution to find out how meager is the part of
our thinking which originates in the suggestions of our five senses.
From the Grecian and German philosophers some psychologists derived the
hypothesis that the subconscious self is only the aggregation of all the
faint or half-formed ideas which are not strong enough to force
themselves up into full recognition by the brain. Consciousness includes
only those thoughts which the brain accepts and uses in positive action.
That theory seems to be in a measure, true. There are faint suggestions
and half-formed motives of which we catch glimpses and which never seem
to be fully developed. Also the natural instincts of our animal nature
still continue and persist in our higher station in the creative order.
It can be noted by anyone that perhaps not one in a thousand of our
muscular contractions or of our decided actions is consciously dictated
by our will. The human race is seemingly, in a large measure, a
collection of automatons. We are generally moved about by powers and
mechanisms beyond our comprehension and are unconsciously working out
designs in the making of which we have no consciously important part.
It is difficult to write clearly on such a subtle theme or explain what
is known concerning autosuggestion or explain the laws which, in a
measure, control the unconscious part of human life without using
technical terms or scientific formulas beyond the understanding of the
everyday reader. But, plainly stated, a human being uses but a small
inclosure in which he can move on his own conscious volition. We are
fearfully and wonderfully made. "What I would not that I do and what I
would that I do not" was not the exclusive experience of the Apostle
Paul. But it is the common experience of all mankind. A man's thoughts,
happiness, and usefulness are the products of his moral character. His
"subconscious self" is his real character. What one does consciously may
not represent his real character, but that which he does without
meditation or conscious limitation represents the true disposition or
tendency of his real nature. Inasmuch as ye are disposed by nature or by
second nature to be a good Samaritan or to aid "the least of these," ye
have lived a continual good deed for the Master. The redeemed soul is
one whose permanent disposition, called his "subconscious" or
"subliminal self," is controlled by the magnetic influence of the spirit
of truth and goodness. The few matters on which the brain acts directly
are the deeds of the conscious mind. They are controlled by the will and
reasoning powers of the independent portion of man's being. They may or
may not accord with the heart's general impulses or they may be the
direct product of the heart's purposes. The will and the subconscious
self interact, each influencing the other. This thought presents "a
logical contradiction" which has puzzled many great minds.
But our appeal here is to the everyday experience of sincere, truthful
Christians concerning their communication with God through the
subconscious mind. One writer states that she has often received
trustworthy messages from the spirit world in dreams and in unusual
impressions during waking hours. This statement often arouses the
general prejudice which some of the extreme spiritualists or deceivers
have brought upon the theory of mental communication with the departed;
but it should be examined on its own merits without bias. The testimony
of the millions who believe or hope that they have had messages from
their beloved who have gone on before counts for much and is not a
testimony confined to professional mediums. The rejection of the theory
that it is possible for angel beings to communicate with mortals, and
that they are sent of God to do so, involves the rejection of the whole
Bible as a divinely truthful Book. If there is no open path through the
subconscious self to the spirit world, then the recorded visits of the
Holy Spirit to the hearts of men are only idle tales. The disbelief in
the soul's ability to hear heavenly voices or receive spiritual
suggestions from other spirits would destroy all trust in supernatural
religions. God does speak to man in the events and laws of the material
life, and he also speaks to us in the "quiet, small voice" as he did to
Elijah at Sinai. There appears to be no alternative but to believe in
that declaration, for to reject it is to reject the whole body of
Christian teaching. We will not entertain such a suicidal proposition.
The indestructible spirit body is the same being and possesses the same
characteristics in the material body that it possesses when separated
from this limiting framework of the earthly body. It is indestructible,
but it can be modified in disposition while in this body. That
statement, for the sake of brevity, is mentioned dogmatically, but it
will be illustrated by the following testimonials.
One writer who evidently has been reared to believe sincerely in
"emotional religion," who shouts and groans and wrings his hands at any
devotional meeting, but whose probity and strong good sense are the
admiration of his friends, states that he knows "that his Redeemer
liveth, by the direct assurance of the Spirit." He claims that when a
man tells him a lie he feels the presence of evil. He testifies that in
his most exalted moments following a season of fervent prayer he knows
what it is to realize the fact that he lives and moves and has his being
in God.
There are thousands of men and women whose wild behavior in religious
meetings is only the natural evidence of a disordered mind. The negro
camp meeting and the whirling of the Egyptian dervishes seem to be much
alike in their manner of working up a religious excitement. The
unbalanced mental condition of some truly honest worshipers causes
distrust of others whose good sense in other matters is never
questioned.
Other writers tell of their experience of some overpowering emotion
which came so logically in answer to their prayer that they cannot doubt
that such was truly the fact. A man prayed that he might be protected
through the night. He awakened from sleep, moved by an "inward impulse"
irresistible, and went to the barn to find, as he opened the stable
door, a little blaze creeping toward the haymow. It was easily
extinguished then, but ten minutes later would have been entirely beyond
control. The fire was caused by a lighted cigar dropped carelessly on
the stable floor near the horses. Another writes that he is naturally
emotional and dares not trust himself on any pinnacle, as he always
feels when on any high place a strange desire to leap off in suicide.
He states that the sensitiveness of his emotional nature becomes most
acute in religious gatherings, and that he has never found himself
mistaken when he has followed the leadings of that spirit. His wife
writes that he had, for years, planted the crops which he "felt like
planting" after attending a religious meeting. She adds that while, at
first, she had regarded his "moods" as accidental emotions, she had
learned that his crops planted in those moods were always profitable
investments. Another who had been trained in the Friends' meeting to
wait for the Spirit to move him went so far as to wait for the same
impulse in all his undertakings. He tried to lay his business ventures
before the Lord in silent prayer and then go in the direction the Spirit
indicated. He related how, when once he was lost in a thick forest on a
cloudy day, he prayed until his "sense of direction" became so clear
that he started with closed eyes to take the direction toward which his
inward impression impelled him.
Another acted always on the impulse of the moment in speaking to a
friend or to a stranger upon religious matters. Another wrote that she
had observed for many years that the praying housekeepers were guided in
their work by the most trustworthy intuitions. Few is the number of
women who guide their domestic affairs by the rules of cold science, and
the larger part of a mother's movements in the care of her children are
the unconscious results of special intuition. She claims that in the
intuitional nature of the human soul there is such nearness to the
divine nature that the especially sensitive soul "feels impulses from
across the border."
Here, again, after a day's study of the many accounts concerning the
impulses awakened by prayer, we lay down the correspondence with a sigh
of regret that nothing absolutely conclusive for or against prayer is to
be found. We must still believe or disbelieve according to the measure
of faith. In the courts of law attorneys often establish their cases by
the use of what is termed "cumulative evidence," where they secure the
testimony of many witnesses to the same fact. If that custom be applied
to the establishment of the fact that emotions and impulses are sent in
answer to prayer the number in its favor would be overwhelming. Down in
the subcellar of the mind there may be a tunnel leading through to the
palace of God. Millions believe that is a fact. No one can prove it is
not so. Therefore, with the reasonable student, the testimony of the
many will still be considered trustworthy. The soul of God speaketh
often to the soul of man. A great writer on secular subjects confirmed
the general impression when he forcibly wrote, "You can get almost
anything you want, if you only want it hard enough, and long enough, and
with faith enough."