Accepting Professor Tylor's famous minimum definition of religion as
"the belief in Spiritual Beings," it is safe to say that religious
belief constitutes one of the largest facts in human history. No other
single subject has occupied so large a share of man's conscious life, no
other subject has absorbed so much of his energy. In very early stages
of culture religious belief is universal in the fullest sense of the
word. It shapes all primitive institutions; it dominates life from the
cradle to the grave, and creates a shadow-land beyond the grave from
which the dead continue to influence the actions of the living. At a
later stage of culture we see a distinction being drawn between the
natural and the supernatural, the secular and the spiritual, and the
beginning of an antagonism that is still with us. Of all antagonisms
conceived by the brain of man this is the deepest and the most
irreconcilable. Each feels that the growth of the other threatens its
own supremacy, with the result that advance from either side has been
contested with the greatest obstinacy and determination. And although it
is true that at present the supernatural is very largely "suspect," it
is still powerful. Nor is its influence confined to the lower strata of
European society. It has very many representatives among the higher
culture, disguised it may be under various pseudo-philosophic forms.
Altogether we may say that the supernatural has never been without its
"cloud of witnesses." At all times there have been individuals, or
groups of individuals, who have believed themselves, and have been
believed by others, to be in touch with another order of existence than
that with which people are normally in contact. And apart from these
specially favoured persons, the wide vogue of the belief in good and
evil portents, in lucky and unlucky days, the attraction of the "occult"
in fiction and in fact, all serve as evidence that belief in the
supernatural is still a force with which one has to reckon.
To what causes are we to attribute the persistence of this belief in the
supernatural? It is useless replying that its persistence is evidence of
its truth. That clearly begs the whole question at issue. Mere social
heredity will doubtless count for much in this direction. Men do not
start their thinking afresh with each generation. It is based upon that
of preceding generations; it follows set forms, and is generally
influenced by that network of ideas and beliefs into which we are born
and from which none of us ever completely escapes. Still that is hardly
enough in itself to account for the persistence of supernaturalism.
Assuming that originally there existed what was accepted as good
evidence for the existence of a supernatural, it is hardly credible that
every subsequent generation went on accepting it merely because one
generation received evidence of its existence. As organs atrophy for
want of exercise, so do beliefs die out in time for want of proof. Some
kind of evidence must have been continually forthcoming in order to keep
the belief alive and active. It is not a question of whether the
evidence was good or bad. All evidence, it is important to bear in mind,
is good to some one. The "facts" upon which thousands of people were put
to death for witchcraft would not be considered evidence to anyone
nowadays, but they were once accepted as good ground for conviction.
What kind of evidence is it, then, that has been accepted as proof of
the supernatural? Or, to return to Tylor's definition of religion,
seeing that the belief in spiritual beings has persisted in every
generation, upon what kind of evidence has this belief been nourished?
Various replies might be given to this question, all of which may
contain some degree of truth, or an aspect of a general truth. In the
present enquiry I am concerned with one line of investigation only, one
that has been strangely neglected, but which yet, I am convinced,
promises fruitful results. In other directions it has been established
that a great aid to an understanding of the human organism in times of
health is to study its activities under conditions of disease. Abnormal
psychology is now a recognised branch of psychology in general, and a
glance through almost any recent text-book will show that the two form
parts of a natural whole. The normal and the abnormal are in turn used
to throw light on each other. And it appears to the present writer that
in the matter of religious beliefs a much clearer understanding of their
nature, and also of some of the conditions of their perpetuation, may be
gained by a study of what has happened, and is happening, in the light
of mental pathology.
To some, of course, the bare idea of there being a pathology of religion
will appear an entirely unwarrantable assumption. On the other hand, the
scientific study of all phases of religions having made so great headway
it is hoped that a larger number will be prepared for a discussion of
the subject from a point of view which, if not quite new, is certainly
not common. Of course, such a discussion, even if the author quite
succeeds in demonstrating the truth of his thesis, will still leave the
origin of the religious idea an open question. For the present we are
not concerned directly with the origin of the religious idea, but with
an examination of some of the causes that have served to perpetuate it,
and to trace the influence in the history of religion of states of mind,
both personal and collective, that are now admittedly abnormal or
pathological in character. The legitimacy of the enquiry cannot be
questioned. As to its value and significance, that every reader must
determine for himself.
One may put the essential idea of the following pages in a
sentence:--Given the religious idea as already existing, in what way,
and to what extent has its development been affected by forces that are
not in themselves religious, and which modern thought definitely
separates from religion?
Under civilised and uncivilised conditions we find religious beliefs
constantly associated with various forces--social, ethical, and
psychological. Very seldom is there any serious attempt to separate them
and assign to each their respective value; nor, indeed, is the task at
any time an easy one. The difficulty is made the greater by the way in
which writers so enlarge the meaning of "religion" that it is made to
include almost everything for which one feels admiration or respect.
This practice is neither helpful nor accurate. Human nature under all
aspects of intellectual conviction presents the same fundamental
characteristics, and a definition to be of value, while of necessity
inclusive, must also be decisively exclusive. It must unite, but it must
also separate. And many current definitions of religion, while they may
bear testimony to the amiability of those who frame them, are quite
destitute of scientific value. In any case, the association of the
religious idea with non-religious forces is a fact too patent to admit
of denial; and the important task is to determine their reciprocal
influence. In actual life this separation has been secured by the
development of the various branches of positive thought--ethics,
psychology, etc., all of which were once directly under the control of
religion. What remains to be done is to separate in theory what has
already been separated in fact, with such additions as a more critical
knowledge may suggest as advisable.
Far more suggestive, however, than the association of religion with what
we may call the normal social forces, is its connection with conditions
that are now clearly recognised as abnormal. From the earliest times we
find the use of drugs and stimulants, the practice of fasting and
self-torture, with other methods of depressing or stimulating the action
of the nervous system, accepted as well-recognised methods of inducing a
sense of religious illumination, or the feeling that one is in direct
communion with a supernatural order of existence. Equally significant is
the world-wide acceptance--right up to recent times--of purely
pathological states as evidence of supernatural intercourse. About these
two sets of facts there can be no reasonable doubt. Over and over again
we can observe how the promptings of disease are taken for the voice of
divinity, and men and women who to-day would be handed over to the care
of the physician hailed as an incarnation of deity. In modern asylums
we find one of the commonest of delusions to be that of the insane
person who imagines himself to be a specially selected instrument of
deity. In such instances the causal influence of pathological conditions
is admitted. On the other hand, we have belonging to the more normal
type the person who claims a supernatural origin for many of his actions
and states of mind. And between these two extremes lie a whole series of
gradations. They exist in all stages of culture, and it is difficult to
see by what rule of logic or of experience one can say where the normal
ends and the abnormal begins. If we assume the inference of the normal
person concerning the origin of his mental states to be correct, it
seems difficult to deny the possibility of those of the insane person
having a similar origin, although distorted by the influence of disease.
If, on the other hand, we say the insane person is wholly wrong as to
the origin of his mental states, may we not also assume that the normal
person has likewise erred as to the cause of his emotions or ideas?
Two considerations may be urged in support of this conclusion. In the
first place, there is the fact of the fundamental identity of human
qualities under all conditions of their manifestation. It is too often
assumed--sometimes it is explicitly claimed--that one with what is
called "a strong religious nature" possesses some quality of mind absent
or undeveloped in those of an opposite type. This assumption is quite
unwarrantable. The religious man is marked off from the non-religious
man, not by the possession of distinct mental qualities, but solely by
holding different ideas concerning the cause and significance of his
mental states. There is no such thing as a religious "faculty," but
only qualities of mind expressed in terms of the religious idea. If I am
conscious of a strong desire to work on behalf of the social betterment
of my fellows, I may account for this either by attributing it to having
inherited a nature modified by generations of social intercourse, or on
the hypothesis that I am an instrument in the hands of a superhuman
personality. But in either case the qualities manifested remain the
same. Love and hatred, fear and courage, honesty and roguery, with all
other human qualities, may be expressed in terms of religion, or they
may be expressed in non-religious terms. It is the cause to which they
are attributed, or the object to which they are directed, that marks off
the religious from the non-religious person.
The second point is that the whole issue arises on a conflict of
interpretations. If I question the reality of the visions or states of
illumination experienced by Santa Teresa, I am not questioning that, so
far as the saint herself was concerned, these states of exaltation were
real. All mental states--whether arising under normal or abnormal
conditions--are quite real to those who experience them. The visions of
the hashish-eater are real, while they last; so are those of the victim
of delirium tremens. All I question is their genuineness as
corresponding to an objective reality. Over the mind of the subject
these visions may exercise an absolute sway. As to their occurrence, he
or she is the final and absolute authority. There can be no question
here. But when we proceed from the occurrence of these visions to the
question of their causation, then we are on entirely different ground.
Here it is not a question of their genuineness, or of their power, but
a question of how we are to interpret them. The honesty and
singlemindedness of these "inspired" characters may be admitted, but
honesty or singlemindedness is no guarantee of accuracy. We do not need
to ask whether the peasant girl of Lourdes experienced a vision of the
Madonna, but we do need to ask whether there was anything in her mental
history, social surroundings, or nervous state that would account for
the vision. All the "facts" of the religious life may be admitted; the
sole question at issue is whether an adequate interpretation of at least
some of them may not be found in terms of a purely scientific
psychology.
Taking, then, the religious idea as already existing, the following
pages will be devoted to an examination of the extent to which this idea
has been associated with forces and conditions that were plainly
pathological. In very many individual cases it will not be difficult to
trace a vivid sense of the supernatural to the presence of abnormal
nervous states, sometimes deliberately induced, at other times arising
of themselves. And it is a matter of mere historical observation that
such individual cases have operated most powerfully to strengthen the
belief in the supernatural with others. The example of Lourdes is a case
in point. All Protestants will agree that the peasant girl's vision was
a sheer hallucination. And yet there can be no question that this vision
has served to strengthen the faith of many thousands of others in the
nearness of the supernatural. And it needs but little effort of the
imagination to realise how powerful such examples must have been in ages
when medical science was in its infancy, and the more subtle operations
of the nervous system completely unknown.
This question, I repeat, is distinct from the much larger and wider
enquiry of the origin of religion. A fairly lengthy experience of the
capacity of the general mind for missing the real point at issue
prevents my being too sanguine as to the efficiency of the most explicit
avowal of one's purpose, but the duty of taking precautions nevertheless
remains. And in elaborating an unfamiliar view of the nature of much of
the world's so-called religious phenomena, the possibility of
misconception is multiplied enormously. Still, a writer must do what he
can to guard against misunderstanding, and in the most emphatic manner
it must be said that it is not my purpose to prove, nor is it my belief,
that religion springs from perverted sexuality, nor that the study of
religion is no more than an exercise in pathology. Nothing is further
from the writer's mind than so essentially preposterous a claim. Neither
sexuality, no matter how powerful, nor disease, no matter how
pronounced, can account for the religious idea. That has an entirely
separate and independent origin. This should be plain to anyone who has
but a merely casual acquaintance with the history of religion. It is,
however, a very different thing to enquire as to the part played in the
history of religion by morbid nervous states or perverted sexual
feeling. That is an enquiry both legitimate and desirable; and it is one
that promises to shed light on aspects of the subject otherwise very
obscure. And certainly, if so-called religious feelings do not admit of
explanation in terms of a scientific psychology, nothing remains but to
recognise religion as something quite apart from normal life, to hand
it over to the custody of word-spinning "Mystics," and so surrender all
possibility of a rational understanding of either its nature or its
history.
In saying what I have concerning the probability of misconception, I
have had specially in mind the attack made by the late Professor William
James on what he called the "medical materialists." In that remarkable
piece of religious yellow-journalism, _The Varieties of Religious
Experience_, Professor James says of those who take up the position that
a great deal of what has been accepted by the world as religious
inspiration or exaltation can be accounted for as the products of
disordered nervous states or perverted sexual feeling, "We are surely
all familiar in a general way with this method of discrediting states of
mind for which we have an antipathy. We all use it in some degree in
criticising persons whose states of mind we regard as overstrained. But
when other people criticise our own exalted soul-flights by calling them
'nothing but' expressions of our organic disposition, we feel outraged
and hurt, for we know that, whatever be our organism's peculiarities,
our mental states have their substantive value as revelations of the
living truth; and we wish that all this medical materialism could be
made to hold its tongue." Again, "Few conceptions are less instructive
than this re-interpretation of religion as perverted sexuality.... It is
true that in the vast collection of religious phenomena, some are
undisguisedly amatory--_e.g._ sex deities and obscene rites in
polytheism, and ecstatic feelings of union with the Saviour in a few
Christian Mystics. But then why not equally call religion an aberration
of the digestive functions, and prove one's point by the worship of
Bacchus and Ceres, or by the ecstatic feelings of some other saints
about the Eucharist?" Or, seeing that the Bible is full of the language
of respiratory oppression, "one might almost as well interpret religion
as a perversion of the respiratory function." And if it is pointed out
that active interest in religion synchronises with adolescence, "the
retort again is easy.... The interest in mechanics, physics, chemistry,
logic, philosophy, and sociology, which springs up during adolescent
years along with that in poetry and religion, is also a perversion of
the sexual instinct."[1]
Excellent fooling, this, but little else. I do not know that anyone has
ever claimed that religion took its origin in sexual feeling, or that
this would alone provide an explanation of historical religion. All that
anyone has ever urged is that a deal of so-called religious feeling,
past and present, can be shown to be due to unsatisfied or perverted
sexual feeling--which is a very different statement, and one of which
the truth may be demonstrated from Professor James's own pages. But
between saying that certain feelings are wrongly interpreted in terms of
an already existing idea, and saying that the idea itself is nothing but
these same feelings transformed, there is an obvious and important
difference. In every case the religious idea is taken for granted. Its
origin is a quite different subject of enquiry. But once the idea is in
existence there is always the probability of evidence for its truth
being found in the wrong direction. The analogy of the digestive and
respiratory organs is clever, but futile. The belief that much which
has passed for religious feeling is perverted sexuality is not based
merely upon the language employed. The language is only symptomatic. The
terminology of respiration and digestion when used in connection with
religion is frankly and palpably symbolic. That of sexual love is as
often frankly literal, and can be correlated with the actual state of
the person using it. Digestion and respiration must go on in any case;
but it is precisely the point at issue whether with a different sexual
life these so-called religious ecstatic states would have been
experienced. When we find religious characters of strongly marked
amorous dispositions, but leading an ascetic life, using toward the
object of their adoration terms usually associated with strong sexual
feeling, it does not seem extravagant to find here a little more than
what may be covered by mere symbolism. Would the medieval monk have been
tempted by Satan in the form of beautiful women had he been happily
married? Would Santa Teresa or Catherine of Sienna have used the
language they did use to express their relations to Jesus had they been
wives and mothers? Such questions admit of one answer, which is, in its
way, decisive. Professor James admits that modern psychology holds as a
general postulate "there is not a single one of our states of mind, high
or low, healthy or morbid, that has not some organic process as its
condition."[2] The 'medical materialist' can ask for no more than this.
But this being granted, on what ground are we to be forbidden finding in
these same organic processes the condition of the visions and ecstatic
states with which _The Varieties of Religious Experience_ is so largely
concerned?
Again, it may be granted that adolescence brings with it an awakening of
the whole mental life, not of religion alone. But the analogy goes no
further, and, in any case, it begs the question. The full significance
of the connection will be seen when we come to deal with initiation in
primitive times and conversion in the modern period. At present it
suffices to point out that the interest in art, in science, in
literature, in sociology, are ends in themselves, and one need go no
further than the developing mental life for an explanation. But the
essential question here is whether this growing life can or cannot find
complete satisfaction quite apart from religion. A developing interest
in the larger social life is common to all, and to some extent this is
secured by the pressure of forces that are simply inescapable. On the
other hand, an interest in religion only exists with some, and then it
may usually be traced to a conscious direction of their energies.
Moreover, those who show no special interest in religion evince no lack
of anything--save in religious terms. In every respect they exhibit the
same mental and emotional qualities as their fellows. The only
discernible difference is that while in the one case adolescent nature
is expressed in terms of religion, in the other case it is expressed in
terms of a larger social life.
The question here might be put thus: Given a generation not taught to
express its growing life in terms of religion, could adequate and
satisfactory expression be found in the social life to which adolescence
is unquestionably an introduction? Many would answer unhesitatingly,
yes. They would argue that what are called the religious feelings, are
normal social feelings exploited in the interests of the religious idea.
They would deny that there is any such thing as a religious quality of
mind. Any mental quality may be directed to a religious end, but all may
find complete expression and satisfaction in a non-religious social
life. This is the real question at issue, and yet Professor James never
once, in the whole of his 500 pages, addresses himself to it.
Apart from sex, there is the important question of the relation between
abnormal and morbid nervous states and religious illumination. How far
has the one been mistaken for the other? To what extent have people
accepted the outcome of pathological conditions as proofs of intercourse
with an unseen spiritual world? There is no doubt that among uncivilised
people this is usually, if not invariably, the case. And our knowledge
of the relations between the nervous system and mental states--imperfect
as it still is--is so recent, that it is not surprising that fasting,
self-torture, solitary meditation, etc., because of the states of mind
to which they give rise, have been universally valued as aids to the
religious life. Dr. D. G. Brinton says:--
"When I say that all religions depend for their origin and continuation
directly upon inspiration, I state an historic fact. It may be known
under other names, of credit or discredit, as mysticism, ecstasy,
rhapsody, demoniac possession, the divine afflatus, the gnosis, or, in
its latest christening, 'cosmic consciousness.' All are but expressions
of a belief that knowledge arises, words are uttered or actions
performed not through conscious ideation or reflective purpose, but
through the promptings of a power above or beyond the individual
mind."[3]
The connection between very many, at least, of these inspirational moods
and pathological states is too obvious to be ignored. Professor James
admits that "we cannot possibly ignore these pathological aspects of the
subject." His notice of them, however, reminds one of the preacher who
advised his hearers to look a certain difficulty boldly in the face--and
pass on. No serious attempt is made to deal with them. A huge mass of
"religious experiences" is thrown at the reader's head without any
adequate explanation. It is a glorified revival meeting in an expensive
volume. The testimony of a crowd of religious enthusiasts of all ages is
accepted at practically face value. Thus, a religious writer who
experiences the fairly common feeling of exaltation during a storm at
sea, and explains his carelessness of danger as resulting from his
"certainty of eternal life,"[4] is gravely cited as evidence of the
working of the religious consciousness. What, then, are we to make of
those who experience a similar feeling, but who are without the
certainty of eternal life? The declaration of St. Ignatius that a single
hour of meditation taught him more of the truth of "heavenly things than
all the teachings of the doctors" is given as evidence of mystic
illumination.[5] So with numerous other cases. We are even informed that
"nitrous oxide and ether, especially nitrous oxide, when sufficiently
diluted with air, stimulate the mystical consciousness in an
extraordinary degree."[6] There seems no reason why the same claim
should not be made on behalf of whisky. If one were not assured to the
contrary, one might conclude that Professor James wrote this volume to
poke fun at the whole tribe of mystics and their followers.
The use made by Professor James of his long list of cases is the more
remarkable, since he quite correctly points out that there are no
religious feelings, only feelings directed towards a religious end. But
if this be so, how are we justified in taking the accounts of religious
visionaries as correct descriptions of the nature of their own mental
states? Clearly, we need a study of these cases quite apart from the
mystical interpretation of them. Instead of a study Professor James
presents us with a catalogue--useful from a documentary point of view,
but useless to any other end. And he is so averse to subjecting his
examples to analysis that, when the extravagance of certain cases are
glaring, he warns us that it is unfair to impute narrowness of mind as a
vice of the individual, because in "religious and theological matters he
probably absorbs his narrowness from his generation."[7] Granted; only
one would like to know what reason there is for not deriving virtues as
well as vices from the same source? And, deeper enquiry still, may not
the religious interpretation itself be a product of the special
environment of the period?
The study of religious phenomena from the point of view above indicated
is of first-rate importance. But although much has been said,
parenthetically and inferentially, on the subject by various writers,
the enquiry has never been exhaustively or systematically pursued. This
is not due to any lack of material; that is abundant among both savage
and civilised peoples. Perhaps it is because, while it has been
considered permissible to point out that certain individuals have
mistaken their own morbid states for evidence of divine illumination,
too much ill-will would have been aroused had the powerful part played
by this factor in religious development as a whole been pointed out.
Still less admissible would it have been to point out, as will be done
in succeeding chapters, that the deliberate culture of abnormal states
of mind has been a part of the ritual of religions from the most
primitive to the most recent times. In this connection it is worth
noting that a very clear and shrewd essay on the connection between love
and religious devotion by Isaac d'Israeli, which appeared in the first
issue of the _Miscellanies of Literature_, was quietly eliminated from
subsequent editions.
My purpose, therefore, is to give Professor James's query--"Under just
what biographic conditions did the sacred writers bring forth their
contributions to the holy volume? and what had they exactly in their
several individual minds, when they delivered their utterances?"[8]--a
wider scope. What are the conditions, biographic and social, under which
certain persons have imagined themselves, and have been believed by
others, to be specially favoured with divine illumination? The majority
of people, it may safely be said, are conscious of no such experience.
In what respect, then, do the favoured few differ from their fellows?
Must we assume that by some rare quality of natural endowment, or by
some unusual development of faculty, they are brought into touch with a
wider and deeper reality? Or are we to seek a less romantic explanation
with the aid of known tendencies and forces in human nature? And,
further, as this minority are not conscious of divine illumination all
the time, what is it that differentiates their normal state from their
abnormal condition?
These are pertinent questions, and demand answer. But no answer of real
value will be found in ordinary religious writings. Rhapsodical eulogies
of religion tell us nothing; less than nothing that is useful, since
theories that obtain in such quarters are based upon the absolute
veracity of the phenomena under consideration. We may gather from this
direction what religious people say or do, but not why they say or do
these things. A description of the states of mind of religious people,
such as is given by Professor James, is interesting enough, but it is
their causation that is of fundamental importance. And their causation
is only to be understood by associating them with other and more
fundamental processes. Within recent years psychology owes much of the
advance made to a closer study of the physiology of the nervous system,
and if genuine advance is to be made in our understanding of religious
phenomena we must adopt the same plan of investigation. We do not, for
example, understand the nature of demoniacal possession by a mere
collation of cases. It is only when we put them side by side with
similar cases that now come under the control of the physician, and
associate them with certain peculiar nervous conditions, and a
particular social environment, that we find ourselves within sight of a
rational explanation. Without adopting this plan we are in the position
of one trying to determine the nature of a locomotive in complete
ignorance of its internal mechanism. Yet this is precisely the position
of the professional exponent of religion. As a student the budding
divine has his head filled with historic creeds, and texts, and dogmas,
and doctrines, none of which can possibly tell him anything of the real
nature of religion. On the contrary, they act as so many obstacles to
his acquiring real knowledge in later life. And it is a striking fact
that while the professional astronomer, biologist, or physicist each
adds to our knowledge of the subject that falls within his respective
department, we owe little or nothing of our knowledge of the nature of
religion to the professional theologian.
To put the whole matter in a sentence, the study of religion must be
affiliated to the study of life as a whole. If possible, we must get at
the determining factors that lead one person to expend his energy on
religion and see supernatural influence in a thousand and one details of
his life, while another person, with apparently the same mental
qualities, finds complete satisfaction in another direction, and is
conscious of no such supernatural influence. It is scientifically
inadmissible to posit a "religious faculty" organically ear-marked for
religious use. Something of this kind is evidently in the minds of those
who explain Darwin's agnosticism as due to atrophy of his religious
sense, consequent on over-absorption in scientific pursuits, and who
also argue that the "religious faculty," like a physiological structure,
increases in efficiency with use and atrophies with disuse. There is no
reason for believing that, had Darwin been profoundly religious, his
mental qualities would have been different to what they were. They would
have been expressed in a different form, that is all. As I have already
said, there are no such things as specifically religious qualities of
the mind. There may be hope or fear or love or hatred or terror or
devotion or wonder in relation to religion, but they are precisely the
same mental qualities that meet us in relation to other things. The old
"faculty" psychology is dead, and the religious faculty must go with
it.[9] Mental qualities may be roused to activity in connection with a
belief in the supernatural, or they may be expressed in connection with
mundane associations. Even the belief in the supernatural is only an
expression of the same qualities of mind that with fuller knowledge
result in a scientific generalisation. Whatever be the exciting cause,
mental qualities themselves remain unchanged.
In the present enquiry we are not concerned with a disproval of the
religious idea, but with an examination of the conditions of its
expression; less with the varieties of religious experience than with
the nature of its manifestations. How far may religious experience be
explained as a misinterpretation of normal non-religious life? To what
extent have pathological nervous states influenced the building up of
the religious consciousness? There can be no question that the
last-named factor is an important one. This is admitted by Professor
James in the following passage:--
"You will in point of fact hardly find a religious leader of any kind in
whose life there is no record of automatisms. I speak not merely of
savage priests and prophets, whose followers regard automatic utterance
and action as by itself tantamount to inspiration, I speak of leaders of
thought and subjects of intellectualised experience. St. Paul had his
visions, his ecstasies, his gifts of tongues, small as was the
importance he attached to the latter. The whole array of Christian
saints and heresiarchs, including the greatest, the Bernards, the
Loyolas, the Luthers, the Foxes, the Wesleys, had their visions, voices,
rapt conditions, guiding impressions, and 'openings.' They had these
things because they had exalted sensibility, and to such things persons
of exalted sensibility are liable."[10]
The fact is unquestionable, but the question remains, In what sense were
these people exalted? Did their exalted sensibility really bring them
into touch with a form of existence hidden from persons of a coarser
fibre? Or did it belong to a class of cases which in a more violent form
comes within the province of the physician? The subjects, says Professor
James, "actually feel themselves played upon by powers beyond their
will. The evidence is dynamic; the god or spirit moves the very organs
of their body.... We have distinct professions of being under the
direction of a foreign power, and serving as its mouthpiece." Of course
we have, but for diagnostic purposes such professions are quite
valueless. What these people are conscious of, and all they are
conscious of, is a series of feelings of a more or less unusual kind.
Equally convinced was the medieval demoniac that a spirit moved the very
organs of his body. Equally convinced is the modern spiritualist medium
that his body is controlled by a disembodied spirit. It is not a
question of the actuality of certain states, but of their origin. The
intense conviction of the subject of the seizure is, as evidence, quite
irrelevant. The subjective state is always real, whether it belongs to a
saint in ecstasy or a drunkard in delirium tremens. There are no states
of mind more "real" while they last than those due to opium or hashish.
But it is never suggested that this is evidence of their veracity. In
such cases the testimony of a skilled outsider is of far greater value
than the conviction of the visionary. We are bound to appeal to Paul,
and Loyola, and Fox, and Wesley to know what their feelings were,
because here they are the supreme authorities. But we must consult
others to discover why they experienced these feelings. An illusion is
no more than a false interpretation of a real subjective experience;
although many are inclined to treat the rejection of the interpretation
as equivalent to a charge of imposture or deliberate lying.
It is also a matter of demonstration that these religious experiences
are strictly determined by environmental conditions. Thousands of
Christians have been favoured with visions of Jesus or of the Christian
heaven in their dying moments. Millions of Jews and Mohammedans have
lived and died without any such experience--the very persons to whom,
from an evidential point of view--such visions would be most useful. The
spiritual experience is determined by the pre-existing religious belief.
When belief in a personal devil was general, visions of Satan were
common. The evidence for personal conflicts with Satan is of precisely
the same nature and strength as is the evidence for intercourse with
deity. When the belief in Satan died out, visions and conflicts with him
ceased. How can we discriminate between the two classes of cases? Why
should the testimony of a great Christian character that he is conscious
of intercourse with deity be more authoritative than the testimony of,
perhaps, the same person on other occasions, of conflict with a personal
devil? Moreover, visions and a sense of contact with a super-normal
world are not peculiar to the religious character. It is a common
feature of a general psychopathic condition. Medical works are filled
with such instances. And it is only to be expected that when the
psychopath is of a deeply religious nature the affection will find a
religious expression. What is clearly needed is an explanation that will
cover the phenomenon as it appears in both a religious and a
non-religious form.
We may take as illustrative of what has been said the following case as
given by Dr. W. W. Ireland. It is that of a Berlin bookseller who placed
on record a clear description of his impressions while in ill-health,
and which entirely ceased on recovery. His delusions mostly took the
form of human figures; of these he says:--
"I saw, in the full use of my senses, and (after I had got the better of
the fright which at first seized me, and the disagreeable effects which
it caused) even in the greatest composure of mind, for almost two
months, constantly and involuntarily, a number of human and other
apparitions--nay, I even heard their voices. For the most part I saw
human figures of both sexes; they commonly passed to and fro, as if they
had no connection with each other, like people at a fair where all is
bustle. Sometimes they appeared to have business with one another. Once
or twice I saw amongst them persons on horseback, and dogs and birds;
these figures all appeared to me in their natural size, as distinctly as
if they had existed in real life, with the several tints on the
uncovered parts of the body, and with all the different kinds and
colours of clothes."[11]
Here we have the case of a man who was under no misconception as to the
nature of his visions. But it is safe to say that had he been of a less
practical and analytic turn of mind, had he been, moreover, deeply
interested in religious matters, we might have had an altogether
different presentation of the facts.
In the next instance, also given by Dr. Ireland, we have a religious
explanation given of somewhat similar experiences:--
"A poor woman complained to me that she was continually persecuted by
the devils who let loose at her all sorts of blasphemies, and, indeed,
all the worse the more she exerted herself not to attend to them; but
often, also, when she was talking and active. She had already been to a
clergyman who should exorcise the devil, and who had judiciously
directed her to me. I asked in which ear the devil always talked to her.
She was surprised at the question, which she had never started for
herself, but now recognised that it always occurred in the left ear. I
explained to her that it was an affection of the ear which now and then
occurs, but she was doubtful."[12]
Here we have a distinctly physical affection ascribed to supernatural
agency. In this case the inference is promptly corrected by the
physician. But given a different environment, an atmosphere permeated
with a belief in the supernatural, an absence of adequate scientific
advice, and the more primitive explanation is certain to prevail. In the
next instance--that of Martin Luther--we have just this conjuncture of
circumstances, with the inevitable result. Writing of his experience in
1530, Luther says:--
"When I was in Coburg in 1530, I was tormented with a noise in my ear,
just as though there was some wind tearing through my head. The devil
had something to do with it.... When I try to work, my head becomes
filled with all sorts of whizzing, buzzing, thundering noises, and if I
did not leave off on the instant I should faint away. For the last two
or three days I have not been able to even look at a letter. My head has
lessened down to a very short chapter; soon it will be only a paragraph,
then only a syllable, then nothing at all. The day your letter came from
Nuremberg I had another visit from the devil.... This time the evil one
got the better of me, drove me out of my bed, and compelled me to seek
the face of man."[13]
There is no need to quote more of this class of cases, at least for the
present. Their name is legion. One could, in fact, construct an
ascending series of cases, all agreeing in their symptom, and differing
only in the explanation offered. The series would commence with the
explanation of a possessing spirit, and end with that of a deranged
nervous system. Ignorant of the nature, or even of the existence, of a
nervous system, primitive man explains abnormal mental states as due to
a malignant spirit. Martin Luther, George Fox, or John Bunyan, living at
a time when the activity of evil spirits was a firmly held doctrine,
attribute their infirmities to satanic influence. We are in the true
line of descent. To-day we have with us every one of the phenomena on
which the satanic theory rested, but they are described, and prescribed
for, in medical works instead of manuals of exorcism. The
supernaturalist theory gives way to that of the expert neurologist. The
exorcist is replaced by the physician. Instead of expelling an intruding
demon, we have to repair a deranged system. We cannot argue that while
these affections remain constant in character their causes may have been
different in other ages from what they are now. That is pure absurdity.
To claim that the religious mystic is in moments of exaltation brought
into contact with a "deeper reality" is to invite the retort that one
might make a similar claim on behalf of the inmates of a lunatic asylum.
We cannot, with any pretence to rationality, accept the verdicts of both
the neurologist and the exorcist. If we agree that certain states of
mind to-day have their origin in neural disorder, on what ground can we
believe that similar mental states occurring a thousand or two thousand
years ago were due to supernatural stimulation? We may be told that
there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our
philosophy. This may be true, and while it is an observation that would
not occur to a fool, it needs no supreme wisdom for its excogitation,
and as generally used it is an excuse for idle speculation and grotesque
theory. Far more useful is the lesson, sadly needed, that there are few
things in heaven or earth that will not yield their secret to a method
of investigation that is sanely conceived and diligently employed.
The utter uselessness of accepting at its face value anyone's
explanation of the nature of his subjective experience, is well shown by
the once universal belief in witchcraft. If there is a single belief on
behalf of which a mass of apparently unimpeachable evidence could be
produced, it is this one. It has run its course throughout the whole
world. It is still accepted by probably half the human race. In our own
country eminent men, not alone theologians, but doctors, lawyers,
statesmen, and men of letters, have given their solemn testimony in its
favour. Thousands of people have been bewitched, and their symptoms
described by thousands of others. More remarkable still, those accused
have often enough confessed their guilt. Every possible corroboration
has been given to this belief, and yet it is now scouted by educated
persons all over the civilised world. Even religious teachers accept the
explanation that these witchcraft cases were due to distinctly
pathological conditions, and to the power of suggestion operating upon
uninformed minds during an unenlightened age. But communications with
spiritual beings rest on no better foundation than communication with
Satan. Whether the alleged illumination be diabolic or angelic, the
evidence for either, or both, is the same. The testimony of a man like
the Rev. R. J. Campbell that he is conscious of a divine influence in
his life is of no greater value than that of the medieval peasant who
felt himself tormented by Satan. The one person is no better authority
than is the other on such a topic. Both are the heirs of the ages,
inheritors of a superstition that goes back to the most primitive ages
of mankind, only modified in its expression by the culture of
contemporary life.
There is nothing new under the sun, and human nature remains
substantially unchanged generation after generation. All the phenomena
on which the belief in witchcraft was based, remain. Cases of delusion
are common, and the power of suggestion is an established fact in
psychology. All that has happened is this: taking the facts on which the
belief was based, modern science has shown them to be explainable
without the slightest reference to the supernatural. And this is the
principle that must be applied in other directions. Old occurrences must
be explained in the light of new knowledge. This is the accepted rule in
other directions, and it is of peculiar value in relation to religious
beliefs. To know what religious people have thought and felt and said
gives us no more than the data for a scientific study of the subject. To
know _why_ they thought and felt and spoke thus is what we really need
to understand. But if we are to do this we must relate phases of mind
that are called religious to other phases of a non-religious character.
I believe it is quite possible to do this. From medical records and from
numerous biographies it is possible to parallel all the experiences of
the religious mystic. We can see the same sense of exaltation, the same
conviction of illumination, the same belief that one is the tool of a
superior power. Take, as merely illustrative of this, the case of J.
Addington Symonds, as narrated by Professor James, who cites it as an
example of a "mystical experience with chloroform." Symonds tells us
that until he was twenty-eight years of age he was liable to extreme
states of exaltation concerning the nature of self. (It is worth while
pointing out that Sir James Crichton-Browne expresses the opinion that
Symonds's higher nerve centres were in some degree enfeebled by these
abnormal states.) In addition to this confession he placed on record an
interesting experience while under the influence of chloroform. He
says:--
"After the choking and stifling had passed away, I seemed at first in a
state of utter blankness; then came flashes of intense light,
alternating with blankness, and with a keen sense of vision of what was
going on in the room around me, but no sensation of touch. I thought
that I was near death; when suddenly my soul became aware of God who was
manifestly dealing with me, handling me, so to speak, in an intense
personal reality. I felt him streaming in like light upon me.... I
cannot describe the ecstasy I felt. Then, as I gradually awoke from the
influence of the anæsthetic, the old sense of my relation with the world
began to return, the new sense of my relation to God began to fade....
Only think of it. To have felt for that long dateless ecstasy of vision
the very God, in all purity, tenderness, and truth, and absolute love,
and then to find that I had after all had no revelation, but that I had
been tricked by the abnormal excitement of my brain."
With a slight variation of expression this confession might have come
direct from the lips of the most pronounced mystic. There is no question
of the intense reality of the experience. That was as vivid as anything
that ever occurred to any saint in the calendar. Still, no one will
dream of claiming that the way to get _en rapport_ with the higher
mysteries is by way of a dose of chloroform. The distinction here is
that Symonds knew and described the cause of his experience. And no one
will question that the phrase "tricked by the abnormal excitement of my
brain" covers the ground. Of course, there is always the easy retort
that saints and mystics did not use chloroform to produce their visions.
True, but chloroform is not the only agent by means of which a person
may be thrown into an abnormal state. Other means may be used; and as a
matter of fact, the use of herbs and drugs, as methods of producing
ecstatic states, have obtained in religious ceremonies from the most
primitive times. As we shall see later, tobacco, hashish, coca, laurel
water, and similar agents have been largely utilised for this purpose.
And when this plan is not adopted--although very often the two things
run side by side--we find fasting and other forms of self-torture
practised because of the abnormal conditions produced.
It is not argued or implied that in all this there was of necessity
deliberate imposture. That would imply the possession of greater
knowledge than actually existed. But it was known that ecstatic states
followed the use of certain drugs, or were consequent on certain
austerities, and they were valued because they were believed to bring
people into communion with a hidden spiritual world. In this way there
has always been going on a more or less deliberate culture of the
supernatural, in more primitive times by crude and easily recognisable
means, later by methods that are more subtle in character and more
difficult of detection. But the method of inducing a sense of
"spiritual" illumination by means of practices alien to the normal life
of man remains unchanged throughout. The collation of the conditions
under which mystical states of mind are experienced among savages with
similar experiences among the higher races, proves at once that this
statement contains no exaggeration of the facts.
The continuity of the phenomena is, indeed, of profound significance,
and is too often ignored. It is often asserted that we have to explain
the lower by the higher, and we can only understand the significance of
religion in its lower forms by bearing in mind the higher
manifestations. This is sheer fallacy. In nature the higher develops out
of the lower, of which it is compounded. In biology, for example, it is
now generally conceded that the secret of animal life lies in the cell.
This may be modified in all kinds of directions, the resulting organic
structure may be of the utmost complexity, but the basis remains
unchanged. So, too, with a great deal of so-called religious phenomena.
The story is not only continuous, but the same elements remain unchanged
with only those modifications initiated by a changed environment. And
just as we are driven back to the cell to explain organic structure, so
for an understanding of the phenomena under consideration we must study
their primitive elements. Analysis must precede synthesis here as
elsewhere.
A survey of the subject is not at all exhausted by a study of abnormal
conditions, so far as these have entered into the life of religion.
There still remains the study of perfectly normal frames of mind that
are misinterpreted and diverted into religious channels. The importance
of this will be seen more clearly when we come to deal with the subject
of conversion. That "conversion" is a phenomenon of adolescence is now
settled beyond all reasonable doubt. Statistics are conclusive on this
point. But the advocate of revivalism quite misses the true significance
of the fact. Current religious literature is full of quite meaningless
chatter concerning the change of view, the larger and more unselfish
activities, that arise as a consequence of conversion. There is really
no evidence that the changes indicated have any connection with
conversion. All that does happen can be more simply and more adequately
explained as resulting from physiological and psychological changes in
terms of racial and social evolution. The whole significance of
adolescence lies in the bursting into activity of feelings hitherto
dormant, and the quickening of a desire for communion with a larger
social life. The individual becomes less self-centred, more alive to,
and more responsive to the claims of others; he displays tendencies
towards what the world calls self-sacrifice, but which mean, in the
truest sense, self-realisation. That these changes are often expressed
in terms of religion is undeniable. This, however, may be no more than
an environmental accident, quite as much so as was the case when
epilepsy was explained in terms of possession.
So far as one can see, there are no feelings or impulses characteristic
of adolescence that could not receive complete satisfaction in a
rationally ordered social life. To-day it usually happens that the
strongest expressed influences brought to bear upon the individual are
of a religious kind, with the result that adolescent human nature is
most apt to express itself in religious language. It must always be
borne in mind that we are all as dependent upon our environment for the
form in which our explanation of things is cast, as we are for the
language in which we express those ideas. The whole enquiry opened is a
very wide one, with which I can only deal parenthetically. It is really
an enquiry as to how far the religious theory of human nature rests upon
a wrong interpretation of perfectly normal feelings, or to what extent
supernaturalistic ideas are perpetuated by the exploitation--innocent
exploitation, maybe--of man's social nature. It is extremely probable
that a deeper knowledge, a more accurate analysis of human qualities,
will disclose the truth that man is a social animal in a much more
profound sense than has usually attached to that phrase, and the
expression of these qualities in terms of religious beliefs, or in terms
of non-religious beliefs, is wholly determined by the knowledge current
in the society in which he moves.
I conclude this chapter with one more attempt to avoid misunderstanding.
For purposes of clarity it will be necessary to consider various factors
out of relation to other factors. But it should hardly need pointing out
that in actual life such a separation does not obtain. The organism
functions as a whole; each part acts upon and is acted upon by every
other part. Life in action is a synthesis, and one resorts to analysis
only for the purpose of more adequate comprehension. It is not,
moreover, pretended that any one of the factors described in the
following pages will explain religion, nor even that all of them
combined will do so. The origin of the religious idea is a quite
different enquiry, and is adequately dealt with in the writings of men
like Tylor, Frazer, Spencer, and other representatives of the various
schools of anthropologists. My present purpose is of a more restricted
kind. It is that of tracing the operation of various processes, some
normal, but most of them abnormal, that have in all ages been accepted
as evidence for the supernatural. That the religious idea has been
associated with these processes, and that for multitudes they have
served as strong evidence of its truth, cannot be denied. And an
examination of this aspect of the history of religion ought not to be
ignored, however unpalatable such a study may be to certain
supersensitive minds.