"It is an interesting problem," says Professor J. H. Leuba, "to
determine what influences have led theologians to anchor their beliefs
upon the proposition that religious experience differs from other forms
of consciousness in that it gives one an _immediate_ knowledge of the
external existence of certain objects of belief, although they do not
fall under the senses, and an immediate knowledge of the truth of
certain historical facts."[20] This is, indeed, an interesting problem,
and, we may add, one of growing importance, since there is a pronounced
tendency on the part of present-day exponents of religion to rest their
case almost entirely upon the immediacy of their religious
consciousness. This conception of a certain order of experience,
however, is not and cannot have always existed. A belief may be so
widely and so generally diffused that it is accepted without resistance,
and, as it would almost seem, in the absence of evidence. But its
intuitive character is only superficial, and disappears on careful
examination. The mere vogue of a belief constitutes in itself a kind of
evidence, and for many people the most powerful kind of evidence. But
the conviction itself has a history, and it is in the unravelling of
that history, in the discovery of the class of facts upon which the
conviction has been built, that the work lies. And when this is done it
will be found that our intuitions are invariably based upon a
continuous--even though partly unconscious--appeal to facts. Sometimes
it will, of course, be found that a renewed and deliberate appeal to the
facts in question will justify the conviction. At other times it will
be found that the facts demand an altogether new interpretation. For
centuries all the observed facts supported a conviction that the earth
was flat. It was a fresh scrutiny of the facts in the light of a new
conception that revolutionised human opinion on the subject.
What, then, is the history, and what are the facts upon which the belief
that religious experience brings man into contact with a kind of
existence not given in ordinary experience, is based? The kind of answer
that will be given to this question has already been indicated.
Religious beliefs are in their origin of the nature of an induction from
an observed order. The induction is not the result of that careful
collection of facts, leading up to an equally careful generalisation and
subsequent verification, which is a characteristic of modern science,
but it is an induction none the less. The primitive mind is not so much
engaged in seeking an explanation of certain experiences, as it has an
explanation forced upon it. To picture the savage as inventing a theory
in the sense in which Darwin propounded the theory of Natural Selection
is to quite misconceive the nature of the savage intelligence. But to
conceive the savage as having a certain explanation suggested by the
pressure of repeated experiences, and that this explanation subsequently
assumes the character of a fixed belief, is well within the scope of the
facts known to us. In this stage of culture the existence of
supernatural beings is as much a deduction from experience as any modern
scientific generalisation. Certain things are seen, certain feelings are
experienced, and the conclusion is that they are the products of
supernatural agency. From this point of view religion is no more than a
primitive science. It is the first stage of that long series of
generalisations which, beginning with crude animism, ends with the
discoveries of a Copernicus, a Newton, a Darwin, or a Spencer. It is a
history that begins with vitalism and ends with mechanism. We commence
with a world in which there exists a chaotic assemblage of independent
personal forces, and end with a universe that is self-acting,
self-adjusting, self-contained, and in which science makes no allowance
for the operation of intelligence save such as meets us in animal
organisation.
Now amongst the facts that suggest to the primitive intelligence the
operation of 'spiritual' forces are those connected with the human
organism itself in both its normal and abnormal states. But it is
important to note--particularly so for the understanding of the part
played by ecstatic religious phenomena in comparatively recent
times--that once the occurrence of a certain state of mind is conceived
as the product of intercourse between man and spirits, there is every
inducement to cultivate these frames of mind whenever renewed
intercourse is desired. This does not imply, at least in the earlier
stages, conscious imposture. Generally the operator imposes on himself
as much as he imposes on others. Noting that privation of body, or
torture of mind, or the use of certain herbs is followed by visions or
ecstasy, it is believed, not that the vision is the product of the
practice, but that the practice is the condition of illumination.
This attitude of mind is fairly paralleled by what takes place at the
ordinary spiritualistic _seance_. Those attending are advised that the
chief condition of a communication with the inhabitants of the other
world is a passive state of mind. This passivity cannot exclude
expectancy, since it is only assumed in order that something may occur.
If nothing occurs, if no communications are received, it is because the
requisite conditions have not been fulfilled, and the sceptic is met
with much semi-scientific jargon as to conditions being necessary to
every scientific investigation. The fact that this passivity and
expectancy, with other attendant circumstances, not the least of which
is the contagious influence of a number of people with a similar mental
disposition, opens the way to self-delusion is ignored. Then when the
expected and desired result follows, the mental attitude cultivated is
taken as the condition of communication with the spiritual world,
instead of its being, in all probability, the true cause of what is
experienced. In this way the story of supernatural intercourse runs
clear and unbroken from primitive savagery to its survival in modern
civilisation. When Professor Tylor says, "The conception of the human
soul is, as to its most essential nature, continuous from the philosophy
of the savage thinker to that of the modern professor of theology,"[21]
he makes a statement that is true of the whole story of supernatural
intercourse in all its varied manifestations.
The chief distinction between primitive and modern man lies in the
consideration that in the first case the blunder is inevitable, in the
latter case the remedy lies to hand. How could primitive man be aware of
the real connection between the use of certain drugs or herbs and an
excitation or depression of the activities of the nervous system? He
does observe consequences, but he is quite ignorant of causes. Even
to-day their full consequences are unknown; and it is absurd to expect
that savage humanity should have been better informed. And even when a
more rational theory exists, the practice persists under various forms.
This is a principle that receives vivid illustration from the history of
religions. The modern believer in mystical states of consciousness no
longer advocates the use of drugs, and even fasting is going out of
fashion. But we still have a continuation of the primitive practice in
the shape of insistence on the cultivation of abnormal frames of mind if
we are to experience a consciousness of communion with an alleged
supersensible reality. That is, we are to achieve by a mental discipline
what the savage or the medieval monk achieved by coarser and more
obvious methods. To withdraw the mind from the normal influence of
everyday life is to expose it to the play of hallucination and delusion.
There is really no vital difference between unhealthy, solitary brooding
on a given subject and drugging the mind with hashish. This class of
modern mystic is one with the savage in an inability to recognise that
the illumination is the product of the discipline, not the mere
condition of its possession. Between the drug of the savage, the fasting
and self-torture of the medieval monk and the prayerful meditation of
the modern mystic, the difference is only that of changed times and
altered conditions. The method is the same throughout.