UCSB LIBRARY
 
 PSYCHOLOGY AND MYSTICAL 
 EXPERIENCE
 
 NIHIL OBSTAT: 
 
 G. H, JOYCE, S.J. 
 
 Censor Deputatus 
 
 IMPRIMATUR 
 
 EDM. CAN. SURMONT 
 
 Vic. Gen. 
 
 Westmonasterii, die 18 Martii, 1920
 
 Psychology and 
 Mystical Experience 
 
 BY 
 JOHN HOWLEY, M.A. 
 
 Professor of Philosophy, Galway 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & Co., LTD 
 ST. Louis, M.O. : B. HERDER BOOK COMPANY 
 
 1920
 
 To THE MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 FATHER JAMES MALLAC, S.J. 
 PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, 
 
 DUBLIN, 1888 
 THESE PAGES ARE 
 
 DEDICATED 
 WITH REVERENCE AND AFFECTION
 
 "Nevertheless, I accept the aid of experience and 
 learning, and if through ignorance I should err, it is 
 not my intention to depart from the sound doctrine 
 of our holy mother the Catholic Church. I resign 
 myself absolutely to her light, and submit to her 
 decisions, and moreover to the better judgment 
 herein of private men, be they who they may." 
 
 St. John of the Cross. The Assent of 
 Carmel. Prologue 
 
 " In omni re, quae sentitur sive quae cognoscitur, 
 interius latet ipse Deus." 
 
 St. Bonaventure. De Reductione artium 
 ad theologiam.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 This book came into being as a natural development 
 of the Introduction. In 1913 I was asked to write 
 the Bulletin for the June number of Studies dealing 
 with recent books on the psychology of religious 
 experience. The successive developments of this 
 article form the various chapters of the present work 
 and were published from time to time as separate 
 articles in Studies and in the Irish Ecclesiastical 
 Record, Although the work was practically complete 
 in 1914 the war rendered publication in book form 
 impracticable until the present year. 
 
 THE LIBRARY, JOHN HOWLEY. 
 
 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, 
 GALWAY.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 General View of the Psychology of Religious 
 
 Experience I 
 
 PART I. CONVERSION 
 
 Chapter I. The Psychology of a Retreat - 27 
 
 Chapter II. The Theory of William James - 55 
 
 Chapter III. The Psychology of a Revival - 97 
 
 Chapter IV. A Theory of Integral Conversion 139 
 
 PART II. INTROVERSION 
 
 Chapter I. Mystical Experience and Quietism 181 
 
 Chapter II. Mystical Experience Proper - 211 
 
 Chapter III. Varieties of Mystical Experience 243
 
 PSYCHOLOGY AND MYSTICAL 
 EXPERIENCE 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 
 
 RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 
 
 SINCE William James wrote his " Varieties of Reli- 
 gious Experience," psychologists have shown an ever 
 growing interest in the psychic phenomena of religious 
 life. His book set a fashion and transformed an out- 
 look. That crude medical materialism which he ridi- 
 culed and riddled no longer holds the place of honour 
 in any serious discussion ; it is no longer good form 
 for the serious man of science to explain St. Teresa 
 in terms of nervous pathology. We have but to con- 
 trast the attitude of Binet-Sangle with Leuba, and 
 still more with Delacroix, towards the great Catholic 
 mystics, to see what a revolution has come about in 
 the mind of agnostic psychology. The sub-conscious 
 has replaced the morbid, and a bold attempt is made 
 to bring religious experience within the domain of 
 positive psychology. 
 
 But is such a science of religious life possible, a 
 positive science dealing with observed fact, and free 
 from all metaphysical and theological presuppositions ? 
 Those who reply in the affirmative point out that the 
 psychic phenomena of religion are facts of conscious- 
 
 I
 
 2 Introduction 
 
 ness which can be ascertained like other forms of con- 
 sciousness. They can be compared, analysed and 
 tabulated, their sequences noted, and their relations 
 with somatic conditions, normal or morbid, duly 
 observed. We may thus hope to discover the laws 
 which govern the sequence of religious phenomena 
 of a psychic order and to establish their determinism, 
 or causality as that is understood by positive science. 
 What if these facts are beyond the range of experiment, 
 they do not differ in that respect from many other 
 observed facts whose place in positive science is 
 unquestioned. The field of experiment in psychology 
 is very restricted, though its literature is immense. 1 
 Great ingenuity has been expended on psychological 
 experiment, but the results are meagre and uncertain 
 at best. If we are to have a positive science of 
 psychology at all, our mainstay must be the observed 
 facts of consciousness, using experiment where we can 
 as an auxiliary. 
 
 But where are we to obtain these observed facts in 
 the religious order ? Professor Stratton, in the pre- 
 face to his " Psychology of the Religious Life," admits 
 that there are objections " to basing a psychological 
 account of religion mainly upon answers received from 
 individuals when directly questioned in regard to their 
 religious experience, even when these answers are 
 
 1 Cf. de la Vaissi&re : Fitments de Psychologic Experimenlalt : 
 Bcauchesne, 1912. Index Bibliographique.
 
 Psychology of Religious Experience 3 
 
 supplemented by material gathered from life-histories, 
 especially from autobiographies of the religious. It is 
 true that a method which has been followed with sig- 
 nal effect by James, Starbuck, Coe, Pratt, and others 
 is certainly justified. And yet the persons most easily 
 reached by such means are, for the most part, adherents 
 of one and the same religion ; they are of the Occident, 
 and naturally show a preponderance of that special 
 type of character that is ready to grant to a stranger 
 an access to the secret places of personality." 
 
 Stratton himself prefers to gather his facts of con- 
 sciousness from the rituals, myths, etc., of various 
 peoples, but this involves getting at the facts of con- 
 sciousness at second hand by inference from their 
 crystallizations in primitive myth and dogma. Further 
 this inferential process becomes quite chaotic when 
 strict agnostic neutrality is duly observed as to the 
 moral and metaphysical values of the data. The 
 results, however valuable as a by-product in the study 
 of comparative religion, are of little or no psycholo- 
 gical value ; the study of popular fiction and ballads 
 of all nations would afford almost as good material in 
 the study of the emotivity of crowds. Both processes 
 have their value for the student of the psychology of 
 crowds, but the results are too general to be of use, 
 as far as they affect individual psychology. We 
 are, of course, assaming Stratton's standpoint of in- 
 differentism to be taken, for his results, when inter-
 
 4 Introduction 
 
 preted, are of much interest. But in their agnostic 
 severity, they mean chaos. Starbuck, in his " Psy- 
 chology of Religion/' has used the question-circular 
 method with extraordinary energy and really remark- 
 able skill. The questions he sent out were drafted 
 with great acumen, the replies tabulated, analysed and 
 plotted into curves with infinite patience. His results 
 are most curious, but his method has the defects 
 Stratton points out, it is very limited. Yet, as a 
 study of " conversion," as understood by Evangelical 
 Protestants, his work is of the very first importance 
 to the psychologist. 
 
 James and more perfectly Delacroix have derived 
 their facts of observation largely from religious bio- 
 graphy. This method has the advantage of looking 
 at the facts in their life-setting, and not as isolated 
 data, and the disadvantage of limiting their number 
 The biographical psychologist has also to rely on his 
 documents uncontrolled by personal inquiry. He 
 must take on trust the statements of the author or 
 check them by a criticism based on philosophic princi- 
 ples which go beyond the purview of merely positive 
 science. Hence it is almost impossible to exclude the 
 factor of prejudice, apologetic or anti-apologetic, in 
 forming his judgment as to the scientific value of the 
 facts recorded. A fact for anyone is a fact apper- 
 ceived. However it comes into the mind originally, 
 it stays and rests there as a fact known by the relations
 
 Psychology of Religious Experience 5 
 
 it sets up with our pre-existing mental complex, and 
 chameleon-like takes its colour from its mental sur- 
 roundings. If we would present it to others we pre- 
 sent it as we apperceive it, and we colour even the 
 external physical fact with something of ourselves. 
 But the facts of consciousness are double-dyed, by 
 him who originally perceives and records them, and 
 then by the critical psychologist who reads and ap- 
 preciates the record. The fact at least niters through 
 two personalities before it is catalogued and cross- 
 indexed. We cannot get rid of this double distortion 
 from the point of view of positive science. We may 
 tear a fact from our mental soil, but some of our 
 earth will cling to its roots. The effort to be scienti- 
 fically superior to our prejudices, should we suspect 
 their existence, will cause us to maul, perhaps fatally, 
 the fact we try to present objectively. We must 
 either give it as it exists for us, or it will be an abortion, 
 not viable for the purposes of science. 
 
 It is this element in the psychic fact, as presented, 
 which seems to call for criteria which merely positive 
 science cannot legitimately give. The agnostic psy- 
 chologist philosophises quite as much as the Christian 
 apologist when he comes to deal with psychic facts 
 of the religious order, but his metaphysical prejudices 
 are expressed in the current language of scientific 
 dogmatism, and so escape challenge. He professes to 
 speak as a man of science, positive, exact, dealing with
 
 6 Introduction 
 
 facts and their immediate relations, but the brief he 
 speaks from is marked " Metaphysics," in the corner. 
 And he will continue to do so, as Dr. Marechal puts it: 
 
 " Par malheur, chacun nait philosophe ; et trop de 
 nos savants (incredules ou non) portent cette tare sans 
 s'en douter. On les voit, a tout propos, sous pretexte 
 de science, f oncer tete baisse'e sur le re* el, oubliant ou 
 ignorant qu'ils font la souvent de tres mauvaise 
 philosophic, et que, par contre, un grain de bonne et 
 franche philosophic, leur apprenant a distinguer le 
 relatif de 1'absolu, les remettrait excellemment dans 
 leur role d'hommes de science. Car il faut etre deja 
 quelque peu philosophe pour s'abstenir a point de 
 philosopher." 1 
 
 If, therefore, we are to have a psychology of reli- 
 gious experience, it cannot be merely a positive science 
 on pain of illusion and sterility. Delacroix has de- 
 clared " that all one has the right to exact from the 
 psychologist is that he respects the integrity of the 
 fact." The ecstasy of a Plotinus, of an Indian Yoga, 
 of a St. Teresa, is a fact of religious experience, but is 
 it the same integrally in the three ? Can we make 
 abstraction of the One of Plotinus, the Nirvana of the 
 Yoga, the God of St. Teresa, and yet preserve the 
 integrity of the psychic fact ? Yes, if we postulate 
 
 1 Science empirique et Psychologic religietise. Notes critiques, par 
 Joseph Mar6chal, docteur 6s sciences. Extrait des RecheFches de 
 Science religieuse, 1912, N. i.
 
 Psychology of Religious Experience 7 
 
 that ecstasy is a morbid psychose, or that the One of 
 Plotinus, the Nirvana of the Yoga, and the God of 
 St. Teresa are but extrapositions of the sub-conscious. 
 What is this but replacing the dogmatism of the priest 
 by the more offensive dogmatism of the professor ? 
 
 Quite another species of psychologists have dealt 
 with the data of spiritual experience, and in quite 
 another mode. From the Fathers of the Desert to 
 the Cure d'Ars, from the Anamchara of the Culdees to 
 the Carmelite, Franciscan, Dominican, Jesuit " direc- 
 tor " of to-day, we have had a long series of trained 
 minds dealing with souls in the confessional, interro- 
 gating and advising, noting progress, repairing relapses, 
 forging that wonderful chain of moral and mystical 
 theology from the accumulated experience of ages and 
 generations. They built up no mere speculative 
 science of the life of the soul, but a doctrine that was 
 lived, a science that was an art. That ascetical theo- 
 logy represents the life experience of countless souls of 
 every degree of spiritual culture generalized and 
 codified in the light of Catholic theology. These 
 directors had their " prejudices," but they had also 
 unrivalled opportunities for psychological observation, 
 and even, within the limits of these " prejudices," of 
 unlimited psychological experiment. Modern science, 
 so-called, rules them out of court ; they know, per- 
 haps, too much. 
 What may we legitimately include under the term
 
 8 Introduction 
 
 " religious experience " ? Pacheu, perhaps, gives us 
 the best answer. " C'est seulement une expression 
 abre'ge'e pour designer les phenomenes psychologiques 
 d'ordre religieux, observes et analyses par les sujets 
 que nous etudions." 1 A religious experience would, 
 therefore, be some psychic event of which we were 
 aware and could give some account ; it must be a fact 
 of consciousness, something felt or known. We could 
 not, for example, speak of our baptism, unless we were 
 adults at the time, as a religious experience in this sense. 
 We could say the same of Extreme Unction where the 
 recipient had fainted. The subject must be conscious 
 of what has happened to some extent to make it a 
 religious experience in this special sense. For it must 
 be remembered that what we are concerned with in 
 the psychological study of religious experience is 
 primarily what is felt or known by the subject. That, 
 of course, is but the fringe of the event from the re- 
 ligious point of view, 2 but it is the starting point for 
 the psychologist. Then the event must be religious 
 in character, but we must take the term religious in a 
 
 1 Jules Pacheu : L'Expirience Mystique et L'Activiti Subcon- 
 sciente. Paris, Perrin et Cie, 1911, p. 57. 
 
 1 Cf. St. John of the Cross, " The Dark night of the Soul." Book 
 I. cap. vi., 6. " But these persons will feel and taste God, as if 
 He were palpable and accessible to them, not only in communion 
 but in all their other acts of devotion. All this is a very great 
 imperfection, and directly at variance with the nature of God, 
 Who demands the purest faith."
 
 Psychology of Religious Experience 9 
 
 fairly wide sense if we would include in our scope the 
 mystical experiences of the Neoplatonist and the 
 Buddhist. 
 
 Outside those experiences, which may be classed as 
 mystical in the strict sense of the term, that wide 
 group of phenomena termed " conversion " by 
 Evangelical Protestants has met with the largest 
 share of attention at the hands of the psychologist. 
 Starbuck's "Psychology of Religion " might almost be 
 called a monograph of " Conversion." James had 
 already dealt with it in his " Varieties of Religious 
 Experience," but his pupil has almost exhausted its 
 possibilities as far as can be done by the method of 
 the question-circular. Starbuck does not limit him- 
 self to " conversion " cases only, but deals also in 
 like manner with cases not involving " conversion " 
 in this special evangelical sense. But he traces many 
 analogies between the " once-born " and the " twice- 
 born," and concludes, " It is safe to say that conver- 
 sion is not a unique experience, but has its correspon- 
 dences in the common events of religious growth." 1 
 For Starbuck " conversion " is very largely a pheno- 
 menon of adolescence, and he lays much stress on the 
 occurrence in general of this psychic change at the 
 period of puberty in both sexes. He considers that 
 " there are two essential aspects of conversion, that in 
 which there is self-surrender and forgiveness, accom- 
 
 1 Starbuck, Psychology of Religion, 3d. Ed., p. 204.
 
 10 Introduction 
 
 panied by a sense of harmony with God ; and that 
 in which the new life bursts forth spontaneously as 
 the natural recoil from the sense of sin, or as the result 
 of a previous act of the will in striving toward 
 righteousness." 1 We have here then as psychic 
 elements a state of tension, a sense of insufficiency 
 and discord, followed by a relaxation of psychic ten- 
 sion, with a concomitant sense of relief, of harmony, 
 of capacity and power. This is the psychic process 
 considered in itself, apart from its theological setting. 
 The early Reformers interpreted it as theologians 
 and built on this psychose their well-known doctrines 
 of Salvation by Faith and Assurance, and it is as 
 dogmatised and crystallized in their confessional form- 
 ulas that the question has been studied by Catholic 
 theologians. The original psychose, per se, the rock 
 on which* Reformation theology has been built, has 
 met with but small attention at their hands. 2 This is 
 unfortunate, for the doctrines of Luther and Calvin 
 have encountered many a change, and in their purity 
 are somewhat to seek to-day, but we find " conver- 
 sion " qua psychose a permanent fixed feature in 
 Protestant religious life. Its value and meaning are 
 variously interpreted, biologically, mystically, and 
 
 1 Starbuck, p. too. 
 
 2 For details of the conversion psychose in the case of Luther 
 himself cf Hartmann Grisar's Luther (vol. i. cap 10, vol. ii. pp. 272 
 et seq. vol. iii. p. 26 note. vol. iv. passim particularly cap 28 3 pp. 
 431 et seq.)
 
 Psychology of Religious Experience n 
 
 modernistically, by cerebral short circuiting, by sub- 
 conscious projection, as morbid, as divine, as patholo- 
 gical and as a " standing miracle." We see it as a 
 leit-motif in Dr. Dale of Birmingham, 1 in Auguste 
 Sabatier, 2 in Dr. Marshall P. Tailing, 3 in Miss Evelyn 
 Underhill.4 The last writer, in her book, " The 
 Mystic Way," as well as in her earlier, saner 
 and weightier work, " Mysticism," seems to treat con- 
 version in the Evangelical Protestant sense as identical 
 with conversion, as the term is understood by Catholic 
 spiritual writers, and regards it as the entrance to the 
 mystic way, the beginning of mystical life. But are 
 these two types of conversion identical ? It is, of 
 course, open to a writer to give the experience in each 
 case such a theological interpretation as to make them 
 identical or opposites. We have not at present to 
 consider their values or signification, their spiritual 
 cause or purport. We will regard them merely as 
 psychic processes, and so doing we can see at least one 
 specific psychic difference between them. Evangelical 
 conversion has in well-marked cases as its normal and 
 expected resultant a state of assurance, Catholic con- 
 version a state of compunction. If you address the 
 question, " Are you saved ? " to the average Protes- 
 tant who has experienced " conversion," he will have 
 
 1 P. W. Dale, LL.D. : The Living Christ and the Four Gospels. 
 
 2 A. Sabatier : Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion. 
 
 3 Marshall Tailing, Ph.D. : The Science of Spiritual Life. 
 
 4 Evelyn Underbill : The Mystic Way.
 
 12 Introduction 
 
 no hesitation 4n answering affirmatively, but no 
 Catholic could dare say more than he hoped to be. 
 These two answers are not merely expressions of 
 dogmatic prejudices ; they have a psychic value of 
 their own. The Protestant feels that he is saved, 
 that he is conscious of a state of assurance, of un- 
 bounded confidence. He theologizes the cause and 
 end of this assurance and this confidence ; that is 
 challengeable interpretation, but he feels and is acutely 
 aware of these affective states. He is " saved " 
 psychologically, for he feels safe. The dominant feel- 
 ing of the Catholic, on the other hand, is sorrow and 
 hope, the warp and woof of compunction. Dogma 
 apart, he cannot truly answer the question, " Are you 
 saved ? " in the affirmative, for his sins are ever before 
 him. That this is a normal psychic state in the truly 
 converted Catholic, no reader of the lives of the Saints, 
 no student of the " Imitation of Christ " can venture 
 to deny. It is in no perfunctory ceremonial sense that 
 St. Teresa speaks of herself as a great sinner, and is 
 always recalling her sins, to the no little scandal of 
 many good tepid worldly Catholics. She who had led 
 a singularly blameless life is at one with great penitents 
 like St. Augustine in the permanence of her compunc- 
 tion. Is it not playing with words, then, to regard 
 these two species of conversion as one and the same ? 
 They are manifestly two distinct psychoses. 
 
 Catholic writers who have dealt with evangelical con-
 
 Psychology of Religious Experience 13 
 
 version in its psychic aspects have been chiefly im- 
 pressed with the extravagant features presented in 
 " revivals." Here we have psychoses provoked which 
 present many morbid features. "It is of extreme 
 importance," writes Starbuck, 1 " in considering any- 
 thing so complex and delicate as the religious instinct 
 especially when it is liable to be wrought upon vigorously, 
 as is done in the crisis called conversion to stop and 
 observe some of the danger points, at which people may 
 easily be led beyond the limits of the normal, and 
 thereby suffer irretrievable loss. The most glaring 
 danger is found in the emotionalism and excitement of 
 religious revivals. The effect is to induce a state of 
 mere feeling which, when it has passed, leaves no spiri- 
 tual residuum ; to drive persons to irrational conduct, 
 so that when the reaction sets in, they reject not only 
 their first profession, but the whole of religion." 
 After a masterly analysis of revival types of conversion 
 and their sequels, Starbuck concludes that " a certain 
 initiative of religious ecstasy, or of guilt, combined 
 with an element of originality in temperament, tends 
 to become automatically cumulative, until the emo- 
 tional state chases everything but itself out of the 
 field of consciousness." We have thus revival insanity 
 with its analogies in the convulsionaires of St. M^dard 
 and the extravagancies of the various sects of Illumi- 
 nati in the Middle Ages. Insanity as a post-mission 
 phenomenon is not unknown in Catholic Ireland. 
 
 1 Starbuck, Psychology of Religion, p. 165.
 
 14 Introduction 
 
 The medical materialist will lump all these ex- 
 cesses, and regard them as typical of the religious 
 spirit, but the unprejudiced psychologist will set them 
 apart for classification among morbid psychoses as 
 the exceptional, and not the normal, types of conver- 
 sion. 
 
 It is in its resultant stage that evangelical conver- 
 sion presents features for which we cannot find equi- 
 valents in Catholic experience. That note of assur- 
 ance is not found. But we can find many parallels 
 for the initial stages of this psychose. That acute and 
 torturing sense of psychic tension, plus insufficiency, 
 the conviction of sin, is to be found in many spiritual 
 states recorded by Catholic writers. Temptations to 
 discouragement, to despair, accidie or spiritual sloth, 
 the state of the scrupulous who are tormented by 
 trifles, these are but a few of experiences common in 
 Catholic spirituality which seem to have this psychic 
 factor. That state, so often so very secular, known 
 as " acute worry," is a kindred psychose. The 
 scrupulous state is perhaps the best marked type. 
 Some medical writers have called this state " the 
 disease of doubt." Father A. Gemelli, in his exhaus- 
 tive monograph, " De Scrupulis," gives many instances 
 of spiritual worry bordering on mania, of the sense of 
 sin pushed to very madness. He shows that on its 
 psychic side this state of scruples may become a 
 veritable disease. Pierre Janet classes it with kin-
 
 Psychology of Religious Experience 15 
 
 dred psychoses as a disease, psychasthenia. As a 
 psychiatrist he sees it as a morbid state, just as the 
 schoolmen saw it as a vice, pusillanimity. 1 For him 
 it is a psycho-neurose akin to neurasthenia, and perhaps 
 to certain types of paranoia. Doctors view life 
 clinically, and would class Luther, Bunyan and Loyola 
 as morbid cases. The three suffered from acute 
 scruples, and Father Gemelli still retains so much of 
 his early training as a physician that he is sorely put 
 to it to save the reputation of St. Ignatius. While 
 honouring the physician, we must avoid medical 
 materialism. Extreme cases are useful clinical types, 
 but it is dangerous to generalize from them. One of 
 the characteristics of the psychasthenic is a feeling of 
 incompleteness, of insufficiency, of ineptitude, of in- 
 capacity, all the psychic qualities of that accidie which 
 the late Bishop of Oxford so well described. 2 Modern 
 science would reduce a deadly sin to a psycho-neurose. 
 Can we discover in religious experience any element 
 which we cannot reduce to a state of mind or a state 
 of nerves ? The positive psychologist would deny 
 either the existence or the necessity of any such psy- 
 chic X. Leuba declares that there is nothing " in the 
 life of the great Spanish mystic (St. Teresa), no desire, 
 sentiment, thought, vision, illumination, which obliges 
 
 1 Cf. D. Thomae Summa, Ha, Ilae, q. cxxxiii. 
 
 2 Francis Paget, D.D., late Bishop of Oxford : The Sorrow of 
 the World, with an introductory essay on Accidie. Longmans,
 
 16 Introduction 
 
 one to serious consideration of any transcendental 
 causes." 1 Such denial is, of course, a methodical 
 necessity for the positive psychologist who would ex- 
 clude " metaphysics." Feeling the inadequacy of his 
 science to account for the higher mystical phenomena 
 as an output of the ordinary mechanism of con- 
 sciousness, he falls back, like Delacroix, on the sub- 
 consciousness, that Mrs. Harris of positivism. Maine 
 de Biran had suggested the sub-consciousness as the 
 vehicle of Divine Grace in its action on the soul. 2 
 Delacroix takes this hypothesis, and, by postulating for 
 the sub -consciousness powers of a quite transcendent 
 order, calmly converts the vehicle into an automobile. 
 We can account for much that is extraordinary if we 
 only give our sub-liminal selves enough scope, or rope ; 
 that is, of course, if we are quite set on eliminating 
 God from His cosmos and His micro-cosmos. Sanctity 
 is but religious genius, and genius is an outcrop of 
 the great sub-liminal Self. We thus bring the most 
 transcendent phenomena well within the domain of 
 " positive " science. 
 
 Pacheu 3 and Gemelli4 have criticised this theory of 
 
 1 Quoted by J. de la Vaissiere, Elements de Psychologic Experi- 
 mentale, p. 305. 
 
 2 Sharpe : Mysticism, its true nature and value, p. 115. 
 
 3 Pacheu : L' Experience Mystique et I'Activiti Subconsciente . 
 Perrin et Cie. 1911. 
 
 4 A. Gemelli : L'origine subconsciente dei fatti tnistici. Firenze 
 Libreria Edi trice Florentina. 1913.
 
 Psychology of Religious Experience 17 
 
 the sub-conscious as the efficient factor in mystical 
 experiences with great acumen, but we may well 
 doubt if their replies will convince the positivists. 
 The interpretation of experience cannot, as we have 
 seen, be purely a matter of positive science ; it is 
 determined by higher principles, and is only acceptable 
 where these principles are accepted. 
 
 Numberless are the attempts which have been made 
 to define the terms Mysticism and Mystical. The Rev. 
 W. K. Fleming 1 gives a fine varied selection, taken, as 
 he tells us, from Dean Inge's Christian Mysticism, 
 Appendix A. They range from mere expressions of 
 vague pietism applicable to almost any marked re- 
 ligious experience to Ribet's ultra narrow, "It is a 
 supernatural drawing of the soul towards God, in 
 which the soul is passive, resulting in an inward 
 illumination and caress ; these supersede thought, 
 surpass all human effort, and are able to have over 
 the body an influence (retentissement) marvellous 
 and irresistible." What St. John of the Cross calls 
 the Dark Night of the Spirit would not fall within the 
 limits of this definition, yet it is a well-recognised 
 mystical state. The same objection might be taken 
 to Father Poulain's famous criterion, " The presence 
 of God felt." 2 Joly's phrase, " Mysticism is the 
 
 1 W. K. Fleming. M.A., B.D. : Mystisicm in Christianity. Robert 
 Scott. 1913. 
 
 2 Poulain : Les Graces d'Oraison, cinquieme edition, 1906, cap. v. 
 
 2
 
 i8 Introduction 
 
 love of God " : is, of course, too wide. We need 
 some limitation, some test by which we can discrimi- 
 nate between experiences which are mystical and 
 those which are not in other words, a psychological 
 definition rather than a philosophic one. When can 
 a religious experience rightly be called mystical ? 
 Where are the frontiers of the mystical state ? Miss 
 Underbill considers conversion as the border line, 
 taking the word in a fairly wide sense. But no Cath- 
 olic writer would accept this view, for the word myst- 
 ical has been restricted in Catholic usage to certain 
 states of prayer of a non-discursive character. Broad- 
 ly speaking, prayer falls into three categories, vocal 
 prayer and meditation are, per se, non-mystical, and 
 the controversy among Catholic spiritual writers is 
 limited to this point : to what extent is contemplation 
 mystical. Is all prayer in which there is no mental 
 discourse mystical, or can we have a non-discursive 
 prayer which is non-mystical, and, if so, when can we 
 say that a certain type of contemplation is mystical ? 
 That is the question in dispute, and a very vexed one 
 it is. To one school, of which Father Poulain is the 
 chief, there is a form of contemplation, called the 
 " prayer of simplicity," which is non-mystical, but is 
 a sort of half-way house between meditation and 
 mystical contemplation. It is an active and acquired 
 contemplation to be distinguished from the passive and 
 
 1 Henri Joly ; Psychologic des Saints, troisieme Edition, p. 40.
 
 Psychology of Religious Experience 19 
 
 infused contemplation which is properly termed my- 
 stical. The other school, led by the Chanoine Saudreau 
 and the late Father Ludovic de Besse, maintain that 
 this distinction is the creation of certain later writers 
 on mystical theology, and was unknown in earlier times 
 and that the so-called active contemplation, if it is a 
 genuine prayer, is rightly termed mystical. 
 
 The controversy may seem trivial, but a controversy 
 about a diphthong once convulsed the Church. Be- 
 hind this frontier dispute lie the questions of the con- 
 tinuity of spiritual life ; whether the contemplative 
 mystic is the product of a miracle or a normal growth 
 in grace ; and the spiritual dangers of quietism, or 
 of quenching the spirit. Already there is quite a large 
 literature on this disputed topic. 
 
 The absence of discursive movements of the mind 
 is the keynote of air mystical experience. Of course, 
 the term absence is here used in the relative sense, 
 and is not meant to be taken with absolute literalness. 
 In a meditation, as in vocal prayer, the mind works 
 in its ordinary human fashion ; we have " discourse of 
 reason," and if need be, we can set out this discourse 
 in words, and so make our mental prayer vocal. So, 
 too, there is the succession of sentiments and affections. 
 There is a mental movement, directed and controlled 
 of course, but a movement. It is the absence of this 
 movement which gave its name to the " prayer of 
 quiet," The very name suggests the absence of the
 
 26 Introduction 
 
 normal mental work of reasoning, of successive feelings. 
 We have thus a negative psychic characteristic of 
 mystical prayer. 
 
 We have a positive element in that common feature 
 of all prayer that is prayer, attention. But it is at- 
 tention with a difference. In meditation, attention 
 costs an effort ; we must force our minds to follow the 
 points, and not to wander off in all directions. We 
 must force our other faculties to keep in step ; like 
 Martha, we are busied about many things. Hence the 
 sense of effort in attention. 
 
 In the " prayer of quiet," as it is a prayer, there 
 must be attention ; how, then, can it be called quiet ? 
 Let us go to the child for a parable. Every teacher 
 knows that to hold a child's attention you must arouse 
 his interest, for his attention is wholly spontaneous, 
 and he is incapable of voluntary attention. Let him 
 be interested in what is for him some new and wonder- 
 ful thing, and all his restlessness ceases ; his whole 
 soul is fixed, and all the world beside vanishes for the 
 moment, save the one object which interests him. 
 And when the Master Himself is that object ? 
 
 Passive attention is then the positive psychic ele- 
 ment in mystical contemplation. But attention to 
 what ? There we are in full controversy. Are we 
 to take the declarations of the mystics literally or 
 analogically ? Poulain and his school favour literalism, 
 Meynard, Saudreau and the others would interpret
 
 Psychology of Religious Experience 21 
 
 widely. The controversy cannot be decided on psycho- 
 logical grounds, for it is strictly a question of the 
 interpretation of experience, and that experience is 
 of a most subtle character. St. Jeanne de Chantal 
 relates in her depositions that when she questioned 
 St. Francis de Sales about his inner experience, he 
 told her : " These matters are so simple and delicate 
 that one can say nothing about them when they are 
 past." A constant cry of Blessed Angela of Foligno, 
 when relating her experiences, is that her words are 
 blasphemies ; they cannot convey the reality. 
 
 This incapacity of the great mystics to express 
 themselves, an incapacity inherent in the character 
 of their experience which is essentially individual and 
 incommunicable, is the source of most of the contro- 
 versies as to the nature of the mystical state. The 
 theologian, with his clear-cut definitions, is helpless 
 when he comes to deal with mystical writings, unless 
 he has had similar experience. Then he is very 
 modest in his affirmations and denials. But in general 
 the attitude of the theologian to the mystic is hostile, 
 or, at best, apprehensive. Corruptio optimi pessima, 
 and if mystical prayer is the apanage of sanctity, 
 the corruption of mysticism is the mother of all disorder 
 
 It is curious and interesting to note how certain 
 mystical eccentricities of Catholic origin have found a 
 congenial home among certain types of Protestants. 
 The Guida of Molinos and the Moyen Court of Madame
 
 22 Introduction 
 
 Guyon circulate widely as pious booklets in their 
 English dress. 1 That they were condemned by 
 Rome renders them " safe " for Protestant readers. 
 It is a curious symptom, this ultra-passive type of 
 devotion, in Protestant spiritual life ; for their own 
 analogue, Quakerism, has not been very popular. 
 We have also various eccentric sects, the Christian 
 Scientists among the crowd, whose processes have a 
 basis of psychic passivity. We find even Buddhists, 
 for whom psychic passivity is carried to the last ex- 
 treme, getting a foothold in England. Spiritualists 
 abound. Clearly, the theologian is justified in his 
 mistrust of methods of devotion whose basis is a 
 species of psychic passivity. 
 
 Not alone the theologian but the psychologist will 
 be apprehensive. As Arcelin shows in his masterly 
 monograph, 2 the artificial production of states of 
 psychic passivity by hypnosis, or so-called mystical 
 exercises, such as the various species of Yoga, 3 tends 
 to a certain break up of the phenomenal " personality " 
 with resultant psychic accidents, secondary states, 
 hallucinations, etc. The soul is free-wheeling without 
 
 1 The Spiritual Guidt, by Michael de Molinos, edited with an 
 introduction by Kathleen Lyttleton. Mcthuen. The Library of 
 Devotion series. 
 
 A Short and Easy Method of Prayer, by Madame Guyon. Allenscn 
 Heart and Life Booklets, No. 14. 
 
 2 Adrien Areelin : La Dissociation Psychologique, dtude sur les 
 pMnomenes inconscicnts. Paris, Blond et Barral, 1901. 
 
 3 Stratton : Psychology of the Religious Life, p. 199.
 
 Psychology of Religious Experience 23 
 
 a brake on an unknown slope, to speak again in a 
 parable. 
 
 The distinction between the veritable " prayer of 
 quiet " and " quietism " is not to be found in what 
 we have denned to be the negative psychic character- 
 istic of mystical prayer. Both have, in common, 
 the absence of discursive reasoning, of mental images. 
 Whether this absence of discourse is given or acquired 
 does not afford a sufficient clue of itself, for the genuine 
 contemplative has to bestir himself to clear his mind 
 of importunate thoughts. 1 But we may possibly 
 find it in what we have called the positive psychic 
 element in mystical prayer, passive attention. When 
 present in prayer, passive attention shows rather 
 clearly the marks or signs by which the mind can 
 recognise the " given," and distinguish it from the 
 " acquired." Now, quietism would seem to have 
 passivity without attention, to be a rest in self rather 
 than a rest in God. 2 
 
 It is this consciousness of the " given " in religious 
 experience, both mystical and general, which has 
 brought about that comparatively recent trend in 
 apologetics, the attempt to find in spiritual experience 
 the justification and the interpretation of the Christian 
 creeds. No doubt, for its recipient, religious experi- 
 
 1 Cf. St. John of the Cross : Ascent of Carmel, passim. 
 
 2 Cf. L'Ornament des noces spirituelles, de Ruysbroeck 1'Admirable 
 traduit du flamand par Maurice Maeterlinck (Book II, chaps. 74 
 et seq.)- Bruxelles, Lacombley, IQOO,
 
 24 Introduction 
 
 ence has a mighty cogency. We get a very charming 
 illustration of this in Dr. Dale's " The Living Christ 
 and the Four Gospels." But its power is limited to 
 the recipient, as James has pointed out. We cannot 
 build an argument from our " moods." How can 
 we convince the sceptic of their nature and value ? 
 Can we even show that they are uniform ? " God 
 leads every soul by a separate path, and you will 
 scarcely meet with one spirit which agrees with another 
 in one half of the way by which it advances." 1 So 
 thought one who was not alone a great mystic himself 
 but was the director of one of the most remarkable 
 groups of mystics in the history of Christendom, the 
 early "Carmelites of the Teresian reform, headed by 
 St. Teresa herself. 
 
 This immense variety and individual character of 
 religious experience is a still greater obstacle to its 
 employment to interpret and reconstruct religious 
 dogma. The individual may well obtain " lights " 
 in prayer, but what guarantee has any one else that 
 they are not false beacons ? Miss Underbill, in her 
 book, " The Mystic Way," has attempted a recons- 
 tructive interpretation of the first beginnings of 
 Christianity by a species of retrojection of what we 
 find in modern mystics into the personalities of 
 the New Testament. The result is fantastic from the 
 
 1 St. John of the Cross : The Living Flames, stanza iii., 63 
 (p. 98 in Baker's edition, 1912)
 
 Psychology of Religious Experience 25 
 
 point of view of science, and offensive to the ordinary 
 Christian. The New Mythology is a very turgid 
 substitute for the old theology. Yet, " views " have one 
 advantage over dogma, they can be disregarded 
 without discomfort. 
 
 The insistence of Protestant apologists on religious 
 experience and their use of it in exegesis is but the 
 logical consequence of what has been said of 
 " conversion " earlier that this psy chose is the 
 bed-rock of Protestantism. It is something the 
 force of which they have felt ; it is cogent and con- 
 clusive for them, and they naturally think it valid 
 for others. It would be interesting to know what 
 percentage of these " twice-born " Protestants ever 
 subsequently modify their basic outlook on religion. 
 Newman and Staunton of St. Alban's, were " con- 
 verted men," and we may trace in their lives some- 
 thing of that " assurance " as a sort of rudimentary 
 survival. A statistic a la Starbuck of " converted 
 men " who were converts to Anglicanism or Catho- 
 licism from Protestantism would be of enormous 
 interest. It must be noted, however, that the argu- 
 ment from personal religious experience to the validity 
 of the recipient's creed is not confined to undiluted 
 Protestantism. " Well-informed members of the 
 Church of England were prepared to recognise their 
 shortcomings, and were quite aware how far the 
 Anglican communion, as a whole, fall short in practice
 
 26 Introduction 
 
 of the standard held up by the Book of Common 
 Prayer ; but the one thing they never could and 
 never would do was admit a doubt as to the reality of 
 the Sacraments they had received their Communions, 
 their absolutions, since to do so would be to deny the 
 spiritual experience of a lifetime." 1 Quite another atti- 
 tude is shown in the following maxim of St. John of 
 the Cross : " The soul that leans upon its own under- 
 standing, sense, or feeling of its own all this being 
 very little and very unlike to God in order to travel 
 on the right road, is most easily led astray or hindered, 
 because it is not perfectly blind in faith, which is its 
 true guide." 2 
 
 The one way is Assurance, the other the Fear of 
 the Lord. And this is a psychic attitude, whatever 
 be its theological import. 
 
 1 Lord Haliax : Leo XIII. and Anglican Orders, p. 252. This 
 was Newman's position in the last course of Advent Sermons which 
 he preached as Vicar of St. Mary's before he retired to Littlemore 
 (Dublin Review July, 1864. p. 186). 
 
 2 St. John of the Cross: Spiritual Maxims, No. 29. (p. igi 
 Baker's edition Living Flame).
 
 PART I 
 CONVERSION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY OF A RETREAT 
 
 THE term " conversion," as meaning certain types of 
 religious experience, has a very different sense in the 
 mouth of a Catholic from what it bears on the lips 
 of a Protestant. If a Catholic were to say that so- 
 and-so was converted at a mission, he would mean 
 something quite other than the Protestant speaking 
 of a man converted at a revival. Either would use 
 the word in the same sense when a mere change of 
 dogmatic belief was meant ; but, if there were no 
 change of creed involved, the sense of the word would 
 vary with the user. If one casually overheard one 
 Catholic speaking of another as having been converted 
 at the mission last year, one who knew the manner of 
 speech of Catholics would think of the converted man 
 rather as a reformed character than as one who had 
 gained a new outlook on life, a new attitude to his 
 Creator, a new orientation of existence. In the lives 
 of the saints we find the word used with such conno- 
 tation, but this hagiographic use is not the popular one, 
 which merely implies some notable amendment of 
 life due to religious motives. But when the Catholic 
 writer or preacher speaks of the conversion of St. 
 Francis of Assisi, or St. Ignatius of Loyola, or Blessed
 
 28 Conversion 
 
 Angela of Foligno, the word connotes a change of 
 life as it were substantial, a polarization of the whole 
 personality, such a deep-rooted transformation of the 
 whole man as to deserve the name of " new 
 birth." Thus, the word ranges in Catholic use from 
 frequenting the sacraments after neglect to the seeding 
 time of heroic virtues, from taking the pledge to the 
 call of the saint. 
 
 Among Protestants, or at least among those who 
 regard "conversion " as an essential or eminently 
 desirable feature of religious life, the sense of the term 
 has some analogies with the hagiographic use among 
 Catholics. It implies a change of spiritual outlook 
 rather than a mere correction of defects, and is inti- 
 mately linked, historically at least, with the doctrines 
 of the Reformers on Grace. Protestant theologians 
 in general explain it in terms of more or less modified 
 Calvinism. It is a very interesting speculation as to 
 how far the process of conversion in use among Evange- 
 licals is the product of the dogmatic theology of 
 Luther and Calvin, and how far the source and origin 
 of the Reformation doctrines. Did the Reformers 
 theologise a psychose, or was the psychose the creation 
 of their theology ? Certainly there is an interplay 
 between their doctrines and their spiritual experience. 
 The total depravity of unregenerate man and his 
 incapacity for any spiritual experience must lead to 
 an enormous appreciation of any actual spiritual
 
 Psychology of a Retreat 29 
 
 experience. It would be an experimental proof of 
 regeneration and salvation for the Calvinist. On the 
 other hand, a striking consolation succeeding a marked 
 spiritual depression would vividly impress the recipient 
 and lead him to despise ordinary spiritual processes. 
 He would exalt his own experience, and seek to gener- 
 alize and rationalize it in other words, to evolve a 
 new theology and Church system. He would construct 
 hypotheses to account for what he felt, and test these 
 hypotheses by their power to reproduce the pheno- 
 mena in himself and others. If he succeeded, a new 
 dogma was born duly certified by subjective experience, 
 more persuasive than much argument. What if the 
 dogma varied, the psychose remained as the true 
 " articulus stantis vel cadentis Ecclesiae." 
 
 The dogmatic bearings of " conversion " and " sal- 
 vation by faith " have been dealt with at length in 
 every manual of dogmatic theology. It is with 
 " conversion " as a psychose that the psychologist is 
 primarily concerned. Its dogmatic implications are 
 only of interest to him as factors in this psychose, and 
 as such will only be referred to here. 
 
 Conversion in the Catholic use of the word has been 
 provisionally denned by Father Th. Mainage, O.P., as 
 a " religious phenomenon which begins without or 
 within the sphere of Catholicism, and ends in a new 
 and unlooked-for initiation in Catholic life of the per- 
 son subject to it." 1 If we alter the words "Catholicism" 
 
 1 Th. Mainage : 1 nlroduction a la phychologie des convertis. 
 Paris LecoSre, 1913, p. 25.
 
 30 Conversion 
 
 and " Catholic life" to "religion" and " religious life," 
 the definition would apply with a fair amount of 
 universality to both types of conversion, but would 
 be rather too vague and general to describe and specify 
 the type known as evangelical. James's definition 
 refered to by Father Mainage on p. 44 would be, 
 perhaps, preferable. William James would call con- 
 version the passage slow or rapid which takes place 
 when a soul finds happiness and harmony in the in- 
 tuition of religious reality after an inward struggle 
 
 ****** ^*^mn^ mm ,f^^ m 
 
 dominated by the sense of its own weakness and misery. 
 Here we may note that James lays stress on two 
 features, the prior internal conflict and the intuition 
 of religious reality. The first is a state of psychic 
 stress, " the conviction of sin," as a condition prece- 
 dent ; the second seems to exclude the ordinary 
 process of discourse. " James excludes from his 
 inquiry those who arrive at religious facts by intellec- 
 tual discourse. For him the religious phenomenon 
 consists, above all, in an affective attitude, as is also 
 Ribot's point of view with a slight difference." 1 
 
 In the other and wider definition, the point of 
 importance is the change implied in the " new and 
 unlooked-for initiation in Catholic (or religious) life." 
 This would seem to exclude much of the popular 
 Catholic sense. Can we say that a man who, from 
 
 1 de la Vaissifere : Elements de psychologic exptrimentale 
 Paris, Beauchesne, 1912, p. 310.
 
 Psychology of a Retreat 31 
 
 religious motives, corrects some bad habit, some vice, 
 receives a new and unexpected initiation into Catholic 
 life ? From the point of view of Catholic dogma he 
 begins a new life, but can we justify the phrase psycho- 
 logically ? His intellectual attitude towards religion 
 is not substantially altered, but intellect is not 
 the whole man. There is a change of will of grave 
 import in one special line of conduct. If we assume 
 that he realises this change as of vital importance to 
 his whole religious life, it is hard to see that he has 
 received no new initiation. The drunkard or the 
 unchaste man who amends his life, and becomes 
 sober and continent, does not merely correct one item 
 of his mental and volitional composition ; he removes 
 an element from his psychic life which was incompatible 
 with his religious progress. We cannot keep our vices 
 or our virtues in watertight compartments. If we 
 cure drunkenness, we heal much more than the mere 
 inordinate taste for liquor. The weeding of the soul 
 is not mere destruction of sins ; it is a giving light and 
 air to growing virtues. Hence any substantial amend- 
 ment of vice may be fairly called a conversion, although 
 the general psychic attitude may seemingly remain 
 the same. A more careful and minute self-analysis 
 will show that in such cases there is a quiet and 
 steady change in the general psychic attitude, a 
 process of mental growth, as well as increased voli- 
 tional vigour. In our mental make-up we find a
 
 3* Conversion 
 
 vast number of images, ideas, concepts and propo- 
 sitions of every variety and strength which flit in and 
 out of our field of consciousness, and influence our 
 emotions, volitions and acts, and, in turn, are influenced 
 by them. Stir an emotion and an idea or a conviction 
 leaps up, resurrect an assent and some passion blazes. 
 A vice, a habit of sin, calls into our field of conscious- 
 ness and keeps there its confederate images and notions; 
 it thrusts down into our depths its antagonist concepts 
 and principles ; it not merely works evil but it in- 
 . hibits good. If we break away from a vice, we not 
 merely clear our minds of its attendants, but we make 
 room for all that it checked and stifled. 
 
 But what is involved psychologically in the extir- 
 pation of a vice ? Bad habits, like good ones, are the 
 product of repeated acts. Iteration of our acts, as it 
 were, makes tracks for their successors ; the first sin 
 is the path finder for its fellows, and the blazed trail 
 grows into an automobile track. Before we can 
 restore the broad highway to tillage, we must stop 
 the traffic. We can cause a habit good or bad to 
 decay by passive disuse ; the drunkard may become 
 sober in a measure if he is restrained from all access 
 to liquor indefinitely. The convict won't increase 
 his drinking habits in prison, and when his intemper- 
 ance is but an inchoate vice, he may continue sober 
 on his release. But as against ingrained bad habits 
 mere passive disuse will but diminish, not destroy.
 
 Psychology of a Retreat 33 
 
 A virtue may be lost from want of practice, but vices 
 are more tough. The philosopher who deals in notions 
 can give no satisfactory reasons why one set of habits 
 should grow more readily and die more reluctantly 
 than another set, but we have the proof in everyday 
 experience that this is so. We have a sort of inverse 
 ratio between the morality and the facility of our acts 
 with their habit-forming powers. This is one of the 
 facts of life for which mere positive psychology can 
 give no really satisfactory answer. We have within 
 us, if we are quite honest with ourselves, a certain 
 ethical perversity very puzzling to the purely rational 
 makers of mental systems. Biology is invoked to 
 explain it by heredity, by neurasthenia, or some other 
 morbid psychose, physiological substitutes for the 
 original sin, the concupiscence and the fames of th 
 theologian. 
 
 By the repetition of contrary acts we may destroy 
 a habit more effectively than by disuse, for by so 
 doing we create an opposing habit. We set up against 
 some vice the opposite virtue. The new habit has to 
 struggle not merely against the old one, but against 
 the innumerable psychic allies it has gathered together 
 in our interior, the thoughts, emotions, principles and 
 convictions which surge into the field of our conscious- 
 ness, and strive to thrust out into psychic darkness 
 the newly-forming virtue with all its mental allies. 
 There is a warfare in consciousness, a central combat 
 
 3
 
 Conversion 
 
 between the acts called for by the old habit and the 
 new, with outlying skirmishes of all the associated ideas. 
 In the centre of consciousness the desire to get drunk 
 and the will to abstain are in deadly grips, but the 
 battle is most frequently lost or won on the flanks 
 which stretch out very often beyond the field of mental 
 perception. Who can analyse and enumerate all the 
 psychic energies which make up the motive of any one 
 deliberate act ? The most obvious is not always the 
 most effective. Your little unnoticed touch of emotion, 
 some quaint idea hardly perceived, may easily decide 
 this combat. The flanking ideas, volitions, and emo- 
 tions fight en masse, and their force is proportioned to 
 their solidarity. United they push down the opposing 
 ideas into dimness, and obscure the dominant sugges- 
 tion of the habit, but if scattered they themselves are 
 thrust out. Our mental content has a group formation 
 which we may dissect for purposes of argument, but 
 which, in fact, is a block more or less. One concept or 
 suggestion may be most prominent, but it is not all, 
 and, like a Rupert's drop, a slight fracture may break 
 up the whole. A change of habit will mean the 
 substitution of one apperceptive mass for another, and 
 this may more often take place by a conflict of the 
 secondary elements, the associated ideas of the mass, 
 than by the clash of primary notions. The virtue of 
 sobriety may have, as an associated secondary, the 
 notion of parental duty (psychologically, of course, not
 
 
 jju ^ 9 ^ u^^T^k* *<* uu* 
 
 i - 
 </u 
 
 : . ' 
 ' ' 
 
 rl 4 ' T 
 
 Psychology of a Retreat 35 
 
 ethically), and this may prove the decisive psychic 
 factor in overcoming the craving for drink. The strug- 
 gle between virtue and vice is a melte, not a duel, as 
 it seems to the merely superficial observer. We 
 weaken our bad habits by weakening their psychic 
 allies ; we strengthen our good ones by increasing all 
 kindred and friendly psychic groups. We have thus 
 two steps in any serious self-reformation, the general 
 extirpation of all psychic factors which favour in any 
 way the growth of our bad habits, and the strengthen- 
 ing and increase of all those which promote the growth 
 of our good habits : war against all vices and imper- 
 fections, the planting and culture of virtues in general. 
 Hence the work of reform is not merely specific, but 
 general. It reaches out beyond the fault attacked to 
 our whole psychic make-up, though it may only show 
 itself in a limited self-mastery. We can note the 
 weakening of the obvious vice, but it takes time and 
 careful observation to remark the general improvement 
 of moral effort and outlook. The necessities of the 
 struggle have brought into our conscious store many 
 new effective psychic elements, reasonings, memories, 
 feelings strengthened and directed. All these remain 
 to work in other directions when the main struggle has 
 weakened, and to enrich and modify our consciousness. 
 There is a cumulative psychic action alike in both 
 virtues and vices ; each brings in extraneous elements 
 which consciousness assimilates, and by assimilation is
 
 36 Conversion 
 
 modified. A man as a rule drifts into vice slowly and 
 imperceptibly, but a reform is more sudden in con- 
 sciousness, for there is the sense of stress and strife 
 in going against the current ; it contains a greater 
 assertion of personality, of effort. It is not a slow 
 becoming, but an active being and doing. The soul 
 feels that it is being steered, that it is no longer drift- 
 ing in a current too fast for its engines. Hence a 
 new sense of self-realization, of power, of personality. 
 It is the half-way house to God or Self. 
 
 It is here we encounter the problem of unification, 
 though it has been a factor all through the struggle. 
 The solidarity between our vices and their psychic 
 auxiliaries, between our virtues and their allies, deter- 
 mines the issue. We can only successfully beat down 
 our failings by making the opposing forces, as it were, 
 one psychic block, for our natural perversity has 
 cemented our vices. How many fall into drink, not 
 from " thirst," but from good fellowship, fear of giving 
 offence, a touch of physical depression, and a host of 
 other moods and feelings which combine to overcome 
 reluctance ? To resist, his reason and his will must 
 marshal another host, and make them keep step and 
 fight en masse. Hence the need to link our virtues 
 together into one vital body. This is what religion 
 claims to do, and in doing to make us born again. It 
 achieves this purpose by giving us a centre of union 
 with which we may connect and relate, not one, but
 
 Psychology of a Retreat 37 
 
 all our virtues, thoughts, words, deeds, emotions, 
 reasons, efforts, concepts, ideas, images, ideals, all that 
 we can have, know, feel or be aware of. It gives us 
 our psychic unity in God in the battle with all in self 
 which is not of God. It gives the soul a constitution, 
 an organic law. 
 
 This unification and direction of psychic life is the 
 basic fact in all religious conversion, be it gradual or 
 sudden, ordinary and commonplace, or extraordinary 
 
 X^sA * +** 
 
 and eccentric in its manifestation. When this change 
 of direction, this new orientation, this polarization of 
 our phenomenal personality becomes a more or less 
 dim fact of consciousness, we have that new initia- 
 tion to religious life which is generally unlocked for. 
 Saul went to look for his father's asses, and found a 
 kingdom. Once the new direction is perceived in 
 consciousness, the soul, as it were, finds itself, not as 
 before to destruction, but to upbuilding. There is a 
 new co-ordination of psychic elements, a new inter- 
 relationship of thoughts, volitions, and acts established- 
 The external process seems the same, but the inner 
 life is different. Given the occasion, this new spirit will 
 manifest itself to the astonishment of those who thought 
 they knew the convert's character perfectly. In its 
 growth, the new life, by its inhibitions and its impulses, 
 its restraints and energies, will astound the soul itself. 
 It is something new and strange, within and yet as 
 if from without. The psychologist may talk of the
 
 38 Conversion 
 
 sub-conscious elaboration and association of ideas, the 
 convert will speak of the Holy Spirit of God. 
 
 The Catholic Church takes this new spirit as a grow- 
 ing organising force, and bids the convert co-operate 
 with it, feeding him with her doctrine, and, above all, 
 setting before him the Great Exemplar. To form new 
 virtues, she bids him look to Her Master for his model; 
 to strengthen and consolidate his motives, she bids him 
 consider His Cross. She warns the convert that he 
 may fall away, that life is progress and progress a con- 
 stant struggle with self. She gives him, by her teach- 
 ing, the material that he can mentally assimilate, food 
 for the growing virtues, and psychic auxiliaries for the 
 spiritual combat. More, she gives the convert the 
 Sacraments. 
 
 The psychologist can only consider the latter in their 
 effects which come into consciousness. Their real 
 efficiency and action lie far beyond his purview, and 
 can only be inferred from the after effects, as shown in 
 the life of the recipient. The immediate conscious 
 after-effects are too dependent psychologically on the 
 recipient's mental state, on his faith and dispositions, 
 and are too uncertain in actual sequence to justify any 
 scientific inference as to the nature and value of the 
 agency at work. What comes into consciousness is j 
 as it were, but an epiphenomenon. 
 
 It is otherwise with the remote after-effects, as 
 apparent in the lives of the recipients. Here we can
 
 Psychology of a Retreat 39 
 
 trace with regularity the progress in virtue attendant 
 on the frequent reception of the Sacraments, and the 
 backsliding which follows neglect. No type of spiritual 
 experience is better established than that which shows 
 the intimate and regular relation between the sacra- 
 mental life of the Catholic and his progress, or the 
 reverse in virtue and self-mastery. That is the reason 
 why popular Catholic usage of the word "conversion" 
 means frequenting the Sacraments after neglect. The 
 agnostic psychologist and the Protestant theologian 
 may explain this nexus of facts as they will, but they 
 cannot deny its existence if they have given any honest 
 study to the recorded facts of spiritual experience 
 among Catholics. The post hoc is proved by the life- 
 story of millions ; we can infer the propter hoc induc- 
 tively if we are controversialists, and experimentally 
 if we are practical Catholics. 
 
 The preceding analysis is but a brief and sketchy 
 outline, a mere schema, of the complex psychological 
 process which is the ordinary type of conversion as 
 understood by Catholics. The theory is difficult and 
 complex, as any theory of our mental action in touch 
 with reality necessarily is, but in practice the com- 
 plexity is not apparent. The physiology of digestion 
 has its complications, but they do not usually trouble 
 the man who dines. Nor is the convert troubled with 
 complexity of his psychic mechanism, or the ultimate 
 rationale of his religious exercises. He attends the
 
 40 Conversion 
 
 mission, he makes his retreat, he resumes the practical 
 life of a Catholic to whom religion is not an epipheno- 
 menon, but a substantial element of life. If he is a 
 Huysmans or a Re*tte he may analyse for our profit 
 his mental states as he journeyed from practical 
 infidelity and ethical disorder to fervent faith and 
 regular life, but the ordinary man will not trouble 
 about his passage once it is complete. He has followed 
 the beaten track of ordinary souls, the road surveyed 
 and levelled in the Spiritual Exercises. 
 
 This little manual of the Catholic revivalist was 
 originally intended by St. Ignatius of Loyola, as a 
 spiritual drill-book for his company, but its use soon 
 spread throughout the whole Catholic Church. In the 
 hands of Canisius it became the Labarum of the Counter- 
 Reformation, and saved Germany from being totally 
 lost to Catholicism. Its success alarmed the Reformers 
 to such an extent that the wildest legends were circu- 
 lated as to the magical and necromantic proceedings 
 of the Jesuits. Its use spread throughout the religious 
 houses, from them to the pious laity, and thence in 
 various modifications to the general body of the faith- 
 ful. To-day it forms the ground-plan of every retreat 
 given to religious or to laymen, be they scholars or 
 simple folk, and every popular mission draws from it 
 its inspiration, its strategy and tactics. The ordinary 
 spiriruality of the Catholic Church to-day is the spirit- 
 uality of the Exercises, because they are the compend-
 
 ium and quintessence of the historic spirituality of the 
 Church, the ascetic lore of centuries of saints and 
 doctors, systematized by the religious genius of one 
 who was the personification of sanctified common 
 sense. 
 
 Many people have looked on the the Spiritual 
 Exercises as being mainly an instruction in the processes 
 of mental prayer. " The teaching of these processes 
 is not, as has been sometimes supposed, the chief 
 object of St. Ignatius' Exercises. This book is in- 
 tended for a thirty days' retreat, and presupposes a 
 man with a certain desire to be generous towards God, 
 but kept back either by ignorance with regard to the 
 means to be taken, or by his weakness. The Exercises 
 are skilfully combined for his gradual development in 
 generosity, and, if he is capable of it, his being led on 
 on to heroism. This ingenious plan may escape the 
 notice of a superficial reader ; it is only really under- 
 stood by those who submit to it, even to its apparently 
 most insignificant details. Th's arrangement, where 
 everything is ordered with reference to a special object, 
 gives its character to the book, and makes it unlike 
 any that went before. 
 
 " With St. Ignatius, instruction in mental prayer is 
 but a secondary object, or a means. We can imagine 
 that a man might go through the Exercises, and after- 
 wards confine himself to vocal prayer, but he would, 
 notwithstanding this, have obtained the principal
 
 42 Conversion 
 
 result of his long retreat. The important point is 
 reformation of life. The truth is that he has learnt at 
 the same time how to pray, and that he has thus 
 acquired a powerful means of ensuring perseverance 
 in well doing." 1 This general view of the scope of 
 the Exercises is brought out in the following analysis 
 by Janssen in the fourth volume of his great history of 
 the Reformation in Germany. (Book 3, chapter I, 
 p. 403, of the French translation). 
 
 " As the principal means of reforming our inner life, 
 the little book begins by proposing meditative prayer 
 which, in every age, has formed the soul of the true 
 Christian, the religious above all. The most important 
 subjects for meditation given to us by revelation are 
 pointed out, at the very least, and divided up into 
 four parts or weeks. The subjects for the first week 
 are no other than those fundamental truths which 
 reason, without the aid of revelation, admits and pro- 
 claims, and which form the solid base of all religion and 
 interior life. To drive these truths home, Ignatius 
 never trusts to vague and fleeting feelings, but relies, 
 on the logical development of thought. Now, the 
 starting point, like the goal of this upward march to- 
 wards truth, is God. Man has been created to serve 
 God, to be one day blest in Him, and this law of his 
 
 1 Poulain : Lcs Graces d'Oraison 5me ed. p. 30, note. " The 
 Prayer of Simplicity," C. T. S. p. 70 note.
 
 Psychology of a Retreat 43 
 
 being should guide him in the use he makes of creatures, 
 for if he desires to be one day united with God he must 
 of necessity free himself from all bondage to the things 
 of earth. On this principle, which alone gives us a 
 reasonable and moral view of the world and of life, 
 Ignatius builds. In his school, the Christian meditates 
 in turn on the origin, nature, consequences, and 
 punishment of sin, its connection with human passion, 
 its inner and outer roots. These meditations are 
 framed to arouse in the soul a sincere repentance, a 
 living deep contrition, to effect a complete conversion, 
 and in fine an entire regeneration by the worthy 
 reception of the Sacrament of Penance. 
 
 ' The second week deals with the reform of his 
 life, the acquisition of true virtue. Ignatius, in a 
 second sort of fundamental meditation, offers to the 
 Christian the example of Jesus Christ, the ideal of 
 all virtue, Who in His life gave man in a visible manner 
 the Model he should strive to copy. The other medi- 
 tations follow in a simple manner the Gospel narrative 
 from the Incarnation to the Last Supper. Once only, 
 as a link between the different parts of all the exercises, 
 comes a meditation where the Spirit of Christ and His 
 dealing with souls is brought into striking contrast 
 with the ordinary procedure and devices of Satan. 1 
 
 "The third week is given to meditations on the 
 Passion ; the fourth, to the mysteries of the Resur- 
 
 i This is the celebrated meditationon the Two Standards.
 
 44 Conversion 
 
 rection and the Ascension. Their aim is to strengthen 
 more and more the resolutions which the Christian 
 has just taken to reform his life. 
 
 " Lastly, the concluding meditation on the love of 
 God contains, as in a central furnace, the motives most 
 fitted to decide the soul to give itself to God, to con- 
 secrate itself without reserve to His service. Streng- 
 thened step by step in the imitation of Christ by the 
 study of His life ; resolved for love of him to wholly 
 strip off and sacrifice self, the Christian guided by 
 Ignatius makes joyful offering of all that he is and 
 has ; he gives all, he brings all ' for one only love, 
 for one only grace.' " l 
 
 The meditative prayers which form the tactical 
 elements of this great scheme of spiritual strategy 
 received special treatment at the hands of St. Ignatius. 
 He codified and organised the meditation as it existed 
 throughout the Church, and his work in this respect 
 marks as great an epoch in the spiritual domain as 
 the Council of Trent does in the realm of theology. If 
 one were writing the history of Catholic spirituality, 
 one would date the modern period from the Spiritual 
 Exercises. If we but glance at the books of devotion 
 written before and after the Exercises we cannot but 
 
 1 The special objects of the Exercises in each week had been 
 thus expressed. " Deformata reformare, reformata conformare, 
 conformata confirmare, confirmata informare." For an excellent 
 analysis of the Spiritual Exercises see A. Brou's article in the 
 Revue de Philosophic (special number, Mai-Juin-Juillet, 1913. p. 451).
 
 Psychology of a Retreat 45 
 
 notice a vast change in style and method. There is 
 a new regularity, a certain formalism, a precision 
 methodical and energetic replacing the easy going 
 fervour, the spontaneous march and mystical tendency 
 which we find in the ordinary types of mental prayer 
 in pre-Reformation times. The strictly methodical 
 form of meditation has ousted all competitors and be- 
 come the common and approved form of mental prayer 1 
 The Ignatian meditation is no pious reverie, no go-as- 
 you-please reflections on sacred truths, but an ordered 
 consideration with well-marked plan and solid internal 
 unity. Its essence for the psychologist is the massing 
 of psychic elements and the unification of the reli- 
 gious consciousness. The matter of the meditation, 
 the distribution into points, is arranged with a view to 
 the psychic unity of the whole. Those conscious ele- 
 ments which will not fit into the scheme are promptly 
 expelled as distraction, and all extraneous thoughts 
 are carefully checked. This may entail a certain con- 
 straint, but the very effort tends to unification, and 
 the effective massing of all the conscious elements 
 of value with the dispersion into oblivion of antagon- 
 istic feelings, images, volitions, and ideas. The very 
 labour of rejecting distractions strengthens conation 
 and increases self-control, and both imply a growing 
 self -direction towards unity. 
 
 i Cf. Poulain op. cit. chap. 2 5 and " The Prayer of Simplicity," 
 p. 89 for a general view of the history of mental prayer.
 
 46 Conversion 
 
 But the manner of the meditation is even more 
 effective than the matter in the work of psychic uni- 
 fication. Surrounding the exercises proper, and scat- 
 tered through it are a number of minor exercises, 
 preludes, examens, prayers, all designed to -secure that 
 psychic unity which spiritual writers call recollection. 
 There is the overnight preparation for the morning's 
 meditation, the arrangement of the matter and the 
 points to be taken in order. There is the general 
 direction of the attention and intention to God, " the 
 putting oneself in the presence of God " with brief 
 appropriate prayers for His grace as a preparation for 
 the exercise. As will readily be seen, this preparation 
 is a general steadying of the whole personality, a 
 gathering-in and massing of the psychic forces in 
 general, the order to fall in and stand at attention. 
 
 There are two preliminary manoeuvres or preludes 
 before the meditation proper is attacked. The first, 
 named the " composition of place," is the imaginary 
 staging or mise en scene of the psychic drama to follow. 
 The imagination constructs for itself some definite and 
 appropriate place and scene, where either the events 
 to be recalled in the body of the meditation may be 
 considered as actually taking place, or to which the 
 various considerations may be referred and related 
 with most vividness and sense of reality. It is, in a 
 measure, the pedagogic process of " picturing out " 
 applied to spiritual things. This definite imaginary
 
 Psychology of a Retreat 47 
 
 localisation of the meditation gives to its unity of 
 subject matter an added unity of place which both 
 checks the tendency to vague reverie and dissipation 
 of thought and aids the transformation of notional 
 apprehensions and assents into real energetic convic- 
 tions. It is the " conversio ad phantasmata " of 
 the schoolmen used as a spiritually educative process. 
 Until we strive to picture out our concepts, they re- 
 main vague, shadowy, notional, with but feeble 
 energising force to affect our volitions. This insistance 
 on the concrete is one of the dividing tendencies which 
 mark off the Exercises from many of the works of pre- 
 Reformation spirituality. In a note to his translation 
 of B. Albertus Magnus' De adhaerendo Deo, Father 
 Berthier, O.P., remarks : " One will observe the differ- 
 ence of this method from that which has prevailed in 
 later times. In the thirteenth century one must 
 strip oneself of imaginary images ; in the sixteenth 
 one must multiply images, and even display them in 
 violent colours." Protestant spirituality could, there- 
 fore, claim continuity with that of the great age of 
 the Catholic Church if it had not omitted what the 
 thirteenth century deemed elementary and essential to 
 all spirituality, the practice of asceticism. 1 The 
 unmortified imagination, if not supplied with suitable 
 
 1 Not to mention the liturgy. For the relations of liturgy to 
 the pre-Ignatian types of mental prayer, etc, cf. Dom M. Festu- 
 giere's remarkable article in Revue de Philosophic (special number 
 referred to, p. 692, et seq).
 
 48 Conversion 
 
 images, will soon construct a series of its own, and we 
 shall have conflicting trains of thought started, and 
 the psychic unity disturbed. Brother Ass, when left 
 unchastised, brays. 
 
 The second prelude is a prayer for the special result 
 desired from the meditation, for those affective dis- 
 positions of soul which the meditation is designed to 
 produce, in other words for the specific success of the 
 meditation. This prelude is disposed to secure that 
 affective unity in the meditation which will energise 
 and mass the psychic elements produced by the con- 
 sideration of the points. Without this affective 
 unity we would but have an intellectual consideration 
 of some religious truth with but small influence on 
 heart or conduct, that " solitary meditation of the 
 mind " which Cardinal Mercier has criticised so sev- 
 erely for its sterility in his addresses to his Seminarists, 
 published in 1908. 
 
 The preludes finished, we come to the body of the 
 meditation, which has been divided up into convenient 
 sections or points. Each is considered in turn. The 
 memory recalls into the central field of consciousness 
 not merely the general notion involved in the point, 
 but its psychic allies. The aim is to recall the idea 
 or image not as a solitary unit, but as an apperceptive 
 mass, as an energising block. All those images and con- 
 cepts which tend to buttress and sustain the central 
 point will be sought for and usefully recalled, while
 
 Psychology of a Retreat 49 
 
 those which weaken or distract will be left in ob- 
 scurity, and, if they obtrude , thrust back. The task 
 of the memory is to furnish a real object for the under- 
 standing to work on, and to do so it will not limit 
 itself to the recall of useful cognitive elements alone, 
 but will also bring up any useful affective associations 
 as well. But the latter operation needs care, prudence 
 and experience, for there is no distraction to equal a 
 misplaced emotion. 
 
 The understanding next sets to work on these data 
 supplied by the memory and by analysis and syn- 
 thesis, by discourse as well as by direct apprehension 
 seeks to comprehend, unify and assimilate. What 
 the intelligence seeks in meditation is not static, 
 but dynamic truth, not the verum, but the bonum. 
 Herein meditation on any subject differs from a study 
 of the same, for the aim is not to increase one's know- 
 ledge, but to augment one's love. Motives to stir the 
 will, to move the affections will be sought through 
 knowledge rather than mere knowledge itself, and this 
 aim will act as a new unifying factor on the matter 
 considered, and on the psychic elements which it 
 generates in consciousness. The purpose and final 
 end of the meditation being the moving of the will 
 and affections from sin to God, from vice to virtue, 
 the reflections of the understanding will take their 
 direction from this dominant tendency, and so there 
 will be a deliberate re-shaping and re-casting of the 
 
 4
 
 50 Conversion 
 
 material of thought, so as to secure the maximum of 
 useful influence on the various volitions and affections. 
 What is good and desirable will be presented in as 
 vivid and active a form as possible. By reaction the 
 affections of the will thus roused flow back on the 
 intelligence, as it were, illuminating it by their sweet- 
 ness and aiding attention and recollection. There is 
 a mutual interplay between the affective and the 
 cognitive elements of thought, and both combine to 
 strengthen memory, to give the idea an enduring 
 fixity, and to help recall. Images, emotions, concepts 
 and volitions are fused into one apperceptive mass by 
 the heat of meditation, and the soul gains a new source 
 of energy, a new psychic centre of resistance to sin, 
 a new starting-point for advance in virtue. 
 
 Each point of the meditation is dealt with in such 
 fashion, and care is taken to elicit not merely affections 
 of the will passively, but actively. Good feelings are 
 desirable, but good resolutions are infinitely better. 
 Hence the practice of the formal resolution directed 
 against some particular failing or towards some speci- 
 fied virtue, which should form the coping-stone of the 
 whole meditation. It need hardly be pointed out 
 that the word resolution in this context means a fixed 
 and energetic decision, not a verbal formality. 
 
 The meditation concludes with the " colloquy," 
 an earnest and personal prayer, which derives its 
 substance, object and character from the preceding
 
 Psychology of a Retreat 51 
 
 meditation. It serves to renew the psychic unity of 
 the whole in the larger unity postulated in the opening 
 prayers with which the meditation began. 
 
 At the end there is a brief recapitulation and exam- 
 ination of the whole exercise to note defects and any 
 matters which may be of interest from the point of 
 view of method for future exercises. Indeed, this 
 self-watchfulness not only at the close, but throughout 
 the meditation is one of the characteristics of the 
 Ignatian method. The meditating mind has a reflex 
 attitude throughout which marks It off as sharply 
 from the contemplative intelligence as does its discursive 
 process of thought. The Ignatian method considers 
 meditation as an ordinary form of mental prayer 
 wherein there is wide scope for personal activity and 
 initiative. Other types of mental pra}'er, mystical 
 and non-discursive, are regarded as exceptional and in 
 a class apart, but meditation is the excercise of the 
 ordinary mental powers in an ordinary way, with the 
 aid of grace, of course, but such as is given ordinarily, 
 and requiring on our part activity, good will, and self- 
 knowledge. Hence the need and utility of constant 
 self- watchfulness, the repeated examens which are 
 such a feature of the Exercises. 
 
 We have made this lengthy analysis of the Spiritual 
 Exercises because they give us in the most complete 
 and organic form the general scheme of a Catholic 
 revival. In practice they are much altered and
 
 52 Conversion 
 
 curtailed, so as to suit a brief retreat. Originally 
 meant for a rigid retreat of a month involving seclusion 
 and retirement from the ordinary business of life, 
 they have been even adapted to meet the ordinary 
 needs of a parochial mission. The whole scheme is 
 elastic, and was intended to be so by St. Ignatius. 
 The same may be said of the method of the meditation, 
 which varies in different hands from the utmost sim- 
 plicity to an extraordinary and often arid complexity. 
 Its psychological analysis is very complicated, but 
 its practice is easy enough since it has become the com- 
 mon form of mental prayer throughout the whole 
 Catholic Church. What seems to us to be its funda- 
 mental psychological principle, psychic unity in the 
 spiritual life as an aim and an energy, is also simple 
 enough. The difficulty is not in the process or in the 
 aim, but in seeing how the process works and the aim 
 is attained. In practice, solvitur meditando. 
 
 As to the success of the Exercises as a revival method, 
 let the history of the Catholic Church speak. Saint 
 and sinner, learned and simple, men and women of 
 every country for nearly four centuries have fallen 
 under their spell. But the psychologist who investi- 
 gates the phenomena of religious experience, like 
 William James, passes them by. He is blind to their 
 results, because their methods are ordinary. Quiet 
 reforms of life, with no sub-conscious Jack-in-the-box 
 emergences, are of little interest to the agnostic in
 
 Psychology of a Retreat 53 
 
 quest of a dissolution of the riddle of the universe. 
 The methods of Ignatius are too normal, too natural 
 to arouse in him the spirit of explanation. 
 
 This absence of the eccentric and the extraordinary 
 in meditative prayer saves it from hostile criticism 
 Religious experience of this type can only be argued 
 from controversially in the mass, the individual ex 
 periences merely presenting ordinary psychic features. 
 To the outside observer they are but a series of psy- 
 choses which can be accounted for by common mental 
 processes. They do not puzzle the agnostic psycho- 
 logist like the ecstacies and intellectual visions of the 
 mystics. 
 
 But to the Catholic, the current of whose whole 
 life has been changed by a retreat, the. experience 
 presents features which leave no doubt in his mind 
 that the finger of God is there. He can trace the 
 works of the Most High not alone in a faith brightened 
 and renewed, but in a will disposed and strengthened 
 to resist the world, the flesh and the devil. "One 
 thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see." 
 He knows his old weakness, he feels his new strength 
 and he gives thanks to God. But his feelings are not 
 scientific evidence, and so the agnostic philosopher 
 goes on his way.
 
 THE THEORY OF WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 WE have seen how a change of psychic temperament 
 may be brought about by a conscious process of train- 
 ing, as in the Spiritual Exercises, but a less widely 
 important, yet more interesting question remains. 
 We have to examine and, if possible, account for, 
 those types of conversion which are not gradual and 
 consciously elaborated in their crises, but are marked 
 by a certain note of spontaneity and suddenness. 
 To this category belong the more outwardly impress- 
 sive conversions of Catholics from a life of sin to one 
 of virtue, of agnostics to the Catholic faith, together 
 with all those varied cases, which we can group 
 together under the head of evangelical or revival- 
 istic conversions. In all well marked types of this 
 class we have the psychic change characterised by 
 an element of conscious passivity so obvious to the 
 converted man as to postulate, for him at any rate, 
 the intervention of something not himself in his ex- 
 perience shaping and directing it. It is no longer an 
 experience which is a mere product of the normal con - 
 tnt of his consciousness, elaborated by his own psychic
 
 Conversion 
 
 activities. He feels or infers that there is something 
 more, a new activity not himself, shaping the given of 
 consciousness even against the grain. It is this feeling, 
 be it a sense or an inference, of a something not him- 
 self, active, transcendant and immanent, in these 
 cases of conversion experience which makes them 
 of such interest to the psychologist. They suggest 
 an apologetic or clamour for an agnostic explanation. 
 
 In a charming and wonderfully sympathetic study 
 of the Welsh revival in 1904-5, M. Rogues de Fursac 
 writes of the cases he examined : 
 
 All these conversions take the form of a sudden and 
 unexpected crisis. All happen on the road to Damascus, in 
 the midst of a general upset of the intellectual and moral being 
 The subject is present at the storm passively, as a spectator, 
 or rather he bears it like a victim who feels and suffers, 
 but who neither can nor will resist. The force which decides 
 the conversion seems a stranger to the individual, and to 
 act unexpectedly without any participation of his will ; 
 hence this appearance of the marvellous and the super- 
 natural presented by the phenomenon and the unshakeable 
 faith of believers in the action of a Higher Power. 1 
 
 A little further on he adds, having stated the theo- 
 logical explanation : 
 
 I fancy this theory was much stronger formerly than 
 to-day, and more embarassing for the older psychology 
 than for the modern. Indeed, when one considered solely 
 
 1 De Fursac : Un Mouvement Mystique Contemporain. Le, 
 R6veil Religieux du Pays de Galles (1904-1905). Paris, Alcan 
 1907, p. 66.
 
 The Theory of William James 57 
 
 those natural factors directly observable, when one knew 
 psychic life only in its conscious manifestation, the pro- 
 blem of conversion must seem insoluble. But to-day we 
 have a glimpse behind consciousness at the vast territory 
 of the unconscious, or rather of the sub-conscious, and 
 things have changed their aspect, and many obscure 
 matters have come into the light. We begin to bring into 
 the domain of natural law those phenomena where mystical 1 
 explanations had their loudest triumphs, and to restore to 
 psychology a region unjustly held by theology. We can 
 see the day approach when we will no more need Grace 
 to explain a conversion than Jupiter to account for thun- 
 der. 
 
 We know that below the superficial and evident work 
 of conscious life another work takes place closely linked 
 to the former, far more energetic, although inaccessible to 
 introspection and capable. of progress in silence during a 
 long period. A day comes, however, when the changes 
 it effects in the personality 1 manifest themselves in a 
 sudden, explosive fashion, without betraying their origin, 
 and leaving the subject under the illusion that they are the 
 result of forces foreign to his own self. 
 
 Phenomena of this order were first detected in mental 
 pathology. Everyone knows that a vast number of hy- 
 sterical phenomena are but the result of morbid sub-con- 
 scious action. But sub-conscious activity extends far 
 beyond hysteric and mental pathology. Its influence is 
 traceable at every moment in normal psychic life, and it 
 is overwhelming in the religious life. 
 
 De Fursac proceeds to apply this theory. He takes 
 
 1 Like most " profane " writers De Fursac uses the word mystical 
 in a wide sense as a sort of synonym for religious in its subjective 
 meaning. The abuse of the term personalityis universal.
 
 5& Conversion 
 
 the case of the sudden conversion during the revival 
 of a brutal, drunken and godless collier, who was 
 rebuked by one of his comrades for blasphemy. The 
 rebuke and the prayers of his comrade made him a 
 changed man, and that with astounding suddenness. 
 To explain away the " miracle " De Fursac argues 
 that the elements of race, surroundings and upbringing 
 plus the work of the sub-consciousness are sufficient 
 to explain the sudden change. The man was a Welsh- 
 man, and, therefore, racially a " mystical " type. 
 He was brought up on the Bible, and so had a store of 
 religious elements in his sub-consciousness. This 
 circumambient revival grouped and energised these 
 elements, and the comrade's rebuke was but the match 
 to the powder. If De Fursac had ever made the 
 Spiritual Exercises he would have said that the ruffian's 
 sub-conscious self had made a good retreat. 
 
 Later on (p. 73) he applies the same theory to 
 Catholic conversions. They are the product of early 
 religious impressions working themselves out through 
 the sub-conscious. Indeed, he takes a very optimistic 
 view of the permanence of these early impressions, 
 provided they are not killed off by a little Voltair- 
 eanism. We have thus a theory, derived from Myers' 
 " subliminal self " through William James, to account 
 for the psychic process of these unusual forms of con- 
 version. We might baptise the theory if we could 
 assume that the sub-conscious is capable of making an
 
 The Theory of William James 59 
 
 Ignatian meditation and projecting the resolution 
 into the field of consciousness. Does this seem too 
 far-fetched ? The wondrous powers which James 
 and others have attributed to the sub-conscious 
 ought to be equal to such a moderate task. However 
 that may be, the unbaptised theory is frankly agnostic, 
 with, in James' hands, a faint suggestion of pantheistic 
 possibilities. Seeing it holds the field as a naturalistic 
 explanation of religious experiences both normal and 
 mystical, we will be justified in a somewhat detailed 
 examination. 
 
 This theory of the sub-conscious may be conven- 
 iently summed up in three propositions : 
 
 (1) There exist fields of consciousness and variations 
 in these fields : hence the origin of the sub-conscious. 
 
 (2) There is a tendency in psychological elements 
 thus withdrawn from clear consciousness to organise 
 themselves in a new synthesis, which, in certain 
 exceptional circumstances, can constitute a secondary 
 personality fully prepared in the shadow to burst into 
 the light : hence the formation of the sub-conscious 
 self. 
 
 (3) In the cases mentioned there is an irruption 
 sudden or gradual of these elements into clear conscious- 
 ness : hence the relations of the sub-conscious with 
 the normal consciousness . I 
 
 1 Michelet : Dieu et I'Agnosticisme Contetnporain Paris 
 Lecoffre, 1909, p. 115.
 
 60 Conversion 
 
 But before proceeding to examine the question of the 
 sub-conscious it will be well to clarify, if possible, 
 our notions of consciousness proper. 
 
 In any state of ours to which we apply the term 
 conscious we find three features of varying intensity. 
 There is, as a ground-work, some vital activity to 
 which is added our awareness and some sense of 
 proprietorship. A toothache is our vital reaction to a 
 certain nerve irritation of which we become acutely 
 aware as very disagreeable, and further we are ex- 
 perimentally convinced that it is ours and nobody else's. 
 Reaction, pain, ownership, the three are inter- 
 related but with a certain independence. Pascal, 
 they say, could stop a toothache by concentrating 
 his mind on a mathematical problem. By a diversion 
 of attention, by a disappropriation, he got rid of the 
 third factor and with it the second, but there is no 
 reason to think the first ceased. Had he worried 
 about it by reflection on his discomfort, he would 
 have augmented the pain element, while the fons et 
 origo mali remained unaffected. 
 
 The sense of ownership and all that it entails is a 
 product of divided attention. We are interested 
 both in the psychic changeTif itself and in the psychic 
 change as specifically ours. Where it is caused by 
 some object which arouses our interest but does not 
 markedly affect our sensibility, the bulk of our energy 
 of attention will go out to the object, and we will
 
 TheTheory of William James 61 
 
 hardly be aware of ourselves as the subject. If our 
 interest is a pained one, or unduly pleasant, much of 
 our attention is switched off to ourselves. When 
 as psychologists we study our sensations or reflect on 
 our mental processes, we voluntarily divert some of 
 our energy of attention from the psychic object to 
 the percipient subject, making it thereby a secondary 
 object. Such a diversion of vital energy entails a 
 lowering of tension in the original psychic act. It 
 even inhibits it at times, as may be seen in the case of 
 stage-fright. On the other hand, by lowering the ten- 
 sion of reflection, we set free a larger share of vital 
 energy to augment the original activity and our direct 
 perception. People affected with scruples who are 
 for ever examining their acts are notoriously slow and 
 inefficient, for they divert to reflection that store of 
 vital energy which should go to action. The man of 
 action, on the contrary, can do things, but can rarely 
 tell us how he does them, for his supply of vital energy 
 has been devoted almost exclusively to direct psychic 
 action and but a small fraction to reflection. 
 
 These three factors, therefore, vary greatly in every 
 state of consciousness. In a fit of scruples we have 
 the third at its maximum, we find it at its natural 
 minimum (morbid cases apart) in the utter absorption 
 of the artist and man of genius. Their psychic action 
 at its culmination is so direct as to render them un- 
 conscious of their surroundings and oblivious of them- 
 selves. Archimedes is a classic instance.
 
 62 Conversion 
 
 Quite apart from this bifurcation, attention plays a 
 great part in determining the character of any conscious 
 state. In itself at any fixed moment- our conscious- 
 ness is a very complex entity. It embraces not only 
 the totality of our impressions from the outer world 
 at that moment, but all our internal sensations, all 
 our cognitive and volitional derivatives from both 
 these sources with all their innumerable associated 
 ideas and impressions to hand in our memories. It 
 is but a fragment of the whole of which we are forma lly 
 aware, that small part of the whole field on which we 
 fix our attention. We cast a selective glance over 
 the psychic landscape and pick out those objects in 
 which we are interested for more complete inspection. 
 The others are unobserved unless our attention shifts 
 its direction, and thus we have the sub-conscious. 
 As with our eyes in natural vision, our psychic sight 
 has a point of maximum efficiency, the centre of 
 attention, and a certain field of view. Within that 
 field our consciousness is fairly clear and sharply 
 defined, but its definiteness decreases as the field 
 extends. Outside that field, which is limited, we have 
 the vast expanse of the sub-conscious. Shift the 
 centre of attention, the field changes, and the sub 
 conscious emerges into clear consciousness. 
 
 Our inner vision, too, like our bodily eye, has its 
 blind spot. The well-known name which we cannot 
 recall to mind by any effort, and which springs into
 
 The Theory of William James 63 
 
 consciousness the moment our attention shifts from 
 the point at issue, the solution of some problem which 
 stares us in the face and which we cannot see, are 
 familiar cases which bear out this analogy, 
 
 Our mental eye, too, varies in its focus. We cannot 
 justly represent our field of consciousness merely as 
 a surface, it has depth as well. When we isolate some 
 psychic element and focus our attention on it, we have 
 in the centre of our consciousness some cognition or 
 volition whose activity we can increase or decrease 
 and .whose character we can alter by a psychic act 
 analogous to the alteration of focus in distant and 
 nearer vision. We can get a deeper insight, a more 
 intense appetition, a psychic depth. We can see the 
 universal in the particular, the norm in the act. 
 
 Our attention gives a psychic unity to this field 
 of clear consciousness. We see it as one and as ours. 
 Psychically it is a unity of appropriation. When its 
 content is shunted into oblivion and afterwards 
 recalled, we have often a difficulty in recognising 
 it as ours. "Can I possibly have said or done such 
 a thing?" Doubt is a very common phenomenon in 
 that psychical operation so well known to Catholics 
 as the examen of conscience. We fail to recognise 
 certain features of the field as ours, for oblivion has 
 expropriated attention. In certain morbid states 
 of attention, certain types of hysteria for example, 
 we have successive and independent appropriations
 
 64 Conversion 
 
 so individually consistent, yet so separate as to seem 
 to be the work of different persons. Normally our 
 fields of consciousness merge into one another like 
 pictures on the kinematograph, but disease or abnormal 
 conditions may cause a break in the film with the loss 
 of that sense of unity in proprietorship which is com- 
 monly but improperly called personality. The agnostic 
 psychologist will insist that there has been a change 
 of operators in our psychic Picture Houses, it is their 
 Jupiter to explain the thunder. Even in these secon- 
 dary states, as De la Vaissiere well points out, 1 the 
 psychologist can trace continuity between these 
 states, and he quotes Janet as stating with reference 
 to the numerous cases studied by that eminent psych- 
 iatrist, " that they were destitute of genius ; their 
 unconscious phenomena were of a very simple character 
 and formed part of the normal consciousness of other 
 men without exciting notice. The cases had lost 
 free control and personal knowledge of these pheno- 
 mena ; they had in this respect a malady of the person- 
 ality, and that is all." De la Vaissiere concludes 
 that these dissociated states of consciousness should 
 be regarded " as subsidiary rather than as secondary 
 personalities ; momentarily dissociated from the main 
 system, they do not cease to be dependent on it, 
 
 1 J. de la Vaissiere : Elements de Psychologie Experimental, 
 Paris, Beauchcsne, p. 261,
 
 The Theory of William James 65 
 
 and a pschological revulsion can restore them to 
 their original centre." 
 
 We will find some examples of the dissociation 
 of a field of consciousness in those unpleasing spiritual 
 experiences familiar to Catholics as distractions in 
 prayer. " We should know, however," says the 
 Angelic Doctor, " that the attention which can be 
 given to vocal prayer is three fold ; firstly, attention 
 to the words lest any mistake in them be made ; 
 secondly, attention to the meaning of the words ; 
 and thirdly, attention to the end of the prayer, namely 
 to God, and to the matter for which we pray, and 
 this is of the utmost importance, and is within the 
 capacity even of those of weak intelligence ; and at 
 times this intention, which lifts the mind to God, 
 so prevails that the mind forgets all things else." 1 
 Where extempore prayer is the custom, as with those 
 Protestants who eschew all set forms of prayer as 
 undevotional and formalistic, the mind of him who 
 prays cannot well wander on the first two points. If 
 he prays at all he must attend to the words he utters 
 and to their meaning. But if he is lukewarm or 
 hypocritical, his mind may not be fixed on the third 
 and most important point, and the blame of Isaias 
 xxix.13 may well be his portion. Hypocrites apart, 
 a general all-round attention is easier when the prayer 
 is extempore, and doubtless this is the reason why 
 
 I Smnma Ideologically, llae. Q. 83, art. 8, c.
 
 66 Conversion 
 
 so many religious men among Protestants shrink from 
 set forms which seem to them mechanical and undevout 
 With those who use liturgical forms of prayer the 
 mind can readily wander on all three points. This 
 possibility of distraction is still more marked where 
 the set forms are very brief, easily memorised and 
 frequently repeated. Hence the scandal of the 
 Rosary to the average Protestant, to whom it appears 
 little different from the Buddhist prayer-wheel. To 
 the Catholic the repetition is not repulsive, for to him 
 the essential matter is the attention to God, the rest, 
 in a measure, is subsidiary. The repeated petitions 
 enable him to keep his outer self usefully employed, 
 his middle self is busied with reflections on the life 
 and sufferings of his Savour suggested by the various 
 Mysteries, and his inmost self in the apex of mind 
 and will cling to God. We have thus a complete 
 prayer of the whole man when we get the grace to say 
 the Rosary well. Human nature, however, is weak 
 and fallen, the outer self gabbles and slurs, the 
 middle self wanders off to business, and the inmost 
 sleeps too often. Even when the mind is upright 
 at its apex, the imagination may be disturbed. This 
 is very observable when the attention to God is great. 
 Our triple self has only one fund of vital energy to 
 dispose of, and excess in one direction must be com- 
 pensated in the others. Hence the oblivion of which 
 St. Thomas speaks in the passage cited, and in such
 
 The Theory of William James 67 
 
 cases we may observe an increased difficulty in reciting 
 the vocal prayers, less mobility and regularity in our 
 reflections, an incapacity somewhat corresponding to 
 what mystics call the "ligature." We become aware 
 that our field of consciousness is breaking up, that 
 we are losing control over certain psychic elements 
 which it includes. The repetition of the prayers 
 becomes more automatic and the reflections and images 
 either cease or grow slightly anarchic. We feel our 
 consciousness divided, as it were, into quasi-autonomous 
 fields yet within central control. At times, however, 
 the imagination grows flatly rebellious, a stream of 
 more or less connected and associated images flickers 
 through like a kinomatograph gone mad, or a dis 
 ordered dream. It becomes, as it were, something 
 not ourselves, of which we are mere spectators. But 
 for the central control we would assist at the conscious 
 formation of a subsidiary personality within a larger 
 phenomenal self. 
 
 We have taken as an illustration of the fissiparous 
 tendency of certain states of consciousness a perhaps 
 unusual type of religious experience, but we see it 
 also where the distractions are less accentuated. 
 By attention we may secure a certain unity of con- 
 sciousness, but we are aware of that other " law in 
 my members fighting against the law of my mind " 
 (Romans vii. 23). In certain types of prayer the 
 conflict is extreme. "Everybody is not so distressed,
 
 68 Conversion 
 
 and assaulted by these weaknesses as violently as 
 I have been for many years, on account of my 
 wretchedness, so that it seems as if I were trying to 
 
 take vengeance on myself The thing is 
 
 inevitable, therefore do not let it disturb or distress 
 you, but let the mill clack on while we grind our 
 wheat ; that is, let us continue to work with our 
 will and intellect." 1 Elsewhere, St. Teresa writes : 
 "Sometimes I laugh at myself and recognise my 
 wretchedness : I watch my understanding, and leave 
 it alone to see what it will do. Glory be to God, 
 for a wonder, it never runs on what is wrong, but 
 only on indifferent things considering what is going 
 on here, or there, or elsewhere. I see then, more 
 and more, the exceeding great mercy of Our Lord 
 to me, when he keeps this lunatic bound in the 
 chains of perfect contemplation." 2 The psychic ele- 
 ment which we have referred to as " depth " would 
 seem to have a large part in these schisms of conscious- 
 ness, for they are most marked when the area of the 
 field of consciousness reckoned in distinct psychic 
 elements (ideas, images, etc.) is least, that is to say, 
 in the more unitive and least discursive types of prayer. 
 When we try to read a poster on the far side of the 
 street, we are apt to find the usual traffic a visual 
 nuisance ; we have chaos when we try to read and 
 look out for a friend at the same time. 
 
 1 St. Teresa : The Interior Castle, iv., chap, i, 12. 
 
 2 St. Teresa j Lift chap, xxx., paragraph 10.
 
 The Theory of William James 69 
 
 In the very brightest areas of clear consciousness 
 there is much which remains unobserved. How much 
 hidden self-love underlies the most altruistic aspira- 
 tions. "It is amusing to see souls, who, while they 
 are at prayer, fancy they are willing to be despised 
 and publicly insulted for the love of God, yet after- 
 wards do all they can to hide their small defects ; if 
 anyone unjustly accuses them of a fault, God deliver 
 us from their outcries ! "* Self-knowledge is con- 
 fessedly rare, and what is it but the perception and 
 evaluation of our consciousness in its totality ? We 
 introspect, but wo only see what we want to see. 
 What is understanding but a deepened vision, a seeing 
 of the essential in the clear particular instance, a diving 
 into the depths ? We find what is there. The psychic 
 elements in our field are grouped and associated to 
 all seeming fortuitously, we look and see the links 
 before invisible. We perceive the congruity be- 
 neath the contiguity in our associations. Even in our 
 sensations there is more felt than we feel. A musician 
 hears a chord as a unity, but he can make it a multi- 
 plicity by listening. There are fringes and edges to 
 our feelings to which we hardly ever attend. A man 
 is irritated by a bore and by dyspepsia, he gives all 
 the blame to the bore. If we are patient we may see 
 and appreciate what comes within the area of our 
 psychic search-light, but if we are in a hurry we can 
 
 I St. Teresa : The Interior Qostle, v., chap. 3, \ 10,
 
 7 Conversion 
 
 only see the surface of the obvious ; the rest is there 
 as well, but we miss it. What does the extroverted 
 man know of himself ? His consciousness is but a 
 stream of sensations analysed by rule of thumb. 
 
 Yet, however we may introvert ourselves, however 
 patiently we may peer into our consciousness, there is 
 much which is unobserved because it is unobservable. 
 We cannot hear musical notes above a certain pitch, 
 or see colours beyond the ultra-red or ultra-violet. 
 Touch, smell and taste may be too feebly stimulated 
 to provoke attention, or specified beyond our powers 
 of sense discrimination. Have all these unfelt stimuli 
 no repercussion in consciousness ? The invisible rays 
 of light can burn or disinfect, our vitality transforms 
 them by a change of potential. May not other trans- 
 limenal impressions be transformed as well ? Nutrition 
 and digestion when normal are unfelt, but we know 
 only too well how our psychic states are affected by 
 them when in disorder. How far did an excess of 
 uric acid affect Bossuet's views on Quietism ? It may 
 well prove the key to certain eccentricities. If the 
 normally unfelt in what is our proper bestiality, to 
 use the telling phrase of B. Albertus Magnus, can so 
 devastate our higher feelings, may not these psychi- 
 ally higher impressions have their value in colouring 
 and modifying our fields of consciousness ? 
 
 If we admit the modification of consciousness by 
 translimenal sense impressions, can we reasonably
 
 The Theory of William James 71 
 
 deny the possibility of analogous modifications by 
 psychic elements which transcend the apprehension of 
 our highest conscious energies ? Our intelligence and 
 will may as well have their ultra-violet as our bodily 
 eyes. We know there are ideas beyond our grasp, as- 
 pirations beyond the capacity of our wills. There are 
 ideals in every man dragging at his heart and spurring 
 on his wits. Who is content to be what he is here and 
 now ? The idea of happiness, of ultimate satisfac- 
 tion, whatever shape it takes, is ever something to be 
 achieved. It is the expression of a Need as well as a 
 Purpose. It is the shadow of something beyond our- 
 selves transformed to the level of our consciousness, 
 yet retaining that sense of Beyond in whatever ideal 
 shape it assumes. This feeling of the desirable in the 
 unattainable is the tragic craving which has forced 
 mankind in every age to prayer. " Thou awakest us 
 to delight in Thy praise : for thou madest us for Thy- 
 self, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee- 
 Grant me, Lord, to know and understand which is 
 first, to call on Thee or to praise Thee ? And again, 
 to know Thee or to call on Thee ? For who can call 
 on Thee not knowing Thee ? For he that knoweth 
 Thee not, may call on Thee as other than Thou art- 
 Or, is it rather, that we call on Thee that we may 
 know Thee ? But how shall they call on Him in whom 
 they have not believed ? Or how shall they believe 
 without a preacher ? " l 
 
 \ The Confessions of St. Augustine, Bk. I., chap, i., par. I
 
 72 Conversion 
 
 Man seeks the Beyond of consciousness in prayer 
 and spiritual experience, he finds the Beyond of action. 
 It may be difficult to demonstrate the reality of a 
 merely psychic experience, but conduct is a matter of 
 human evidence. If the virtues of a Saint are extra- 
 ordinary, if his actions stand out like the Alps from 
 the plain of common morality, may we not reasonably 
 suspect a more than human source of energy in his 
 consciousness ? If we find a whole race of such, men 
 and women and children, of every age and clime, of 
 every temperament and physique, of every social class, 
 bond and free, rich and poor, wise and unlearned, may 
 we not further infer that this terrific moral energy is 
 no temperamental freak, no sport of nature ? It is 
 sufficiently common to be a human possiblity, it is 
 sufficiently rare to be a personal privilege ; it has as 
 a universal concomitant the spirit of prayer. If such 
 religious experience be but the projective development 
 of a primal human need elaborated in the sub-con- 
 cious, how comes it that Saints are so scarce ? 
 
 To this unconscious psychic factor or factors in 
 Catholic religious experience the name of Grace has 
 been given since the days of St. Paul. The theo- 
 logian demonstrates its existence by the rules of his 
 science, the practical Catholic infers it, as Adams and 
 Leverrier inferred the existence and position of the 
 planet Neptune, from the observed disturbances in 
 the other psychic elements in his field of consciousness.
 
 The Theory of William James 73 
 
 Grace in itself is not a fact of psychical experience 
 " man knoweth not whether he is worthy of love or 
 hatred " (Eccle. ix.i), but when the man of prayer 
 feels within his conscious self " a stream of tendencies 
 not himself, which makes for righteousness," when he 
 finds obstinate passions stilled and selfish motives 
 rectified, when he perceives a new strength in old 
 weakness, a new Power to do and to suffer, old 
 hates and jealousies transformed, he would need an 
 infernal impudence to credit the moral miracle to 
 himself. Illusion of the subconscious ? A fair retort, 
 perhaps, to the very ordinary Christian, but what of 
 the long line of Saints? Was Pagan Rome turned 
 inside out by a crowd of degenerates ? Celsus would 
 doubtless agree with M. de Fursac, but there are 
 limits to the credulity of the ordinary Christian who 
 will only render to Science the things that are Science's. 
 If we look on the sub -consciousness as a reservoir 
 of all those psychic elements which lie outside the 
 field of clear consciousness, it bears a certain resem- 
 blance to the old-fashioned faculty of memory, re- 
 garded not as a power of reproducing past states but 
 as a storehouse or safe-deposit vault. Memory in its 
 ordinary sense, the surface memory, would be as the 
 till in our shop with its supply of ready change ; the 
 deeper memory would correspond with the safe where 
 the unwanted valuables are locked up. The surface 
 memory is practically a back slice of consciousness,
 
 74 Conversion 
 
 for we can bring up its content for the asking. But 
 there is much that we forget, psychic elements which 
 defy our will to recall. Have these ceased to be ? 
 Are they in the safe, and have we but lost the key ? 
 Experience would seem to show that nothing is ever 
 finally forgotten, even most faint and delicate sensa- 
 tions. N. in his childhood acquired a great dislike for 
 cognac, because it was used to mask the flavour of 
 castor oil, when that domestic drug had to be exhibited. 
 He grew up to years of manhood and indiscretion 
 and the "fine champagne" of many a restaurant dinner 
 had wiped out from his consciousness the unlovely 
 association of flavours. Dining one night, however, he 
 took for his "petit vene " an excellent cognac whose 
 name he remembered from his childhood's days ; 
 and instanter, there was the castor oil ! The interval 
 must have been at least a quarter of a century, yet the 
 specific aroma which differentiated this brand from all 
 others sufficed to recall the association. It was but 
 a passing impression, though very vivid, and did 
 not outlast the " petit verre." There are two points 
 to be noted in this little experience (i) the memory 
 even of a sensation is more psychic than physiological, 
 for in twenty-five years how often has the body been 
 renewed ? and (2) a very faint stimulus, if sudden, 
 is sufficient to recall with great vigour a forgotten 
 association. The energy of the recall is not propor- 
 tional to the vigour of the stimulus even in pure, 
 sensations.
 
 The Theory of William James 75 
 
 It is not alone the once clear elements of conscious- 
 ness which pass into this mental safe and are lost for 
 a time, but the unnoticed elements, the face our eyes 
 saw in the crowd but our minds missed. How many 
 very puzzling associations we could account for, if we 
 could only recall our past states as a whole, and not 
 merely the clearly conscious parts of them. 
 
 The sub-consciousness, according to the Gospel of 
 James, is something more than a mere safe-deposit or 
 reservoir. The psychic elements are not only stored 
 but handled as well, sorted, combined, re-arranged and 
 reinforced. It is a brewer's vat or a workshop accord- 
 ing as we incline towards or away from the possibili- 
 ties of transcendent action. Our sub-conscious psychic 
 elements may ferment of themselves into some new 
 product, or they may be worked up by our sublimenal 
 self or by some transcendent agency of which our 
 sub-consciousness is but an out-crop. 
 
 If our clear consciousness was but a pile of nervous 
 states casually illuminated, if physiological modifica- 
 tions constituted its essence, and psychic awareness 
 were only an epiphenomenal flourish, a sort of luxurious 
 accident, then doubtless we would find no difficulty in 
 the unconscious cerebration of Carpenter. It would 
 explain elaboration in sub-consciousness as a physiolo- 
 gical process like digestion or nutrition, and so account 
 for its non-perception until the final touch is applied and 
 the light switched on. If the mind of man is but a,
 
 76 Conversion 
 
 pure mechanism of nerves and his consciousness but a 
 distant spectator, we solve the question of the uncons- 
 cious, but not the real problem of elaboration. We 
 must refuse to recognise the element of value as 
 different in the various recorded phenomena and 
 place sanctity and crime, genius and hysteria on the 
 same level of being. Was it a mere transposition of 
 nerve elements which determines whether Saul shall 
 exterminate the first Christians or become the 
 Apostle of the Gentiles, whether Francis shall become 
 a man of fashion in Assisi or the Poverello of the 
 Fioretti, whether another Francis shall become a 
 worldly prelate or the Apostle of the Indies ? What 
 a demand on our credulity ! 
 
 But may we not accept the automatic combination 
 of psychic elements in the sub-consciousness apart 
 from this physiological theory ? We see how our fields of 
 clear consciousness are built up and modified, how the 
 various elements, when brought into mental juxta- 
 position, attract or repel one another. Can we not 
 assume a similar process in the subconscious ? These 
 psychic elements are forms of our vital energy ; can 
 they not unite below, as well as above, the threshold 
 of consciousness ? Such automatic combination would 
 explain most of the difficulties, but will it work ? Do 
 our ideas combine of themselves even in consciousness, 
 or is not our consciousness itself both solder and 
 spidering iron ? If there is an inherent capacity qf
 
 The Theory of William James 77 
 
 combination in our psychic elements, how conies it 
 that their fusion is more difficult in one person than in 
 another ? How account for varying convictions in 
 persons belonging to the same social group ? What is 
 the task of the teacher but to enable the pupil to group 
 and classify his psychic elements, and would it not be 
 lightened if this theory held good ? And if the pro- 
 cess continued in the sub-consciousness, need he sweat 
 to secure attention and conscious effort ? Why, 
 oblivion would become an educational process ! One 
 demonstration of a proposition in Euclid, and the rest 
 left to the sub -consciousness ! 
 
 Clearly if we are to insist on elaboration in the 
 sub-consciousness we must posit some agency other 
 than the psychic elements considered in themselves. 
 We must, with Myers, look to the sublimenal self as 
 the demiurge of this secret world. Are we permanently 
 duplicated, with another self hanging on to our pheno- 
 menal self like a psychic Siamese twin, sleeping per- 
 haps most of the time, but clapper-clawing our con- 
 ciousness when awake ? A second mind working in 
 the dark and throwing out stray suggestions, yet so 
 hidden that we have only sporadic evidence from which 
 to infer its existence. We may account for the vast 
 bulk of automatic writings and other mediumistic 
 phenomena of the psychic order on this hypothesis, 
 but we may do so just as satisfactorily by the assump- 
 tion that the normal stream of consciousness in the
 
 7& Conversion 
 
 subject has divided, as we saw when we considered the 
 question of distractions in prayer, and that each branch 
 is capable of independent self-expression. The hand 
 of the automatic writer may be controlled by one 
 branch and his tongue by the other, thus supplying a 
 double expression of thought and feeling which leads 
 the observer to infer a second personality at work. 
 The inferior mentality of the products of these second- 
 ary personalities shows that they are fragments of 
 the normal consciousness, not the work of a whole 
 and independent consciousness. They are, as it were, 
 the overtones of the normal psychic note. It is the 
 general rule that these secondary personalities are 
 inferior and fragmentary as compared to the normal 
 self, 1 and the law of parsimony, entia non multipli- 
 canda praeter necessitate, forbids our using the 
 hypothesis of a sublimenal self to explain what 
 may be accounted for by a disaggregation of normal 
 consciousness, some species of psychic ataxia, an 
 acute distraction with an automatic obligato. Gener- 
 ally, too, the state of the subject borders on the morbid 
 in these mediumistic type of experiences. This 
 general rule of inferiority has, however, some startling 
 recorded exceptions where the secondary personality 
 has displayed remarkable powers far beyond, to all 
 seeming, the capacities of the normal subject. In 
 these cases of " occult " and supranormal phenomena 
 
 1 Cf. De la Vaissiere, lex;, cit. supra.
 
 The Theory of William James 79 
 
 the theory of division of normal consciousness is out 
 of action, if the facts are admitted, but will that of 
 the sublimenal self work ? Only if we posit, with 
 Myers and James, either a supranormal efficiency in our 
 psychic twin either as a native endowment or through 
 his being en rapport with some higher consciousness. 
 If our sublimenal self has such native ability, he must 
 either be extraordinarily modest or excessively fasti- 
 dious to keep himself so hidden throughout our mani- 
 fold psychic experiences and only consent to reveal 
 himself in general as an imbecile. The alternative is 
 more thinkable, but does it substantially differ from 
 the theories of " possession " and " obsession " by 
 discarnate intelligences so familiar in the writings of 
 both occultists and mystics and so ridiculed by the 
 " profane " ? If the really remarkable phenomena 
 come from the sublimenal self through its contact with 
 a higher intelligence, the sublimenal self would seem to 
 be a superfluous entity. Unless, of course, the sub- 
 limenal self and the higher intelligence are one and the 
 same. If Science, with a capital S, will not have 
 Aquinas it can fall back on Averroes. 
 
 We have no reason as psychologists to identify the 
 sublimenal self with any higher consciousness of a 
 cosmic character, and very many sound metaphysical 
 and ethical reasons why we should not. But may we 
 admit the possible inference of a higher type of con- 
 sciousness than given in our experience as a regulative
 
 8o Conversion 
 
 and organising power, or the reverse, as regards the 
 contents of our sub-conscious reservoir ? Such a 
 theory would explain the facts, and may indeed be 
 necessary to account for certain mystical phenomena. 1 
 Grace may, in certain cases, organise and reinforce the 
 psychic elements stored away in our deeper memory, 
 combine them, and, if need be, create new psychic 
 elements, bringing the finished psychic product up 
 into clear consciousness at the appointed time. But 
 the road to Damascus is not the ordinary way, and 
 the theologians tell us grace follows nature. Let 
 us see if we can dispense with elaboration in the sub- 
 consciousness as well as with the sublimenal self. 
 Is it absolutely necessary to postulate these con- 
 structions in the background to account for the 
 startling changes shown in these types of conversion 
 experience ? Cannot we dispense with these " car- 
 penter's scenes " in our internal drama ? 
 
 The disparity of stimulus and reaction in these cases, 
 the workmen converted by a comrade's rebuke, by the 
 words of a hymn half heard when passing a chapel, 
 seems too excessive. We must either admit the mira- 
 culous or invoke prior sub-conscious elaboration, and 
 regard the stimulus as the mere match to the powder 
 already prepared and placed in position. Before we 
 
 i Maine de Biran first put forward the theory of the sub-con- 
 sciousness being the vehicle of Divine grace in mystical experience. 
 Cf. Sharpe : Mysticism its true nature and value, London, Sands, 
 p. 115.
 
 The Theory of William James 81 
 
 choose either alternative, are we not entitled to ask 
 whether this disparity really exists from the 
 psychological point of view ? How can A estimate 
 the precise amount and quality of the stimulus 
 sufficient to revolutionise a given state of consciousness 
 in B, or for that matter in A himself ? Do we really 
 know how stable or unstable is any given state of con- 
 sciousness ? We fail to smash a Rupert's drop with a 
 hammer, but it flies into dust when we nip off its tail. 
 We have seen in our study of the method of the Spirit- 
 ual Exercises that the correction of one element in 
 our moral make-up entails a modification of the whole 
 more or less. In the Exercises such a correction is 
 achieved by a conscious effort, by attacking the vice 
 and its psychic auxiliaries both directly and by the 
 introduction of the opposite virtue with its allies. If 
 we had such perfect self-knowledge that we could 
 detect in the anatomy of our faults their solar plexus 
 one blow might well suffice to knock out the old Adam, 
 or at any rate " put him to sleep " for a comfortable 
 interval. But we know ourselves very imperfectly, 
 and so the fight to a finish is usually a process of 
 exhaustion. Occasionally, as in these more remark- 
 able cases of conversion, the "point " is reached in 
 the scuffle as it were by chance, and the world is 
 amazed at the sudden collapse of an erstwhile trium- 
 phant bully reputed invincible. 
 
 Unless we deny d priori the possible existence of 
 
 6
 
 82 Conversion 
 
 such potential centres of instability in consciousness, 
 we have no right to infer either miracle or sub-con- 
 scious elaboration from disparity between stimulus 
 and reaction. In a very large number of degenera- 
 tive psychoses we find very clear indications of the 
 existence of these centres of instability. The reformed 
 drunkard, who has with much toil built up a temperate 
 consciousness, the unchaste man who has disciplined 
 his bestiality, how often do these fall victims to some 
 trivial temptation ? " Et ne nos inducas in tenta- 
 tionem." " Vigilate et orate ut non intretis in tenta- 
 tionem. Spiritus quidem promptus est, caro autem 
 infirma " (Matt, xxvi., 42). The constant tradition 
 of Christian asceticism has recognised the appalling 
 power of some trivial occasion to cause man's moral 
 downfall. The warnings of Cassian, of St. Augustine, 
 of countless other spiritual writers in every age seem 
 full of morbidity to the modern whose anxiety to 
 avoid sin is not so " excessive." Whether we recog- 
 nise their moral code or not, we may not lightly chal- 
 lenge the psychological accuracy of their observations. 
 Even those who have reduced asceticism to abstention 
 from alcohol will admit the doctrine in their own pet 
 particular instance. If the existence of centres of 
 instability in consciousness will account psycholo- 
 gically for perversion, why not for conversion as well ? 
 If a prior vice inhibited by an acquired virtue can be 
 actively re-created by some trivial stimulus, to the
 
 The Theory of William James 83 
 
 temporary or permanent destruction of the virtue, 
 may not a vice which stifles original good qualities 
 be shattered by a kindred psychological process ? 
 The process may be of more rare occurrence, but 
 positive science cannot reject the hypothesis without 
 glaring apriorism. 
 
 It may be urged that this theory will only account 
 for the restoration of the psychic status quo ante, 
 whereas the observed changes for good or ill are often 
 much greater than this. But what is restored is only 
 an element, however energetic, of consciousness. 
 The phenomenal self, when it is resurrected, is not quite 
 the same conscious self in which it formerly lived. 
 There are new possibilities of grouping in the field of 
 consciousness, new elements for the renascent ideas 
 and affections to unite with or antagonise. Add to 
 this all the psychic allies of the renascent habit enter 
 ing the field along with it and we have material for 
 widespread psychic disturbances. Although the re- 
 stored habit, qua habit, may be old, its actualization 
 in consciousness is a new factor, and as such very 
 energetic. 
 
 Novelty in consciousness is a highly dynamic factor 
 as regards the second and third fundamental character- 
 istics of consciousness, our awareness and sense of 
 proprietorship. An absolutely uniform sensation will 
 cease after a brief period to attract our attention. We 
 do not feel the pressure of the atmosphere. The
 
 84 Conversion 
 
 stuffiness of a class-room is unnoticed until the teacher 
 has occasion to go out. What Londoner hears the 
 roar of the city ? The miller can sleep through the 
 clatter of his mill, but awakes when it stops. We need 
 some degree of change to ring up our attention, to 
 keep it fixed when aroused. Once the sensation be- 
 comes uniform it quietly drops out of consciousness and 
 we attend to something else. Even a steady pain may 
 be forgotten, and pain is never quite a uniform nerve 
 stimulation. Emotions fluctuate like pain, but the 
 closer they approximate to a steady state the less 
 are they noticed. Monotony in ideas causes oblivion 
 or boredom as we slacken or force our attention. 
 Only supreme interest can bold the solitary idea at 
 the focal point of consciousness even for a brief period. 
 Nature reacts by sleep or trance should we endeavour 
 to arrest our stream of conscious states and induce a 
 psychic monotony. Worry is sleep's greatest enemy, 
 and what is worry but a painful oscillation of conscious 
 states, a rapid series of sharp psychic changes, an ever 
 nascent set of ideas painful in tone. The train of 
 thought as a whole may be familiar even to weariness, 
 but each element comes into consciousness brusquely 
 with the novelty of a jerk, hauling its successor like 
 a wheelbarrow over cobblestones. The main trend of 
 the stream holds our sense of proprietorship by its 
 painful general interest, and the individual items by 
 their quick changes keep our general sense of aware-
 
 The Theory of William James 85 
 
 ness alert and attentive. If we can silence our pained 
 self-interest or slow the stream, we may get to sleep ; 
 but we are in for a sleepless night if we fail. 
 
 It is only the exceptional mind which can sustain its 
 interest when novelty has passed. The new psychic 
 element, on its first entry into our field of consciousness 
 holds our attention with a sort of automatic interest, 
 be it like or dislike. When our first curiosity is satis- 
 fied, the curiosity of mere recognition, there is a drop 
 in automatic attention. If the new element has much 
 intrinsic interest we may have a large development of 
 spontaneous attention, friendly or hostile. Whether 
 this is greater or less as a conscious phenomenon will 
 depend on the new idea's accord or disaccord with the 
 field into which it floats, and its powers of combining 
 with or disintegrating the field. When this interest is 
 exhausted and the new idea finds its psychic level, 
 our spontaneous attention drops and gives place to 
 conative attention, should we desire to consider it 
 further, whether it has settled down as part of the 
 general field or remains recalcitrant. The critical 
 point in the psychic life of the new element is the tra- 
 sit from being the object of automatic attention to 
 becoming that of spontaneous attention, that is, in 
 the first psychic recognition. The new element, like 
 the field into which it comes, is a complex which 
 our attention may afterwards analyse into concepts, 
 volitions, images, emotions, sensations, with possibly
 
 86 Conversion 
 
 many other constituents which escape analysis, and 
 this recognition is not its logical or philosophical 
 classification, but the sense of its congruity or the oppo- 
 site with the general field. It corresponds with what 
 ascetical writers and moral theologians call the first 
 movements of sensuality or temptation, or the first 
 movements of grace according to what happens to be 
 the moral value of the new element. With this psychic 
 recognition the new stage begins, that of acceptance 
 in, or rejection from, the field of consciousness. This 
 is the period of storm and stress, of temptation proper, 
 of vivid spontaneous interest ending with acceptance 
 or rejection ; the newcomer is absorbed or driven out. 
 If the new element is quite congruous with the field, 
 the transition from recognition to absorption will take 
 place without a jar and the general consciousness will 
 be undisturbed. Should the incongruity be marked 
 the casting out will be similar. But when the new 
 element is both congruous and opposed, then, be it 
 finally absorbed or rejected, there is strife within our- 
 selves, attraction and repulsion of the nascent idea or 
 psychic element by the various elements already in 
 consciousness which accord or disaccord with it. Until 
 our spontaneous attention can rally our conative at- 
 tention, the interaction of nascent idea and field is 
 practically unchecked. We are for the nonce victims 
 of psychic determinism. Hence the extreme import- 
 ance of this initial stage.
 
 The Theory of William James 87 
 
 To state this rather arid and abstract argument in 
 a concrete parable, the incoming psychic element is like 
 the suffragette of old who suddenly interrupts a public 
 meeting. There is an amazed pause, then recognition 
 of the disturber, and then the meeting proceeds to dis- 
 turb itself with cries for order from the Antis and 
 cheers from the Pros. The original interruption was 
 but a feeble shout, the meeting itself does the rest, 
 and unless the stewards and police succeed in ejecting 
 the disturber the assembly breaks up in confusion. 
 If the crowd were composed of calm philosophers 
 would a solitary voice bring chaos ? If the interruption 
 were expected it would be suppressed without con- 
 fusion. It is the unexpected, the novelty, which is 
 dynamic. 
 
 When the new idea shouts its warcry to the crowd 
 within it sets the constituent elements of consciousness 
 by the ears. We can by an effort alter the focus of 
 our attention, bring new elements into action, and 
 expel or absorb the incoming notion. But if we 
 fail to make an effort or relax it when made, we are 
 dominated by the conflict of our own psychic elements, 
 we have ceased to rule ourselves. For good or ill the 
 newcomer modifies our consciousness temporarily or 
 perchance permanently 
 
 " Then he (Alypius) was carried away incredibly 
 with an incredible eagerness after the shows of gladia- 
 tors. For being utterly averse to and detesting such
 
 88 Conversion 
 
 spectacles, he was one day by chance met by divers 
 of his acquaintance and fellow-students coming from 
 dinner, and they with a familiar violence haled him, 
 vehemently refusing and resisting, into the Amphi- 
 theatre, during these cruel and deadly shows, he thus 
 protesting : ' Though you hale my body to that place, 
 and there set me, can you force me also to turn my 
 mind or my eyes to those shows ? I shall then be absent 
 while present, and so shall overcome both you and 
 them.' They hearing this, led him on nevertheless, 
 desirous perchance to try that very thing, whether he 
 could do as he said. When they were come thither, 
 and had taken their places as they could, the whole 
 place kindled with that savage pastime. But he, 
 closing the passages of his eyes, forbade his mind to 
 range abroad after such evils ; and would he had 
 stopped his ears also ! For in the fight, when one 
 fell, a mighty cry of the whole people striking him 
 strongly, overcome by curiosity, and as if prepared to 
 despise and be superior to it whatsoever it were, even 
 when seen, he opened his eyes, and was stricken with 
 a deeper wound in his soul than the other, whom he 
 desired to behold, was in his body ; and he fell more 
 miserably than he, upon whose fall that mighty noise 
 was raised, which entered through his ears and un- 
 locked his eyes, to make way for the striking and 
 beating down of a soul, bold rather than resolute, 
 and the weaker, in that it had presumed on itself,
 
 The Theory of William James 89 
 
 which ought to have relied upon Thee. For so soon 
 as he saw that blood, he therewith drunk down savage- 
 ness, nor turned away, but fixed his eye, drinking in 
 phrenzy, unawares, and was delighted with that 
 guilty fight, and intoxicated with the bloody pastime. 
 Nor was he now the man he came, but one of the throng 
 he came tmto, yea, a true associate of theirs that 
 brought him thither. Why say more ? He beheld, 
 shouted, kindled, carried thence with him the madness 
 which should goad him to return not only with them 
 who first drew him thither, but also before them, yea, 
 and to draw in others." 1 
 
 "Vigilate et orate ne intretis in tentationem." We 
 can give the counsel a psychological exegesis. Vigil- 
 ate : bring the new element under conative attention 
 from the first glimmer of interest lest it rule your 
 consciousness to your loss ; orate : if it be hostile, 
 call up to battle against it all the resources of your 
 deeper and better consciousness. Watch and pray. 
 What shall it profit a man to gain a new sensation, 
 if he suffers a loss to his own personality ? So may 
 even an agnostic psychologist find some common 
 ground with hermit and saint, and see the justifi- 
 cation of a fundamental ascetical principle. Vigilance 
 is the pre-requisite of conscious freedom. 
 
 With these two principles (i) the dynamic force of 
 
 1 Cenffssins of Si. Augustine. (Everyman's Library trans- 
 lation, p. 106).
 
 90 Conversion 
 
 the nascent idea as a factor in consciousness, and 
 (2) the existence in states of consciousness of centres 
 of instability, we have sufficient to give a psycholo- 
 gical account of the vast bulk of conversion pheno- 
 mena without invoking the sublimenal self or even 
 sub-conscious elaboration as a pre-requisite. The 
 agnostic will say these principles also eliminate the 
 necessity for grace. Distinguo : we need not postu- 
 late an extraordinary and miraculous action to ac- 
 count for certain psychic changes, transeat ; we get 
 rid of the necessity of postulating any sort of Divine 
 action, negatur prorsus. The laws of physics and 
 chemistry do not get rid of the philosophical necessity 
 of Divine concurrence and providence. Those changes 
 which come within the ambit of nature come also into 
 the sphere of grace, but the " how " and the " why " 
 justly, pace M.de Fursac, belong to the realm of 
 theology, and not of experimental psychology. The 
 psychologist may discuss their mechanism as facts 
 of consciousness, and the theory we have outlined 
 is just as adequate to meet difficulties as the hypothesis 
 of the sublimenal self or sub-conscious elaboration, 
 as will be seen when we come to study these types of 
 conversion experience in some detail. There are 
 certain difficulties, however, which lie on the border- 
 ands of positive psychology and theology, certain 
 psychic facts half in and half beyond consciousness, 
 for which our theory is inadequate. But we may console
 
 The Theory of William James 91 
 
 ourselves with the reflection that the followers of 
 James and Myers would fail more egregiously if they 
 attempted explanation. They simply deny the facts 
 or at least treat them as morbid hallucinations, as 
 superimposed on a purely natural process, as spiritual 
 epiphenomena. We refer to those cases where conver- 
 sion entails the appearance in consciousness, if but 
 dimly, of a new psychic feature not contained in the 
 original " given " or aquired normally in the process 
 of conversion. But are there such cases ? Catholic 
 religious experience affirms their existence, the agnostic 
 either denies the reality of the experience or the justice 
 of its interpretation. Roughly speaking, such cases 
 are those where the activity of grace is so specifically 
 marked as to force the inference of its presence as a 
 quasi-conscious element of experience. The agnostic, 
 of course, cannot possibly admit this, so he classes the 
 phenomena among illusions of the sub-consciousness 
 by disregarding their positive aspect. He reduces 
 their psychic potential where he is candid enough to 
 admit their existence, and so brings them within his 
 system. Thus Delacroix deals with the mystical 
 experiences of St Teresa, such as the psychological 
 problem of intellectual visions and locutions. 1 Those 
 features in her narratives which everyday psychical 
 experience can grasp, follow and understand, 
 
 1 Cf. Pacheu : L' Experience Mystique et I' Activity Sub-cons dent 'e 
 Paris .Perrin, 1911, p. 75, etc.
 
 92 Conversion 
 
 are readily reducible to any theory we consider 
 sufficient to account for our own experiences, other 
 wise they would be unintelligible. When another's 
 asserted experience goes beyond this limit, we must 
 take the statement on faith, deny or explain it away 
 The elder generation of agnostics denied, the younger 
 explain by reduction. Given their point of view 
 their theory works, but they fail to reconcile the 
 the co-existence of beneficent practical activity with 
 a state of more or less constant hallucinations. A 
 mad world, my masters. 
 
 Mystical experiences are, of course, the extreme 
 types of the special class of psychic phenomena to 
 which we have refered. They are so sharply marked out 
 from ordinary psychic happenings, so assertive of 
 the " other " and the " beyond " in consciousness, 
 as to be a perpetual challenge to agnostic psychology. 
 Hence the strenuous effort to show that this sense 
 of an activity other than self, yet in self, is an illusion 
 of interpretation, a mere idealistic construction for 
 for which consciousness claims objectivity as a necessity 
 of its own internal experience. Here we have the 
 bioplasm of modernism. " Cum autem dormirent 
 homines, venit inimicus ejus, et superseminavit zizania 
 in medio tritici, et abiit " (Mat. xiii., 25). 
 
 Apart from those ways of the spirit which are 
 admittedly extraordinary and infrequent, in the ordin- 
 ary path of spiritual life, we find psychic processes
 
 The Theory of William James 93 
 
 which have, if but dimly, some of these character- 
 istics. The more lively and vigorous manifestations 
 of those states of consciousness, which the theolo- 
 gian attributes to the theological virtues, acts of 
 Faith, Hope and Charity, contain within them features 
 for which merely positive psychology fails to render a 
 full psychological account. The belief of the convert 
 in the Real Presence is something more in his con- 
 sciousness than a reasoned assent on authority to the 
 dogma of Transubstantiatlon. It is also an Adhesion 
 to a Fact which holds within it something of the nature 
 of a dim vision. " Videmus nunc per speculum in 
 aenigmate " (i Cor. xiii., 12). If he has to explain 
 the why and wherefore, he will fail to convey to the 
 non-believer this dim sense of veiled vision, which 
 in his inmost self differentiates his present faith from 
 his former " view," however strongly held. The 
 highest Anglican, who held before his conversion 
 to Catholicism the full Catholic sacramental doctrine 
 of the Eucharist, does not change the dogmatic con- 
 tent of his consciousness on this point, or even perhaps 
 the vigour of his assent, when he becomes a Catholic. 
 Yet the Reality of the Presence in any Act of Commu- 
 nion is for him something quite different to his former 
 experience. There is a new element in his conscious- 
 ness. " Est autem fides sperandarum substantia 
 rerum, argumentum non apparentium " (Hebrews 
 xi., i). He can only describe his experience in terms
 
 94 Conversion 
 
 prefaced by an " As if," so the Agnostic is quite satis- 
 fied that the new element is but a psychic construction 
 necessitated by sentimental fervour. The convert 
 thinks otherwise, and he, after all, is the person chiefly 
 concerned. 
 
 It must be noted, however, that these deeper ex- 
 periences are of an extraordinary delicate and gentle 
 character, and, as such, are but seldom observed 
 amid the turmoil of concomitant surface experience. 
 It is in periods of drought that we look for and find 
 the deeper springs. " In terra deserta, et in via, et 
 inaquosa, sic in sancto apparui tibi." (Ps. Ixii., 3). 
 We have another text, also a classic with the mystics 
 which illustrates very effectively this notion of vary- 
 ing depth in experience with its parallel in the degrees 
 of our awareness of the psychic factors of the experience. 
 " Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord ; 
 and behold the Lord passeth, and a great and strong 
 wind before the Lord overthrowing the mountains and 
 breaking the rocks in pieces : the Lord is not in the 
 wind, and after the wind an earthquake : the Lord 
 is not in the earthqake. And after the earthquake a fire : 
 the Lord is not in the fire, and after the fire a sound of 
 gentle stillness. 1 And when Elias heard it, he covered 
 
 1 Vulgate : sibilus aurae tenuis. Douay : a whistling of a gentle 
 air. A.V. and R.V. : a still small voice. R.V. in margin : Heb. 
 a sound of gentle stillness. The conventional English version, so 
 familiar as a literary cliche^ does not convey the -psychic value as
 
 The Theory of William James 95 
 
 his face with his mantle." (III. Kings xix., n et 
 seq. Douay, I. Kings A.V.). 
 
 The psychologist may well explain the wind, the 
 earthquake, and the fire, but if it is given to him to 
 hear " the sound of gentle stillness " he will veil his 
 face with Elias and adore. 
 
 well as the Vulgate. So too the equally familiar " in a glass 
 darkly" (I Cor. xiii. 12.) has much less value for the psychologist 
 than the Vulgate : " per speculum in aenigmate " which follows tht 
 Greek more closely.
 
 CHAPTER 111 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF A REVIVAL 
 
 BEFORE proceeding to discuss the various types of 
 religious conversion considered as a psychological 
 process, we would like to restate very briefly our 
 general position. For the postulates of the sublimenal 
 self and sub -conscious elaboration in which the school 
 of Myers and James seek the answer to the enigma, 
 we would substitute : 
 
 (1) The existence in our states of consciousness of 
 certain centres of instability. In the various consol- 
 idated groups of sensations, images, passions, concepts 
 and volitions, potential or actual, which form together 
 that complex which we call the field of consciousness, 
 there is some one psychic element or small group 
 of elements, which, being disturbed, the group of 
 which it forms part breaks up, with a more or less 
 general re-arrangement of the whole field as a result. 
 
 (2) The psychic dynamism of nascent ideas. By 
 a nascent idea we understand, not a bare concept, 
 but some psychic element, which may even be a 
 complex of sensations, images, passions, concepts, 
 and volitions, yet has a certain unity and simplicity 
 taken as a whole, and which is a novelty in conscious- 
 
 7
 
 9& Conversion 
 
 ness, either as coming suddenly from without, as in 
 ordinary apprehensions, or from within, from the deeper 
 memory, or from the break-up of some psychic 
 complex. 
 
 For such nascent ideas we claim a psychic energy 
 far in excess of their force as ordinary elements of 
 consciousness, just as nascent hydrogen is more 
 chemically active than when fully evolved. Some 
 degree of psychic passivity, as in automatic and 
 spontaneous attention, is needed for the full display 
 of this nascent activity which is controlled or controll- 
 able by conative attention. 
 
 We have now to examine how far these new postu- 
 lates will serve to account for the phenomena of re- 
 ligious conversion, and we propose to deal first with 
 those types known as evangelical or revivalistic 
 conversions. The conversion-psychose in Protestant 
 religious experience is so sharply marked off by its 
 ordinary phenomena from nearly all types of Catholic 
 experience, as seemingly to belong to another psychic 
 order. There is, of course, a vast mass of Protestant 
 religious experience where the conversion phase ap- 
 pears to be absent and the general gradual line of 
 religious growth seems parallel with the ordinary 
 spiritual development on Catholic lines, psychologically 
 speaking. Starbuck has studied a very large number 
 of such non-conversion cases among American Protes- 
 tants, and his conclusions are rather striking.
 
 Psychology of a Revival 99 
 
 The result which seemed to be attained in conversion 
 and that which was working itself out during adolescence 
 among those persons who have not experienced conversion 
 are, at bottom, essentially the same, namely, the birth of 
 human consciousness on a higher spiritual level. This is 
 attended by the awakening of a fuller and keener self- 
 consciousness, and at the same time, by the birth of a 
 social instinct, which leads the person to reach out and 
 feel his life one with that of the larger social, institutional, 
 and spiritual worlds. 1 
 
 A little further on he says : 
 
 But when we follow up the events which mark the trend 
 of life after conversion, the crucial question we have just 
 raised is almost directly answered, for we find that nearly 
 all the persons are, sooner or later beset with the same 
 difficulties that ordinarily attend adolescent development. 
 Indeed, the percentage of those difficulties in this group 
 of persons is slightly greater than in the case of those 
 whose growth was not attended by conversion. 
 
 From this it would appear that James's classi- 
 fication of religious types into the " once-born " and 
 the " twice-born " is a division rather of psychic process 
 than of psychic result, and we might consider the 
 con version-psy chose as an adaptation of the Spiritual 
 Exercises a l'Americaine, a sort of religious quick- 
 lunch. 
 
 Starbuck in his enquiry has dealt with ordinary 
 cases where the conversion experience was claimed, 
 and has based his results on his statistics of such 
 
 1 Starbuck, The Psychology of Religion, 3rd Edition, p. 354.
 
 too Conversion 
 
 ordinary cases, quite normal in the various denomin- 
 ations to which the cases belonged, rather than on a 
 few limited and striking cases where the conversion- 
 psychose presents abnormal and almost morbid 
 features. The Catholic director would be inclined to 
 regard the majority of his cases as forms of sensible 
 consolations viewed by their recipients through Prot- 
 estant spectacles, otherwise illusion of interpretation 
 to some extent, or simple natural emotions interpreted 
 by pious imaginations. Such errors and illusions 
 are far from uncommon among devout Catholics. 
 
 Some persons, on account of their penances, prayers, 
 and vigils, or even merely because of debility of health, 
 can receive no spiritual consolation without being over- 
 come by it. . . . The more they lose self-control, the more 
 do their feelings get possession of them, because the body 
 grows more feeble. They fancy this is a trance and call 
 it one, but I call it nonsense ; it does nothing but waste 
 their time and injure their health. 1 
 
 Few of these milder types of the conversion-psychose 
 present psychological difficulties. They are reducible 
 to the process we studied when dealing with the 
 Spiritual Exercises. It must be borne in mind that 
 the dogmatic systems of these evangelical denomina- 
 tions are much more simple, psychologically, than 
 
 1 St. Teresa, The Interior Castle, IV, c. 3, n. The English 
 does not render the quip in the original : " y en su seso les parece 
 arrobamiento ; y llamole yo abobamiento," La tnadre fundadora 
 of Carmel was rather more critical of religious experience than some 
 Protestant ministers.
 
 Psychology of a Revival 101 
 
 that of the Catholic Church, and the process of an 
 effective retreat might well be compressed into a 
 meditation. The subjects, too, are rather more 
 emotional than Catholics as a rule. All these tend 
 '.o psychologic simplification and abbreviation. We 
 must look, then, for the cases we require rather to 
 the extreme features of revivals and such like, than to 
 the ordinary sort of conversion cases. Some even 
 of the more striking cases may be reduced psycholog- 
 ically to the process referred to, if we bear in mind 
 the Evangelical Protestant view of faith. 
 
 Sed fides est specialis, seu potius personalis, qua quis 
 credit hie et nunc sibi sua peccata non esse imputata ; 
 fides haec est ergo fiducia, et quidem firma et certa, suae 
 propriae justificationis hoc instanti habitae. Hunc autem 
 elicientes, seu potius hoc animi motu perculsi, praesertim 
 in conventibus Methodistarum, quasi extra se rapti, altos 
 saepissime edunt clamores, et etiara aliquando spasmis 
 et convulsionibus agitantur. 1 
 
 Dr. Murray cites many examples, among others 
 the following from the diary of Isaac Septimus Nullis 
 (1828-1865), an English Methodist preacher well 
 known in Ireland in his day. 
 
 i Murray, Tractatus De Gratia ; Dublin : M. H. Gill et filius 
 1877, p. 316. "But it is that special, or rather, personal faith by 
 which one believes hie et nunc that his sins are not imputed to him 
 hence this faith is the firm and certain confidence of his own justi- 
 fication at that very moment. They who elicit such an act or rather 
 whose minds are thus moved, more especially at Methodist meetings 
 being quite carried away shout loudly very often and are even 
 sometimes attacked by spasms and convulsions."
 
 102 Conversion 
 
 Jan. i2th, 1851. Brother George Smith came home with 
 me from chapel. Just as dinner was over, I said, " I believe 
 Jesus died for me ; don't you, George ? " " Yes," was the 
 the reply. " Don't you, Maria ? " (our servant). " Yes," 
 she said. I said, " I believe my sins are pardoned ; don't you, 
 George ? " " Yes." " Don't you, Maria ? " No reply. I 
 said, " Let us pray." We knelt down and prayed got 
 into the conflict : after an hour and a half hard righting, 
 deliverance came ; she believed and was filled with joy 
 and peace, filled full of heavenly influence. We did shout. 
 A young man came in weeping, and said he felt the glory 
 out in the road, so that he was constrained to come in. 1 
 
 Doubtless the preacher's prayer was very eloquent 
 and argumentative, full of considerations expressed 
 with much force and unction, and would suffice to 
 incline the servant's mind to a solution to which it 
 was already predisposed. Psychologically the case 
 is on all fours with an Ignatian meditation. The 
 resultant excitement and joy was the very natural 
 consequence of a sense of relief from the feeling of 
 reprobation. The Methodists of that day did not 
 hesitate to preach Hell fire with a vigour which shocks 
 the modern psychologist very profoundly. Yet their 
 sermons do not appear to have been much stronger, 
 in descriptive work at least, than those preached by 
 Catholic missionaries. It was in the certainty of dam- 
 nation, rather than in its terrors, that their sermons 
 differed. A man was infallibly lost unless he could 
 
 1 Op. cit., p. 346.
 
 Psychology of a Revival 103 
 
 feel that his sins were forgiven. Hence these corn- 
 minatory discourses were psychological depressives 
 and reduced the hearers to a state of most acute 
 misery. Another doctrinal feature was the total 
 depravity of human nature, its total incapacity to 
 elicit any spiritual act with the logical corollary that 
 the presence of spiritual emotion was a manifest 
 sign of grace and regeneration. With this dogmatic 
 basis for the field of consciousness, we have two potent 
 factors of disintegration ready to hand, (i) a general 
 state of acute tension and stress, the fear of hell, 
 and (2) a well marked and known centre of instability, 
 the conviction that a spiritual consolation was a cer- 
 tain sign of regeneration. The whole revivalist 
 " method " tended to the creation of these two factors, 
 if they did not exist already. All that remained to 
 complete the conversion was to evoke the nascent 
 idea which could act through the centre of instability ; 
 in other words, to evoke some spiritual emotion of 
 a consoling nature in the subject's consciousness. 
 To secure an effective conversion, the three factors 
 must be energetic. A moderate apprehension of 
 eternal damnation, such as is found in the Catholic 
 sinner, would not work in this process. The fear 
 must be great and imminent, the subject must be 
 made to see himself as in the Enfield sermon of 
 Jonathan Edwards : 
 The unconverted are now walking over the pit of hell
 
 104 Conversion 
 
 on a rotten cover, and there are innumerable places in 
 this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight, 
 and these places are not seen. 1 
 
 Only by such strenuous present terror could the 
 necessary psychic tension be secured. With less 
 tension the relief-reaction would be too feeble, the 
 field of consciousness might oscillate, but it would 
 hardly disintegrate, at least as a general rule. Hence 
 the efforts of revivalists to provoke, and reinforce this 
 tension. 
 
 The second element, the dogmatic position which 
 secured the existence, and, as it were, located the 
 position of the centre of instability, had also to be 
 sharply and firmly defined in consciousness. If a 
 consolation does not of necessity imply a state of 
 grace and acceptance before God, as Catholics hold, 
 it might come and go but it would not, unless very 
 extraordinary, overwhelm the whole field of conscious- 
 ness. Hence the extraordinary difference in reaction 
 to milder spiritual stimuli between the Catholic and 
 the Evangelical Protestant. We may trace the decline 
 in the frequency and violence of revival conversions 
 to a certain weakening of Protestant confidence in 
 the significance of consolatory religious experience. The 
 elder generation had no doubts about it, or about the 
 reality, certainty, and imminence of eternal damnation 
 for the " unconverted " and thus their religious con- 
 sciousness was the exact spiritual analogue of a 
 
 1 Quoted in Davenport, Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals,, 
 Condon: Macmillan, 1910, p. no.
 
 Psychology of a Revival 105 
 
 Rupert's drop, ready to fly into fragments the moment 
 the centre of instability was touched. 
 
 The touching of this vital spot was, however, the 
 great difficulty, All that was needed was a vigorous 
 nascent idea in the shape of some marked consolation 
 the sense of the Infinite Mercy, that Christ died for 
 sinners, etc. All the efforts of the Protestant evange- 
 list were devoted to suggesting some such consolation 
 to the consciousness of those under "conviction. " 
 But the psychic stress of " conviction " tended to in- 
 hibit all consoling thoughts. The unhappy subjects 
 were so obsessed with the idea of their parlous state, 
 that no inlet could often be found for any contrary 
 psychic element. It needed great tact to find the 
 requisite opening, and it often happened that the 
 liberating nascent idea found an entrance almost as 
 it were by accident. Where a direct suggestion was 
 repelled, some casual text or line from a hymn found 
 its way and effected the needful change. 
 
 It would be an error to look upon these psychic 
 revolutions as merely the logical results of Calvinistic 
 dogmatism, even in cases where sudden conversion 
 is unaccompanied by any abnormal phenomena, and 
 but for its suddenness is a quiet process. Doctrine 
 is a great factor in the process, but in itself it is a 
 psychological rather than a logical process, and dogma 
 can only be regarded as one of the factors. With 
 the decline of dogmas in modern Protestantism we
 
 Conversion 
 
 find a corresponding decline intheconversion-psychose, 
 the types are milder in character and more infrequent 
 at revivals. That Universalism which is now so 
 common among Protestants that they are gravely 
 shocked at an old-fashioned booklet like Father 
 Furniss's Sight of Hell, has made it much more 
 difficult for revivalists to secure that initial tension 
 necessary to the full development of the conversion- 
 psychose. The ordinary careless healthy Christian is 
 unimpressed where his sire and grandsire were terrified 
 almost to madness. To-day, as of old, we get cases 
 of this psychose, but with people of somewhat 
 different moral and physical temperaments. The 
 public sinner, stricken with keen remorse, or the more 
 unstable and neurotic among lesser offenders, now 
 furnish the bulk of cases, where conversion is of the 
 sudden and overwhelming kind. Save in Wales, 
 during the Evan Robert's revival, we seldom find 
 crowds swept off their feet as in the great historic 
 revivals, and the reason we suggest is the weakening 
 of the dogmatic factor in the Protestant con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 The following case 1 illustrates the process we have 
 outlined : 
 
 At Penrhiw, the Revivalist, in his address to the unsaved, 
 used an illustration describing a man collecting sea-birds" 
 
 1 J. J. Morgan. Tht '59 Revival in Wales : Some Incidents in 
 the Life and Work of David Morgan, Ysbytty Mold : J. J. Morgan 
 1909, p. 60. A delighful and touching account of David Morgan the 
 Revivalist's work, by his soji.
 
 Psychology of a Revival 107 
 
 eggs on a rock-bound coast. While his friends above hold 
 the rope which was tied around him, he descends on his 
 perilous quest. It is a stormy day, the winds swing him 
 in the void, and the rope rubs against the teeth of the 
 rocks. To his consternation, he observes that the sharp 
 precipice has already severed one strand of the rope. He 
 shouts apprehensively to his mates above, but his cry is 
 lost in the whistling of the wind. " Haul me up ! Haul 
 me up ! " he shrieks as he swings, horror struck to see an- 
 other and yet another strand sundered by the jagged 
 crag. " You hang by a frail and fraying rope over the abyss 
 of eternity. What means that shooting pain in your 
 head ? A strand in the rope has gone. What is that crick 
 in your back ? Another strand parted. You lost your 
 sleep the other night ! Another fibre severed ! The last 
 strand will snap one of these next days. You may be 
 raised to safety to-night and your feet set upon a rock." 
 The arch-swearer of the parish was in the service, lis- 
 tening with such an insolent and offensive air that some 
 of the deacons thought he ought to be asked to leave the 
 building. WTien some overflowing saint broke out in 
 "praise" old Isaac would burst into contemptuous laughter 
 When David Morgan was in the midst of his conversation 
 with a bevy of young women, who had that evening chosen 
 the good part, Isaac rushed in with a distracted counten- 
 ance, every hair on end with excitement. " What has 
 brought you back ? " asked the preacher quietly. " I 
 failed to go on," was the reply. After finishing with all 
 the others, the Revivalist asked again, " What made you 
 return? " "I was afraid to advance," said Isaac. "The abyss 
 you described gaped before my feet ; I could see devils, 
 and hell ready to swallow me alive. When. I turned back;
 
 io8 Conversion 
 
 the road was clear. I turned homewards again, and 
 the mouth of hell immediately yawned in front of me. 
 Here I am, but I don't know in the world what for ?" 
 " Would you like to enter the society ? " " No, I haven't 
 thought of that." " Why have you come back, then ? " 
 " Man, haven't I told you it was because I failed to go on ?" 
 " Why shouldn't you join the church ? " "I am a fearful 
 swearer ; I have oftentimes cursed and swore out of fun 
 just to shock these deacons." " You must give up swearing." 
 " Oh, I could'nt possibly do that." " Will you do this, 
 then ? Each time you swear, drop on your knees and say 
 " Lord, help me not to swear, for Christ's sake. Amen." 
 
 " I will, by "promised Isaac. Having asked the 
 
 Church to give the right hand of fellowship to the seven- 
 teen young women, he brought before them the case of 
 Isaac as a special sinner. " Isaac has failed to go on, but 
 he has come back. He has been eminent in blasphemy ; 
 he intends now to become eminent in prayer. Are you 
 willing to receive Isaac, once the great swearer, henceforth 
 the great in prayer ? " All wept, save Isaac, whose every 
 gesture testified, "I'm but a stranger here." The converts 
 of '59 generally bowed their heads, weeping Isaac sat 
 bolt upright, staring around. When the Revivalist asked 
 for the usual show of hands, Isaac leaped to his feet, and 
 looked around sharply to see whether everyone signified 
 willingness to accept him ; then he turned towards the 
 deacon's seat, and when he saw that they all held their 
 hands up in his favour, the surprise made the strain in- 
 supportable, and he began to moan like a wounded animal, 
 and he could not be silenced. The habit of swearing 
 disappeared like a pricked bubble, and soon his gift of 
 prayer became one of the assets of the Church at Penrhiw.
 
 Psychology of a Revival 109 
 
 We have here the stages of the process very well 
 marked : (i) The sinner's original state of conscious- 
 ness, profanity and impudence dominant over religious 
 feelings. (2) The stress developed by the Rivivalist, fear 
 of hell, here and now. (3) A centre of instability, formed 
 by the assurance of possible salvation, here and now. 
 (4) The stress operating on the religious consciousness, 
 and inducing vivid conviction of sin, so keen as to 
 produce visual hallucinations and inhibitions. He 
 could not return home. (5) Confession of his state, 
 and willingness to amend, induced by this stress, 
 and the hope of relief. (6) The hope of relief is the 
 nascent idea, and it becomes operative when he sees 
 that the church members are willing to receive him 
 Then he breaks down. (7) This acceptance breaks up 
 the whole field of consciousness, and so rearranges 
 it that the habit of profanity is driven out. 
 
 It will be noted that our purely psychologic analysis 
 places the crisis of the psychose later than the author, 
 who is looking at the conversion solely from the 
 religious point of view. He seems to regard Isaac as 
 technically converted before he knew whether he would 
 be voted into membership of the church or no. But the 
 psychic revolution, as revealed in the break-down, 
 came, evidently, later, when he saw the actual vote. 
 
 Another case from the same revival reveals very 
 clearly the extraordinary psychic dynamism of the 
 nascent idea.
 
 lib Conversion 
 
 At Barmouth, Evan Phillips, Emlyn, preaching on 
 Luke xvi. 26, remarked that the conscience of a careless 
 sinner carried within itself the materials of eternal woe. 
 " There is a guilty conscience asleep in the sinner's breast, 
 as a man carries a match-box in his pocket without think- 
 *ng of it ; but in a day to come, I behold Justice striking 
 the match across the throne of God, and the guilty soul is 
 a flame for ever." In the crowd sat a shoemaker of superior 
 intellectual capacity, but irreligious. Pulpit admonitions 
 fell as unheeded upon him as anvil sparks on the black- 
 smith's dog. He was fifty years old, and had a crop of 
 black hair. The remark quoted above crashed into his 
 soul, like an explosive bullet into a soldier's breast. He 
 gave himself to God and to His people, but passed through 
 bitter experiences before entering into peace. In that 
 storm of soul, his black hair grew snow-white in two nights ; 
 then every hair dropped off, until his head was as bare as 
 the back of his hand, and after a short season of baldness 
 another crop of white hair grew on his naked pate. This 
 again dropped off, and was replaced by a crop of black hair 
 such as he had at first. He became eminent as a praying 
 man, and when he saw Mr. Phillips some years afterwards, 
 he told him, '' You have pulled all my hair out, my boy, 
 but God gave it back again, and the hope of eternal life 
 has grown along with it." 1 
 
 We see here the stress between the religious ten- 
 dencies and the irreligious, inhibiting the entrance 
 of the nascent idea in its conventional forms, but 
 when it slipped through in the shape of a rather 
 
 1 Op. cit., p. 109. Cf. for two analogous morbid cases, Forel : 
 Hypnotism p. 113 (English Translation, Rebman, London, 1906).
 
 Psychology of a Revival 
 
 quaint figure of speech, it produced such a fearful 
 shake-up of all the field of consciousness, that the 
 physical reaction was quite extraordinary. Here, 
 the fear of hell was the centre of instability, but masked 
 by the shoemaker's irreligious bent. The novel 
 image circumvented the habitual inhibitions. 
 
 It is not easy to parallel revival cases with an in- 
 stance of Catholic conversion, but the following will 
 show the working of a similar psychic process where the 
 factors of religion and race are far other than in the 
 Wales of '59. 
 
 I found myself, one day at the end of my course of 
 sermons, in the presence of an old man, who had formerly 
 occupied a high position. " Father," he said, " I wish to 
 make my peace with God. I am eighty years old. I 
 cannot remember, during all that time, one single act of 
 religion. I am sure, however, that I was baptized a Catho- 
 lic, because I had to get the baptismal certificate when I 
 was married. That's all." " You have not even made 
 your first communion ? " I asked. " I have no recollection." 
 he said, emphasizing his words with a slow, hesitating, 
 circular gesture, as if including his whole life. " But you 
 must have had reasons to keep away from religion?" 
 " Evidently. I did not believe in it." " Would you tell 
 me," I said, " some of your reasons ; we will discuss them, 
 and I will tell you, on my side, why we believe." "Oh, 
 no ! " he cried, " not that. I would never get there. It 
 would only bother me. You quoted the other day a phrase 
 of Diderot : "He who knows not the reasons for faith, is 
 only an ignorant fellow." That settled me. I saw I
 
 112 Conversion 
 
 was an ignorant fellow before the awful problem. As ail 
 ignorant fellow I surrender." I could not get him away 
 from that point : his sense of faith was so genuine that I 
 gave up the idea. The day after the old man made his 
 first Communion ; he died shortly after. 1 
 
 Old age, the sense of approaching death, the mission 
 supplied the tension, the question put to self on the 
 verge of eternity. The hidden centre of instability 
 was the sense of ignorance revealed and touched by 
 the nascent idea, a quotation ! Need we remind the 
 reader again that we are only analyzing these cases 
 from the point of view of psychology, and studying 
 their psychic mechanism ? The other questions they 
 suggest are beyond our jurisdiction as psychologists. 
 
 There are three fairly well marked stages in the 
 conversion-psychose ; (i) Awakening, that is the 
 initiative of psychic stress by the realization of one's 
 unsatisfactory spiritual state ; (2) Conviction, the stress 
 resolving itself under the influence of the nascent 
 depressive idea into an acute psychic crises with the 
 formation of centres of psychic instability, and (3) 
 Deliverance, the stress dissolved by some other nascent 
 consolatory idea with disintegration of the field of 
 religious consciousness and formation of a new field. 
 In Catholic religious life, those three stages would 
 correspond with the first week of the Spiritual Ex- 
 
 i R. P. A. Gardeil, O.P., La Credibility et I' Apologetique ; Paris 
 Lecoffre, 2nd Ed., 1912, p. 142.
 
 Psychology of a Revival 113 
 
 ercises, awakening in the various meditations, with 
 conviction developed by the examens of conscience, 
 and deliverance coming with repentance and sacra- 
 mental absolution. The analogy of the quick -lunch 
 is not too far-fetched after all. The Exercises accom- 
 plish slowly and quietly those psychic changes which 
 the revival method rushes. We may observe in 
 passing that the decline in revival methods corres- 
 ponds curiously with the decline in Calvinistic doctrine, 
 and a growing Pelagianism, which greatly complicates 
 the conversion-psychose. Doubtless, the David Mor- 
 gans of the future will conduct retreats rather than 
 run revivals. Finney to-day would be Father . . . ; 
 we leave the reader to supply the missing word. 
 
 The stages of Conviction and Deliverance, in the 
 more extreme revival types, are of chief interest 
 to the psychologist on account of the remarkable 
 character of their somatic phenomena, quite apart 
 from their psychic manifestations. Before consider- 
 ing this aspect of revival conversions, we will briefly 
 examine a point of some interest, post-conversion 
 inhibitions, as we have here a marked divergence 
 between Catholic and Protestant religious experience. 
 When a man is converted, and becomes a reformed 
 character, what, psychologically speaking, becomes 
 of his old vices ? Do they still remain as elements 
 of consciousness, controlled, checked and neutralized 
 by opposing virtues as we saw in our study of the 
 
 8
 
 H4 Conversion 
 
 Exercises, or do they pass away from consciousness 
 altogether ? Does the converted drunkard become 
 a sober man by recovering his will power to resist 
 the craving for alcohol, or does the craving itself 
 vanish ? 
 
 The cessation of the craving for alcohol, as a sequel 
 to the conversion-psychose, is, we think, well estab- 
 lished in a large number of recorded cases. But 
 before we invoke the fact, as evidence of a moral 
 miracle, we should ascertain whether the alcoholism 
 of the convert was a substantive, or an adjective vice ; 
 did he drink for drink's sake, or did he drink to relieve 
 depression otherwise caused ? Or through mere 
 good-fellowship ? If the drink passion were second- 
 ary, an effect of other psychic causes, their removal 
 would abolish the craving in all probability. If a 
 passion is merely a secondary dependent psychic 
 element in our field of consciousness, we can suppress 
 it by a change in that field, by switching off attention, 
 by breaking it up in its cause. So with the drink 
 craving. A change of scene, of occupation, above all 
 of interest, may effect a cure, and destroy the craving 
 The passion for drink may be merely a symp- 
 tom of nervous disorder ; cure the malady, and 
 the craving will pass away. By breaking up the 
 old field of consciousness, and giving the convert 
 a new centre of attention, a new grouping 
 and subordination of the psychic elements which
 
 Psychology of a Revival 115 
 
 constitute his field, the conversion-psychose tends to 
 throw out those elements it fails to adjust and assi- 
 milate. Alcoholism is such an aggressive psychic 
 element, not so much in itself as in its physiological 
 consequences, that it cannot be assimilated ; it must 
 be smothered, or cast into oblivion, or it will dominate 
 consciousness. Hence we have two types of expulsion 
 one to the surface, the other to the deeper memory. 
 The desire may be there, but controlled more or less 
 perfectly ; or it may cease altogether. To the on- 
 looker, the latter may seem the more marvellous, 
 yet the vice so consigned to oblivion may have been 
 but a sympton of general moral disorder, and in itself 
 psychologically unimportant. But where the vicious 
 tendency subsists, but is chained and controlled, 
 there it may well have been the capital sin. The story 
 " Old Born Drunk '' in Begbie's Broken Earthen- 
 ware, is a picturesque and very striking case of aboli- 
 tion of the craving for alcohol, produced by a well- 
 marked conversion-psychose, but though the result 
 was marvellous to the onlooker, the interior change 
 may very possibly have been less, as regards the specific 
 vice of drunkenness, than in the following, where the 
 craving was not abolished : 
 
 He had been the champion fighter of Beaufort Hill, a 
 daily terror to his family, and always in trouble with the 
 police. When he came home from the public-house, his 
 wife and children fled from his fury until the morrow, and 
 his first proceeding in the morning was to go through every
 
 n6 Conversion 
 
 room in the house, trembling with misgiving lest lie had 
 murdered one of them during the night. This son of Belial 
 was brought to God during the Revival. By-and-by he 
 approached the Lord's Table. At this time non-intoxi- 
 cating wine was not used, and on the Monday he said : 
 " I felt all the devils of Gehenna stirring in my bosom after 
 drinking the wine. If there had been a tavern in sight 
 when I came out, I would have plunged headlong into it." 
 He was elected an elder in a few years, and died full of 
 days and honour. 1 
 
 In the first case we quoted from the '59 Revival 
 in Wales, we had an example of the post-conversion 
 inhibition of the dominant vice of profanity. We 
 have a more curious instance in the following : 
 
 In an evening service, a coarse and callous farmer was 
 strangely affected. Previously the dialect of Gehenna 
 contained no shibboleth too difficult for his tongue. In 
 the morning he was alarmed by the consciousness of a 
 mysterious and revolutionary change in himself. He was 
 unable to swear. He said to himself, like Samson, "I will 
 go out as at other times before, and shake myself." But 
 his evil strength had departed, and he was weak and was 
 as another man. He sought his servants at their work, 
 imagining that he would there find sufficient reasons 
 for the exercise of his cherished habit, but for the life 
 of him he couldn't rap out a single oath. Then he realised 
 that his ailment required a drastic remedy, and thought 
 as a last resort, that if he could see some neighbour's sheep 
 trespassing on his pasture the lost faculty would be recov- 
 ered. So he climbed a hill that was near, but nothing 
 availed. He began to tremble in every limb. "What 
 1 The '59 Revival in Wales, p. 105.
 
 Psychology of a Revival 117 
 
 is this ? " cried he. " I can't swear ; what if I tried to 
 pray ? " He fell on his knees among the furze-bushes, 
 and continued a man of prayer as long as he lived. 1 
 
 Here was the will to swear, but not the capacity, 
 the velle without the posse. Is it a paradox of grace, 
 or post-hypnotic suggestion ? The author, through- 
 out, lays much stress on this inhibition of profanity. 
 Like drink, blasphemy is a very manifest vice, and 
 peculiarly shocking ; but like drink, its psychological 
 importance may be small. With the vast number 
 of foul-mouthed people, the oath or obscenity is 
 but a vocal automatism, practically a reflex act, 
 with but little of the self in it. It has become a ner- 
 vous " tic," and needs no great psychic revolution 
 to get rid of it. The con version-psy chose meant for 
 the farmer a sort of aphasia, affecting his centres 
 of profanity. Unfortunately, we are not given an 
 account of the sermon he heard the night before, 
 and how he was impressed, but it is clear that if his 
 con version-psy chose led him to acts of prayer, and 
 impressed him with the need for prayer, and the malice 
 of its opposite profanity, the inhibition is a quite nat- 
 ural sequel. It is not necessary to assume either a 
 miracle or hypnotic suggestion. The nascent idea 
 in itself has sufficient dynamism to produce many 
 of the effects of hypnotism proper if we consider it 
 in its totality. We must not regard it as something 
 
 1 Op. cit., p. 21.
 
 it 8 Conversion 
 
 abstracted from the psychic conditions of its origin ; if 
 it arises from the sermon of the evangelist, his person- 
 ality is a factor in it. The vivid phrase which smites 
 the centre of instability has an added psychic momen- 
 tum from the personal qualities of the man who sends 
 it forth, as a winged word, to the revival congregation. 
 
 Now nearly all the great revivalists, notably Wesley, 
 Finney, and David Morgan, were very remarkable for 
 their personal power over individuals and crowds. 
 Wesley's portraits represent a man of mild temper, 
 yet he again and again faced and tamed hostile mobs, 
 as at Wednesbury and Bolton. 1 Finney's portrait 
 shows a face of quite extraordinary power. 
 
 At Evans Mills a powerfully-built and very evil man 
 went to one of the meetings with a loaded pistol, with a 
 plan to shoot the evangelist while he was preaching ; but 
 instead, he was so transfixed by the personality which 
 confronted him that he sat down, shrieking in an agony 
 of terror. Next morning, Mr. Finney met this man on 
 a street of the town. " Good-morning," he said to the would- 
 be murderer, " how do you feel in your mind this morning ? " 
 The man related to Finney his experiences during a sleep- 
 less night. He had wrestled with God in prayer, but 
 with no sense of relief. He had even lost the conviction 
 of sin which was present in his mind the evening before, 
 and had come away from the place of unsuccessful com- 
 munion with the Almighty. " But," said he, " when I 
 saw you, my heart began to burn and grow hot within me, 
 and instead of feeling as if I wanted to avoid you, I felt 
 so drawn that I came across the street to see you." 2 
 
 1 Wesley's Journal, Pitman, pp. 114 and 175. 
 
 2 Davenport, Primitive Trails in Religious Revivals, p. 196.
 
 Psychology of a Revival 119 
 
 David Morgan had also a very striking countenance, 
 and the first quotation we have given, shows what was 
 his influence over individuals. Coming from such men, 
 a mere phrase, which, in cold print, is nothing, be- 
 comes a power of suggestion, easily capable of causing 
 inhibitions of muscular action, and even visual halluci- 
 nations. 
 
 Their personal power, too, was increased by the 
 nature of their usual audiences. They were crowds, 
 psychological crowds. There is a certain psychic 
 passivity in the very act of listening, and it is vastly 
 increased when we listen, not as individuals, but as a 
 crowd. It is not necessary to assume with Davenport, 
 following Le Bon and Durkeim, 1 any more or less 
 fanciful analogy of the mind of the crowd, and the 
 mind of primitive man. All we need postulate is an 
 increase of psychic passivity. The crowd is more 
 receptive of nascent ideas and more disturbed by them 
 than the component individuals taken privately. 
 There is a drop in conative attention, a lowering of 
 the sense of personal responsibility. The field of con- 
 sciousness of a crowd is shallow and mobile, Mobile 
 Vulgus, the very name of mob is psychological. Not 
 only is the field shallow, but it is more limited than in 
 the individual, qua individual. A crowd can only 
 attend to one thing at a time. A field of consciousness 
 
 1 Cf. Davenport, op. cit., chap, iii., the whole chapter is import- 
 ant, though the point of view is not ours.
 
 1 20 Conversion 
 
 which is shallow, restricted and mobile, with strong 
 reaction to suggestion, and forming in itself a sort of 
 artificial personality, what is it but hysteria? 
 
 The hysterical subject reacts more strongly than a 
 normal person to certain types of experiences ; this im- 
 pressionability does not exclude apathy and indifference 
 towards other things which interest a normal person. 
 The hysteric sees everything at a particular angle. As to 
 assimilation, such dispositions result in shutting the sub- 
 ject up in a narrow round of personal anxieties and make 
 him incapable of seeing the situation in a comprehensive 
 and objective manner. As to reactions, the hysteric 
 displays a change in co-ordination, is impulsive and capric- 
 ious, with brief enthusiasms, so that anything he takes 
 up eagerly he soon drops through boredom and fatigue. 1 
 
 Thus Pierre Janet describes the hysteric ; will not 
 the description fit any ordinary crowd ? With the 
 absence of conative attention in any individual, any 
 nascent idea can exercise its full and natural dynamism 
 from the moment it evokes automatic attention, or 
 mere psychic curiosity, until it is absorbed by the 
 spontaneous attention of interest. Most of the in- 
 individuals in a psychological crowd are victims of 
 psychic determinism, for they will not exert their 
 conative attention ; they drift mentally and morally. 
 Hence it is that in revival crowds we find the conver- 
 sion-psychose in its most acute forms. 
 
 Throughout the Welsh Period of '59, as pictured in 
 
 1 De la Vaissi&re, Elements de Psychologie Expenmeniale, p. 299.
 
 Psychology of a Revival 121 
 
 the book we have been quoting from, the psychological 
 crowd was a foremost feature. What is such a crowd ? 
 
 It is not the mere physical sense of the word, the mass 
 of men, of which Le Bon is thinking (in his study The 
 Crowd}. He means a group of persons, small or large, 
 who arc for the time being in some kind of mental agree- 
 ment ; who are a mental unity or practically so. A lynching 
 party is a crowd. A political meeting is a crowd. Le 
 Bon reasons that the individual is one thing in such com- 
 pany, and another thing out of it. The crowd for the 
 time being swallows him up, and has feelings of its own, 
 thoughts of its own, a character of its own. 1 
 
 The open-air revival meetings, the chapel gatherings, 
 were all marked examples of the psychological crowd. 
 
 A certain service was overwhelmed by the " rapture " 
 of the students. Later the minister asked, " Why in the 
 world did you make such a commotion to-night, boys ? 
 What was the matter with you Thomas Charles ? " " Mr. 
 Hughes," he replied, " had you offered me a thousand 
 pounds a month ago for shouting like that, I couldn't ; 
 but to-night, if you had placed a thousand pounds in my 
 hand for being silent, I could not refrain from praising 
 God." 2 
 
 At an open-air meeting in Carnarvonshire where 
 some 30,000 were present, we read the account 3 : 
 The moment the preaching ceased, prayer-meetings 
 would begin around the waggons scattered over the field. 
 With every striking petition, a great shout from the throng 
 rent the welkin, now at this point of the field, now at 
 
 1 Davenport, op. cit., p. 25. 
 
 2 The '59 Revival in Wales, p. 121. 3 Ibid. p. 145.
 
 122 Conversion 
 
 another. . . . Taking one another by the hand, they 
 would at times dance, leap, sing, pray, exhort, shout, and 
 "rejoice" incessantly working their several ways through 
 the maze, like a hive of bees that have discovered a virgin 
 bed of flowers. Suddenly, perhaps the social bond would 
 be dissolved, and each would become absorbed in the con- 
 templation of his own treasures. If a chair become empty- 
 for a moment, some one would immediately jump upon 
 it, and from that coign of vantage shout a hymn or a verse 
 at the top of his voice. Many were cast into trances or 
 swoons, when, unconscious of their surroundings, they would 
 declaim or soliloquise with unintermitting fluency, even 
 as they were borne out of the field by their friends. 
 
 Another instance of crowd psychology, revealing 
 psychic automatism as a sequel to excitement : 
 
 A Methodist lady was yoked to an Episcopalian husband, 
 who disdained to accompany her to the Revival meetings 
 in her chapel, saying he did not believe in revivalistic 
 excitement, and bidding her go alone to her own place. 
 Her importunity finally prevailed, and he accompanied 
 her. The atmosphere of the service was heavily charged 
 with heavenly magnetism, and the Churchman soon grew 
 uneasy. " I'll have to shout," he whispered. " No, don't," 
 she curtly replied. The surge of his emotions becoming 
 nigh intolerable, he said again, " I must shout." " Go 
 to your own place to shout," rejoined the wife dryly. The 
 rising tide threatening to submerge him, he said, " I must 
 shout or die." " Well, shout if you must," answered the 
 wife. Immediately he began to cry with a loud-sounding, 
 recitative voice : " I believe in God the Father Almighty, 
 Maker of heaven and earth, etc." 1 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 185.
 
 Psychology of a Revival 
 
 This repetition of the Creed by the Anglican, shows 
 the psychic automatism of these external manifesta- 
 tions. Conative and reflex control having ceased, the 
 surface memory projects its immediate content. 
 With the Anglican it was a well-remembered part of 
 his usual service ; it would be probably a mosaic of 
 Bible texts with the Dissenter, or verses of some well- 
 known hymn. An unsympathetic but careful observer 
 of the '59 revival in Ulster wrote to the late Dr. Salmon 
 
 The reality of the " Conversion" is supposed to be tested 
 by "the gift of prayer." The converts cannot be restrained 
 from trying their newly-found power, and I have been 
 sometimes surprised by the appropriateness of their lan- 
 uage. This latter feature, however, as we might have ex- 
 pected, is by no means common. They have got off by 
 heart a few common texts of Scripture, and one or two set 
 phrases, which they hear at the revival meeting, and 
 which they cast into the shape of a prayer. * 
 
 The following instance, taken from the '59 Revival 
 in Ulster, illustrates rather well the psychic influence 
 of the psychological crowd, and the character of the 
 liberating nascent idea. There was a huge open-air 
 meeting in Coleraine, some 4,000 were present, and it 
 was decided to divide up the meeting into four, each 
 one to be in charge of a minister. Mr Canning, one 
 of the ministers, states : 
 
 1 George Salmon, D.D., F.T.C.D. The Evidences of the Work 
 of the Holy Spirit : A Sermon preached at St. Stephen's Church, 
 Dublin, on July 3rd, 1859, with an Appendix on the Revival Move- 
 ment in the North of Ireland ; Dublin : Hodges, Smith & Co.. 
 1859, P. 47-
 
 124 Conversion 
 
 On set purpose he determined that anything he should 
 say should be as little exciting as possible, and that he 
 should endeavour simply and calmly to preach the Gospel 
 He read his text, and made a few remarks ; but, on looking 
 into the countenances of the people he was struck with the 
 intensity of their gaze, for which he could not account. He 
 could see distinctly that there was an anxiety and earnest- 
 ness to hear what he was saying, such as he had never 
 witnessed before. He went on for five or six minutes, 
 and at the end of that time a strong man in the crowd 
 fell to the ground as if smitten with a severe blow, In 
 five minutes or so in the other congregations similar scenes 
 took place, until there were thirty individuals lying pros- 
 trate in the market square of Coleraine. Of course he 
 immediately brought the service to a close, and made his way 
 to the man who had first fallen, whom he found perfectly 
 conscious, but as helpless as a child. Upon being asked 
 what was the matter with him, the man, with a cry of 
 horror such as he had never before heard, said it was a 
 consciousness of sin that it was as if hell was before him ; 
 that he had often heard and talked about sin before, 
 but had never seen it ; and that cry once again went forth 
 from the lungs of that strong man. ... In these circum- 
 stances he used all his powers to pour into the distressed 
 man's mind the comforts of the Gospel in his own language ; 
 but his efforts were vain, and the man made no signs 
 until he did what he should have done at first repeated 
 the very words of Scripture, and put the truth in the form 
 in which the Spirit of God puts it. Instantly the closed 
 eyes were opened, and a change came over the man's 
 countenance ; the cry ceased ; and in five or six minutes 
 more the change so graphically described had taken place
 
 Psychology of a Revival 125 
 
 on that man's countenance ; and in five minutes more 
 that strong man rose up, apparently as strong physically 
 as ever he was ; and from that day to this he was indeed 
 a changed man, walking in the fear of the Lord, and, 
 he believed, in the comfort of the Holy Ghost. 1 
 
 Here we have the crowd, rather than the preacher, 
 as the generator of tension. It is to be noted that 
 the consolatory idea took the form of well-known texts, 
 to which the pious narrator seems to attach a sacra- 
 mental efficacy. They were familiar, however, while 
 his exposition of them demanded an exertion of in- 
 telligence, of which the state of stress in the convert 
 
 did not allow. The well-known text circumvented the 
 psychic inhibitions. 
 
 The psychological crowd had a far greater role in 
 the '59 Revival in Ulster, than in Wales, where the 
 personal influence of the evangelists was so marked. 
 The preachers in Ulster were almost reduced to mere 
 spectators ; the movement sprang from the crowd, and 
 swept the ministers in its train. They had very little 
 to do with the originating crisis ; their part was limited 
 to administering consolation to those who had "taken " 
 the revival. It was a crowd-psy chose all through, 
 and widely differed in spirituality from the Welsh 
 movement. With all its extravagances, the latter 
 
 1 A Visit to the Scenes of Revival in Ireland, Parts II & III 
 of Revivals in Ireland, by James William Massie, D.D., LL.D., 
 Secretary of the Irish Evangelical Society ; London : John Snow, 
 35 Paternoster Row, E.C., 1859, p. 80,
 
 126 Conversion 
 
 appeared profoundly religious in tone, quaint, but with 
 an almost Franciscan quaintness. The Ulster Re- 
 vival was more akin to tarantism and the " convulsion - 
 aires " of St. Medard. 
 
 In one of these circles we noticed a case of terrible 
 severity one in which visions of unspeakable horror 
 must have been pictured to the imagination of the unhappy 
 sufferer. A young woman lay extended at full length 
 her eyes closed, her hands clasped and elevated, and her 
 body curved in a spasm so violent that it appeared to rest 
 arch-like, upon her heels and the back portion of her head. 
 In that position she lay, without speech or motion, for sev- 
 eral minutes. 
 
 Suddenly she uttered a terrific scream, and tore hand- 
 fuls of hair from her uncovered head. Extending her 
 open hands in a repelling attitude of the most appalling 
 terror, she exclaimed, " Oh ! that fearful pit ! Lord Jesus 
 save me ! I am a sinner, a most unworthy sinner but, 
 O Lord, take him away, take him away ! O Christ, come 
 come quickly ! Oh, Savour of sinners, remove him from my 
 sight ! " During this paroxysm three strong men were 
 hardly able to restrain her. 1 
 
 So common were these morbid phenomena during 
 the Ulster Revival of '59, that many cases of insanity 
 resulted. Dr. Salmon quotes a sympathiser with the 
 movement as writing : 2 
 
 There is another side of the picture which I am almost 
 afraid to turn to you, but I feel that I would not be doing 
 my duty if I would keep it back. There are three or four 
 
 1 Ibid. Part I, p. 23. 
 
 2 Salmon, Evidences, etc., p. 31.
 
 Psychology of a Revival 127 
 
 persons in this locality who have not got better from their 
 conviction, and are raving maniacs as yet. I cannot look 
 upon them without shuddering. They seem to answer 
 the description of those given in the New Testament as 
 possessed of devils. This is, as I think, God's mysterious 
 work, but I cannot fathom it. 
 
 The prostrations, inhibitions, trances, and other 
 abnormal phenomena throughout the Ulster Revival 
 are almost of an exclusively morbid type. Except in 
 some American revivals, it would not be easy to find 
 such extreme manifestations. They are of great 
 interest to the alienist, and the student of morbid 
 psychology, but they are only a side issue in the study 
 of the conversion-psychose. Davenport has dealt at 
 length with such physical outcrops in his Primitive 
 Traits in Religious Revivals, and regards them as much 
 more substantial features than we are inclined to do. 
 He uses them as proofs of recrudescence of primitive 
 instincts in these psychoses. There is more than a 
 little of " medical materialism " in his system. We 
 must account for these explosions more simply, for 
 we cannot ignore their comparative absence in the 
 largest body of Christian religious experience, that of 
 Catholics. They are also rare among Anglicans. 
 During the Ulster Revival of '59, the then Established 
 Church was, on the whole, opposed to the Revival, at 
 least in its more orgiastic features. It was only in 
 certain parts of Ulster that the Revival was at all 
 general among Protestants. It left the Catholics
 
 128 Conversion 
 
 untouched, save a very doubtful sporadic case or two, 
 and what is more, did not notably affect Protestants 
 in those parts of Ireland where Catholics were in the 
 majority. Dogma, of course, was a great factor, but 
 as far as regards Calvinism, there was little to choose 
 between the Episcopalians and other Irish Protestants 
 in '59. Liturgy, and the sense of church order, were 
 the restraining forces. Neither in the Catholic, nor in 
 the Established Church was the ecclesiastical "crowd" 
 suffered to become a mob. There was a discipline 
 which repressed "singularity," and the "note" of every 
 revival,in the Protestant Evangelical sense of the word, 
 was precisely " singularity." Stress was laid on the 
 necessity of "personal religion," that is, of spiritual 
 singularity, of individualism. Singularity in matters 
 of devotion easily runs to extravagance, and has always 
 been discouraged by Catholics and by Anglicans, who 
 have a sense of corporate worship. It was felt to be 
 disorderly, from the liturgical point of view, and even 
 in private devotion, was regarded as objectionable. 
 There are few points more strongly insisted on by 
 Catholic spiritual writers than the duty of avoiding 
 singularity in one's devotions, even those which are 
 strictly private. Hence, the idea of a layman leading 
 the congregation in prayer, or interrupting a service 
 with ejaculations or extempore collects is quite un- 
 thinkable. Take this element of sporadic prayer out 
 oi the Welsh or Ulster Revival meeting, and its cha-
 
 Psychology of a Revival 129 
 
 racteristic feature is gone. During the Evan Roberts 
 Revival, De Fursac remarked that attempts to re- 
 strain spontaneous exuberance, to create more order 
 and discipline in the services, only resulted in a damp- 
 ing down of the revival spirit. 1 The repression of 
 singularity inculcated as a duty by Catholic directors 
 is, in the eyes of the revivalist, a quenching of the Spirit. 
 We find some curious examples of this "singularity" 
 in devotion in Wales. 
 
 It is described in Welsh by a variety of words, such as 
 gorfoleddu, "rejoicing" ; mwynhad, "rapture" ; and mol- 
 iannu, "praising." At its best, this "praise" would be 
 characterized by a delightful spontaneity and abandon, 
 and illuminated by a glow of spiritual insight and passion 
 that lifted it to the highest levels of that worship which 
 is spirit and truth. Sometimes it would be a soliloquy 
 addressed to the speaker's own soul, dilating on one's 
 hopes and fears, triumphs and defects, experiences and 
 prospects, solaces and aspirations. Not seldom it would 
 be a doxology of rapturous homage to the power and 
 beauty of the Redeemer. . . . Sometimes a cry of despair 
 . . Some would wail as if the pains of death had got hold 
 of them . . . The reader should remember that the popular 
 mind did not recognize that the Revival, par excellence, 
 had broken out in a place until religious emotion had reached 
 this point of ebullition in open rapture. 2 
 
 1 De Fursac, Un Mouvement Mystique Contemporain ; Paris : 
 Alcan, 1907, p. 159. 
 
 2 The '59 Revival in Wales, p. 19. Cf. Ruysbroeck : L'ornemeni 
 des Noces Spirititelles , Book II, ch. xix " Spiritual inebriation leads 
 to many unusual actions. Some, in the abundance of bliss, break 
 out into canticles and sing God's praises. Others shed tears of joy. 
 Some long to move their limbs, they cannot remain still ; they must 
 run, leap, stamp their feet, clap their hands vigorously. Others 
 show their delight by loud cries. Others, again, find all their 
 faculties seized to such an extent that they stand silent, and, as it 
 were, melting with love."
 
 Conversion 
 
 What would be very beautiful in private devotion 
 was sometimes found inconvenient in church, 
 
 It (Sion Chapel) was the religious home of the pious old 
 Sister Jane Williams, of Bryn, commonly known as " Sian 
 Seion." Many things are reported of "Sian's" sayings and 
 doings. One of them appears in the Welsh Autobiography 
 of Robyn ddu Eryri. . . Robyn states : " as I was going 
 along the street one Saturday, Mr. Preece beckoned to me, 
 and in my hearing asked Sian y Bryn if she did not feel 
 chilled walking bare-footed in that snowy weather, and 
 she replied that she did. Exacting a promise from her that 
 she would not shout (glorify) on the following day whilst 
 he was preaching, he bought her a pair of shoes. Sunday 
 morning came, and I went to Sion Chapel before Mr. Preece 
 had arrived, and took care to secure a place near Sian. 
 Mr. Preece's text was ' Behold the Lamb of God.' He 
 preached with much fervency, and Sian began to be ill at 
 at ease. Presently she stooped down and took off her 
 shoes. Then she stood up and flung the shoes at the 
 preacher, shouting, ' Thy shoes to thee, Preece ; Christ 
 for me. Glory and praise be to Him for ever and ever." 1 
 
 Another and more curious example of singularity : 
 
 Another hymn was started, and suddenly a very quaint 
 scene was witnessed. Between the big seat and the pews 
 there was a clear space, some yards across, in most chapels 
 in Wales at that time. A godly old woman, named Nell, 
 eighty years old, who had failed to attend the afternoon 
 service owing to very severe rheumatic pains in her limbs, 
 
 I Robert Humphreys, An Early Methodist Preacher in Wales, by 
 Edward Rees, J.P. ; translated from the Welsh, and edited by 
 Howel Thomas ; London ; Charles H. Kelly, 26 Paternoster Row, 
 E.G., p. 70.
 
 Psychology of a Revival 131 
 
 and had only crept painfully to the evening meeting, 
 advanced briskly across the open space and put her hand 
 on Enoch Davies, a lame and decrepit deacon of seventy- 
 two, who sat in the big seat. This was high-backed 
 and a seat ran around it outside as well as inside. As 
 if electrified by Nell's touch, Enoch stood on his feet, 
 and with one vault cleared the high obstacle between him 
 and her ; and the two soon joined by others, began to leap 
 and dance as if the days of youth had returned to them 
 . . . the subjects of these physical manifestations were 
 frequently, indeed generally, men and women of piety 
 and spiritual-mindedness ; and when they were moved in 
 this manner, they were swayed spontaneously, irresistibly, 
 and often unconsciously. In one neigbourhood a respec- 
 table middle-aged lady, the sister of an eminent Welsh 
 minister, when intensely moved by the truth in sermon 
 or prayer or hymn, would leave her pew, walk gravely 
 into the clear space in front of the big seat, and there she 
 would literally fulfil the Psalmist's injunction and "praise 
 the name of the Lord in the dance." After leaping and danc- 
 ing with rhythmical movements for a few minutes, she 
 would cease and return to her pew, not one word having 
 been uttered by her throughout the whole scene. 1 
 
 Spiritual jubilation of this extraordinary character 
 is far from unknown among Catholics, There is a 
 variety of mystical religious experience known as 
 Ebrietas seu crapula amoris, which we find in many 
 of the lives of the Saints. St. Teresa on one 
 occasion sang and danced in the excess of spiritual 
 joy But it was within the cloister, not in a public 
 church. 2 This amazing physical outpouring of spiri- 
 
 1 The '59 Revival in Wales, p. 27. 
 
 2 Minor Works of St. Teresa, London : Baker, 1913, p. 71.
 
 132 Conversion 
 
 tual exultation has so characterized certain phases of 
 mystical life, that it is recognised by Lopez Ezquerra 
 and Scaramelli as a distinct stage, though Poulain only 
 regards it as a variety of "the prayer of quiet," 1 But 
 though it is recognized as a possible effusion of the 
 Holy Spirit, all approved authors look on these 
 manifestations with deep suspicion and counsel the 
 greatest self-restraint, caution, and privacy. 
 
 " Quia hae actiones praecipites possunt interdum 
 procedere, vel a spiritu lunatico, vel ab indole, et 
 genio facili, et hilari, vel a nimia fatuitate, vel denique 
 (et hoc frequentius) ex hypocrisi, et simulatione, quae 
 aliquae falsae Beatae suae virtutis quaestum portare 
 volentes, dum superbia et avaritia tument, credi 
 appetunt divini amoris incendio crepare." And Lopez 
 Ezquerra concludes : " Ingenue fatemur, quod omnes 
 insolitas, et exteriores gesticulationes, motus, jacula- 
 tiorias, suspiria, et his similia, quibus aliqui in con- 
 spectu hominum utuntur ; praeter modestiam hilarem, 
 circumspectam gravitatem et inaffectatam devotionem, 
 immortali odio prosequimur." 2 
 
 1 Ezquerra, Lucerna Mystica, tr. 5, cap. 23 ; Scaramelli, Diret- 
 torio Mistico, tr. 3, cap. 7 and 8 ; Poulain, Les Graces d'Oraison, ch. 
 II 7 (5 me Ed.). 
 
 2 "Since these headlong acts can sometimes proceed from a dis- 
 ordered mind, or a too jovial temperament, or excessive silliness, 
 or even (and this is the more frequent case) from that hypocrisy 
 and humbug whereby certain female traffickers in piety would 
 like to be thought on fire with Divine love when they are swollen 
 with pride and avarice." And Lopez Ezquerra concludes : " We 
 candidly admit that we always abominate all unusual gestures, 
 movements, ejaculations, sighs and suchlike in public which go 
 beyond a modest, cheerful, grave, circumspect and unaffected form 
 of devotion."
 
 Psychology of a Revival 133 
 
 If the Ulster Revivalists had possessed a little of 
 the spiritual science of this Spanish priest of the seven- 
 teenth century, they would have damped down many 
 scandalous scenes. One of the most striking features 
 in all these Protestant revivals is the lack of that 
 science, " the discernment of spirits, " in nearly all the 
 ministers concerned. " No excesses of excitement, no 
 hypnosis, no diseased imaginings, provided they have 
 the cloak of religion, are too extreme to be regarded 
 by certain persons as normal and healthy." 1 
 
 " I was myself present, " says an educated clergy- 
 man," in a Presbyterian meeting house (Belfast), a* 
 a prayer offered with the most frenzied excitement and 
 gesticulations that God would, there and then, descend 
 and strike all the unconverted to the earth. That 
 prayer was accompanied throughout by a storm of 
 cries, and groans, and exclamations, and amens, atf 
 having the true hysteric sound. This was the most 
 frightful scene I have witnessed in life ; at the moment 
 of the awful command to the Almighty to come down 
 and strike, it was perfectly terrific. No such scene 
 would be permitted in any Bedlam on earth. Presence 
 at such a prayer could be redeemed from guilt only by 
 the purpose of warning. I have many terrible recollec- 
 tions of life, but this prayer is the most frightful of 
 them all. I have been used to be calm in the presence 
 of hysteria. I was calm then, but the physical effect 
 
 i Starbuck, Psych, of Relig., p. 164.
 
 134 Conversion 
 
 upon wys//wasas if I had been drinking plain brandy." 1 
 De Fursac, in his account of the Evan Roberts 
 Revival, mentions 2 another phenomenon, not however 
 confined to revivals, which presents also rather marked 
 mystical features, somewhat akin to what Poulain 
 calls "la quietude priante," 3 or even certain forms of 
 ecstasy, but distinguished from these forms of experi- 
 ence by its unconscious character. Psychologically it 
 seems a secondary state, but without the ordinary de- 
 fects of such secondary states. This is the celebrated 
 Welsh hwyl. Ordinarily the word merely signifies a 
 species of oratorical chant, but it is a psychological 
 process as well, as the illustration De Fursac gives 
 shows. 
 
 Several years ago, well before the Revival, a Welsh 
 minister was preaching on the Passion of Christ. When 
 he came to speak of the bloody sweat in the garden of 
 Olives, he entered into an excess of hwyl, rose to the chan- 
 ting tone which characterizes this state, and continued to 
 preach or rather to chant in this way for ten minutes, then 
 he regained consciousness and resumed the ordinary tone 
 of a sermon. Whe the sermon was over, he remembered 
 vaguely that the moment when he began to speak of the 
 of the sweat of blood, he felt choked, but could not recall 
 a word of what he had said during the hwyl. Those ten 
 minutes were blotted out of his life, as it were yet 
 it appears that he was never more eloquent. 
 
 1 Rev. Isaac Nelson: The Year of Delusion, Belfast i86i,p. 171. 
 
 2 De Fursac, op. cit., p. 170. 
 
 3 Poulain, Les Graces d'Oraison, chap. 14, 23 (5 me Ed.).
 
 Psychology of a Revival 135 
 
 De Fursac does not, of course, admit the last point 
 in an objective sense. He looks on the eloquence as 
 the result of the contagious character of the hwyl, 
 which affects the mentality of the hearers as a speciee 
 of hypnotism. 
 
 " A few minutes of hwyl," said a Welsh minister to me, 
 " make a stronger impression on the soul than hours of 
 preaching." 
 
 We are not bound to accept M. de Fursac's psycho- 
 logic prejudices. He admits that the hwyl is a plain- 
 tive and very impressive chant, but as he did not 
 speak Welsh he could hardly judge the intellectual and 
 moral value of the hwyl he heard. 
 
 This phenomena of the hwyl and much of the whole 
 spirit of Welsh Protestant piety, as shown in these 
 revivals, remind the Catholc student of hagiography of 
 much in the lives of the early Franciscans, even in its 
 very extravagances. There is something amazingly 
 Catholic about these Calvinists. The Ulster Revival 
 is convulsionary Jansenism, morbid and repellent, 
 but the Welsh brings us back to the days when Francis 
 of Assissi met the bandits with the cry, " I am the 
 the Herald of the Great King," when Brother Juniper 
 boiled all the fowl in the larder, feathers and all, that 
 there might be more time for the Brothers to sing 
 the praises of the Most High, when Jacopone da Todi 
 gave the world the Stabat Mater 
 
 There were two very striking non-morbid features 
 o^f the Ulster Revival of '59,
 
 136 Conversion 
 
 I was told by the Rev. Mr. Park, of Ballymoney, on 
 authority which he considered reliable and decisive, that 
 in the district of Excise, of which Coleraine ig the centre, 
 comprehending a radius of perhaps ten or twelve miles 
 by no means densely peopled, the falling off in the duty 
 paid on spirits for the month was no less than 400 sterling, l 
 
 Many cases might be reported in which the persons 
 convinced of sin, and professing to have found peace with 
 God, have not only given up their drinking habits, but 
 although their desire for strong drink has hitherto over- 
 powered every resolution for improvement, since their 
 conversion they have no appetite for the insidious draught. 
 They are not only saved from the consequences of their 
 sin, but the desire to commit it has also been taken away. 
 That is one peculiar phase of this movement worth re- 
 cording as a fact in Christian ethics. 2 
 These conversions to physical sobriety we have 
 heard were lasting in many cases. The other feature 
 is no less striking, the decline in the party spirit during 
 
 the revival. 
 
 I was in the town and vicinity of Belfast on the i2th 
 of July. Never since the distinction of political partisan- 
 ship stigmatized different classes of the community, was so 
 little personal rancour exhibited ; never was the spirit of 
 persecution so allayed. 
 
 On the I2th of July, not so much as an offensive coloured 
 ribbon was displayed throughout the length and breadth 
 of Durham Street, nor, indeed, in any other locality in 
 Ulster in which the people had become seriously impressed. 3 
 
 1 Revivals in Ireland, Parts II. and III. p. 37. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 40. 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 62.
 
 Psychology of a Revival 137 
 
 The Chief Baron Pigott referred to this general 
 cessation of party feeling as a result of the revival in 
 a charge at the Down Assizes. 1 
 
 From these two effects we may form some idea of 
 the energy of the conversion-psychose and its wide- 
 spread character in Ulster. 
 
 The statistics tabulated and plotted by Starbuck 
 have led him to regard the conversion-psychose as 
 normally a phenomenon of adolescence and puberty ; 
 it is not so however hi these revival cases, where 
 subjects of all ages are converted. The coincidence 
 of religious development with physical changes like 
 puberty, is, of course, to be expected when stress is 
 laid on the emotional characteristics in religious 
 experience. Analogous nerve disturbances have been 
 observed in Catholic children at the time of First 
 Communion, before the late Pope had lowered the age. 
 The type of preparation usual in France was very 
 emotional and contributed much to the large crop 
 of cases of psychasthenia, whose originating scruples 
 can be traced back to the preparation for First Com- 
 munion. 2 But we must not take effects for causes. 
 
 Nor can we, with Freud, give undue weight to the 
 sex-instinct in the conversion-psychose. It has its 
 role in our spiritual life, as was well known to the 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 91. 
 
 2 Eymieu, Le gouvernement de soi-mtme : L'obsession et le scruple ; 
 Pfrrin, 1913, p. 130.
 
 138 Conversion 
 
 Fathers of the Desert. For the physically normal per- 
 son the sex-instinct forms perhaps the greatest centre 
 of instability in his whole psychic field. But it is 
 philosophically absurd and morally disgusting to try 
 to reduce all other psychic elements of an abnormal 
 character into terms of our bestiality. Sex-obsession 
 is even worse than sex -agnosticism in the spiritual life. 
 You have one or the other when the rules of a sane 
 asceticism are ignored. A little of that lore which the 
 Catholic Church has inherited and cultivated, that 
 codified spiritual experience of twenty centuries, 
 would have saved these Revivals from many painful 
 scandals. We may snub the devil and cut the world, 
 but the flesh is always with us. " But I chastise my 
 body, and bring it into subjection ; lest, perhaps, 
 when I have preached to others, I myself should become 
 a cast-away " (i Cor. ix. 27).
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 INTEGRAL CONVERSION 
 
 MOST, if not all, of the conversions we have been 
 studying presuppose in the converted the existence of 
 religious faith as a psychic element. The system of 
 missions or retreats based on the Spiritual Exercises 
 takes the creeds of the Church as the starting-point, 
 to be developed and applied by meditation to the re- 
 form of life. The revivalist usually limits his dogma- 
 tic presuppositions, yet, although he regards religious 
 faith asfiducia and not as fides, he takes as his fulcrum 
 an idea of Sin and Redemption, both credal elements. 
 The Revivalist and the Jesuit may differ as to what 
 must be believed, but both assume beliefs of some 
 sort as necessary prolegomena to their different re- 
 ligious exercises. The conversions they effect are 
 rather the development and practical application of 
 existing speculative beliefs than the formation of a 
 new system of faith. The Catholic whom the mission 
 brings from sin to regularity of life and religious 
 practice may possibly be much better instructed in
 
 140 Conversion 
 
 the Catholic faith than he was before, but he has not 
 acquired a new faith, he only knows more about it 
 and practises it better. The revival convert may have 
 gained religious fervour and perhaps some views, he 
 may be led to study his Bible and become a member 
 of some Church, but his essential dogmatic outlook 
 remains much the same. The change in the religious 
 field of consciousness in all these cases is rather a re- 
 arrangment of existing psychic elements and their 
 reinforcement, than the formation of new constituents. 
 Hence there is a very great difference between these 
 ordinary cases of conversion, whatever be their vio- 
 lence or eccentricity, and those where there is a passage 
 from infidelity to Christianity or from Protestantism 
 to Catholicity. Here the change involved is much 
 more than a mere shaking of the psychic kaleidoscope, 
 the new pattern has new elements in it. 
 
 De Fursac in his account of the Evan Roberts' 
 Revival, 1 admits the conversion of certain atheists, but 
 he seems to regard them as poseurs and notoriety- 
 hunters. He is not at all disposed to admit the possi- 
 bility of the conversion of a genuine agnostic, nor is 
 it easy to see how he could admit it consistently with 
 his system. Faith implies an adhesion to the un- 
 knowable, a stepping beyond the frontiers of conscious 
 knowledge by the will, and that with a certitude 
 
 I De Fursac, Un Mouvetnent Mystique Contemporain, Paris, p. 77
 
 Integral Conversion 141 
 
 exceeding knowledge in the firmness of its adhesion. 
 "For he that cometh to God, must believe that He is, 
 and is a rewarder to them that seek Him " (Hebrews 
 xi. 6). A man must himself accept the first article of 
 the Christian creed before he can acknowledge the 
 possibility of a real conversion of a genuine agnostic, 
 otherwise he must deny or explain it away as a sub- 
 jective delusion or a conscious fraud. Either course 
 is fairly easy and plausible, if you are allowed to beg 
 the question and brush aside inconvenient testimony 
 We propose to confine our study of the psychic 
 mechanism involved in an act of faith and its genesis 
 to Catholic religious experience, as we find there the 
 best marked psychologic types. It is fides not fiducia 
 we are examining, and Protestant religious experience 
 is too fluctuating in its dogmatic content to furnish 
 suitable material. It would be difficult to include 
 Oxford, Hereford, Cardiff, and Belfast in the same 
 diocese. The reaction of the Protestant consciousness 
 to dogma is varied, not merely by subjective conditions, 
 which we are studying, but by credal variations, which 
 are outside the field of our inquiry. By taking a 
 uniform creed we can get rid of this source of varia- 
 tion and so, to some extent, simplify matters. We are 
 studying faith as a fact of consciousness, its ultimate 
 nature and origin belong to the sphere of theology, not 
 psychology, We will merely take beliefs as psychic 
 facts and examine how they affect and are affected by
 
 142 Conversion 
 
 the various elements which, with them, make up the 
 field of consciousness. 
 
 Psychologically, belief is second-hand knowledge. 
 There are many things which we hold to be true of 
 which we have no direct experience giving immediate 
 knowledge or inference from experience constituting 
 scientific knowledge. We know them because someone 
 else who knows has told us. We accept them as truths 
 on trust. If we analysed the whole content of our 
 knowledge we would find an act of faith at the bottom 
 of the vast bulk of it. How much of what we know 
 of geography have we ever personally verified ; for 
 us it will remain faith, from school-desk to grave. 
 Between this natural and normal exercise of faith and 
 religious faith, there is no difference as far as both 
 are assents on another's authority. Even where the 
 truth propounded seems improbable, if the authority 
 is considered competent and reliable, assent follows. 
 If A knows that B is a truthful and capable man of 
 science, he will be willing to accept, on B's authority, 
 any statement, however extraordinary, which B as- 
 sures him he has personally verified. The only case 
 where this natural faith would fail is when the truth 
 enunciated by B seems to A to involve a contradic- 
 tion with some known truth. But if B assures A 
 that the contradiction is only apparent, not real, and 
 due to A's lack of scientific training, A will still be 
 able to believe, but with a difference. He cannot
 
 Integral Conversion 143 
 
 accommodate the new proposition to his existent 
 field of consciousness, he can accept it in itself by for- 
 getting, that is ignoring, what contradicts it. It 
 becomes a mystery. Before he can heartily accept it, 
 the rough edges must be removed, and he must be 
 shown how to fit it in with the other elements of con- 
 sciousness. He must be shown some larger synthesis 
 which can comprise the discordant ideas, although his 
 mind may be unable to understand how. The con- 
 flict between his personal idea and B's theorem will 
 cease when B assures him that the seeming contradic- 
 tion can be reconciled in a second truth which includes 
 both and from which both proceed. Although A may 
 not understand how this can be, yet if he has full 
 confidence in B's knowledge he can reconcile his con- 
 sciousness to the presence of what he would otherwise 
 regard as a contradiction. We are supposing of course, 
 that A has some docility and is not set on maintaining 
 his own opinions against competent authority. He will 
 bear the seeming contradiction with facility in pro- 
 portion to jiis docility, for he will refer its elements 
 confidently to the higher synthesis, and this confident 
 reference will lessen their mutual psychic pressure and 
 friction. 
 
 Being thus enabled to keep both members of the 
 seeming contradiction in his field of consciousness, A 
 is enabled to make practical use of them, and thus the 
 new truth received from B can be readily utilized. If
 
 144 Conversion 
 
 A could not tolerate it by reference to the higher 
 synthesis, he would be driven by the force of his pre- 
 existent ideas to exclude it from consciousness, or did 
 he desire to utilize it, it would be against the grain. 
 You cannot live a contradiction. Again, if by any 
 chance A should lose confidence in B's knowledge, 
 veracity, or goodwill, the whole new structure would 
 collapse, for the grounds on which he accepted the dis- 
 cordant idea would disappear, the will to believe 
 would cease. But while the will to believe remained, 
 was A's conduct in any way unreasonable ? Would it 
 have been reasonable for him to match his wits against 
 his teacher and say, " Because I cannot reconcile what 
 you tell me with what I know already, it must be 
 false ? " 
 
 If, for the human teacher in this natural act of 
 faith, we substitute a Divine Teacher, teaching men 
 directly, the reasonableness of belief is not only as- 
 sured but perfected, for where can doubt come in as 
 to knowledge, veracity, and good-will on the side of the 
 teacher ? Yet, even here, the assent remains a volun- 
 tary act on the side of the person taught, for the truth 
 propounded by the teacher need not be evident in 
 itself, or as a conclusion from certain knowledge. The 
 doctrine cannot command assent intrinsically, it can 
 only exact assent by the moral force of authority. 
 But who can doubt that such knowledge would exceed 
 in certainty any mere human science ?
 
 Integral Conversion 145 
 
 Where such Divine teaching comes to man, not 
 directly but through human agency, we can surely 
 give, with every reasonableness, the same complete 
 assent, if we are but sure that the human agency is 
 duly recognised, commissioned, and commanded to 
 teach in the Name and by the authority of the Divine 
 Master. Where the Master's veracity is unquestion- 
 able and His power unquestioned, such a commission, 
 once authenticated, is a guarantee that whatsoever is 
 taught by those He sent "to teach all nations" is His 
 teaching. " He that heareth you, heareth Me ; and 
 he that dispiseth you, despiseth Me. And he that 
 despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me" 
 (Luke x. 16). "He that receiveth you, receiveth Me ; 
 and he that receiveth Me, receiveth Him that sent 
 Me " (Matthew x. 40). 
 
 Once we recognize and acknowledge within ourselves 
 that the Catholic Church is the duly commissioned 
 human agency through which the Divine Teacher in- 
 structs us, we can reasonably give as cordial an assent 
 to its teaching as we would give to the Word of God 
 Himself speaking directly to our consciousness. An 
 ambassador may fail to deliver an earthly monarch's 
 message with accuracy, and we may reasonably doubt 
 at times the King's meaning, but the " Creator of all 
 things visible and invisible " is Lord of the very roots 
 of being, and His Minister Plenipotentiary cannot 
 fail to say what it is the Master's Will that he should 
 
 say, no more and no less. 
 
 10
 
 146 Conversion 
 
 We are not here concerned to discuss how the 
 Catholic verifies the credentials of the Church, that 
 belongs to the domain of apologetics, not of psycho- 
 logy. We assume that these credentials are verifiable 
 and verified, as the case may be. Our task will be 
 to examine the various resultant assents with their 
 corollaries as part of the given of consciousness and see 
 how they interact with the rest of the field, how they 
 come into being as psychic elements or pass out of 
 consciousness, how religious faith comes and goes. 
 
 Our field of consciousness has, as we have seen, a 
 certain visual unity. All our thoughts, images, 
 volitions, passions, sensations tend to group themselves 
 round some one centre of interest in each particular 
 state of consciousness that we examine. That 
 centre of interest forms the focus of our spontaneous 
 attention, should it shift there is a change more or 
 less marked in the whole field. The devout parish- 
 ioner who is carefully following the Mass in his missal . 
 brings into his field of mental view the various 
 liturgical ideas which cluster round the Mass, 
 the prayers and ceremonies, the chant and music 
 it may also be. His field, in the main, is a liturgical 
 complex, with all its multiplex doctrinal and devotional 
 associations. The precise focus of his attention will 
 shift as the action progresses, and so will the general 
 field, but its general character will remain the same 
 and it will take its colour and tone from the centre
 
 Integral Ccnversicn 147 
 
 of interest, the liturgy. Now, let some vivid dis- 
 traction intrude, some vexatious reminiscences which 
 start a train of worldly thoughts. If the original 
 centre of attention holds firm, if the interest in the 
 liturgy is sustained, the distractions may worry for 
 a while near that centre, but are gradually edged off 
 until they pass out of the field of view. But should 
 they succeed not only in attracting but in holding 
 our interest, then the liturgical elements drop out of 
 consciousness, and the tone of the whole field becomes 
 s-ecular, the distraction has become complete. For 
 the time being the religious field of consciousness has 
 passed out of view and a secular field has replaced it. 
 By an effort of conative attention we may divert the 
 focus of our mind from the distraction and bring it back 
 to that point of the Mass which is in progress, thus 
 shifting back the field, but such an effort must needs 
 be strenuous when the distracting thoughts are of 
 much interest to us and have been allowed free play. 
 Our sense of the duty of attentive prayer may help 
 us to recover our mental place, just as any vivid 
 emotion roused by the secular train of ideas may 
 hopelessly obstruct us. The power to distract, the 
 power to excite a devotion which is apparent in con- 
 sciousness, is, psychologically speaking, the power 
 to excite spontaneous interest. That which holds 
 our spontaneous interest determines for the nonce 
 the centre of our field of consciousness and its general
 
 148 Conversion 
 
 tone. Now, interest is not the same as delectation, 
 for a vivid interest may well be very painful, so this 
 determination of the field of interest is not the same 
 as the victorious delectation of the Jansenist. More- 
 over, it only determines the spontaneous attention, 
 conative attention can largely shape and alter the 
 resultant field. Still this attraction and especially 
 in the nascent state, is such a power in consciousness 
 that it is a commonplace of ascetical experience that 
 distractions, unless promptly expelled, tend to oust 
 prayer from consciousness altogether. So effectively 
 troublesome are they that St. Teresa considered 
 that to acquire the habit of recollection in prayer 
 "one must not grow tired of persevering in trying, 
 gradually to obtain the mastery over oneself. This 
 self-denial will profit any nun by making her senses 
 serve her soul. . . For the love of God, Sisters, 
 reckon your time well spent in acquiring this habit. 
 I know that, with his help, if you practise it for a 
 year, or perhaps for only six months, you will gain 
 it." 1 Recollection, in St. Teresa's sense, is the power 
 to pray, not without distractions, but without being 
 liable to be overcome by distractions. It is the 
 acquirement of a conative attention so energetic that 
 the religious field is kept intact and consistent amid 
 all possible disturbances. If her nuns needed a year, 
 or at least six months, of spiritual exercise to gain 
 
 1 St. Teresa, Way of Perfection, chap. xxix. 6.
 
 Integral Conversion 149 
 
 this power of self -concentration, how psychically 
 energetic the distraction must be as compared with 
 prayer ! But who that has prayed has not experiened 
 this? 
 
 We have seen how potent is the new idea springing 
 into consciousness. It is a change, and we are cur- 
 iously avid of change. The idea effects a lodgement 
 before we are well aware of its nature, and our spon- 
 taneous attention is hooked before the automatic 
 attention of mere curiosity has had time to die down 
 Once we are interested our whole field tends to shift 
 so as to leave the new notion in the focus. If it is 
 incompatible with a religious frame of mind there is 
 conflict and possible rout. " No man can serve 
 two masters," no one can rest in God with an admiring 
 eye on the world. One interest must oust the other. 
 
 How was it, psychologically, that a distraction 
 or temptation is able to break up a religious field of 
 consciousness with such facility ? To answer this 
 question we must examine more closely the structure 
 of the religious field and see wherein it differs from 
 the secular field of consciousness. We have seen 
 how the dynamism of the nascent idea can disturb the 
 centres of instability in the normal consciousness J 
 we will find both factors of change strengthened in 
 the specifically religious consciousness. Besides those 
 psychic elements which constitute the normal field, 
 we have all those others which come into the cate-
 
 150 Conversion 
 
 gory of faith and its adjuncts. Between the latter 
 and the former there are many sources of friction, 
 conflicts between our passions and our religious 
 obligations, between our scientific theories and the 
 articles of the Creed, between our vicious propensities 
 and our spiritual aspirations. We have a row with 
 our parish priest and get doubts as to the infallibility 
 of the Church. All through our mental make-up 
 there are points of conflict. It goes against our grain 
 to fast, to confess our sins to some priest who does 
 not share our political veiws or whose conversation we do 
 not relish. Countless are the possible points of fric- 
 tion, all tending to form possible centres of instability. 
 The more worldly and external are our lives, the more 
 extroverted are our proper selves, the more are these 
 centres multiplied. The miracle is, not that the worldly 
 Catholic loses the faith, but that he does not. 
 
 Within the specifically religious, as distinct from the 
 general field of consciousness, there are many possi- 
 bilities of centres of instability. We will take the 
 religious field as actualized in some prayer or medi- 
 tation, so as to consider it apart from the general 
 field which it interpenetrates more or less. In any 
 well-developed religious exercise we get a concentra- 
 tion of the given of faith in consciousness, we get the 
 centre of attention, spontaneous or conative, fixed 
 on some faith-element of consciousness seen in its 
 appropriate setting.
 
 Integral Conversion 151 
 
 The first point to remark is the extraordinary 
 potential richness and variety in this specifically 
 religious field. The central point of attention may 
 be only one fact of faith, but for the Catholic no one 
 fact of faith is ever solitary, it is linked up with every 
 dogma and sends out fibres into every pious practice. 
 The Catholic faith is a psychic bloc, it has no water- 
 tight compartments or autonomous tracts. Our atten- 
 tion may shift from one fact of faith to another and 
 our conscious field vary accordingly, but we see in 
 the measure of our knowledge that each element is 
 part of one great whole. Our field becomes as it 
 were the surface of a sphere where each point, each 
 outline is related to a centre beyond our vision, yet 
 towards which our vision is ever tending and striving. 
 
 This variety in unity and unity in variety of the 
 given of faith in the Catholic consciousness appear in 
 every expression of the Catholic faith which we find in 
 Creeds, in liturgy, in ascetics, in the Summa of Aquinas, 
 in a High Mass, in The Imitation of Christ, in a Gothic 
 cathedral, and in the Divina Commedia. The faith 
 is one, not merely in the original deposit, but in all the 
 developments which the Catholic mind has drawn 
 from the facts of faith since Apostolic times. There 
 has been an ever-increasing richness hi the content 
 of the Catholic consciousness and an ever-growing 
 sense of unity of mind as the inter-relation 
 of each deduction and application of dogma is per-
 
 152 Conversion 
 
 ccived. What is heresy but some alleged deduction 
 from the facts of faith which the Catholic consciousness 
 cannot assimilate and unite with its content ? There 
 is some irreducible antagonism with the given of 
 faith or its corollaries ; the collective Catholic 
 consciousness expels the novelty, and the individual 
 must do likewise. He may not see how the new idea 
 conflicts with his existent field, but sooner or later 
 it will worry it to pieces. Heresy begins in an apolo- 
 getic and ends in a cataclysm. A Catholic desires 
 to meet the objections of modern agnostics, he makes 
 play with a doctrine of immanence and, before he 
 knows it, he has not left one article of the Creed un- 
 shaken. Terrible is the unity of the faith in the' 
 Catholic consciousness, at once so strong and so 
 fragile, no force can crush it, one doubt can shatter it. 
 This linkage of the faith-elements in consciousness 
 which constitutes their psychologic unity, whether 
 perceived or not, is one great source of those centres 
 of instability in the psychic mass ; the other is found 
 in the antagonism between the natural temperament 
 and the exigencies of faith, the passions and the duties 
 of religion. If our dispositions to pride, to avarice, 
 to lust, to hatred, envy, and sloth come in conflict 
 with those duties which our faith enjoins and enacts, 
 we have a state of conscious stress set up. Our 
 lower self may prevail, and by prevailing grow dominant. 
 The man to whom grave sin has become a habit, may
 
 Integral Conversion 153 
 
 yet retain his faith, but its force in his consciousness, 
 its energy in shaping his life, grow less and less. 
 If he continues it sinks into the oblivion of the deeper 
 memory and he becomes, for all practical purposes, 
 as a man without faith. Yet it is there, and may 
 be recalled by some such process as we studied in the 
 conversion-psychose. But suppose, before this sinner's 
 faith drops into practical, oblivion, some doubt as to 
 its validity is suggested to his mind stressed to psychic 
 disintegration by his passions, we have all the con- 
 ditions present for a violent perversion-psychose 
 Passion is doubt's most terrible ally. Although 
 this source of faith-failure is perhaps the more abun- 
 dant, weakness is the linkages in more important 
 from the point of view of our study, since the passion 
 perversion-psychose depends for its crisis on a shat- 
 tered linkage. 
 
 The points where the psychic elements of faith 
 interlock are not all in the same psychic plane. We 
 have, as it were, on the surface of our sphere of faith 
 those facts of faith which belong to the deposit with 
 all those moral, liturgical, devotional, and sacra- 
 mental concomitants which are psychologically allied 
 to them and accompany them into that special field 
 which is formed when any of these facts of faith are 
 focussed by our attention, spontaneous or cona- 
 tive. Behind this surface of the sphere lies the whole 
 region of theological and ascetical deduction and
 
 154 Conversion 
 
 inference, with their developments. It is in this 
 region that we find the wider synthesis which enables 
 us to mentally connect the seemingly disparate ele- 
 ments on the surface of our sphere. Here we resolve 
 the doubts which might wreck the surface linkage, 
 and see the reasonableness of the apparently irra- 
 tional. Again, from the conclusions of theology we 
 direct and govern external action, and from the prin- 
 ciples which that science abstracts from the facts 
 of faith, we get a clearer and more vivid knowledge 
 of these facts. Credo ut intelligam. If we fail to 
 accommodate the conclusions of theology with the 
 facts of faith, we have at once a centre of instability 
 formed. If we adhere to our conclusions we must 
 reject or modify the fact, unless we can refer both 
 fact and conclusion to a still higher synthesis. If this 
 reference cannot be made and we still adhere to our 
 inference, we are forced to choose between the facts 
 of faith which we accept and those which we reject. 
 Should we make this choice, we are heretics (alqean; = 
 choice). We have rent the seamless garment of the 
 given of faith. 
 
 If we take any historic heresy we will find the heresi- 
 arch started as a Catholic of exceptional orthodoxy. 
 Some aspects in the facts of faith impressed him vividly 
 and he drew from them some too absolute conclusion. 
 He formulated and preached this in season and out 
 of season, until some one pointed out that his doctrine
 
 Integral Conversion 155 
 
 was in conflict with some other fact of faith. Put 
 to the choice the heresiarch adheres to his view and 
 challenges the opposing fact of faith. His opponents 
 denounce his doctrine as heresy, and if it is not wholly 
 irreconcilable reduce the peccant formula to one 
 which retains the truth and does not conflict with 
 other facts of youth. Thus does a new definition 
 come into being and faith is developed by the correc- 
 tion of heresy. 
 
 So, too, is the given of faith developed by the dis- 
 cussions in the schools of theology, and conclusions 
 from the facts of faith connected and inter-related. 
 In everyday meditation the same process takes place 
 consciously or unconsciously, and the Catholic mind 
 tries to understand more and more the facts of faith 
 and apply them to daily life. The analytical factor 
 in our consciousness selects certain aspects from the 
 concrete given of faith and collates these aspects 
 with the content, religious and secular, of conscious- 
 ness. We analyse and compare these abstract views 
 and refer our results to the original facts of 
 faith or to others. Our abstractions may conflict 
 with our secular knowledge, we must correct one or 
 the other, or seek a higher unifying synthesis. If we 
 fail we have a centre of instability formed. A phy- 
 sical theory may raise doubts as to the nature of the 
 Eucharist, a system of metaphysics may destroy the 
 whole creed. Thus at every period of abstraction
 
 156 Conversion 
 
 at every stage of psychic depth we have possibilities 
 of a failure of some linkage, of the creation of some 
 centre of instability. 
 
 Philosophical analysis may readily render unaccep- 
 table what was acceptable in the concrete form by 
 releasing some aspect in consciousness incompatible 
 with existing knowledge. The study of theology 
 has its dangers as well as its consolations. How many 
 students of theology have had their simple faith 
 wrecked by a view of certain aspects of dogma for 
 which they were not yet intellectually equipped ? 
 A simple error in values, a failure to grasp the answer 
 to a difficulty, and you have both centre of insta- 
 bility and nascent idea. The objection comes as a 
 surprise and as an irritant, and well take hold before 
 the victim has received sufficient instruction to cope 
 with it effectively. And what may happen in autho- 
 rized study, may more readily come to pass in the 
 course of desultory reading. The medical or arts 
 student is still less equipped to deal with an objec- 
 tion a shade beyond his fighting weight, and the 
 man in the street is quite helpless. 
 
 What tends to destroy faith in the Catholic forms 
 an obstacle to its entrance into the non-Catholic 
 consciousness. The unbeliever may be vehemently 
 attracted by certain aspects of the faith, by its moral 
 grandeur and beauty, by its influence on the lives 
 of those who profess it, by its overflow in liturgy
 
 Integral Conversion 157 
 
 and art, by its consistency and uniformity. He may 
 be even drawn by a sense of personal want, of incom- 
 pleteness, of a desired ideal beyond his personal 
 capacity, and he may feel that the Catholic Church 
 can give him what he lacks, that "faith will make him 
 whole." Yet he cannot equate the doctrines of the 
 Church with his scientific prejudices ; he has the will- 
 to-believe, yet he cannot. Though faith is so 
 morally desirable, yet its reception would lead to 
 the collapse of his scientific cosmos. From the 
 facts of experience he has abstracted a system of 
 determinism, physical and psychic, which leaves no 
 room for the miraculous or supernatural. A miracle 
 is an irritating phenomenon which he cannot explain. 
 Could he witnes one he would deny the evidence of 
 his senses, rather than admit that his fixed idea was 
 too absolute, his generalization too sweepingly dog- 
 matic. We see this attitude of mind again and again 
 at Lourdes. The philosophical system beats back 
 the facts of experience from consciousness and for- 
 bids them to effect a lodgment. 1 Some are in bad 
 faith, "le miracle est le coup de glas des passions 
 terrestres," as Huysmans puts it ; others are simply 
 fenced by the triple brass of determinism. Behind all 
 their minds is the tacit rejection of the first article of 
 the Nicene Creed. They substitute determinism for 
 the idea of a Creator. " He who would come to God 
 must first believe that He is.'' 
 
 1 Cf. Lts Foules de Lourdes of J. K. Huysmans.
 
 158 Conversion 
 
 The essential reasonableness of any act of Catholic 
 faith rests on the fundamental acknowledgment of 
 a Divine Teacher whose authentic message is duly 
 conveyed and interpreted by His authorized agents 
 duly commissioned and certified by Him. " He that 
 heareth you, heareth Me." Without that basic primal 
 assent no act of faith in the Catholic sense is possible. 
 We may cling with the utmost obstinacy to any 
 article of the creed we will, it will be only a view at 
 best, if we do not hold it on the authority of God 
 Himself. 
 
 If we reject one jot or tittle of the Teacher's message, 
 our belief in what is left becomes but a view, for we 
 arrogate to ourselves the right to pick and choose 
 among the things He teaches. It is all or nothing. 
 If we challenge the agent, we challenge the Principal. 
 '* He that despiseth you, despiseth Me." One act 
 of infidelity changes the whole orientation of the 
 religious consciousness, faith becomes opinion. 1 
 
 But, given this basis, how can we account psycholo- 
 gically for the fragility of faith, for the difficulty of 
 belief, for the facility with which it goes, the reluc- 
 tance with which it comes ? If there is the will, nay, 
 the desire to believe, if habits of vice present no 
 obstacles, if there is a moral docility, how can we, 
 as students of psychology, account for the Non Serviam 
 of the intellect in so many cases ? Assent on competent 
 
 1 Sttmma Theologica, D. Thomae Aquinatis, Ha, TIae, Q. 5 a. 3.
 
 Integral Conversion 159 
 
 authority to what is beyond our mental grasp is so 
 eminently reasonable, that the "I cannot believe" 
 of the man of good-will is an act of unreason. Yet 
 there are many agnostics of blameless life and char- 
 acter, who are drawn to Catholicism in many ways, 
 who realize in themselves a craving for what is be- 
 yond themselves, who feel that the Church holds 
 the keys of eternal life, the reconciliation of the storm - 
 tossed human consciousness with itself and its Centre, 
 that peace which was promised on that first Christmas 
 night to men of good-will, who see in the lives of the 
 saints, perhaps in some friend, the pragmatic authen- 
 tication of the Church's mission, integral Catholicism 
 in human life with its dreadful moral beauty, its 
 triumphant challenge to all that men esteem and covet 
 in the things of time, who see the might of Faith in 
 history creating those supermen and superwomen whom 
 Catholics call saints, taming and civilizing the fiercest 
 barbarians and hammering them into mighty nations, 
 giving to art and letters a beauty undreamt of in Athens, 
 and linking the whole human race in one vast family, 
 who yet see and feel all this, but cannot believe. They 
 will even admit that they ought to believe if they could 
 How comes this psychic inability ? Belief is reason- 
 able and desirable, why is it witheld ? They will 
 answer, " I have not faith." There is some ingredient 
 lacking, some force which can condense the nebula of 
 opinion into the habitable world of faith. Their asseru
 
 160 Conversion 
 
 to the basic sine qua non of Catholic faith is a notional 
 assent, genuine enough, but abstract, a philosophical 
 attitude, a morally passive pose before the undeniable. 
 It is not a real assent, actuating and energizing the whole 
 consciousness, forming in the very centre of mental life 
 that higher synthesis to which all seeming contradictions 
 can be referred and in which they can be reconciled. 
 No mere reasoned assent can do this effectively, for 
 no stream can rise above its source. The affirmations 
 of reason cannot escape the challenge of reason. To 
 get this basic assent we must pass above reason ; to 
 make our rational assent universally operative it needs 
 an adjutant psychic element, something not ours, but 
 given to us. " Quis ostendit nobis bona ? Signatum 
 est super nos lumen vultus tui Domine " (Psalm iv. 
 
 6,7). 
 
 We can thus see the necessity for the terms itali- 
 cized in the following theological definition : " Fidei 
 actus est assensus supernaturalis quo intellectus, sub 
 imperio voluntatis et influxu gratiae, firmiter adhaeret 
 veritatibus revelatis propter auctoritatem Dei reve- 
 lantis" 1 
 
 Omit these terms and we have still an act of faith, 
 but of natural human faith, la foi scientifiqut, as Pere 
 
 1 Brevior Synopsis Theol. Dogtn. auct. Ad. Tanquerey. 1913, p. 
 135. "An act of Faith is a supernatural assent by which th 
 intellect by command of the will and under the influence of Grace 
 firmly adheres to revealed truths on the authority of God revealing 
 them."
 
 Integral Conversion 161 
 
 A. Gardeil terms it. x Between this natural faith and 
 the faith specified in the definition there is a great theo- 
 logical gulf fixed. But is there a psychological differ- 
 ence, can we distinguish by the introspection of our 
 "consciousness during any act of faith between these 
 two kinds of faith, can we detect the adjuvant psychic 
 element or note its absence ? The agnostic of good will 
 is sure it is absent in his case, and the believer is con- 
 fident of its presence. With both it is an inference, 
 not a direct psychic perception. The one cannot 
 elicit an assent, the other feels that his assent trans- 
 cends his natural powers hi its absolute sense of certi- 
 tude and indefectibility. From the act or its absence 
 they infer the presence or absence of the habit or 
 proximate principle of action. 2 A man knows he 
 has faith when he believes. But can he tell, otherwise 
 than by inference, that his act of faith is supernatural, 
 sub influxu gratiae ? St. Thomas answers our question 
 both as theologian and psychologist. Speaking of 
 the conjectural knowledge of grace, he adds : "Secun- 
 dum quern modum potest intelligi quod habetur 
 Apocal. 2 : Vincenti dabo manna absconditum quod 
 nemo novit, nisi qui accipit ; quia scilicet ille, qui 
 accipit gratiam per quamdam experientiam dulcedinis 
 novit, quam non experitur ille, qui non accipit. Ista 
 
 1 R. P. A. Gardiel, La credibility et I'Apologttique. Paris : 
 Lecoffre, 1912, p. 38. 
 
 2 Summa Tkeologica. D. Thomae, I, Q. 87 a. 2 ad primum t 
 corpus articuli. 
 
 II
 
 162 Conversion 
 
 tamen cognitio imperfecta est : unde Apostolus dicit 
 i, ad Cor. 4 : Nihil mihi conscius sum, sed non in hoc 
 justificatus sum : quia ut dieitur in Ps. 18 : Delicta 
 quis intelligit ? ab occultis," 1 etc. 
 
 The inference we would desire to draw from this 
 statement, which, of course, in the main refers to 
 charity, not faith, is that the influx of grace may well 
 cause such a psychic overflow, may have such a marked 
 repercussion in our consciousness as to give a quasi- 
 intuition of what is essentially beyond the range of our 
 mental vision. In any intense act of supernatural 
 faith we get something more than a mere mental assent 
 to some truth, however firm, we get a quasi-intuition 
 of the truth itself. Our consciousness, as it were, 
 stretches out beyond its borders into the super-con- 
 scious, and we get a real though dim and confused 
 glimpse of the Beyond. Here is the borderland between 
 the ordinary way in the spiritual life of Catholics and 
 the paths of mystical experience. The more intense the 
 act of faith the more experimentally evident becomes 
 the psychic adjuvant and the more marked the dis- 
 tinction from any act of merely human confidence; 
 
 i Summa la. Ilae. Q. 1 12, a. 5 c. " In this manner may be under- 
 stood what we find in Apocalypse c. 2 : TO him that overcometh I will 
 give the hidden manna which no man knoweth but he that receiveth it ; 
 namely that he who receives grace is aware of it through a certain ex- 
 perience of sweetness which he who has not received it lacks. That 
 knowledge however is imperfect ; hence the Apostle says in I Cor. 4 : 
 For I am not conscious to myself of anything, yet am I not hereby 
 justified : since as is said in Ps. 18 : Who ran understand sins ? 
 From my secret ones, etc."
 
 Integral Conversion 163 
 
 the feebler it becomes the less is it differentiated, and 
 perfunctory formalism is psychologically indistingush- 
 able. No one can read the writings of St. John of 
 the Cross, of St. Teresa, of Blessed Angela of Foligno 
 or any other descriptive mystic without seeing that 
 for them faith is something more than a mere intel- 
 lectual assent to revealed truth, it has something of 
 the nature of vision, " in a glass darkly," but vision all 
 the same. It is the seed which fell upon the good soil, 
 ripe for the harvest. 
 
 It is not easy to reduce the act of faith of the devout 
 Irish Catholic in the Real Presence to the limits of a 
 mere firm assent to a truth learned in the penny Cate- 
 chism. It contains in it something of a dim vision of 
 Transcendant Reality and rises, at tunes, to be a sixth 
 and spiritual sense. 
 
 The girl of whom we have spoken, rose early every 
 morning to hear Mass and receive Holy Communion. On 
 one occasion she rose and dressed at the usual hour, but, 
 either because she did not feel well, or because she did not 
 consider it prudent to leave the little patient alone, she 
 did not go the chapel, but remained in the kitchen of the 
 cottage. When she returned to Nellie, she was astonished 
 to hear her say : " You did not get Holy God to-day ; 
 I'll tell Mudder on you." The girl thought that perhaps 
 the child had heard her moving about in the kitchen. 
 Accordingly, next time an idea occurred to her to test little 
 Nellie. She went to the door of the Cottage, opened the 
 latch, and closed the door again, thus giving the impress- 
 ion, as she thought, that she had really gone to Mass.
 
 1 64 Conversion 
 
 She then removed her boots, and during Mass time moved 
 about as little as possible in the kitchen. She looked quite 
 unconcerned when she returned to Nellie's room. The 
 child, however, fixed her pensive eyes on the girl's counte- 
 nance, and then the same reproving words were spoken 
 sadly ; " You did not get Holy God to-day." " How do 
 you know, lovey," said the girl, "didn't you hear me close 
 the door ?" "No matter," said the child, "I know you didn't 
 get Holy God." 1 
 
 The Venerable Anne de Jesus, St. Teresa's companion 
 and lieutenant, visiting one day a parish church, 
 insisted that the Blessed Sacrament was not reserved. 
 The parish priest declared it was, but on her continued 
 protest, he opened the Tabernacle, and then discovered 
 that owing to his neglect, the Sacred Species had 
 become corrupted. 
 
 We have given these two cases of abnormal recog- 
 nition of external reality to show that in certain 
 extraordinary cases, the act of faith is transcendant 
 as well as immanent, it has the element of vision. The 
 faith of the Carmelite nun, of the little sick child," 
 went out in its fullness to an external Reality, but it 
 could not find this Reality. This class of experience, 
 of course, belongs to the mystical order, but it is, never- 
 theless, an experience of faith. These abnormal cases 
 enable us to see in quasi-isolation certain psychic 
 elements latent in the ordinary processes, and thus 
 
 1 Little Nellie of Holy God : Story of the Life of a saintly Irish 
 Child, by a Priest of the Diocese of Cork. Cork : Guy & Co., 
 , P- 23.
 
 Integral Conversion 165 
 
 have a certain value for the psychologist. In normal 
 psychology, these limit cases are usually morbid, and 
 Ribot justifies their consideration. "La maladie 
 est en effet une experimentation de 1'ordre le plus 
 subtil, instutuee par la nature elle me'me dans des 
 circonstances bien determinees et avec des precedes 
 dont 1'art humain ne dispose pas : elle atteint Tin- 
 accessible." 1 In religious psychology we find a similarly 
 useful class of cases in the records of mystical experi- 
 ence. There we find the act of faith at its extreme 
 intensity, and can see, as it were, the reflection in 
 consciousness of other psychic elements than those 
 normally attainable by introspection. 
 
 This dim quasi-intuition in an intense act of faith 
 seems to point to the existence of a psychic region 
 normally beyond consciousness, yet, in certain privi- 
 leged cases, dimly penetrable by consciousness. This 
 is the ground or depth of Tauler, the apex mentis of 
 Blosius, the fine point de I' esprit of St. Frances de Sales, 
 the intelligentia of Blessed Albertus Magnus the names 
 vary for this ultra-violet region of mental vision. 
 St. Paul would seem to refer to it in i Thessalonians 
 (v. 23) and Hebrews (iv. 12), where the distinction 
 of nvevf-ia, yvp) and aatjua is rather psycho- 
 logical than ontological. Body, soul and spirit are 
 aspects of the whole man rather than physical con- 
 
 1 Quoted in De la Vaissiere, Elements de Psych. Exp., p. 27- 
 See also James, Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 22.
 
 1 66 Conversion 
 
 stituents. The division of soul and spirit is a well- 
 known mystical experience in the prayer of quiet. 1 
 
 If we posit, then, the existence in this supra-con- 
 scious region of a metanoetic element, constituting part 
 of the given of faith, and forming in itself that higher 
 synthesis to which all seeming contradictions in the 
 facts of faith can be referred, and in which they can 
 all be reconciled, we have an adequate cause, given, 
 of course, the will-to-believe, for that absolute unity 
 and consistency of belief, for that unalterable firmness 
 of adhesion, for that sense of indefectible certitude, 
 which are the psychological notes of Catholic faith. 
 As psychologists, we claim to infer its existence from 
 the facts of experience, from the normal phenomena of 
 Catholic spiritual life, and from the more recondite ex- 
 perience recorded by great descriptive mystics like 
 St. Teresa. We are but doing in psychology what 
 Adams and Leverrier did in astronomy, infer the nature 
 and position of the invisible from the perturbations 
 observed in the visible. 
 
 We are not here considering the possible reinforce- 
 ment of the will-to-believe by some higher principle as 
 it does not affect the psychological character of the 
 ac! of faith. The supernaturalization of the voluntary 
 factor in faith is, of course, of the first importance 
 from the point of view of the theologian, the influx 
 of grace affecting the whole act, as it is the product 
 
 * Ct St. Teresa, Interior Castle ,IV, chap. i. 8, etc,
 
 Integral Conversion 167 
 
 ef intelligence and will, but it does not concern the 
 psychologist to any such extent. " Cum autem fides 
 sit perfectio intellectus, illud per sc ad fidem perthiet, 
 quod pertinet ad intellectum ; quod autem pertinet 
 ad voluntatem, non per se pertinet ad fidem ; ita 
 quod per hoc fidei habitus possi diversificari ; dis- 
 tinctio autem fidei formatae, et informis est secundum 
 id, quod pertinet ad voluntatem, idest secundum chari- 
 tatem, non autem secundum illud, quod pertinent ad 
 intellectum ; unde fides formata, et informis non sunt 
 diversi habitus/' 1 Thus, in the actus fidei informis, 
 we must look for its specific character, as we have 
 done, on the intellectual rather than on the voluntary 
 side, otherwise it is very difficult to see any psycho- 
 logical distinction between an act of Catholic faith, 
 and an act of purely natural or " scientific" faith. In 
 the actus fidei formatae, the supernaturalization of the 
 will-to-believe by charity may have some interest for 
 the psychologist studying certain mystical experiences ; 
 but we must remember, charity is ever more hidden 
 than faith. "Omnia haec tractavi hi corde meo, ut 
 curiose intelligerem ; sunt justi atque sapientes et 
 
 1 Summa Theologica, D. Thomae, Ila, Ilae, Q. 4 a. 4 c. ad finem. 
 
 " Since faith is a perfection of the understanding, that of itself 
 pertains to faith which pertains to understanding, but what per- 
 tains to the will does not of itself pertain to faith so that by it the 
 habit of faith could become a different habit : but the distinction 
 of formed and formless faith lies in what pertains to will, namely 
 charity, and not in that which pertains to understanding : hence 
 formed and formless faith are not different habits."
 
 1 68 Conversion 
 
 opera eorum in manu Dei : et tamen nescit homo 
 utrum amore an odio dignus sit " (Ecclesiastes ix. i). 1 
 
 We can see in the classic instance of Theodore 
 Jouffroy that the will-to-believe cannot save the 
 psychic sphere of faith from total collapse. We have 
 his own account of the crisis of his perversion-psychose : 
 
 I will never forget that December night when the veil 
 was rent which concealed my unbelief from my own self. 
 I can still hear my steps in that small unfurnished room 
 when, long after bedtime, I used to walk up and down ; I 
 can still see that moon shining through the clouds on to 
 its floor. The night hours passed unnoticed by me ; I 
 was anxiously pursuing the train of thought which passed 
 from level to level to the very depths of my consciousness, 
 clearing away, one after another, the illusions which hid 
 it from me until that moment, making all its details clearer 
 at every instant. Vainly I clung to those last beliefs 
 as to a plank in shipwreck ; vainly, in terror at the un- 
 known void beneath, I flung myself for the last time with 
 them on my childhood, my family, the place where I 
 was born and bred, on all that was holy and dear to me ; 
 the current of thought was too strong to be diverted ; 
 I had to abandon all, parents, family, memories, beliefs ; 
 the search proceeded with greater obstinacy and 
 severity as it approached the goal and ceased only when 
 it reached it. ... I was an unbeliever, but I hated un- 
 belief ; it that which decided the bent of my life 
 Unable to endure doubt on the riddle of human destiny, 
 
 1 "All these things have I considered in my heart, that I might 
 carefully understand them. There are just men and wise men, 
 and their works are in the hands of God ; and yet man knoweth 
 not whether he be worthy of love or hatred."
 
 Integral Conversion 169 
 
 having no longer the light of faith to solve it, only the 
 lights of reason were left for the problem. 1 
 
 We see here a crisis, sudden, overwhelming, total, 
 yet with the will-to-believe persisting in a measure 
 after doubt had made a total wreck of the mass of 
 interlocked assents which formed the psychic sphere 
 of faith. A will-to-believe in general as in this case, 
 is not necessarily a will-to-believe in each particular 
 instance, were it so of course the doubt might be 
 repelled and faith remain intact. The case is instruc- 
 tive as showing that where the general will-to-believe 
 is not applied to all, where it fails in but one, there 
 collapse of the whole is possible. But the destructive 
 act, that which nips off the tail of the Rupert's drop, 
 is an act of the intellect ; "dissentire autem, qui est 
 proprius actus infidelitatis, est actus intellectus, sed 
 moti a voluntate, sicut et assentire." 2 
 
 We have now to trace out, as far as we are able, 
 the general outlines of the psychic process involved in 
 a conversion to the Catholic faith. We can only take 
 the very broadest outlines, for the cases present such 
 a vast variety of types, that it is impossible to regard 
 any one as the type. We have every shade of view, 
 from agnosticism to ultra-Anglicanism, as the intel- 
 
 1 Jouffroy, Nouveaux Melanges Philosophiques, p. 114, quoted 
 in article on Jouffroy in the Diet, des Sciences Philosophiqites, 
 Hachette, 1885, p. 828. 
 
 2 Summa, Ha. Ilae, Q. 10 a. 2 c. " but dissent, which is the 
 proper act of unbelief, is an act of the understanding, but moved, 
 by the will, as is assent."
 
 170 Conversion 
 
 lectual terminus a quo, we have every mode, from the 
 slow tentative steps of a Newman to the conversion 
 " on the road to Damascus " of Alphonsus Ratisbonne 
 and Mother Digby ; we have all sorts and conditions 
 of men, from hardened sinner to blameless respecta- 
 bility. 
 
 We are not concerned here with conversions in- 
 volving a moral rather than a doctrinal change, as 
 we have already dealt with the psychological aspects 
 of such transformations. The ''road to Damascus" 
 type of conversion to the Catholic faith, as exemplified 
 in the conversion of Pre Ratisbonne, or Mother 
 Digby, or the case related by Huysmans in Les 
 Fouks fa Lourdes, where an infidel was not only 
 cured, but converted in the same moment, exhibits 
 such manifest abnormalities as to baffle any psycho- 
 logical explanation which respects the integral fact. 
 De Fursac, who would equate such conversions to the 
 Evan Roberts' Revival type, dismisses the Ratisbonne 
 case in a footnote : " Alphonse Ratisbonne, a Jew, 
 converted to Catholicism in a manner absolutely in- 
 stantaneous (in appearance at least) in the Church of 
 St. Andre* delle Fratte at Rome. The conversion was 
 accompanied by a visual hallucination. There is an 
 account of this event in the little book of the Baron 
 Bussierre ; The Child of Mary One Brother more It 
 has been reproduced by M. Frank Abauzit in his 
 translation of W. James' book." The weak point in
 
 Integral Conversion 171 
 
 this psychologic assimilation is not so much the denial 
 of the miraculous, or its reduction to hallucination, 
 that is an a priori necessity of thought for the agnostic, 
 but the equation of the result of the crisis, the creation 
 of the psychic sphere of Catholic faith, a new 
 mentality, a new intellectuality, with merely personal 
 moral changes, however great and impressive, which 
 do not involve a new intellectual attitude to God and 
 His Church. Unless we are prepared to regard the 
 Catholic faith as a permanent hallucination, a form of 
 chronic mental disease, we cannot bring its sudden 
 genesis as a complete and enduring psychic factor in 
 every circumstance of life within the categories of 
 agnostic psychology. We may reform our morals by 
 well-directed efforts ; we may modify our views by 
 study within limits ; but we cannot take a new global 
 attitude towards integral truth our assent cannot be 
 coerced. If we conclude that a dogma is contrary to 
 our reason, how can we possibly accept it gladly save 
 in the light of a reason higher than our own, in which 
 we can implicitly trust ? If this attitude of absolute 
 confidence comes suddenly, against the grain of all 
 past experience comes with crushing force, sweeping 
 into oblivion past convictions to the contrary we 
 must either recognize it as the finger of God, or take 
 refuge in pure medical materialism. 
 
 The more gradual forms of conversion will suit our 
 purpose as psychologists better than these rare ancl
 
 172 Conversion 
 
 extraordinary types ; yet, their study is not free from 
 difficulties. The material at our disposal, biography, 
 letters and diaries, narratives of spiritual experience, 
 though most ample, often fails to give us those psycho- 
 logical details which we require. Narratives are often 
 written long after the events take place, and allowance 
 has to be made for the present prepossessions of the 
 writers when reviewing their own past. Very few 
 have St. Teresa's clarity of internal vision and power 
 of expressing the finer shades of psychic experience. 
 Most of the documents available need to be examined 
 and classified from the standpoint of psychology, and 
 there is an immense field here, practically untilled, 
 for students of positive psychology. Spiritual bio- 
 graphy, on its ascetical side, has been well dealt with, 
 but very little has been done, apart from mystical 
 theology, to study the operations of the human soul 
 as revealed in Catholic spiritual narratives. The posi- 
 tive study of the conversion-psychose among non- 
 Catholics is much ahead of the positive psychology of 
 Catholic conversions, as has been well pointed out 
 by Pere Mainage in his Introduction a la Psychologic des 
 Convertis. 1 
 
 We have two processes in these gradual conversions, 
 the putting off of the old man by the break-up of the 
 old convictions, and the putting on of the new by the 
 
 1 Paris : Lecoffre, 1913, p. 7. In his subsequent volumes, La 
 Psychologie de la Conversion and Le Tdmoignage des Apostats, Pere 
 Mainage has done much to supply this deficiency. Pere Huby's 
 La Conversion may also be consulted with profit.
 
 Integral Conversion 173 
 
 formation of the new psychic sphere of faith. There 
 is a disintegration and reintegration of the field of 
 consciousness, but there is a new element in the re- 
 formed field. The break-up may come from some 
 nascent idea, some intellectual difficulty which finds 
 an appropriate centre of instability. Rette's agnosti- 
 cism was first disturbed by his being asked by some 
 Socialist comrades : " You see, citizen, we know there 
 is no good God ; that's understood. Since the world 
 has not been created, we want to know how every- 
 thing began. Science must know all about it, and we 
 want you to tell us clearly what it says we are to think 
 about the matter." 1 He confesses he had no answer 
 ready for the workmen, and was honest enough to 
 own up. His inability set him thinking, and started 
 the process of religious conversion. The Gorham 
 judgment, the Jerusalem bishopric, Kikuyu, have done 
 so for others. A doubt, when incarnated in some con- 
 crete practical question, becomes the dynamic nascent 
 idea par excellence. A merely speculative question 
 can be logically turned and absorbed, but the inquisi- 
 tive fact not being a mere mental product, must be 
 either met or relegated to the oblivion of deep memory. 
 So long as it keeps near the surface of consciousness, 
 it is a disintegrant. If it effects a break-up, more or 
 less, of the religious or irreligious field, the elements 
 will strive to rearrange themselves. Now, in cases of 
 
 1 Adolphe Rett6, Du Diable d Dieu. Paris : Messein, 1912. p. 10
 
 174 Conversion 
 
 conversion to the Catholic Faith, this rearrangement 
 presents certain characteristics. The elements will 
 try to group themselves in various manners tentat- 
 ively, yet with a certain felt orientation. Rette 
 thus analyses his state of soul, following on the ques- 
 tion he could not answer : 
 
 I was more than a hundred leagues from any thought 
 of religion the day before : indeed, it was part of my day's 
 work to furbish up arms against the Church. But from 
 the moment the idea of God was thrust upon me, it never 
 left me. Quietly, with irresistible gentleness, it penetrated 
 and soaked me little by little. It was as if a spring gushed 
 up in the subsoil of a desert, flooding every layer and but 
 slowly coming to the surface into the sun. 
 
 I felt my soul, as it were, split in two ; all the forces 
 of reason and will strove to react against this invasion of 
 my soul by some unknown feeling whose persistence upset 
 me. Often I felt vexed. At other times I was seized 
 with a sort of panic, for I feared I was the victim of some 
 morbid obsession which was symptomatic of mental break- 
 down. 
 
 But that did not last : I was soon obliged to recognize 
 that, far from growing weak, my mind had never been so 
 clear in analysing those phenomena of which the mind was 
 the theatre. As to the worry and vexation caused by the 
 movements of grace, they soon vanished in the divine 
 light which progressively illuminated every corner of my 
 being. x 
 
 Rette* traces the progress of this work, until there is 
 
 1 Rett6, Notes sur la Psychologic de la Conversion. Action 
 Catholique, Bruxelles (Science et Foi, No. 21), p. 18.
 
 Integral Conversion 175 
 
 a toted wreck of his old philosophical position, and he 
 is forced back on God. Then the process of recon- 
 struction begins, the building up of the Catholic 
 faith against the assaults of the ideas overthrown 
 in the destructive period of the crisis, aided by all 
 the passions which the nascent faith would restrain. 
 He has to learn what the Church teaches, and put 
 in practice what it enjoins against all his old habits 
 of mind. In that battle, which was far fiercer than 
 the former : 
 
 We feel in a manner very clear but undefinable, that 
 God watches within us, and having begun our transforma- 
 tion He will not abandon us in the heat of our conflict 
 with the Prince of Darkness. So we feel the seed of re- 
 demption growing which His Infinite Mercy has sown in 
 our soul. At length we make this discovery : every time 
 we stand firm against our passions, every time we 
 answer the Devil with this affirmation drawn from our 
 inmost being, " I believe and I cannot disbelieve, " we are 
 rewarded with fresh energy to resist the worst assaults, 
 and by a feeling of love for God which floods us with joy 
 and light which leads us to prayer. 1 
 This conflict continues with various incidents until 
 the faith is fully formed, and put in practice. The 
 work of reconstruction in Rette's case was not easy 
 he was almost driven to suicide by temptations to 
 despair. But throughout he had the consciousness 
 of free choice. 
 
 During every phase one keeps one's free will, and one 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 22.
 
 176 Conversion 
 
 never ceases to feel clearly that it is a question of choosing 
 between error on the decline but still vigorous and growing 
 truth. 
 
 That is, I think, what proves the inanity of determinism. 
 If we accept it the stronger natural motive will always 
 prevail and every man will obey it. This motive, in the 
 case of the convert, is that which is imposed by his life, 
 spent in following materialist doctrines, and as a man 
 soaked in sensuality. Yet, on the contrary, under the 
 influence of a force acting against all the ordinary laws 
 of psychology, he enters on a path of ransom and reparation 
 which neither his inveterate habits nor his immediate 
 interest pointed out. 1 
 
 In the case of J.K. Huysmans, for the Durtal of 
 En Route is evidently the author himself, the process 
 of destruction and edification was less dramatized 
 in consciousness, the vital change came imperceptibly. 
 
 I had heard of a sudden and violent upset of the soul, 
 of the thunder-bolt, or of Faith finally blowing up forti- 
 fications which had been slowly and carefully undermined 
 It is very clear that conversions can follow one or other 
 of these ways, for God does as He wills. But there should 
 be a third way, no doubt the more common, which the 
 Saviour followed in my case. And that consisted in I 
 know not what, something like digestion, which we do 
 not feel. There is no road to Damascus, no events preci- 
 pitating a crisis ; nothing happens, and you awake some 
 fine morning to a fact without knowing the how or the why 
 Yes, this operation on the whole is like the mine which 
 explodes only after being deeply dug out. Well, no, for 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 32
 
 Integral Conversion 177 
 
 in that case the work is felt ; the objections which blocked 
 the way are cleared off, I would have been able to reason 
 the matter out, to follow the course of the spark along the 
 train of powder, it was not so with me. I blew up suddenly 
 without foreseeing it, without suspecting that I had been 
 so skilfully mined. Nor was it a thunder-bolt,unless I ack- 
 nowledge some thunderbolt which is secret and silent, 
 queer and gentle. And this would also be false, for a 
 sudden upset of the soul comes almost always as a sequel 
 to misfortune or crime, to something one knows. The only 
 thing which seems certain is, that hi my case there was a 
 divine initiative, grace. . . . 
 
 As Pere Mainage sums it up : 
 
 We will see that the consciousness of the convert exhibits 
 a strange dualism : one would think it was at the mercy 
 of a force at once external and immanent. And this fore* 
 is neither brutal nor unintelligent. It aots as if proceeding 
 from a skilful teacher, thoroughly acquainted with its 
 psychological and moral field of action. To such an extent 
 is this, that conversions can be reduced to a certain type 
 of phenomena, to a case of education, with this curious 
 difference, that the educator does not skow himself. And 
 who, then, is this mysterious teacher ? A comparison of 
 experience with the given of Catholic doctrine will reveal 
 His Name : God Himself present in the consciousness 
 of the convert. 1 
 
 Hallucination of the sub-conscious ? The objection 
 might hold for those who only look at the dramatic 
 
 1 Th. Mainage, O.P. : Introduction 4 la Psychelogie des Cvn- 
 vertis. Paris : Lecoffre, 1913, p. 122. This thesis is developed 
 with much wealth of illustration by Pere Mainage in La Psychologic 
 de lz Conversion. Paris, Beauchesne, 1915 
 
 12
 
 178 Conversion 
 
 expression of this inner experience in the narratives 
 of converts. To convey an idea we must use some 
 image, a coarse streak of chalk stands for the physi- 
 cally inexpressible Euclidean line. The more abstract 
 our ideas, the more remote from mere concrete sen- 
 sible reality, the more symbolic, the less actual is 
 their representation in speech. As St. Thomas puts 
 it : " Sacra Scriptura non proponit nobis divina sub 
 figuris sensibilibus ut intellectus noster ibi maneat 
 sed ut ab his ad invisibilia ascendat : unde etiam per 
 vilium rerum figuris tradit, ut minor praebeatur in 
 talibus occasio remanendi." 1 The possibility of hallu- 
 cination in any dramatization of our states of con- 
 sciousness is not ignored by Catholic spiritual writers ; 
 the reader will find in Chapter xxix of The Ascent 
 of Carmel, of St. John of the Cross, some very appro- 
 priate criticisms of indiscreet credulity. Our imagin- 
 ations may play the fool when we try to represent an 
 experience, but we have other tests for the experience 
 itself. How is it lived ? Is that sense of unity in 
 totality, of indefectible certitude hallucinatory ? If 
 so, the Catholic Church is one vast mad-house, 
 for the convert's faith new formed is but the faith of 
 
 1 D. Tkomae Aquinatis, Opusc xxxiv. In Boetium De Trin., 
 Q. 6 a. 2 ad I. "Holy Writ does not set Divine truth before us in 
 images of sensible things that our minds might rest on them, but 
 rather rise from them to things invisible ; it is conveyed to us 
 even in unworthy figures that we might have less excuse for dwell- 
 ing on them,"
 
 Integral Conversion 179 
 
 all. His sense of a Divine teacher is but the drama- 
 tization, as it were, of that gift of the higher synthesis 
 that new metanoetic element in consciousness, whereby 
 all his difficulties are solved. The psychic nebula 
 of his consciousness has found its nucleus, the new 
 centre of his psychic cosmos. "Terra autem erat 
 inanis et vacua, et tenebrae erant super faciem abyssi : 
 et Spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas. Dixitque 
 Deus : Fiat lux. Et facta est lux." (Genesis i, 2, 3).
 
 PART II 
 INTROVERSION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE AND QUIETISM 
 
 THOSE types of religious experience called mystical 
 have attracted the attention of agnostic psychologists 
 almost to the same extent as the phenomena dis- 
 played in the conversion-psychose. In America the 
 latter secures the lion's share of interest, but in Europe, 
 particularly in France, mystical phenomena invite 
 more curiosity. Science is very jealous of the extra- 
 ordinary . In the good old early Victorian days the 
 marv llous could be brushed aside as futile and irrele- 
 vant, the miraculous was discredited, and Hell dis- 
 missed with costs. But as the world grew older and 
 mechanism failed to solve the riddle of the universe, 
 Science, with a capital S, dropped her easy negations 
 and sought to annex the marvellous by explaining 
 it. The hypothesis of the sub-conscious was invented
 
 Introversion 
 
 and the mystic was catalogued and cross-indexed. 
 One of the beauties of the new method was that it 
 enabled the agnostic to attack religion politely ; 
 to reduce its mysteries to psychic phenomena, essen- 
 tially akin to the morbid, yet differentiated from 
 disease by lofty moral sentiment and practical results, 
 and by this reduction to at once praise a St. Teresa 
 and hint at her resemblance to a neurotic patient. 
 This change of attitude towards the mystical reveals 
 an uneasy conscience. The earlier negations came 
 from a more self-reliant generation ; but the grand- 
 children of Podsnap seem to have lost his capacity 
 for brushing aside unwelcome facts. They seem 
 attracted, but puzzled and repelled by the marvellous; 
 they cannot believe, they won't deny, so they try to 
 explain. 
 
 What precisely are we to understand by the term 
 " mystical," as applied to religious experience ? The 
 word itself has received many definitions; 1 varying 
 according to the systems of philosophy and religious 
 belief professed by their framers. To some all relig- 
 ious experience is mystical, and to others only some 
 sort of intuition of the Divinity itself, something mani- 
 festly and patently supernatural. The first sense is 
 
 1 The curious in this matter may consult, with adrantage, Pacheu 
 Introduction d la Psycholoii dts Mystiques (Paris : Ondin, 1901). 
 W. K. Fleming, Mysticism in Christianity (London : Scott, 1913) 
 pp. 3 et seq. ; Dean Inge, Christian Mysticism, Appendix A.
 
 Mystical Experience and Quietism 183 
 
 far too wide, since it would cover our whole field 
 of investigation, the second too narrow, as it would 
 exclude a very large group of phenomena recognised 
 by competent authorities as genuinely mystical. 1 
 We must find a sense more comprehensive, yet 
 sufficiently defined to enable us to discriminate 
 between the various derivatives of the Spiritual 
 Exercises of St. Ignatius, such as Rodriguez's Christian 
 Perfection, and what is described in the sermons of 
 Tauler and the works of St. Teresa and St. John of 
 the Cross. The most ordinary reader can see that 
 there is a great psychic difference between these two 
 classes of spiritual phenomena. How can we distin- 
 guish one from the other, not as theologians or direc- 
 tors, but simply as psychologists ? 
 
 Now, psychologically speaking, religious experience 
 is concerned with the Beyond ; it is the effort of the 
 human soul to reach out to God, to unite with Him 
 as its last end, to seek to know and to love Him, 
 and in that knowledge and love to be made one with 
 Him. This is not merely a fact of Revelation for 
 the Catholic, but is a clamant need, felt dimly and 
 persistently in the soul itself. " Thou awakest us to 
 delight in Thy praise ; for Thou madest us for Thyself, 
 and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee." 2 
 The soul of man is goaded on to the quest of the 
 
 1 The Dark Night of St. John of the Cross, for example. 
 
 2 St. Augustine, Conftssions, Book i. chap. i.
 
 184 Introversion 
 
 Absolute by an ever growing sense of incompleteness, 
 of want. At times he deems himself self-sufficient 
 and the Vision of the Grail fades until the scourge of 
 God, coming in the shape of disease or calamity, 
 breaks his self-conceit and drives him forth again 
 to seek a sufficiency beyond himself. Religion, as 
 distinct from superstition, is grounded on our sense 
 of need, is based on humility. In religion the soul 
 seeks the Beyond of knowledge, the Ultimate of love, 
 the All That is beyond its grasp. In the course of 
 this quest it attains to much that is beyond its capacity 
 of knowing and loving, it touches the Beyond of 'con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 This Beyond of consciousness may be reached 
 either as a something to be mentally considered and 
 discussed, a reality beyond ourselves yet related to 
 ourselves, a something mentally without, about which 
 we can frame propositions and to which we can direct 
 affections, with which we can enter into relations ; 
 or as a reality without, yet within, our consciousness. 
 We may be aware of God's existence as a philoso- 
 phical conclusion or an article of faith ; it may -be for 
 us a notion more or less vivid in consciousness, more 
 or less firmly held, more or less influential in shaping 
 our resolutions and dominating our morals ; or we 
 may have that sense of God, that instinct of Divine 
 Reality, that " presence of God felt" to use Pere 
 Poulain's phrase, which makes the facts of faith more
 
 Mystical Experience and Quietism 185 
 
 real than those of sense and gives to belief some of 
 the dynamic qualities of vision. God may be known 
 and loved through the medium of images, notions, 
 concepts, through all that goes to make up the normal 
 field of religious consciousness, or he may be known 
 and loved, in addition, by some direct psychic process, 
 sine intermedia, as the older mystics put it, by a direct 
 psychic realisation of the Divine. It is religious 
 experience of this type, a quasi-intuition of the Divine, 
 which we propose to consider as " mystical " for the 
 purposes of this study. The sense of experimental 
 realisation forms the characteristic which distin- 
 guishes, for our purposes, mystical religious experience 
 from what is commonly called ordinary religious 
 experience. Between the two there is not merely a 
 difference in intensity, but in quality, and this differ- 
 ence is a psychological one, something felt in con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 This experimental sense of the Divine in conscious- 
 ness is, of necessity, denied as a psychic fact by the 
 agnostic psychologist. His system cannot admit it, 
 and as it is no longer good form to treat the narratives 
 of mystics, like St. Teresa, as a compost of hallucin- 
 ations, he takes these documents as accurate relations 
 of -subjective states falsely interpreted and proceeds 
 to reconstruct them. Those lower psychic features 
 of the psychose which the mystic attributes to the 
 overflow of Divine action, become for James or Dela-
 
 1 86 Introversion 
 
 croix the central features from which the sense of 
 the Divine is an interpretative outcrop. To the 
 mystic the sense of the Divine is the most real feature 
 of the whole psychose, although it may not be the 
 most vivid. As it is a strictly personal experience 
 he cannot demonstrate its reality to any critic who 
 may deem it an illusion. Nor has the critic any test 
 by which he can convince himself of the mystic's 
 veracity, save by the mystic's life. States of illusion, 
 as a rule, do not conduce to useful and sustained effort, 
 still less to such great reforming energy as was dis- 
 played by St. Teresa. But although the lives of the 
 saints are sufficient to refute those who would assimi- 
 late sanctity with a morbid psychose, yet they cannot 
 prove Divine action to those in whose philosophical 
 system God has no place. " He who comes to God 
 must first believe that He is." Natural genius, the 
 sub-conscious and a slight stretching of fact, suffice 
 to explain St. Teresa to the modern world, which 
 takes every religion seriously except the Catholic. 
 The man in whose field of consciousness God is the 
 most attenuated psychic element can hardly be 
 expected to understand those whose consciousness 
 is soaked with God. 1 Those who admit the psychic 
 
 1 For the criticism of the agnostic view of mystical experience 
 the reader may consult with profit, Pacheu, L' Experience Mystique 
 et I'Activite Subconsciente (Paris : Perrin, 1911) ; and for a general 
 criticism of agnosticism and religious experience, Michelet, Dieu 
 et I'Agnosticisme Contemporain (Paris : Lecoffre, 1909).
 
 Mystical Experience and Quietism 187 
 
 reality of this experimental sense of the Divine may 
 be divided roughly Into three groups. A large number 
 of spiritual writers, while acknowledging the reality 
 of mystical experience in the lires of the Saints, 
 contend that mystical experience is something utterly 
 extraordinary, a " gratia gratis data," something mira- 
 culous in character, quite outside the scope of ordinary 
 spirituality, a Divine favour to which it would be 
 most rash and presumptuous to pretend, which it 
 would be dangerous to desire. 1 '' Not only are we 
 unable to properly describe this prayer of teach it 
 to others, but no one should seek to rise to it, if God 
 Himself does not raise him \ otherwise it would be a 
 species of pride and presumption meriting the loss 
 of the grace of ordinary prayer and complete aridity." 
 Rodriguez goes rather far in his censure, as it would 
 include authors like St. John of the Cross, as Pere de 
 Besse points out. 2 Rodriguez's immense influence 
 has caused this view to be rery widespread. He was 
 of course, an ardent propagandist of the method of 
 the Spiritual Exercises, and so looked askance on less 
 discursive types of prayer. The extravagances of the 
 Illuminati and the Quietists helped much to make 
 this practically anti-mystical view the dominant 
 opinion even to this day. 
 
 1 Rodriguez, Christian Perfection, " On Prayw," chap. iy. 
 
 2 Cf. Ludovic de Bessc, La Science de la, Priirt ; Paris : Oudin, 
 1904. P- 92-
 
 1 88 Introversion 
 
 At the opposite pole to Rodriguez are those who 
 hold that the enjoyment of mystical experience merely 
 depends on a suitable ascetical regime. A man 
 becomes a contemplative by removing the obstacles 
 which hide the Divine within him. What was for 
 Rodriguez a revelation, a something given and inspired, 
 is for these Quietists of every shade a revelation, a 
 something revealed and unwrapped. The Divine was 
 latent in consciousness. 
 
 The third group takes the via media between these 
 extremes. It will not look on mystical experience as 
 miraculous, save in exceptional cases ; it regards 
 mystical experience as legitimately desirable and 
 human co-operation necessary to attain to it. But 
 it also regards mystical experience as something given 
 by God to whom He wills and when He wills, as some- 
 thing beyond our grasp unless very specially aided, 
 and it rejects merely negative methods in the mystical 
 ascesis. 
 
 The anti-mystical views of Rodriguez have no 
 interest for us as psychologists, and although wide- 
 spread, owing to the vast numbers whose spiritual 
 education had his Christian Perfection for text-book, 
 few spiritual writers of to-day, at all conversant with 
 the subject of mystical experience, accept them un- 
 reservedly. Pere de Maumigny 1 is a possible exception 
 and his rigorism has been vigorously criticised by the 
 
 1 Pratique de I'Oraison Mentale ; Paris : Beauchesne, 1909.
 
 Mystical Experience and Quietism 189 
 
 Chanoine Saudreau. 1 Poulain, in Chapter xxv of his 
 Graces d'Oraison, 2 partly breaks with Rodriguez's 
 exclusivism, although his view of the nature of gen- 
 uinely mystical prayer has possibly some points in 
 common with that of the author of Christian Perfec- 
 tion. We will leave the group of anti-mystics out 
 of our survey, as we are merely examining the matter 
 as psychologists, and confine our attention to those 
 two groups who look on these experiences as fairly 
 common and to some extent reducible to rule. 
 
 The chief difference between the second and third 
 groups, between all that may be roughly classed as 
 Quietists and all the varieties of approved mystics, 
 is the part played in mystical experience by ascetical 
 effort in a broad sense of that term. Can we raise our- 
 selves to mystical contemplation, or is there something 
 in it specially " given" ? Can we find God within by 
 merely removing obstacles, or must it be that He re- 
 veals Himself in some special mode ? All admit that 
 we must remove obstacles, and there is a very curious 
 agreement on this point between not alone Christian 
 mystics of every shade of view, but between all mys- 
 tics, Christian and non-Christian. There is such 
 kinship between the methods employed by Buddhist 
 and Sufi, by Neo-Platonist and Christian, that writers 
 
 1 Les Faits extraordinaires de la Vie Spirituelle ; Paris : Vic 
 et Araat, 1908, chap. v. 
 
 2 Les Graces d'Oraison : Paris : Retaux, 1906 ($th Ed.).
 
 Introversion 
 
 like Vaughan 1 have inferred from them the funda- 
 mental similarity of all mystical experience. A writer 
 of very different temper, the Pere Mare*chal, has 
 shown 2 this similarity in method, with many interest- 
 ing examples drawn from mystics of every age and 
 creed. If mystical experience were the automatic 
 result of the removal of psychic obstacles there would 
 be no essential difference between Plotinus and St. 
 John of the Cross. On the negative side there is an 
 extraordinary parallelism. 
 
 All are practically agreed as to the necessity of a 
 thorough moral ascesis. The would-be mystic must 
 get his outer man in thorough control; his passions must 
 be subdued, and his instincts disciplined. Any 
 lack in this will entail at least failure, and possibly 
 grave danger, during later stages, when the emptying 
 of the field of consciousness is attempted. Then the 
 higher centres of control being withdrawn, there is 
 a very real danger of mischievous automatism in the 
 unmortified lower centres. To this we may attribute 
 much of the scandalous aberrations among the Be"g- 
 hards, the Illuminati, the Fraticelli, and others, 
 who have attempted the psychic ascesis before their 
 bodies had been sufficiently mortified. Apart from 
 this possibility of somatic anarchy, unruly passions 
 and untrained instincts are utterly destructive of 
 
 1 Hours with the Mysties. 
 
 2 "Sur quelques traits distinctifs de la mystique chr^tienne " 
 (ia the Revue de Philosophic, Sept. -Oct., 1912, pp. 450 et seq.).
 
 Mystical Experience and Quietism 191 
 
 that psychic calm which is an essential pre-requisite 
 of any real psychic kenosis. Any irritation, any 
 persistent temptation will keep the psychic elements 
 of the field of consciousness in a state of acute activity 
 and defy all efforts of the will to induce quiet among 
 them. Before the conscious field can be reduced 
 the nascent idea must be excluded and its source cut 
 off. That is the work to be accomplished by suitable 
 mortification, by ascetical practices pushed further 
 than is needed for the active moral life. The mystic 
 must acquire not merely the moral force to overcome 
 temptation, but the strength not to be mentally 
 disturbed by it. Is it at all surprising then that the 
 ascetical regime adopted by mystics in every age is 
 of a severity quite appalling to those whose moral 
 ideal is a moderate outward respectability ? It costs 
 an irascible man much to control the mere outward 
 expression of his feelings, how much more to check 
 their inward reverberation ? All the vices may 
 have been cut down, but their roots have to be grubbed 
 up, or they will sprout reminiscences, a crop of nascent 
 ideas to keep the field of consciousness in a state of 
 tension. Hence the prolonged severity of this primary 
 ascesis, the hard labour of self-correction, before any 
 successful effort can be made in the second ascesis, 
 the disciplining of the middle self. 
 
 To reach the Beyond of consciousness we must pass 
 beyond the conscious. So long as we rest in it, so
 
 1 92 Introversion 
 
 long as it holds our attention, we may form what 
 notions of the Beyond we please, but we cannot get 
 into experimental touch with it. If it is there, if we 
 can grasp it, it can only be by a withdrawal from the 
 conscious, by an abstraction of attention from what 
 is normally before us. If we are looking for some 
 object hidden in a deep shadow in the midst of bright 
 sunshine we must shade our eyes, shut out the bril- 
 liant light, before we can peer successfully into the 
 shadow. So, too, in looking within, if we desire to 
 see into the depths of our consciousness we must 
 close our eyes as it were to the brilliant surface lights, 
 passing beyond them and forgetting them. We must 
 get behind our reasonings, our conclusions, our images 
 and sensations, our feelings, likes, and dislikes. If 
 our mental eye focuses itself on some surface element 
 of consciousness, it cannot look further in. We must, 
 therefore, reduce the visibility of these surface ele- 
 ments, lower their psychic dynamism so that they will 
 not determine our attention. Hence the necessity of 
 that emptying of the field of consciousness, which is 
 the psychic ascesis proper to mystical experience. 
 
 In the first place the discursive movement of con- 
 sciousness must be checked. The combination of 
 psychic elements and their division causes a flux and 
 reflux in the field of mental vision which constantly 
 shifts the centre of attention. The whole field must 
 become steady on its surface before we can hope to
 
 Mystical Experience and Quietism 193 
 
 penetrate its depths. Where there is motion there is 
 interest with dissipation of the vital energy of atten- 
 tion. Hence contemplation begins where meditation 
 leaves off, with a formed and fixed field of conscious- 
 ness. As discursive movement is essential to pro- 
 gress in meditation, as in ordinary thought, it is not 
 surprising that those who look on meditation as the 
 connatural form of spirituality should consider the 
 voluntary cessation of mental discourse as open to 
 the gravest objection. Yet this cessation of mental 
 movement is an essential pre-requisite to mystical 
 experience, as all mystics agree, though they differ as 
 to the time when discourse should cease. Hence the 
 hostility of writers like Rodriguez to the vulgarisation 
 of mystical methods of prayer. 
 
 Not alone must discourse cease but the more vivid 
 psychic elements, such as sensations, images, and 
 emotions, must be subdued, as they hold attention to 
 a degree far in excess of the purely conceptual and 
 volitional factors in consciousness. So long as they are 
 psychically dynamic they compel interest and form an 
 impregnable barrier to the depths. They must be 
 reduced in intensity by appropriate mortification and 
 edged off the field of view by a studied oblivion. 
 Emotions in particular must be stilled and it is to 
 this end the moral ascesis is absolutely essential. The 
 man of feeling, the sentimentalist, the emotionally 
 unstable, can never hope to penetrate below the outer 
 
 13
 
 *94 Introversion 
 
 skin of consciousness. The mystic may and does 
 but his feelings follow, they do not precede, his essen- 
 tial experience. 1 If they go before, the soul can go no 
 further, it is held in the net of sentiment. 
 
 With feelings, sensations and images must be re- 
 pressed. They are the most limited and individuated 
 elements in our psychic field, as well as the most vivid. 
 Essential to the ordinary process of thought, they hold 
 the mind down to the particular. If it rests in the 
 image it can only just rise to a limited conceptual 
 intelligence. It may apprehend the universal in the 
 particular, but it cannot reach the universal in it- 
 self, much less go beyond the universal. To use our 
 concepts we must ever turn to see them in our phant- 
 asms, we could only hope to see them in themselves 
 if we could shut out the images in which we normally 
 see them. Our natural mental process is but a half 
 abstraction of the essential, it comes to us with the 
 clay of the concrete clinging to its roots. To reach 
 the pure idea we have to shake off what remains of 
 the image in which it was grown, even that spatial 
 form which is the first and last element of our concrete 
 apprehension, which clings obstinately to our most 
 sublimated concepts as an inveterate and obtrusive 
 concomitant image. Nay, more, we must shake out 
 of consciousness the sense of self, we must effect an 
 
 I Cf. Summa Theologica, D. Thomae Aquinatis, la. Ilac. Q. 
 24 a. 3, ad primum.
 
 Mystical Experience and Quietism 195 
 
 abstraction of the ultimate given in our consciousness 
 fiom consciousness itself ; we must reach out to that 
 pure existence below all the differentiated given of 
 being which we may discover within. The self must 
 become pure subject, and no longer see itself as part 
 object. It is in this final abstraction that mysticism 
 parts company with philosophy, for it enters into the 
 region of super-essential being beyond all determina- 
 tions and limits. What will the mystic find then ? 
 The philosopher will answer, " Nothing." The mystic 
 will retort. " Where there is nothing, there is God." 
 
 The process we have just outlined is, in its three 
 stages, moral discipline, psychic kenosis, and attention 
 in depth, common to all mystics. In various shapes 
 and forms, with various philosophical and dogmatic 
 bases, we find this essentially negative method as 
 as part and parcel of the mystical doctrine of Buddhist 
 and Sufi, of Neo-Platonist and Christian mystic, of 
 approved theologian and condemned Quietist. But with 
 a difference : to the one it is adequate, to the other 
 it but represents human co-operation with Divine 
 action. The essentially Quietistic forms of mysticism 
 assume, to a greater or less degree, that it is only 
 necessary to remove obstacles to secure mystical 
 experience. You create a vacuum in the soul and 
 the Divine fills it up. 
 
 The Yogi and the Buddhist represent the Quietistic 
 spirit in its most extreme development. Here we
 
 196 Introversion 
 
 have as the dominant note, not the desire for a fuller 
 life, but the longing to escape from the "wheel" of 
 conscious existence. To achieve this escape from 
 consciousness, various ascetical practices are resorted 
 to. In the Vidya Yoga there are four methods : 
 
 As described by Svamin Rama-Krishnananda in the 
 Brahmavadin, p. 511 seq., it consists, as practised at 
 present, of four kinds: Mantra, Laya, Raja, and Hathayoga 
 Mantra-yoga consists in repeating a certain word again 
 and again, particularly a word expressive of deity, and 
 c ncentrating all one's thoughts on it. Laya-yoga is the 
 concentrating all one's thoughts on a thing or the idea of 
 a thing, so that we become almost one with it. Here 
 again the ideal image of a god, or names expressive of the 
 Godhead, are the best, as producing absorption in God. Raja- 
 yoga consists in controlling the breath so as to control the 
 mind. It was observed that when fixing our attention 
 suddenly on anything new we hold our breath, and it was 
 supposed, therefore, that concentration of the mind would 
 be sure to follow the holding back of the breath, or the 
 prdnaydma. Hatha-yoga is concerned with the general 
 health of the body, and is supposed to produce concent- 
 tration by certain postures of the body, by fixing the eyes 
 on one point, particularly the tip of the nose, and similar 
 contrivances. I 
 
 These methods of auto-hypnotism are a very marked 
 feature of Eastern mysticism, and are no doubt success- 
 
 I Professor Max Mullet's The Life and Sayings of Ramakrishna, 
 p. 8. as quoted by Oman ; The Mystics, Ascetics, and Saints of 
 India. London. 1905. p. 172.
 
 Mystical Experience and Quietism 197 
 
 ful in inducing somatic quiet. Like hypnotism they 
 involve a psychic degradation and may readily lead 
 to a disaggregation of the field of consciousness, 
 with the formation of secondary states or subsidiary 
 " personalities," with all their attendant dangers of 
 mental and moral disorder. 
 
 The " stages of deliverance " as described by the 
 "Blessed One" (Buddha) to the faithful disciple, 
 Ananda, show the degree to which negation is pushed : 
 
 A man possessed with the idea of form sees forms this 
 is the first stage of deliverance. 
 
 Without the subjective idea of form he sees forms inter- 
 nally this is the second stage of deliverance. 
 
 With the thought "it is well," he becomes intent upon 
 what he sees this is the third stage of deliverance. 
 
 By passing quite beyond all idea of form, by putting 
 an end to all idea of resistance, by paying no attention 
 to the idea of distinction, he, thinking "it is all infinite 
 space " reaches and remains in the state of mind in which 
 the idea of the infinity of space is the only idea that is present 
 this is the fourth stage of deliverance. 
 
 By passing quite beyond all idea of space being the 
 infinite basis, he, thinking " it is all infinite reason," reaches 
 and remains in the state of mind to which the infinity of 
 reason is alone present this is the fifth stage of deliverance. 
 
 By passing quite beyond the mere consciousness of the 
 infinity of reason, he, thinking " nothing at all exists " 
 reaches and remains in the state of mind to which nothing 
 at all is specially present this is the sixth stage of deliv- 
 erance.
 
 198 Introversion 
 
 By passing quite beyond all idea of nothingness, he reaches 
 and remains in the state of mind to which neither ideas 
 nor the absence of ideas are specially present this is the 
 seventh stage of deliverance. 
 
 By passing quite beyond the state of " neither ideas nor 
 the absence of ideas," he reaches and remains in the state 
 of mind in which both sensations and ideas have ceased to 
 be this is the eighth stage of deliverance. 
 
 Now these, Ananda, are the eight stages of deliverance. f 
 
 Here we have psychic nihilism of the most uncom- 
 promising character, yet a logical effort to escape 
 from the round of conscious existence. The 
 Nothing of consciousness is sought, not to find God 
 but merely to escape from Self. There is a touch 
 of this nihilism in some of the Sufis : 
 
 Throw the mantle of Nothingness around thee and drink 
 of the cup of annihilation, cover thy heart with the love of 
 being reduced to nothing and thy head with the burnous 
 of Not Being. Put thy feet in the stirrups of unconditional 
 renunciation and spur thy steed to where naught is. , . 
 When thou shalt have swept together all thy interior in 
 total negation, then thou wilt be on the other side of good 
 and evil ; and when there is no longer good or evil for thee, 
 then alone in truth wilt thou love and be worthy of the 
 deliverance which is the work of love. 2 
 
 But Avicenna in describing the highest degree 
 of contemplation does not go so far towards nihilism. 
 
 1 From the Maha-Parinibbana-Sutta.quoted by Stratton in 
 his Psychology of ike Religious Lift j London : Allen, 1911, p. 200. 
 
 3 Farid-ed-Din Attar, quoted by Mar6chal, op.cit., p. 454.
 
 Mystical Experience and Quietism 199 
 
 " He (the Sufi) looks at God and his soul in turn as in 
 a flash ; but finally his very soul vanishes from his 
 eyes, he only beholds Holiness alone, or if he still 
 sees his soul, it is only in that it beholds God. . . . 
 Arrived at that point, he has realised the union." 1 
 With the Buddhist the process of emptying conscious- 
 ness is for its own sake, with the Sufi there is the hope 
 of being filled with the Divinity : the end in view 
 is very different. 
 
 In Plotinus, that magnus ille Plato of St. Augustine, 
 we find the negative mystical process very carefully 
 analysed. He has said perhaps all that unaided 
 human reason can say about the process of mystical 
 experience. Father Sharpe 2 even declares : 
 
 We find in Plotinus the most advanced conceptions of the 
 great Christian mystics. There is no vision or locution ; 
 all is abstract or purely spiritual. But Plotinus tells us 
 almost in identical phraseology of the mansions of St. 
 Teresa, of the prayer of quiet, of St. John's dark night 
 of faith, and of the spiritual marriage ; the " ground " 
 (*6noov) of the soul is with him as familiar and as neces- 
 sary an idea as it is with the German mystics. 
 
 He is regarded by most writers on philosophy as 
 the source of medieval mysticism through the Theo- 
 logia Mystica of Dionysius. The claim is somewhat 
 
 1 Carra de Vaux, Gazali, Paris, 1902, p. 197 ; id., Avicenna 
 Paris, 1900. quoted by Marechal, op. cit., p. 455. 
 
 2 Mysticism, Its True Nature and Value ; London : Sands, 
 P- '5 1 -
 
 20O Introversion 
 
 excessive. It must be remembered that Plotinus was 
 the disciple of Ammonius Saccas, a Christian pervert 1 
 and most probably derived through him the funda- 
 mental concepts of mystical experience, the necessary 
 moral ascesis and the psychic kenosis, as well as the 
 ultimate aim of a psychic union with the Divinity. 
 His work was that of adaptation to his philosophic 
 system and the rational analysis of the process. It 
 seems much more humanly probable that the Neo- 
 Platonists should "convey" a few telling ideas from a 
 despised and obscure sect like the Christians, than that 
 a Christian monk should plagiarise from Plotinus and 
 Proclus and pass off his forgeries under the name of 
 the disciple of St. Paul. It is a matter of moral ap- 
 preciation quite as much as literary criticism. Those 
 who see in the Mystica Theologia of Dionysius mere 
 Neo-Platonism are mainly scholars who see only the 
 negative process in Christian mystical experience and 
 who fail to see in the Christian mystic the positive 
 element. Indeed a hint at this positive element in 
 Plotinus himself is a very strong indication that the 
 source of his ideas was Christian. 
 
 He is within, yet not within. We must not ask whence 
 He comes ; there is no whence. For He never comes, 
 and He never goes ; but appears, and does not appear. 
 Wherefore we must not pursue Him, but wait quietly till 
 
 1 S. Jerome and Eusebius deny that Saccas apostatized as had 
 been asserted by Porphyry, a somewhat prejudiced witness in such 
 matters.
 
 Mystical Experience and Quietism 201 
 
 He show Himself, only we must make ourselves ready to 
 behold, as the eye awaits the dayspring. And He swims 
 above the horizon. . . and gives Himself to our gaze. l 
 
 A purely naturalistic process would not admit of 
 this occasionalism, one would expect more uniformity. 
 It may be a record of personal experience of some 
 psychic accidents duly systematised, still the passage 
 has a curious touch of Christian experience about it, 
 almost a hint of grace. Here is a sample of his analy- 
 sis : 
 
 In the intellectual intuition the intelligence beholds the 
 intelligible objects by means of the light shed on them by 
 the First, and in beholding these objects it really sees the 
 intelligible light. But as it gives its attention to the illu- 
 minated objects, it does not see very clearly the principle 
 which enlightens them ; if, on the contrary, it forgets the 
 objects it sees, in order to look only at the light which makes 
 them visible, it sees the light itself and the principle of 
 light. But it is not outside itself that the intelligence 
 contemplates the intelligible light. . . when the eye, so 
 as not to see other objects, closes its lids and gets its own 
 light from itself, or when pressed by the hand, it perceives 
 the light that is in itself. Then it sees, without seeing 
 anything exterior to itself ; it even sees more than at any 
 other time, for it sees the light. The other objects it 
 formerly saw, although luminous, were not light itself. 
 So, too, when the intelligence shuts its eyes as it were to 
 other objects, when it concentrates on itself, in seeing 
 nothing it sees no foreign light shining in strange forms 
 
 J Quoted by Fleming, Mysticism in Christianity (p. 68).
 
 202 Introversion 
 
 but its very own light, which suddenly shines within with 
 a pure radiance. 1 
 
 We find both in Ruysbroeck 2 and Tauler 3 refer- 
 ences to the Quietists of their day showing a reliance 
 placed on the negative process as quite adequate to 
 secure mystical experience. Both seem to anticipate 
 the errors of Molinos and other seventeenth-century 
 Quietists. 
 
 This shows the deception in the other and false state 
 of quiet, in which men by mere natural effort sink away 
 into natural repose of the mental and bodily powers. 
 They do not yearn for God ; they do not seek him. The 
 quiet of soul they reach leads but to detachment 
 from self, and from what by nature and habit they are 
 inclined to ; but this by no means is to find God, It is an 
 emptiness of soul that a Jew or a heathen might attain, 
 or any wicked man ; they have only to cease questioning 
 their conscience, live wholly self-absorbed, and withdraw 
 from all active life a state of quiet very enjoyable to a 
 certain class of men. Taken in itself it is not sinful, for it 
 is only what all men naturally are when entirely void of 
 active exertion. But it is far otherwise if one positively 
 seeks to have it and enjoy it to the exclusion of the good 
 works of a Christian life. Then it becomes sinful and 
 
 1 Plotin. 50 EnnSade, Livre v. (Traduction de M. N. Bouillet). 
 quoted by Maeterlinck in Introduction to Ruysbroeck, L'ornement 
 des noces Spirititelles. 
 
 2 L'ornetnent des noces spiriluelles. Book ii. chap. 74 et seq. 
 
 3 Sermon for the First Sunday of Lent (in the Sermons and 
 Conferences of John Tauler \ English translation by Very Rev. 
 Walter Elliot, Apostolic Mission House, Washington, D.C., 1910, 
 p. 180),
 
 Mystical Experience and Quietism 203 
 
 produces a state of spiritual pride and self-assurance from 
 which the soul seldom recovers. Such a man imagines 
 at times that he possesses God, nay, that he has been 
 made one being with God ; whereas he is in reality in 
 that state which is most absolutely incompatible with union 
 with God. In this false quiet and false detachment, 
 he considers that all our devout religious exercises only 
 hinder him in his inner peace which delusion is but in 
 reality to resist the entrance of God into his soul. It was 
 thus that the bad angels acted ; for what else did they do 
 but turn away from God to themselves and follow their 
 own natural lights ? That was the cause of their blindness ; 
 it was that which led to their expulsion from the light and 
 repose of heaven into the eternal unrest of hell. But the 
 good angels, from the first instant of their creation, turned 
 absolutely to God as the only end and object of all their 
 existence, and thereby were granted everlasting happiness. x 
 Bossuet did not deal more faithfully with the 
 Quietists of his day. The outbreak of Quietism which 
 marked the latter half of the seventeenth century 
 owed its origin to attempts to systematise con- 
 templative prayer as the Jesuits had systematised med- 
 itation. The original Ignatian simplicity had been much 
 elaborated and developed by them. The method of 
 the meditation had been popularised by countless 
 retreats and missions ; innumerable ascetical works, 
 following the lead of Rodriguez's Christian Perfection, 
 had advocated it as the one and only type of mental 
 
 1 Tauler, Sermon for First Sunday of Lent (p. 185 translation 
 cited).
 
 204 Introversion 
 
 prayer suitable for all. Other types of mental prayer, 
 less discursive, more unitive and affective, were dis- 
 couraged, if not disparaged, by the propagandists of 
 the meditation. The broad result of this was that the 
 meditation became the normal form of mental prayer 
 throughout the religious Orders and the devout laity. 
 Even in the Carmels and the Visitations in France, 
 the natural homes of contemplative prayer, the medi- 
 tation type drove out more unitive forms. 1 Mental 
 prayer became standardised and uniform, to the no 
 small comfort of spiritual directors. The Ignatian 
 meditation, when practised in the spirit of the Exer- 
 cises, has very intimate bearings on spiritual progress, 
 and the skilful director can and does adjust the prayer 
 of his penitent in view of the correction of dominant 
 faults and progress in acquiring virtues. This dosage 
 is not so easy a matter when the type of mental prayer 
 is less discursive, more unitive, and hence it is not 
 surprising that the spiritual guides of religious com- 
 munities should much prefer the meditation. 
 
 This exclusivism led to a reaction. Many devout 
 persons did not relish the meditation and preferred 
 some form of contemplative prayer, such as had been 
 largely popularised by the early members of the Visi- 
 tation, who had been trained in the spiritual life by 
 St, Francis de Sales and St. Jeanne de Chantal. 
 
 1 Cf. Saudreau, Vie d'union d Dieu (chap. ix. sect. 7) ; Paris 
 Amat, 1909. See also chap. viii. sect. q.
 
 Mystical Experience and Quietism 205 
 
 Authorities differ as to whether this species of contem- 
 plation is mystical or not, the Chanoine Sandreau and 
 Pere de Besse affirming, Pere Poulain denying ; but at any 
 rate it was non-discursive and was the normal form 
 of mental prayer in the early years of the Visitation 
 Order. Many outside the Visitation were attracted by 
 its extreme simplicity and the good results observed 
 in those who practised it. 
 
 But the very simplicity of thfs prayer constituted a 
 grave danger when attempts were made to popularise 
 its general use and to systematise it. The psychic 
 complexity of a meditation admits of analysis and 
 regulation, but the prayer of simple remise, of simple 
 regard, or of faith, for it had many names, was so 
 psychically simple that all directions concerning it 
 tended to become negative. Those maxims of St. 
 Francis de Sales, directed to the removal of obstacles 
 to this prayer, were all emphasized and enlarged. 
 From Falconi to Molinos, from Malaval to Madame 
 Guyon, we find, in varying degrees, the negation of 
 all psychic activity put forward as the method par 
 excellence to attain to contemplation. Save for the 
 initial act of union with God the process of the Quiet- 
 ists can hardly be distinguished from the methods of 
 the Buddhists. 
 
 Be careeful, when doing what I advised you, not to occupy 
 yourself there with considering that God is present in 
 your soul and your heart. For although that is a good
 
 266 Introversion 
 
 thing. . . it would not be to believe it with sufficient 
 simplicity. . . Neither worry yourself to know whether 
 your prayer goes well or badly. Don't trifle with yourself 
 ... in thinking whether or no you practise the virtues I 
 have marked for you, or other such matters. This would 
 be to occupy your mind with these feeble considerations 
 and break the thread of perfect prayer. 1 
 
 Annihilation, to be perfect, should extend to the judge- 
 ment, actions, inclinations, desires, thoughts, to all the 
 substance of life. 2 
 
 We must think of nothing and desire nothing for as 
 long a time as is possible.3 
 
 This divine life becomes natural to the soul. As the soul 
 no longer feels, sees or knows itself, it sees nothing of 
 God, understands nothing, distinguishes nothing. There is 
 no longer love, light, or knowledge. 4 
 
 Thus a type of contemplation which had so largely 
 contributed to the sanctification of the companions of 
 St. Chantal was perverted into a system of psychic 
 inertia, with all the possibilities of scandalous excess 
 which self-induced psychic passivity affords. It is 
 somewhat alarming to find this system becoming popu- 
 lar in certain non-Catholic circles in England, as shown 
 in the recent cheap editions of the Guida of Molinos 
 and the Moyen Court of Madame Guyon. Tauler's 
 criticism is not yet out of date, unhappily. We have 
 
 J l Falconi, Letter to a Spiritual Daughter, quoted in Poulain, 
 Les Graces d'Oraison, p. 505. 
 
 2 Molinos, Guida, Bk. ii. ch. 19, No. 193, quoted Poulain, p. 506. 
 
 SjMalaval, quoted by Poulain, p. 506. 
 
 4 Madame Guyon, Torrents, quoted by Poulain, p. 507.
 
 Mystical Experience and Quietism 207 
 
 not only our Quietists to-day, but we have this induced 
 passivity, this psychic kenosis, as part and parcel of 
 processes employed by spiritists, faith healers, Chris- 
 tian Scientists, New Thought folk, indeed of all seekers 
 after the psychic Beyond, who are unwilling to be 
 simple, humble, and obedient. They look to find the 
 Beyond, and they find themselves, to their own des- 
 truction. " What, is it not a good thing to allow God 
 to work ? Certainly, when it is His will to work and 
 when it is for Him to work. But when the soul ought 
 to act, if it stops indiscreetly, then the devil steps in." 1 
 
 Quietism in all its types, extreme or moderate, 
 rests on the assumption that we have only to remove 
 obstacles to find God, to find Him not alone morally 
 but experimentally. It tacitly assumes that the 
 Divine is a latent factor of consciousness, poten- 
 tially visible ; it confuses the Divine with that wide 
 indeterminate concept of being to which we may attain 
 by pushing the process of abstraction to its utmost 
 limits. This intelligible cannot be God, for "if in 
 seeing God we understand what we see, it is not God 
 we have contemplated, but something which comes 
 from Him and which we can know." 2 
 
 Apart from this fundamental error the negative 
 method of the Quietists leaves the outer and middle 
 
 1 P. Surin, Cattchisme Spirituelle, part v. chap. 3, quoted Poulain 
 P- 503- 
 
 2 Dionysius the Areopagite, Letter I.
 
 2 o8 Introversion 
 
 selves shut off from central control free to develop 
 any latent automatisms which habits, good or bad, 
 may have formed ; open, too, like some psychic 
 Marconi receiver, to every cosmic influence from with- 
 out. The history of Quietism in East and West is a 
 long story of psychic accidents, generally unpleasing, 
 often scandalous, sometimes abominable. Occultists are 
 at one with orthodox mystics in deprecating the rash 
 production of psychic passivity. It is the most diffi- 
 cult thing in the world of the soul to effect the true 
 mystic kenosis. 
 
 I think no scorn or suffering ever to be met with on earth 
 can try us so severely as these struggles within our souls. 
 All uneasiness or conflict can be borne as lung as we have 
 peace in ourselves, as I said, but if, while we seek for rest 
 amidst the thousand trials of ths world knowing that 
 God has prepared this rest for us our minds remain in 
 such tumult, it is a trial which must needs prove painful 
 and almost insufferable. 1 
 
 If a sharp penance had been laid upon me, I know of 
 none that I would not very often have willingly undertaken, 
 rather than prepare myself for prayer by self -recollection 
 . . . They say of me that my courage is not slight, and it 
 is known that God has given me a courage beyond that of 
 a woman ; but I have made a bad use of it. In the end 
 Our Lord conies to my help ; and then, when I had done 
 this violence to myself, I found greater peace and joy 
 than I sometimes had when I had a desire to pray. 2 
 
 1 St. Teresa, Interior Castle, iv. chap. i. par. n. 
 
 2 St. Teresa, Life, chap. viii. par. 10.
 
 Mystical Experience and Quietism 209 
 
 What St. Teresa found difficult the Quietists pro- 
 claimed easy. Madame Guyon would teach her 
 method to all. It was a " Short and very Easy Method 
 of Prayer." Malaval's booklet is entitled Pratique 
 facile pour dlever I'dme d la contemplation. It was 
 Elias in a periwig ; the Hotel Rambouillet changed 
 into the Hotel Beauvilliers ; the prdcieuse become the 
 devotee ; Trissotin turned spiritual director ; Vadius 
 a master of the spiritual life ! 
 
 The touchstone of the true and the false in mystical 
 experience is humility. Buddhist and Sufi, Illuminati 
 and Quietists, all are self-satisfied and contemptuous 
 of other men. Can they not reach the Divine ? Are 
 they not the supermen who have raised themselves 
 above the vulgar, who have penetrated further than 
 their fellows into the arcana of Being? Outwardly 
 modest and mortified, they are inwardly superior, 
 they are not as other men, " even this publican." And 
 with justice, if their views are right : if man can climb 
 to God, he has the right to be proud of his legs.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE PROPER 
 
 PRIOR to the development and popularisation of the 
 Ignatian method of meditation, the mental prayer 
 practised throughout the Catholic Church was of a 
 type more fluid, more flexible, less systematic. Based 
 on the liturgy, drawing its dogmatic sustenance from 
 the offices and public prayers of the Church, and vary- 
 ing with them according to the seasons of the ecclesi- 
 astical year, the mental prayer of the pre-Reformation 
 monk, friar, and nun had a note of freedom which 
 we do not find in the systematic meditation. " It is a 
 complete anachronism," says Dom M. Festugire, 
 " to speak of meditation in the modern sense of the word 
 three points, systematic series of acts in connexion 
 with Christians and monks of the first fourteen cen- 
 turies. At that time they prayed, they did not 
 meditate." 1 Further on 2 he develops this idea. 
 
 The liturgy, so vocal and so loquacious, far from giving 
 souls a relish for meditation, in itself discursive and wordy, 
 leads them very rapidly and inevitably to affective prayer 
 and to " acquired" contemplation. Let us not be misunder- 
 stood in this matter. Always at the beginning of, and very 
 ^iten during the course of, the spiritual life, we need a 
 text when we pray, to set our prayer going : some few 
 
 1 ' La litwrgie catholique ' (in the Revue de Philosophic, Mai, 
 Jain, Juillet, 1913, p. 728, note 3). 
 
 2 Art. cit. p. 766.
 
 212 Introversion 
 
 pages at choice in a book related or not to the liturgy, 
 a psalm, a passage of Scripture, a single verse, will serve. 
 (It must be admitted that many souls, more than is usually 
 thought, having progressed in spirituality, base their 
 prayer on the Name of God only, or on the feeling of His 
 Presence, or on the impression as a whole left by the 
 recitation of the Divine Office, etc.) Let us remember 
 that St. Teresa, at the beginining of her religious life, 
 when she was only in the period of " the purification of the 
 senses," only made use of a prayer-book to become recol- 
 lected, and during her prayer hardly ever made a discur- 
 sive use of her understanding. We will avoid the error 
 of likening acquired contemplation to mystical prayer, 
 but between the two states there are analogies. Now. 
 the liturgy, thanks to the happy union it establishes be- 
 tween the intellectual and affective elements in spiritual 
 life, promptly guides souls towards those modes of activity 
 which we may name indifferently loving contemplation or 
 contemplative love, thought which loves or love which thinks, i 
 The decline in liturgy saw the rise of the medita- 
 tion. The go-as-you-please orison of the old monks 
 and friars gave place to the military precision of the 
 Spiritual Exercises, yet the more simple methods were 
 not quite forgotten. Following the example of the 
 Exercises attempts were made to systematise them, to 
 bring them under rule. As it was found by experience 
 that in these lower types of unitive prayer there was a 
 considerable scope for conative activity, that human 
 
 i Se also the brief kistory oi mental prayer given in Poulain, 
 Les Graces d'Oraison, chap. ii. sect. 5 (C.T.S. booklet, The Prayer 
 o Simplicity, p. 89 et seq.).
 
 Mystical Experience Proper 
 
 effort played a large and conscious part, some of the 
 seventeenth-century theologians who treated of mysti- 
 cal prayer divided contemplation into two species, the 
 acquired and the infused. Philip of the Holy Trinity, 
 provincial of the Carmelites of Aquitaine, made this 
 distinction classic, in his Summa Theologiae Mysticae, 
 which appeared in 1656. He was followed by Thomas 
 de Vallgornera in 1662, and it is only in our own time 
 that this distinction has been seriously challenged. 
 It contributed more than anything else to the develop- 
 ment of Quietist doctrines, for Molinos and his followers 
 pushed the methods recognised as legitimate in the 
 so-called acquired contemplation, to extremes. 1 It is 
 not to be found in the earlier mystics, as Saudreau 
 and others have shown, unless violence is done to the 
 texts. Vallgornera's attempt to enlist St. Thomas is 
 specious but inconclusive, and he admits that the 
 distinction is only hinted at. 2 The main tendency of 
 mystical theology in the seventeenth century seems to 
 have been to separate as far as possible mystical ex- 
 perience from the spiritual experience of ordinary 
 Christians, to look on the graces which give rise to 
 mystical experience as gratiae gratis datae, as extra- 
 ordinary charismata, akin to the gifts of healing, of 
 miracles, of prophecy, of tongues. Clearly, if that 
 
 1 Cf. Poulain, Les Graces d'Oraison, 5th ed. chap. iv. par. 9. 
 
 2 Theologica Mystica, Q. III. Disp. I. art. 4, p. 358, ed. Marietti, 
 IQII
 
 2i 4 Introversion 
 
 were so, the ordinary contemplation known and prac- 
 tised in hundreds of cloisters, the types of prayer 
 common to the Visitation nuns during the lifetime of 
 St. Francis de Sales and St. Chantal, could not be con- 
 sidered mystical. A new category had to be found, 
 and acquired contemplation was invented to include 
 the prayer of " simple remise " of St. Francis de Sales 
 and kindred types. The experience of souls had to 
 be adjusted to a narrow mystical theory, a via media 
 had to be found between meditation and ecstatic 
 forms of prayer. Types of mental prayer were found 
 among persons whose lives were a testimony that 
 their prayer was unexceptionable, which had none of 
 the discursive and multiplex features of meditation, and 
 which were akin in simplicity to acknowledged mys- 
 'ical prayers, yet in which the conative element 
 played a marked part and the consciously '' given " 
 seemed absent. It seemed obvious that such prayers 
 should be a class apart, they were active contemplation 
 or acquired contemplation. The new category became 
 classic, and the possibility and frequency of non- 
 mystical contemplation was an accepted commonplace 
 with spiritual writers until our own time. 1 
 Pere Poulain is perhaps the best accredited repre- 
 
 i For the full criticism of this distinction the reader may usefully 
 consult Saudreau, Vie d' Union A Dieu (Paris : Amat, 1909) ; De 
 Besse, La Science de la Priere (Paris : Oudin, 1904) ; J. Delacroix, 
 Ascetique et Mystique (Paris : Bloud, 1912) ; Lamballe, La Contem- 
 plation (Paris : Tequi, 1912.)
 
 Mystical Experience Proper 215 
 
 sentative of this view to-day. His great treatise, 
 Les Graces d'Oraison, is a monument of industrious 
 research and wide experience as a spiritual director. 
 It will rank with Scaramelli's great work as a store- 
 house of experience, classified with great acumen, and 
 quite indispensable to the student of mystical phenom- 
 ena. As theorists there is much to criticise in both 
 authors ; but as shrewd, practical guides and indus- 
 trious collectors and classifiers of varied types of spirit- 
 ual experience, one has become a classic, and the 
 other will be one in due course of time. 
 
 Now Pere Poulain has devoted a long chapter 
 to the prayer of simplicity which, with Scaramelli, 
 he regards as non-mystical. With considerable skill 
 he traces its development from the meditation by a 
 process of gradual simplification. The meditation, a 
 complex of considerations and affections, grows into 
 affective prayer by a gradual reduction in the number 
 of considerations. 
 
 The difference between this degree and meditation is 
 only a matter of more or less. It is a discourse, only less 
 varied and less apparent and leaving more room for senti- 
 ments of love, praise, gratitude, respect, submission, 
 contrition, etc., and also for practical resolutions. The 
 deduction of truths is partly replaced by intuition. From 
 the intellectual point of view the soul becomes simplified 
 . . . But the simplification can be carried farther still, and 
 may extend, in a certain measure, to the will, which then 
 becomes satisfied with very little variety in the affections
 
 2i 6 Introversion 
 
 There is nothing to prevent them from being very ardent 
 at times, but they are usually produced without many 
 words. This is what we call the Prayer of Simplicity, 
 or of Simple Regard. It can be denned thus ; a mental 
 prayer where (i) intuition in a great measure replaces reason- 
 ing, (H) the affections and resolutions show very little 
 variety and are expressed in few words, i 
 
 This only touches the matter on its negative side, 
 Pere Poulain completes it by declaring : 
 
 In the prayer of simplicity there is a thought or a senti- 
 ment that returns incessantly and easily (although with 
 little or no development) amongst many other thoughts, 
 whether useful or not. 
 
 This dominant thought does not go so far as to be con- 
 tinuous. It merely returns frequently and of its own 
 accord. . . The prayer of simple regard is really only 
 a slow sequence of single glances cast upon one and the same 
 object.* 
 
 This degree differs from the preceding degrees only as 
 the greater differs from the less. The persistence of one 
 principal idea, however, and the vivid impression that it 
 produces, point as a rule to an increased action on God's 
 part. 
 
 An exaggerated picture of the prayer of simplicity 
 
 1 Les Graces d'Oraison, 5th ed., chap. ii. par. 2 (C.T.S. booklet, 
 The Prayer of Simplicity, p. 12). 
 
 2 " C'est on tissu d'actes dc foi et d'amour si simples, si directes, 
 si paisibles et si uniformes qn'ils ne pnroissent plus aax personnes 
 ignorantes qu'tm teul acte, on meme qn'ils ne paroissent faire acnn 
 acte, mais un repos de pur onion." Fenelon, Explication ties Max- 
 imes des Saints sur la Vie inttriettre. Edition critique pnblie d'apres 
 des documents inedits par Albert Cherel. Parl* : Blond, 1911, 
 p. 262.
 
 Mystical Experience Proper 217 
 
 has been drawn at times. It has been so described as to 
 lead us to suppose that the intellect and the will continue 
 inactive before a single idea. In this case the multiplicity 
 of acts would have disappeared entirely and during the 
 whole time that the prayer lasted ; whereas it has only 
 diminished notably and for a certain time long enough 
 to draw attention to it. The simplicity is approximate 
 only.* 
 
 If this be acquired contemplation, wherein does it 
 differ psychologically from a meditation attenuated 
 to a point ? It is difficult to see from Pere Poulain's 
 description any real difference. The attention, in- 
 stead of wandering discursively over the religious 
 field of consciousness, passing from one psychic ele- 
 ment to another, combining and disintegrating them 
 to form the final mental picture on which the soul's 
 eye can rest, is fixed on some one psychic element 
 which it draws from the storehouse of memory, and 
 concentrates intelligence and will on this one point. 
 The field is cleared not merely of distracting and 
 importunate thoughts, as in the ordinary process of 
 meditation, but all superfluous psychic elements are got 
 rid of and the conscious field is reduced to a minimum. 
 The mind's eye is focussed on a point and not suffered 
 to wander. This involves the emptying of conscious- 
 ness of all but the point under attention ; it is not the 
 kenosis of the whole field with attention in depth. Clearly 
 there is no mystical element, the whole process comes 
 
 i Poulain, I.e., C.T.S. booklet, p. 14.
 
 218 Introversion 
 
 under the ordinary laws of psychology, and we have 
 nothing mysterious, nothing hidden. If the prayer 
 of "simple remise," of Simplicity, of Simple Regard 
 is only a meditation developed or attenuated to a point, 
 we must admit the contention of those who declare 
 that it is non-mystical. 
 
 '' The persistence of one principle idea, however, 
 and the vivid impression that it produces, point, as 
 a rule, to an increased action on God's part." We 
 must note this statement of P&re Poulain and see 
 what it implies. One would naturally expect that the 
 attenuation of the elements of a meditation to one 
 point would lower the psychic dynamism of the idea, 
 beget monotony and weariness. There is great 
 psychic difficulty in prolonged attention to any 
 one element in the field of consciousness, interest soon 
 flags and distraction follows. A certain amount of 
 change is necessary to hold attention and stimulate 
 the will. But in the prayer of simplicity we have an 
 almost static condition and yet of singular psychic 
 dynamism. Pere Poulain postulates increased action of 
 grace, yet as grace follows nature is it not surprising 
 that the increased action should follow a psychological 
 handicap ? Can we justly describe such action of the 
 Divine as ordinary and non-mystical ? 
 
 Again he speaks of a '' thought or sentiment that 
 returns incessantly and easily," does not this imply a 
 certain passivity not quite ordinary ? But his most 
 remarkable admission is, perhaps, this :
 
 Mystical Experience Proper 219 
 
 When this state has reached its full development, not 
 only do certain acts of which I have just spoken become 
 rare, but the attempt to produce them results in a feeling 
 of impotence and distaste. And it is then the same also 
 with those representations of the imagination which would 
 aid other persons in their prayer. * 
 
 What is this but the " ligature " of the mystics ? 
 How can it possibly be ordinary and non-mystical ? 
 A most difficult psychic operation becomes not only 
 easy, but the normal wandering off of the attention to 
 features of natural interest is restrained. Clearly, 
 in his prayer of simplicity, the attention is either 
 fixed and riveted by the extraordinary action of 
 ordinary grace, sufficient to overcome the most natural 
 and urgent impulses to distraction, a strengthening 
 of the will to a marvellous degree, or we must admit 
 in this prayer some element not reducible to the terms 
 of an attenuated meditation. We have to choose 
 between the miraculous and the mystical. Is it 
 reasonable to suppose that grace acts in this prayer 
 qua ordinary grace (never refused to anyone, as Pere 
 Poulain states in the second paragraph of his first 
 Chapter) in such an extraordinary way, bordering 
 on the miraculous ? Is it not more reasonable, more 
 theological, to suppose that there is some new element 
 contributed, not a mere reinforcement of the 
 will only ? Why attenuate the psychic dynamism 
 of normal meditation, only to supply the deficiency 
 
 i Poulain, I.e., C.T.S. booklet, p. 13.
 
 220 Introversion 
 
 by an extraordinary strengthening of the elements 
 left ? What would be gained by this process ? ' 
 
 If we reject this view of the non-mystical character 
 of the prayer of simplicity, we are forced to inquire 
 what is in the nature of this prayer which transcends 
 an excessively simplified meditation ? The descrip- 
 tion which Pere Poulain gives is excellent, as far as 
 it goes, but it does not go far enough. He will not 
 admit the existence of a mystical element in it ; yet, 
 when he comes to discuss the Dark Night of St. John 
 of the Cross, he admits that to all appearance the 
 " first night of St. John of the Cross is a prayer of 
 simplicity, but having characteristics, two in especial, 
 which make it a particular species ; it is bitter, and 
 it is to God alone, as a rule, that the simple regard is 
 unceasingly directed." 2 In a note he admits that 
 St. John of the Cross puts the aridity of the night of 
 sense as an immediate sequel to meditation, omitting 
 affective prayer and the prayer of simplicity, as 
 defined by Pere Poulain. Further on Pere Poulain 
 argues that in the Dark Night there is a latent mystical 
 element, an imperceptible prayer of quiet. 3 Possibly 
 he might have recognised this same latent mystical 
 element in his own prayer of simplicity, if he had not 
 
 1 For further proofs of the essentially mystical character of the 
 prayer of simplicity, see Lamballe, La Contemplation (Paris 
 Tequi, 1912, p. 92 et seq.) 
 
 2 Les Graces d'Oraison, chap. xv. par. 5, sth ed., p. 200. 
 
 3 Poulain, op. cit., p. 206.
 
 Mystical Experience Proper 221 
 
 decided a priori that it was an ordinary and non- 
 mystical type of prayer. The same type of contem- 
 plation as described by Pere de Besse and the Chanoine 
 Saudreau is much closer to St. John of the Cross, 
 for these writers, unlike Pre Poulain, have not made 
 abstraction of the mystical quality. 
 
 What, then, is the latent element in the prayer of 
 simplicity which marks it off psychologically from a 
 simplified meditation ? The persistence of the main 
 idea and the incipient " ligature " or inhibition, more 
 or less marked, of certain normal psychic acts are those 
 disturbances from which we may infer the presence 
 of a new psychic element. Clearly the attention so 
 firmly held and restrained from wandering is not fixed 
 in the usual fashion. There is some new interest, 
 something capable of putting all the forces of the soul 
 in an " unnatural " attitude, of fixing the wandering 
 mind and gripping the wayward heart. It is an un- 
 seen interest, one hardly felt, yet its effects are ultra- 
 dynamic. The conscious element, on which the 
 mind seems focussed, is some old idea, time-honoured 
 and well worn, the outcome of study, of previous 
 meditations. It has nothing new in it, it is something 
 trite and commonplace, its intellectual interest has 
 been worked out by repetition, so that it has nothing 
 of the nascent idea about it ; nay more, it lacks the 
 dynamic support of the normal field of consciousness 
 from which it has been carefully filtered out. The
 
 222 Introversion 
 
 conscious element, therefore, is psychically weak and 
 cannot account for the interest which holds the whole 
 soul fixed. An interest implies an objest which 
 excites interest, and this is not given in what is obvious 
 to consciousness during this prayer. If it were it 
 could be readily described, and there would be no 
 mystery. It is not a simple reinforcement of the will by 
 itself, for then the psychic feature of interest would 
 not appear, but rather that of satisfaction in doing 
 a dull duty. We must account for this sense of 
 interest, which is present in all mystical experience, 
 although its extent varies as greatly as its other 
 characteristics of joy and sorrow. What can this 
 hidde'n object be, this true Beyond of consciousness, 
 which can hold the attention of the soul to something 
 unknown, beneath the trite and the commonplace, 
 which can inflame the will to a degree surpassing 
 all eloquent considerations of the reason, backed 
 by the might of imagination and emotion ? It can 
 only be the Idea of God, presented to consciousness 
 in a new mode, or rather sine modo. 
 
 Many abide in error, so that they come not to Con- 
 templation, or to that which hath no Mode. Yet every 
 hindrance is within themselves. They are disquieted at 
 heart, Watching narrowly the deeds of others, Concern- 
 ing themselves with the cares of their friends and kins- 
 men in which they have no part, Careful for their own 
 necessities, Wherefore the riches of God are veiled from 
 their eyes. * 
 
 i Ruysbroeck, Th Book of the Twelve Beguines, chap. vi. p. 65 
 (London : Watkins, 1913.)
 
 Mystical Experience Proper 223 
 
 The idea of God may be developed in consciousness, 
 either positively or negatively. His image may be 
 formed, as by a painter, adding touch to touch, 
 detail to detail ; or as by a sculptor, cutting away 
 whatever is superfluous, removing whatever does 
 not belong to the Figure sought. In his commentary 
 on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, (i. 19), St. Thomas 
 pouits out that " there is something concerning God 
 which must remain, wholly unknown to man in this 
 life, namely, what is God," and the reason assigned is 
 that : 
 
 Man's knowledge takes its beginning in those things which 
 are connatural to him, namely the created objects of sense- 
 perception, and these are not adequate to represent the 
 Divine Essence. From these creatures man may rise to 
 knowledge of God in three ways, as Dionysius declares in 
 the book of the Divine Names. In one manner through 
 the principle of causality. As such creatures are defective 
 and changeable, it is necessary to bring them under some 
 principle that is unmoved and perfect ; and thus we know 
 of God that He exists. Secondly, by the way of excell- 
 ence. For all things are not brought under the one princi- 
 ple, as under a specific and homogeneous cause, as a man 
 generates a man ; but as under a cause inclusive of all 
 yet exceeding all ; and thus we know that God is above 
 all things. Thirdly, by the way of negation ; if the cause 
 exceed all, nothing that is in creatures can appertain to 
 it. ... Thus we say of God that He is unmoved and has 
 no bounds and such like.* 
 
 i Cited in Vallgornera, ed. Marietti, vol. i.p. 355.
 
 224 Introversion 
 
 In the Summa Contra Gentiles (Book i. chap. 14) 
 St. Thomas declares that this way of negation, of 
 removal, is the method which should be made use of 
 when considering the Divine Substance. 
 
 For the Divine Substance by Its immensity exceeds 
 every formal principle to which our intelligence can reach, 
 and so we cannot apprehend It by knowing what It is, 
 but we may have a sort of knowledge of It by knowing 
 what It is not. We will become the more clearly aware 
 of It, the more things we can take from It by our under- 
 standing ; for we know anything the more perfectly, the 
 more we recognise its differences from other things, for 
 each thing has in itself something distinct from all other 
 things. 
 
 In our ordinary knowledge we fine down our general 
 concepts by adding the appropriate specific differences 
 until we reach the point when we can distinguish the 
 object considered from all others. But in our know- 
 ledge of God we cannot proceed by genus and difference 
 as a positive addition, we must effect the distinction 
 from all other beings by negative differences. 
 
 Thus, if we say that God is not an accident, by this is 
 He distinguished from all accidents. Then if we add that 
 He is not a body, we further distinguish Him from some 
 substances ; and so step by step is He distinguished by 
 these negations from everything except Himself ; and 
 then His substance may be rightly considered when it is 
 known as distinct from all. This, however, will not be 
 perfect knowledge, because He is not known as He is in 
 Himself. 
 
 The positive mode of the formation of the idea of
 
 Mystical Experience Proper 225 
 
 God in consciousness accords well with the discursive 
 method of the meditation, and, when formed, the 
 affirmative idea may well be the matter of contempla- 
 tion. The prayer of simplicity, as restricted by Pere 
 Poulain, or as suggested in a tract by Bossuet 1 (which 
 has been somewhat severely criticised by Pere de 
 Maumigny 2 ), may have such an idea among others 
 as its object But such contemplation, is not essentially 
 mystical, for the object contemplated, a positive idea, 
 comes well within the scope of ordinary psychic 
 activity. It is in contemplation, per mam negationis, 
 where the idea of God has been formed negatively, 
 that we may find the true mystical type if we can 
 succeed in excluding what may be termed philoso- 
 phical contemplation or speculation. 
 
 The negative idea of God is the result of a process 
 of abstraction pushed to the ultimate. As He trans- 
 cends all creation, being the Creator, we arrive at 
 the ultimate distinction, as pointed out in our quotations 
 from the Summa Contra Gentiles, by a series of neg- 
 tions, by which we reject the Conditioned and the Re- 
 lative in all their varied aspects. We thus, by a 
 process of elimination, rise to the widest and most 
 general concept of Being, but we have not yet reached 
 
 1 For this semi-quietist tract of Bossuet, see Rousset, La Doctrine 
 Spirituelle, vol. ii. app. i. "L'Oraison en foi et de simple presence de 
 Dieu," par Bossuet (Paris : Lethielleux.) 
 
 2 Pratique de I'Oraison mentale, 2nd vol. p. 80 (Paris : Beauchesne, 
 1909). 
 
 15
 
 226 Introversion 
 
 the negative idea of God. Our notion of Being, in its 
 widest and most unlimited form, is after all an idea 
 or concept of created being, for it is derived by a 
 process of psychic filtration from the manifold of 
 sense by which we gain our knowledge of created things. 
 Our utmost knowledge of all that is implied in the 
 word "IS" comes from what we know of the Relative, 
 it cannot reach the Absolute without transcending 
 both the " given " of experience and our own relativity 
 our limitations, our weakness. God is the Absolute, 
 or He is not, and we can only express His Name in 
 consciousness by a denial of the very ultimate of 
 consciousness, the final elaboration of the idea of 
 Being. The very word Absolute is a negative, and 
 postulates the denial of the Relative. If we wish 
 to discourse about it, we must express ourselves 
 in negative propositions. We may consider it only 
 indirectly, by denying of it all that we assert of the 
 Relative, by emptying our experience of all its elements 
 If we fail to make this final kenosis, our idea of the 
 Absolute is but a sublimation of the Relative : instead 
 of an ultimate distinction we have a final unity, and 
 we are Pantheists. If we attempt by mere force of 
 reasoned abstraction to pass beyond our widest con- 
 cept of Being, we are plunged in the void ; blank 
 nothingness confronts our consciousness, we are choked 
 in a vacuum. There is no natural foothold for our 
 minds in the Absolute, if we would reason about it
 
 Mystical Experience Proper 227 
 
 we must descend to the planes of being, relative and 
 limited, and argue by denial. Hence the nature of 
 God, as given in philosophical speculation, is only 
 known as something distinct from all, but cannot 
 be known "as He is in Himself." 
 
 Moses said to God : Lo, I shall go to the children of 
 Israel, and say to them : The God of your fathers hath 
 sent me to you. If they should say to me : What is His 
 name ; What shall I say to them ? God said to Moses : 
 I Am Who Am. He said : Thus shalt thou say to the 
 children of Israel : He Who Is, hath sent me to you 
 (Exod. iii. 13, 14). And the Lord spake to Moses, saying : 
 I am the Lord, that appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and 
 to Jacob, by the name of God Almighty : and my name, 
 Adonai, I did not show them (Exod. vi. 2, 3). 
 
 Adonai, Lord, the substitute read for the Ineffable 
 Name, the proper Name of God, signifying His Eternal 
 Self-existent Being, the name whose very sound is 
 lost, the Jehovah of modern use being merely a version 
 of the cryptogram of the Scribes. 
 
 We read in the life of St. Catherine of Sienna, by 
 Blessed Raymond of Capua : 
 
 At the beginning of her Divine visions, that is to say 
 at the time when Our Lord began to manifest Himself to 
 the saint, He appeared to her one day when in prayer and 
 said to her : Dost thou know, daughter, who thou art and 
 Who I am ? If thou hast this double knowledge, thou 
 wilt be blest. Thou art she who is not, I am He Who is. 
 If thou keep fast this truth in thy soul, the enemy can never 
 deceive thee, thou wilt escape all his snares ; never wilt
 
 228 Introversion 
 
 thou consent to do aught against My commandments, 
 and thou wilt attain without difficulty all grace, all truth, 
 all light, i 
 
 The aim of philosophical speculation is knowledge, 
 the aim of mystical contemplation is love. The 
 philosopher seeks to know, to understand, to express 
 his knowledge. He must needs, when he considers 
 the Absolute, return again to that experience from 
 which by negation he derived his idea. To under- 
 stand we must see again our ideas in the phantasms 
 or images from which we abstracted them, there 
 must be a conversio ad phantasmata? But the nega- 
 tive idea of God allows of no such image in which the 
 idea is mirrored ; we must revert to a lower plane 
 of experience. The mystic must do likewise if he 
 desires to express his experience, hence the stream of 
 negations and aequipollent negations that we find 
 in mystics like Ruysbroeck. They describe their 
 experience by denying the given of a lower experience. 
 
 If anyone, seeing God, knows what he sees, it is by no 
 means God that he sees, but something created and know- 
 able. For God abides above created intellect and exist- 
 ence, and is in such sense unknowable and non-existent 
 that He exists above all existence and is known above 
 all power of knowledge. And this most perfect possible 
 unknowing (ayvaxrta) is the true knowledge (yv&oi;) of Him 
 Who is above all that can be known. 3 
 
 1 Chap, x., at the beginning. 
 
 2 Cf. Summa Theologica, D. Thomae Aquinatis, i. q. 84, a. 7. 
 
 3 Dionysius the Areopagite, Letter I.
 
 Mystical Experience Proper 229 
 
 We have thus a certain parallelism between the 
 mystical idea of God and the philosopher's ultimate 
 conception of the Absolute. When an effort is made 
 to describe the experience of the mystic and to set 
 forth our least inadequate concept of the Divinity 
 attainable by reason, we find a certain similarity. 1 
 But in the two experiences there is a vast difference. 
 The mystic is in love, the Philosopher seeks to know. 
 To the former the experience is real, is lived ; to the 
 latter it is a notion, expressed in consciousness by a 
 negation, laboriously elaborated from more psychi- 
 cally real experiences. The philosopher labours up- 
 ward, climbing from negation to negation until he 
 attains the ultimate of denial. Although his result 
 expresses the Most Awful Actuality, the Only Ul- 
 timately Real, He Who Is, in consciousness it remains 
 the emptiest of notions, only dimly recognised, if at 
 all, in the denial of the given of all experience. For 
 the Mystic this negative idea is the Finger of the Most 
 High touching his inmost being, and his heart blazes 
 at the touch. He does not seek to know. " I am the 
 most foolish of men and the wisdom of men is not with 
 me. I have not learned wisdom, and have not known 
 the science of saints " (Prov. xxx. 2, 3). To know, 
 he would have to turn again to the created, to avert 
 his gaze from God revealed to his heart. For the 
 
 i Cf. Holy Wisdom, Father Baker, p. 403 and p. 512 of Burns 
 and Gates' edition, 1908,
 
 230 Introversion 
 
 philosopher the kenosis of consciousness is but a 
 dialectical process, for the mystic it is a vital necessity 
 that his heart may feel what his mind cannot grasp. 
 
 For this reason, then, if anyone is moved to love God 
 by that sweetness he feels, he casts that sweetness away 
 from him, and fixes his love upon God, Whom he does not 
 feel ; but if he allowed himself to rest in that sweetness 
 and delight which he feels, dwelling upon them with satis- 
 faction, that would be to love the creature, and that which 
 is of it, and to make the motive an end, and the act of the 
 will would be vitiated ; for, as God is incomprehensible 
 and unapproachable, the will, in order to direct its act of 
 love unto God, must not direct it to that which is tangible 
 and capable of being reached by the desire, but must direct 
 it to that which it cannot comprehend nor reach thereby. 
 In this way the will loves that which is certain and true, 
 according to the spirit of the faith, in emptiness and dark- 
 ness as to its own feelings, above all that it can understand 
 by the operations of the understanding ; its faith and love 
 transcend all that it can comprehend. 1 
 
 That an idea, so empty of all psychically positive 
 elements, so essentially unintelligible, should exercise 
 such dynamic influence on the will would seem to 
 contradict the maxim, nil volitum nisi precognitum. 2 
 All the records of mystical experience go to show the 
 excessive nature of the love generated by this imper- 
 ceptible cognition, if we may so call it. The cognitive 
 
 1 St. John of the Cross, Letter X (p. 162 of The Living Flame. 
 London : Baker, 1912). 
 
 2 See St. John of the Cross's commentary on this maxim. Spiritual 
 Canticles^ stan. xxvi. 6, p. 203 (Baker's edition).
 
 Mystical Experience Proper 231 
 
 element is so delicate, so difficult to grasp or to express 
 that many, with St. Bona venture, 1 looked on the 
 element of love as given apart from knowledge, a 
 view vehemently combated by the Thomists, who 
 postulated the gift of a higher knowledge to account 
 for the outburst of love which is the most palpable 
 feature of mystical experience. But the negative 
 idea of God would constitute this higher knowledge 
 and yet be so imperceptible as to justify in a measure 
 those who perceived the love and failed to notice the 
 knowledge. 
 
 In our ordinary psychic life we love that which we 
 know and we have knowledge of that which we love 
 With the motion of the will we have the antecedent 
 word of the understanding. The acts of the will and 
 of the intellect can be distinguished in consciousness, 
 we can look on them in their relation of antecedent 
 and consequent, of cause and effect. But in mystical 
 experience we can find no formulated word of the 
 understanding, while the motion of the will is evident. 
 If we postulate the two acts we must assume a fusion, 
 a union as of matter and form, of body and soul. 
 Blosius assumes that in the hidden depth of the soul 
 the higher intellectual powers, the memory, under- 
 standing and will, become as one. 2 Lopez Ezquerra 
 
 1 See Meynard, Trails de la Vie Interieure (Paris : Amat, 1913 
 p. 27). 
 
 2 /MS/. Spirit., c. 12, quoted Meynard, p. 35.
 
 232 Introversion 
 
 turns the difficulty by assuming that direct acts are 
 more effective and less observed than reflex acts and 
 that knowledge in mystical contemplation is un- 
 noticed, being a most direct act of the intelligence. 1 
 
 If we postulate the existence of the negative idea 
 of God, can it not act directly on the will without 
 prior formulation as a word of the understanding ? 
 From the given of sense we abstract the inchoate 
 concept, we filter out the individuating elements, 
 and the essential residue bumps into our intelligence 
 which illumines and vitally reacts to the impression 
 by forming the word of the mind, the concept which 
 expresses the universal which was wrapped up in the 
 individual. By the idea thus formed and expressed 
 the will is attracted or repelled, freely, as by something 
 apprehended, for we can choose since we know. 
 We can alter our field of consciousness, we can change 
 the idea presented, or we can consider its repellent 
 or attractive aspects and increase or diminish their 
 dynamism by our attention. But we cannot do this 
 with the negative idea of God, it does not become 
 a word of the understanding, for the intellect is too 
 feeble to respond to the impression. If we could 
 form a verbiim mentis it would be a blank, a complete 
 void of all human meaning, a something or rather 
 a nothing absolutely inert towards the will. The 
 negative idea fails to become a species impressa for 
 
 i Lucerna Mystica, Tr. 2, c. 9, no. 79, quoted Meynard, p. 45.
 
 Mystical Experience Proper 233 
 
 the intelligence, the stamp strikes the will direct. 
 It is the will which vitally reacts to the negative 
 idea of God by an act of love and in that act, the 
 intelligence gleans knowledge. 1 
 
 How is this theory compatible with freedom ? 
 How can there be a choice if the negative idea, un- 
 formulated by the understanding into a word of the 
 mind, acts directly on the will ? It will be the unique 
 object of the will and so must determine it. How is 
 freedom, and its corollary merit, to be saved ? Res- 
 pondeo dicendum : quidquid recipitur recipitur per 
 modum recipientis. The will which can receive and 
 be moved by the negative idea of God is a somewhat 
 different will from that which is moved by the positive 
 deas of normal psychic experience. It is a will 
 emptied of all affections for the created universe of 
 things considered in themselves ; not merely, as in 
 ordinary moral ascesis, of all inordinate affections but 
 of all natural affection which rests in the creature. 
 
 It is, therefore, plain that no distinct object whatever 
 that pleases the will can be God ; and for that reason, if 
 it is to be united with Him, it must empty itself, cast 
 away every disorderly affection of the desire, every satis- 
 faction it may distinctly have, high and low, temporal and 
 spiritual, so that, purified and cleansed from all unruly 
 satisfactions, joys, and desires, it may be wholly occupied, 
 with all its affections, in loving God. For if the will can 
 
 1 Cf. St. John of the Cross, The Living Flame, stanza iii. 51 
 (London : Baker 1912, p. 90).
 
 234 Introversion 
 
 in any way comprehend God and be united with Him, it 
 cannot be through any capacity of the desire, but only by 
 love ; and as all delight, sweetness and joy, of which the 
 will is sensible, is not love, it follows that none of these 
 pleasing impressions can be the adequate means of uniting 
 the will to God ; the means are an act of the will. And 
 because an act of the will is quite distinct from feeling : 
 it is by an act that the will is united with God, and rests 
 in Him ; that act is love. This union is never wrought by 
 feeling, or exertions of the desire, for these remain in the 
 soul as aims and ends. 1 
 
 Again and again St. John of the Cross insists on 
 this total purification of the will from all attachment 
 to the created, to everything that is not God, and 
 above all to self. " The goods of God, which are be- 
 yond all measure, can be contained only in an empty 
 and solitary heart " (Maxim 349). Again, in the Ascent 
 of Carmel : " Does it make any difference whether a 
 bird be held by a slender thread or by a rope. . . . 
 This is the state of a soul with particular attachments : 
 it can never attain to the liberty of the divine union, 
 whatever virtues it may possess." Thekenosisof the 
 will is far more important than that of the memory 
 and the intellect in the general clearance of the field 
 of consciousness. Ideas may be forgotten, but appe- 
 tites are insistent. Our likes and dislikes, our loves 
 and hates, have all the abounding vitality of weeds ; 
 we may root them up, but if we leave a fragment of 
 root it will sprout. 
 
 I St. John of the Cross, Letter X (The Living Flame, p. 161),
 
 Mystical Experience Proper 235 
 
 Hence it is for all mystics that the preparation of 
 the will is the most essential part. If the will be not 
 fitted to respond to the negative imprint by being 
 cleared of all positive attachment, it cannot be deter- 
 mined by it. God will not be thrust into the mean 
 chamber of a servant, into the lumber-room of self. 
 
 One desire only does God allow, and suffer in His presence, 
 within the soul~the desire of keeping the law perfectly, 
 and carrying the cross of Christ. It is not said, in the 
 sacred writings, that God commanded anything to be laid 
 up in the ark with the manna except the book of the law 
 and the rod of Moses, a type of the cross of Christ (Maxim 
 342). 
 
 Such kenosis of the will is surely the most free of 
 all human acts to omit, as it is the most difficult to 
 effect, and hence in mystical experience the will is 
 determined by the negative idea of God only because 
 it wills to receive it. Thus even in ecstacy God is 
 freely served. 
 
 This difficulty in the preparation of the will also 
 meets the further objection that this theory of the 
 negative idea of God imprinted directly on the will 
 would justify the Quietists. Their root error was the 
 claim to reach mystical experience by an active kenotic 
 process. By creating a mental blank they claimed to 
 find God experimentally. No doubt the mental blank 
 can be created and a state of psychic lethargy attained, 
 but unless the negative idea can be found and impressed 
 on the will, detached from everything including self,
 
 236 Introversion 
 
 the result will only be a psychic coma more or less. 
 Can we by our own efforts form the negative idea, 
 can we effect the purification of the will to the extent 
 needed to receive the impress ? A suitable philoso- 
 phical dialectic can give us the negative idea, but only 
 as a negative. The psychic paradox of mystical 
 experience is that a negative idea should have a positive 
 reaction on the will without recourse to the lower ex- 
 perience from which it was derived by negation. 1 
 The intellect can only save itself from collapse before 
 the void by this turning back, how then can it render 
 dynamic what it cannot express ? Is not the negative 
 idea for the philosopher rather a psychic hypothesis 
 than a psychic fact ? For the mystic it is the fact, 
 something given in experience, not inferred. It is 
 but in externals that the idea of God of the mystic 
 agrees with the ultimate conception of the philosopher, 
 their dynamism is totally different and their psychic 
 genesis. The philosopher elaborates his notion, to the 
 mystic it comes as something given, as something 
 often unexpected. It serves the philosopher as matter 
 for discourse, for knowledge ; it reduces the mystic's 
 soul to silence and the unknowable is known in love. 
 It is a conscious construction with the philosopher ; 
 for the mystic it is something dimly perceived in its 
 effects. The philosopher must revert to a lower plane 
 of experience if he would mentally realise his highest 
 
 i Cf. Baker, Holy Wisdom, loc. super cit,
 
 Mystical Experience Proper 237 
 
 concept, the mystic must not look back if he would 
 retain the gift. 
 
 It is evident, therefore, that if the soul does not now 
 abandon its ordinary way of meditation, it will receive 
 this gift of God in a scanty and imperfect manner, not in 
 that perfection with which it is bestowed ; for the gift 
 being so grand, and an infused gift, cannot be received 
 in this scanty and imperfect way. Consequently, if the 
 soul will at this time make efforts of its own, and encourage 
 another disposition than that of passive loving attention, 
 most submissive and calm, and if it does not abstain from 
 its previous discursive acts, it will place a barrier against 
 those graces which God is about to communicate to it in 
 this loving knowledge, i 
 
 It is by the reaction of his will that the mystic 
 perceives the presence of the negative idea. St. 
 Bernard in his commentary on the Canticle of Canticles 
 declares, " The Word, the Spouse, coming into the 
 depths of my soul has never made known His Pre- 
 sence to me by extraordinary means, neither by voice, 
 nor by forms. I have felt His touch only in the move- 
 ment of my heart, and I have found the might of His 
 presence in the correction of my vices." The mystical 
 experience comes suddenly and goes suddenly. 2 The 
 discernment of the negative idea is only an analytical 
 afterthought, when the soul tries to recall its experience 
 and to describe it, if only to itself. The primarily 
 conscious feature is the motion of the will, its fixation 
 
 1 St. John of the Cross, The Living Flanie, stan. iii. 37. 
 
 2 Cf. Poulain, Les Graces d'Oraison, chap. vii. par. 5, 5th ed.p.i 1 1
 
 2^8 Introversioft 
 
 by something beyond the powers of ordinary speech 
 to describe, save in negatives. The negative idea is 
 not in consciousness before the reaction of the will, it 
 becomes dimly visible in that very reaction. It is 
 inferred before it is perceived, if it can be truly said 
 to be perceived. It is elusive and evades reflection, yet 
 it is felt as an energetic reality. No process of ab- 
 straction will ensure its advent, no storm of distracting 
 images can drive it away when the will is held fast, 
 yet it will fly at the least wilful infidelity. Clearly this 
 is not the philosophical notion of the Absolute : it is 
 a something given, not derived. 
 
 Even if the Quietist could arrive at the negative idea, 
 could he hope to adjust his will to the delicate temper 
 fitted to receive it ? Is it so easy to make abstrac- 
 tion of self in our affective part ? We may abolish 
 the " I " by enthusiastic resolutions, we may even try 
 to crush it by a long ascesis, moral and psychic, such 
 as St. John ha? given in details which terrify and even 
 scandalize the ordinary devout Christian, in his Ascent 
 of Carmel, and yet we may fail, and most probably 
 will fail, to disintegrate that self which is our worst 
 and most subtle enemy. Only by the truly horrible 
 passive purgations of the Dark Night can self be finally 
 destroyed so as to leave the will a fitting instrument 
 for grace. Those who look on mystical experience as 
 ecstatic hedonism should read that work of St. John 
 of the Cross ; it will enlighten them as to the suffer-
 
 Mystical Experience Proper 239 
 
 ings of contemplatives. St Teresa is as emphatic. 
 
 Daughters, I assure those of you whom God does not 
 lead by the way of contemplation, that, both by observa- 
 tion and experience, I know that those following it do not 
 bear a lighter cross than you : but indeed you would be 
 aghast at the different kinds of trials God sends them. 
 I know a great deal of both vocations, and am well aware 
 that the sufferings God inflicts on contemplatives are of 
 so unbearable a kind that, unless He sustained such souls 
 by the manna of divine consolations, they would find their 
 pains insupportable. 
 
 These sufferings were of no brief duration in the case 
 of the greater mystical saints. St. Teresa endured 
 them for eighteen years, St. Fransis of Assissi for two, 
 St. Clair of Monte-Falco for fifteen, St Catharine of 
 Bologna for five, St. Mary of Egypt for seventeen, 
 St. Magdalen de Pazzi for five, to begin with, then for 
 sixteen, Blessed Henry Suso for ten. 2 This Divine 
 training of the will through suffering would be a 
 needless cruelty if the will could be purified by resolu- 
 tion or a modest ascesis. There is no short and easy 
 route up the mount of contemplation. 
 
 Blessed Albertus Magnus, in his commentary on 
 the Mystical Theology of Dionysius, seems to insinuate 
 the notion we have put forward, that the negative 
 idea of God in mystical experience is a positive psychic 
 element. 
 
 1 Way of Perfection, chap, xviii. par.i, p. 112 (Baker, 1911). 
 
 2 Meynard, De la Vie Inttrieure, vol. ii. p. 161.
 
 24 Introversion 
 
 There is no pure negation, but the receiving of a certain 
 habitual light through which we draw near to the act of 
 divine vision . . , it is no mere negation, but the mode of 
 natural vision is denied, and the reception of superna- 
 tural light is left, which is the better signified by negation, 
 because we do not find then anything known to us which 
 we may with propriety predicate of God, on account of 
 the eminence of His Simplicity, since the truth of the 
 pr dication would rest on composition with an idea other 
 t :a:i God (cum praedicationis veritas fundetur in alia 
 compositione) : but, as Gregory says, " we sing stammering 
 the high things of God." 1 
 
 Denis the Carthusian, in his commentary on the 
 same work, puts the point still more forcibly : 
 
 In contemplation or mystical vision, when God is known 
 by the withdrawal and denial of all things, He is known 
 and seen more clearly and sublimely than in that contem- 
 plation called affirmative, so also objectively, yet not as 
 What He is, but that He is, yet with a large approach 
 to the knowledge of His Essence. Nevertheless in this 
 contemplation the apex of the mind and the vertex of the 
 of the intelligence is brought to union with God as wholly 
 Unknown, and is plunged likewise wholly in darkness, and 
 knows nothing whatsoever of Him ; not that it wholly with- 
 draws from regarding Him ; seeing that this contemplation, 
 knowledge and vision of the Deity is the highest, brightest, 
 most perfect and deepest possible in this life, as Dionysius 
 himself and his exponents testify ; but because in this 
 contemplative union with God, which is most full of wis- 
 
 i B. Albertus Magnus, De Myst. Theol. S. Dionys., c. 2, n. 2. d. i. 
 ad 2 et 3, quoted Vives, Compendium Theologiae Ascetico-Mysticae, 
 p. 379 (Rome : Pustet, 1908).
 
 Mystical Experience Proper 241 
 
 dom and fire, the mind sees most sharply and clearly how 
 beyond all comprehension, beyond all glory, beyond all 
 brightness, beyond all beauty, beyond all things loveable, 
 and beyond all things that give joy is the Lord God Him- 
 self, Omnipotent and Measureless ; and how infinitely and 
 incredibly it falls short and fails and is held from that full 
 knowledge of Him, that blessed enjoyment of Him, the 
 vision face to face immediate and direct. 1 
 
 It must be remembered that this text is the formu- 
 lation of a spiritual experience, not a mere abstract 
 speculation. Like the Dionysius he is expounding, 
 the explosion of superlatives reveals something more 
 than a merely philosophical inference from a negative 
 and abstract notion. It is an attempt to supply the 
 reason why of an experience, vital and inexpressible, 
 the reaction of the mind to the negative idea of God. 
 
 The union of intelligence and will, in one act, we 
 find, likewise, in Blosius. 
 
 Few rise above their natural powers (and truly no one 
 of himself by his own endeavour can pass beyond them, 
 but God alone raises the man of persevering, humble 
 prayer who does all that he can above them) ; few know 
 of the supreme affection, the simple intelligence, the apex of 
 the spirit and the hidden depth of the soul. In truth you 
 cannot persuade most people that this depth is in us. For 
 it is further within and more elevated than are the three 
 higher powers of the soul, for it is the source of these 
 powers. It is wholly simple, essential and uniform. 
 
 i B. Dion. Carth. in com. de Myst. Theol., a. 8, quoted in foot- 
 note in Vives, Compendium Theol, Ascetico-Mysticae, p. 179. 
 
 16
 
 242 Introversion 
 
 Wherefore in it there is not multiplicity, but unity, and 
 those three higher powers are one Here is the highest 
 tranquillity, the deepest silence, since no image can come 
 here. By this depth (in which the Divine image is hidden) 
 we are like unto God. The same depth which stretches to 
 an abyss is called the heaven of the spirit, for in it is the 
 kingdom of God, according to the saying of our Lord : 
 The Kingdom of God is within you. But the Kingdom of 
 God is God Himself with all His riches. Therefore that 
 bare and unfigured depth is raised above all created things 
 and above all the senses and powers of the soul, it trans- 
 cends place and time, resting in a perpetual adhesion to 
 God as its beginning ; but is essentially within us, as it 
 is the abyss of the soul and its inmost essence. This 
 depth, which the Uncreated Light continually illuminates, 
 when it is opened to man and begins to shine for him, 
 marvellously affects and attracts him. 1 
 
 I Blosius, Tnst. Spirit., c. 12, quoted Meynard, vol. ii. p. 35.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 VARIETIES OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE 
 
 WE have seen that mystical experience is the reaction 
 to the impress of the negative idea of God on the 
 purified will. Its tone is essentially affective but 
 with a cognitive feature apprehended in and by the 
 affection. There is a fusion of cognition and affection 
 in one act ; their union is, as it were, substantial. 
 It is a loving knowledge or rather a love that knows. 
 The verbum mentis, the expressed word of the mind 
 in mystical experience, is not the formulation of the 
 intellect, but the utterance of the whole inner mind, 
 intelligence, and will in one. If it were but the ex- 
 pression of intelligence we would have some con- 
 comitant image, whereas the absence of images, 
 or their irrelevance when present, is a note of mystical 
 experience on which all the descriptive mystics are 
 agreed. The theorists object and invent systems of 
 infused ideas or abstractions from sense data so directly 
 apprehended^witrTsuch complete absence of psychic 
 reflection, that they are unnoticed and impress the 
 will unobserved. It is a systematic necessity which 
 our theory avoids. These invisible, fully formed
 
 244 Introversion 
 
 cognitions, unobserved by the descriptive mystics 
 can only be acceptable when shown to be philosophically 
 necessary. The operations of our middle psychic 
 selves, the normal processes of understanding and will 
 are much more simple and unified than the work 
 of the senses, imagination and instincts, which make 
 up our outer selves. Is it unreasonable to suppose 
 that the operations of the inmost self are still more 
 simple and unified ? Mystical experience is some- 
 thing beyond a meditation reduced to a point. 
 
 The absence of images from mystical experience 
 has been hotly contested by many theorists, but is a 
 commonplace with the descriptive mystics. Pere 
 Poulain regards this absence of images as one of the 
 characteristics of the mystical state and declares : 
 "When philosophers study the functions of the human 
 mind in its natural state, they justly have recourse 
 to observation. Let them suffer the students of 
 rnysticism to act similarly in regard to a super-natural 
 state." 1 It is a matter of observable fact, and the 
 testimony of contemplatives as to the psychic character 
 of their experiences should be accepted. It is true 
 that images have been perceived, but they are not 
 related to the state itself, and are in the nature of 
 distractions, or " additional acts,' as Pere Poulain 
 has so aptly styled those psychic phenomena super- 
 added to the central mystical experience 2 
 
 1 Poulain, Les Gmcrs d'Oraison, 5th ed., p. 119. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 123.
 
 Varieties of Mystical Experience 245 
 
 But is there nothing in the way of an image to be 
 found as part of a mystical experience ? Is the spa- 
 tial element wholly eliminated ? Is there not more 
 than a hint of a spatial image in the following, from 
 the life of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez : " The bodily 
 eyes see what is in front of them, not what is behind ; 
 but the eyes of the soul, which is a spirit, see not only 
 what is before, but behind, on right and left. Thus 
 the soul which is enclosed in God, enjoys, sees, and 
 knows Him on all sides by means of that keen light 
 which God gives it to see Him and relish Him." 1 
 This sense of space is an accompaniment of mystical 
 experience, but it is in the nature of a psychic 
 supplement. It has no relation to the experience itself 
 which is not localised by the imagination. It is as 
 if the imagination, fatigued by the void, created a 
 minimum of representation to accompany the ex- 
 perience, Often there is a sense of light, sometimes 
 of heat, as if the lower powers were tired of standing 
 idle and sought to contribute their quota to the whole 
 experience. 2 The effects of this co-operation by the lower 
 self are are sometimes very striking. Contemplatives, at 
 the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, have felt 
 as if they were before a great and gentle furnace ; 
 the impression was more than imaginary or merely 
 mental, it showed itself in a copious perspiration. 
 
 1 Quoted Poulain, op. cit., footnote, p. 228. 
 
 2 Cf. Poulain, op. cit., p. 229.
 
 246 Introversion 
 
 A sense of light, generally feeble, but quite distinct 
 from that which niters through the closed eyelids, 
 is fairly common. It comes and goes suddenly with 
 the crises of the experience, varying in intensity 
 with it. The power to endure muscular strain, as 
 in kneeling upright and motionless without support, is 
 increased to a quite remarkable extent, 
 
 Generally the action of mystical experience on the 
 lower self in inhibitory. Even where the imagina- 
 tion is blank and the emotions stilled the senses are 
 active to outside stimulation, but their activity is 
 distinctly lowered when the mystical action is strong. 
 Perhaps one of the most important of Pere Poulain's 
 contributions to the study of mysticism is his account 
 of the various modes in which quite moderate mystical 
 states, like the prayer of quiet, lower the sensibility. 1 
 There is a fog before the eyes, etc. These phenomena, 
 trivial in themselves, are of importance in showing 
 that during mystical experience there is an extra- 
 ordinary concentration of vital energy. In ecstasy 
 this is manifest enough, the body seems lifeless very 
 often, but a similar withdrawal of vital force in lower 
 mystical stages, very slight of course in comparison, 
 had not been sufficiently observed prior to Pere 
 Poulain's great work. His theory that the prayer 
 of quiet is a diminutive of the state of ecstasy has been 
 
 I Ibid. p. 165.
 
 Varieties of Mystical Experience 247 
 
 
 
 sharply criticised by the Chanoine Saudreau, 1 who has 
 not observed these phenomena of lowered external 
 sensibility. Doubtless it is a matter of psychic tem- 
 perament in the subjects under observation ; some 
 would be more affected than others. But the pheno- 
 menon is one that we might naturally expect, for a 
 state of profound attention, even in normal psychic 
 life, lowers the sensibility. The matter will have 
 its importance when we come to consider the "ligature," 
 These effects go to show the extreme dynamism 
 of the negative idea of God, which can so energise 
 the will as to affect the whole man, even in his outer 
 senses. Yet the idea itself is so abstract as to defy for- 
 mulation by the intelligence. It is a Beyond of con- 
 sciousness which the metaphysician cannot reach, save 
 remotely by way of negation, and yet the conscious results 
 of its impress on the will are startling even to the very 
 senses. It comes suddenly, not as the ultimate of 
 a process of abstraction, but as an agent seen in its 
 effects. Is it infused by grace, or does grace enable 
 the mystic to abstract it from the given of sense and 
 of faith as it were by an intuitive glance ? The latter 
 would seem the preferable view, as it retains mystical 
 experience exclusively in the order of faith. The 
 special action of grace would be what the theologian 
 ascribes to the donum intellectus, and above all to trie 
 
 i Les Fails Extraordinaires de la Vie Spirituelle (Paris : Vic et 
 Amat, 1908, p. 200).
 
 248 Introversion 
 
 donum sapientiae. But the mode in which the nega- 
 tive idea is formed is beyond the purview of the psy- 
 chologist ; all he can know is that its origin is not the 
 result of a process of conscious abstraction. The 
 psychic kenosis of the field of consciousness merely 
 clears away obstacles, it does not create the experience. 
 That process of recollection which is essential to mysti- 
 cal experience does not seem to the subject at all 
 akin psychologically to the philosophical abstraction 
 by process of negation. It is a seeking to find some- 
 thing that is there, but invisible, by concentrating 
 the attention and disregarding the normally visible, 
 a peering into the shadows, rather than the attempt 
 to filter out the invisible residue from the normally 
 visible of which it forms part. Take the analogy 
 of a photographic negative. If we hold it up against 
 the light we see the picture, but with light and shade 
 reversed, very clear and distinct. Unless we take a 
 print from the negative we can but dimly guess at 
 what the original is like. We can see the outlines 
 and details sharply, but it would require a rare gift 
 of visual abstraction to mentally reverse the scheme of 
 light and shade. But if we place the negative on a 
 piece of black velvet, and view it by reflected light 
 at a certain angle, we can see it clearly, but very 
 faintly, as a positive. The analogy is crude, like all 
 physical analogies to psychic processes, but it illus- 
 trates how an image may be at once a negative, and a
 
 Varieties of Mystical Experience 249 
 
 positive, according to the mode of vision. As we see the 
 positive in the negative by obscuring the negative as 
 such, so we reach the negative idea with the will, 
 by shutting out from consciousness the normally 
 positive elements. The negative idea is there all the 
 time, but obscured by what is more evident. " Vide- 
 mus nunc per speculum in aenigmate" (i Cor. xiii., 12). 
 In the mirror of God's creatures the contemplative 
 peers out the Answer to the riddle of existence. 
 
 The action of grace does not merely consist in enab- 
 ling the soul to find this negative idea, but to apper- 
 ceive it with the will. As St. Bonaventure declares : 
 ' The gift of wisdom, in the stricter sense, signifying 
 the experimental knowledge of God, has its chief 
 act which consists in affection." 1 The reaction of the 
 will in love is the most conscious feature of mystical 
 experience. Cognition of a sort is a later develop- 
 ment and resultant of affection. The will is conscious 
 that it is seized and held as no reflection of created 
 things can hold it. There is an immediate inference 
 as to cause, so immediate as to appear intuitive. 
 The act is not a syllogism, an argument, but rather 
 akin to the animal instinct, in its immediate leap 
 from particular to particular. The lamb fears the 
 the first wolf he sees ; the inmost self, touched by 
 
 i ' Donum sapientiae, prout pressius sumitur, significans Dei 
 expcrimentalem cognitionem, habet actum praecipuum in affectione 
 consistentem.' Conclusio Dist. xxxv. a. 1. q. 1.
 
 250 Introversion 
 
 God, knows the Master's touch. Pere Poulain rejects 
 the notion of inference and insists on intuition; 1 
 but apart from the grave theological objections to 
 his view of mystical experience as an intuition, an 
 attenuation as it were of the Beatific Vision, his 
 theory does not save the phenomena in certain cases, 
 such as the Night of the Spirit, recognised by all 
 authorities as unquestionably mystical. 
 
 He considers that the real difference between 
 mystical experience and the recollection of ordinary 
 prayer is that : 
 
 In the mystical state God is no longer satisfied with helping 
 us to think of Him and to remember His presence, but He 
 gives us an experimental intellectual knowledge of this 
 presence. . . . There is a profound difference between 
 thinking of a person, and feeling him near one. When we 
 thus feel someone near us, we may say we have an ex- 
 perimental knowledge of his presence. In ordinary prayer 
 one has only an abstract knowledge of the presence of 
 God. 2 
 
 Hence he contends for a perception of God in mys- 
 tical experience analogous to our sense perception 
 of objects in normal experience. From this comes 
 his famous discriminant of the mystic state, the presence 
 of God felt. He admits that in the lower mystical 
 
 i Les Graces d'Oraison, 5th ed., p. 68. For the fuller criticism 
 of Pere Poulain's theory, see Saudreau, Les Fails Extraordinaire* 
 de la Vie Spirituelle, chap. iv. ; and Delacroix, Ascetiqtie el Mystiqiti 
 (Paris : Bloud, pp. 44 et seq.). 
 2 Poulain, op. cit., p. 66.
 
 Varieties of Mystical Experience 251 
 
 states this felt presence is very obscure and hardly 
 perceived ; but he insists on its being the psychological 
 essence of mystical experience, for, in answer to those 
 who would define it as a union with God by love, he 
 urges : 
 
 We must add that this love is provoked by a known 
 experimental possession of God. That is where it differs 
 from the love one has in the ordinary way of prayer. 
 By itself the Divine love does not make God known as 
 present in the soul. You would have quite similar feelings 
 for absent friends. You are joined in memory and heart 
 with them ; but that is very different from a grasp of the 
 hand. 1 
 
 The descriptions of their experience by the mystics 
 go to show that there is in mystical contemplation 
 a very real sense of the presence of God, more sub- 
 stantial, so to speak, than in ordinary prayer, 
 but is it the spiritual sensation, the direct perception, 
 Pere Poulain contends ? The texts he cites will bear 
 another interpretation, as Saudreau and others have 
 shown. Is the psychic factor of love to be neglected 
 in this "perception" ? Has not Pere Poulain concen- 
 trated too much on the cognitive element in the 
 " sense " of presence and overlooked the affective 
 factor ? 
 
 Our "sense" of another's presence is largely affected 
 by our feelings in regard to him. A devout Catholic 
 kneeling at Mass is hardly disturbed by another person 
 
 i Ibid. p. 67.
 
 252 Introversion 
 
 coming into the bench, if that person is a total stranger 
 But if he is an old friend, not seen for many years, 
 or someone personally disliked, the distraction is 
 very vehement, and the recovery of recollection 
 a difficult task. Surely the presence in the two 
 instances is very different ? The cognition of 
 physical presence is the same, but its apperception 
 by the will varies and reacts vehemently on the sensible 
 cognition and on the whole field of consciousness. 
 The tone value of the experience is altered, the given 
 of sense remain the same, but they are received into 
 a different affective consciousness. Are we not 
 acutely conscious of the presence of what we vehe- 
 mently dislike, can we not almost see it in the dark ? 
 
 The putting oneself in the presence of God of ordi- 
 nary prayer and meditation is too often, alas ! but 
 a pitiful formalism, of but small psychic value. Even 
 where this act of faith is made devoutly and from the 
 heart, it is the expression of an intellectual assent 
 to a dogmatic truth rather than a cordial realisation 
 of a fact. 1 The notion of the presence of God is but 
 one element in the field of consciouness among a vast 
 crowd of others whose dynamism is greater as they 
 come closer to our senses. The idea of God, so ab- 
 stract and above our power to grasp with a sense of 
 
 i We must not be taken as minimising the spiritual value of this 
 act of faith as a prelude to prayer ; we are considering its psycholo- 
 gical import solely in this context.
 
 Varieties of Mystical Experience 253 
 
 reality, must needs remain a feeble element in con- 
 sciousness, however much we strive to reinforce it. 
 We know that He is present, yet we must ever cry, 
 "I believe; Lord, help my unbelief," Is it strange, 
 then, that the sense of presence is feeble, even in 
 fervent ordinary prayer ? 
 
 But the idea of God comes into mystical experience 
 very differently, as we have seen. It is no longer 
 a feebly dynamic element coming into a crowd. It 
 comes to its own place in the apex of the mind and 
 with its own immense dynamism. The will reacts, 
 
 not feebly and perfunctorily, as to a shadow, but with 
 a quite extraordinary vigour of love. The simple 
 act of faith in God's presence becomes the cordial 
 realisation of a fact. The presence of God is felc 
 because His presence acknowledged by faith is realised 
 in love. It is a "sense" of God here and now, an 
 instinct of the Divine, but it does not cease to be a 
 simple act of faith, fidei formatissimae, " Quia actus 
 appetitivae virtutis est quaedam inclinatio ad rem 
 ipsam, secundum quamdam similitudinem, ipsa ap- 
 plicatio appetitivae virtutis ad rem, secundum quod ei 
 inhaeret, accipit nomen sensus, quasi experientiam 
 quamdam sumens de re, cui inhaeret, inquantum 
 complacit sibi in ea." 1 Thus St. Thomas seems to 
 
 i Sutnma, la. Ilae. Q. 15 a. I.e. " Since appetition is an inclining 
 towards the object itself by reason of a certain likeness it follows 
 that the clinging of the appetite to the object it desires receives the 
 name of " sense " as being an experience of the object to which it 
 clings according to the extent of its complacency therein,"
 
 254 Introversion 
 
 recognise a ''sense" as proceeding from the affective 
 powers, which gives an experimental knowledge. 
 
 In the question of the "ligature " that group of 
 psychic inhibitions caused by a mystical experience, 
 there is also a disagreement between Pere Poulain 
 and the Chanoine Saudreau. The former asserts, the 
 latter denies, that it is present in states lower than 
 ecstasy. 1 Bossuet brought the term into fashion 
 in his Instruction sur les e'tats d'oraison, when dis- 
 cussing the characteristics of the passive state accord- 
 ing to approved mystics. 
 
 The passive state is a state of suspension and ligature 
 of the intellectual powers or faculties, in which the soul 
 remains powerless to produce discursive acts. Attention 
 must be given to this last phrase, for the intention of 
 these doctors is not to exclude free acts from their prayer 
 . . . which could be made without discourse, but acts 
 where one excites oneself by a discourse or preceding 
 reflection. . . And here is a great change in the way of 
 the soul's operations. For the soul, accustomed to reason 
 and to arouse its affections by the consideration of certain 
 motives, suddenly, as if impelled by a mighty hand, not 
 alone ceases to discourse, but no longer is able to discourse ; 
 and this causes other inabilities during the period of 
 prayer. 2 
 
 Bossuet, as usual, exaggerates. The ligature does 
 
 1 Cf. Saudreau, Les Fails Extraordinaires, chap. vi. section 2, 
 
 P- 199- 
 
 2 Bossuet, Instr. sur les e'tats d'oraison, l.vii. No. 9, quoted Poulain, 
 
 F- '94-
 
 Varieties of Mystical Experience 255 
 
 not cause a total impotence, only a difficulty, greater 
 or less, as the case may be. Often it is a mere disin- 
 clination, an absence of the velle, not the posse. Only 
 in cases of ecstasy is there total inhibition. 
 
 A withdrawal of the lower powers from use occurs in 
 rapture, because there is then no employment for them ; 
 but usually, in divine contemplation, there is no with- 
 drawal of the faculties from use, for they continue usable 
 to some extent, but only from full activity, because the 
 soul pays no heed to their operation and their action is 
 weakened, for when the action of one power grows more 
 intense, that of another is weakened, as Aristotle declares, i 
 
 We have similar inhibitions in normal psychic action ; 
 severe pain paralyses our mental powers. 
 
 Since all the powers of the soul are rooted in the one 
 essence of the soul it necessarily follows that, when th? 
 intention of the soul is vehemently drawn to the operation of 
 any one power, it is withdrawn from the operation of 
 another ; for each one soul can have but one intention, and 
 on account of this, if anything attracts to itself the whole 
 intention of the soul, or a great part of it, it will not suffer 
 anything else besides which requires great attention. 2 
 
 St. Thomas goes on to show how pain will absorb 
 all attention and not suffer one to acquire new know- 
 ledge, or even reflect on what we know, if very severe. 
 Hence, mystical experience which absorbs the atten- 
 tion of the whole soul, must necessarily lower the 
 
 1 B. Albert! Magni, Comm. in lib. de Myst. Theol. Dion. c. I. 
 No. 6 B. Dub. I. ad 1, quoted Meynard, footnote, vol. ii. p. 13. 
 
 2 Summit Theologica D. Thomae, la. Ilae. Q. 37, a. |.c.
 
 256 Introversion 
 
 intensity of consciousness in all that does not concern 
 it. Far from being extraordinary the ligature is 
 what we might naturally expect to find from the 
 ordinary principles which explain psychic activity. 
 Its extent, of course, depends on the intensity with 
 which the attention is held fixed. In very light 
 cases of the prayer of quiet it might hardly be noticed and 
 of course, temperament plays a great part ; hence come 
 in all probability the doubts of the Chanoine Saudreau. 
 Those in whom the mystical experience is at all in- 
 tense seldom fail to notice a strange and unwonted 
 difficulty in reciting vocal prayers requiring any 
 considerable degree of attention. Short, easily me- 
 morised, prayers may be repeated without difficulty, 
 or longer prayers read where the attention given is 
 general ; but when the mind tries to follow the meaning 
 of the vocal prayer, or to indulge in reflections and 
 considerations of its own, there is a sense of oblivion, 
 f stupidity, of actual inhibition which is bth striking 
 and disconcerting to the inexperienced. The atten- 
 tion is elsewhere and better engaged, though the soul 
 may not perceive it at first. If the soul were conscious 
 of its own attention, it would not be surprised at the 
 phenomena of the ligature ; they would seem quite 
 ordinary and to be expected as a matter of course. 
 
 St. John of the Cross makes use of the phenomena 
 of the ligature, inability to meditate in the accustomed 
 way, joined to a growing "sense" of the presence of
 
 Varieties of Mystical Experience 257 
 
 God, as the index of the soul's entrance on mystical 
 experience. 1 Inability to meditate may proceed 
 from some neurose or morbid psychose ; the hyster- 
 ical, the psychasthenic, the melancholic may be unable 
 to construct their meditation as usual, they may 
 experience a ligature, but their morbid state is suffi- 
 cient to account for it. Or it may proceed from moral 
 and spiritual slackness, from that accidie which the 
 late Bishop of Oxford has so well described, 2 from the 
 deadly sin of sloth. Hence the necessity to verify 
 the absence of disease, physical or spiritual, before 
 assigning mystical experience as the cause of the 
 inability to meditate. In his directions, St, John of 
 the Cross gives three tests : 
 
 The first is this : when we find no comfort in the things 
 of God, and none also in created things. For when God 
 brings the soul into the dark night in order to wean it 
 from sweetness and to purge the desire of sense, He does 
 not allow it to find sweetness or comfort anywhere. It is 
 then probable, in such a case, that this dryness is not the re- 
 sult of sins or imperfections recently committed ; for if 
 it were, we should feel some inclination or desire for other 
 things than those of God. Whenever we give the reins to 
 our desires in the way of any imperfection, our desires are 
 instantly attracted to it, much or little, in proportion to 
 the affection for it. But still, inasmuch as this absence 
 of pleasure in the things of heaven and of earth may pro- 
 
 1 Ascent of Carmel, Bk. II, chap. 13 et seq. ; Dark Night, Bk. I, 
 chap. 9. 
 
 2 Paget, The Sorrow of the World (Longmans, 1912). 
 
 17
 
 258 Introversion 
 
 ceed from bodily indisposition or a melancholy tempera- 
 ment, which frequently causes dissatisfaction with all 
 things, the second test and condition become necessary. 
 
 The second test and condition of this purgation are 
 that the memory dwells ordinarily upon God with a pain- 
 full anxiety and carefulness, the soul thinks it is not serving 
 God, but going backwards, because it is no longer conscious 
 of any sweetness in the things of God. In that case it is 
 clear that this weariness of spirit and aridity are not 
 the results of weakness and lukewarmness ; for the 
 peculiarity of lukewarmness is the want of earnestness in, 
 and of interior solicitude for, the things of God. There is 
 therefore, a great difference between dryness and luke- 
 warmness, for the latter consists in great remissness and 
 weakness of will and spirit, in the want of all solicitude 
 about serving God. The true purgative aridity is accom- 
 panied in general by a painful anxiety, because the soul 
 thinks that it is not serving God. 1 
 
 The third sign we have for ascertaining whether this 
 dryness be the purgation of sense, is inability to meditate 
 and make reflections, and to excite the imagination, as 
 before, notwithstanding all the efforts we may make ; for 
 God begins now to communicate Himself, no longer through 
 the channel of sense, as formerly, in consecutive reflections, 
 by which we arranged and divided our knowledge, but in 
 pure spirit, which admits not of successive reflections, and 
 in the act of pure contemplation, to which neither the in- 
 terior nor the exterior senses of our lower nature can ascend. 
 Hence it is that the fancy and the imagination cannot 
 help or suggest any reflections, nor use them ever after- 
 wards. 
 
 i Dark Night (Baker, p. 34).
 
 Varieties of Mystical Experience 259 
 
 It is understood here that this embarrassment and dis- 
 satisfaction of the senses do not arise out of any bodily 
 ailment. When they arise from this, the indisposition, 
 which is always changeable, having ceased, the powers of 
 the soul recover their former energies, and find their pre- 
 vious satisfactions at once. It is otherwise in the purga 
 tion of the appetite, for as soon as we enter upon this, 
 the inability to make our meditations continually grows. I 
 
 Expressed in terms of the theory we have suggested, 
 this psychic process, the Dark Night of Sense, would 
 take this form. The negative idea of God is impressed 
 on the, as yet, unpurified will. On account of its 
 impurities, its attachment to self and to created things, 
 the will cannot react to the impress with that love 
 which gives the "sense" of presence, but it is disturbed, 
 and vehemently. There is conflict between the 
 affective absorption in the negative idea and the 
 attachments to the positive manifold of consciousness. 
 When the attraction of the negative idea prevails 
 psychic energy is withdrawn from the normal field 
 and concentrated in the apex. Hence the weakening 
 of the normal elements of consciousness and the gradual 
 disintegration of the field during the period of action 
 of the negative idea on the will. The will is with- 
 drawn from what it formerly loved and esteemed 
 but nature is reluctant and the concentration of vital 
 energy is painful and wearisome. With the gradual 
 withdrawal of the will from the created it becomes 
 
 i Ibid., p. 39.
 
 26o Introversion 
 
 more apt to respond to the impress of the negative 
 idea, and hence comes the growing "sense" of the 
 presence of God. The very process of mystical ex- 
 perience in its inchoate stage is a purgation before it 
 becomes an illumination. In the more terrible Dark 
 Night of the Spirit the illumination itself becomes the 
 purgation. 
 
 This second purgation, which falls to the lot of but 
 few, is much more severe than the first. Those who 
 have passed through the first night, the night of 
 sense, have had their wills purified from attachment 
 to the things of sense. "The stains of the old man 
 still remain in the spirit, though not visible to it, 
 and if they be not removed by the strong soap and 
 lye of the purgation of this night, the spirit cannot 
 attain to the pureness of the divine union." 1 The 
 " I " is not wholly destroyed, the old habits have left 
 their traces, there are many imperfections of which 
 the soul is unconscious. " Delicta quis intelligit ? 
 ab occultis meis munda me " (Ps. xviii. 13). 
 
 The dark night is a certain inflowing of God into the 
 soul which cleanses it of its ignorances and imperfections, 
 habitual, natural, and spiritual. 2 
 
 But it may be asked : Why does the soul call the divine 
 light, which enlightens the soul and purges it of its ig- 
 norances, the dark night ? I reply, that the divine wis- 
 dom is, for two reasons, n. t night and darkness only, but 
 
 I St. John of the Cross, Dark Night (Baker, p. 71). 2 Ibid. p. 78
 
 Varieties of Mystical Experience 261 
 
 pain and torment also to the soul. The first is, the divine 
 wisdom is so high that it transcends the capacity of the 
 soul, and therefore is, in that respect, darkness. The 
 second reason is based on the meanness and impurity of 
 the soul, and in that respect the divine wisdom is painful 
 to it, afflictive and dark also. 1 
 
 St, John compares the soul to an owl in the noonday 
 sun, blinded by excess of light. 
 
 It is for this reason that St. Dionysius and other mystic 
 theologians call infused contemplation a ray of darkness, 
 that is, for the unenlightened and unpurified soul, because 
 this great supernatural light masters the natural power 
 of the reason and takes away its natural way of under- 
 standing. . . This dim contemplation is, in its beginnings, 
 painful also to the soul. For as the infused divine con- 
 templation contains many excellences in the highest degree, 
 and the soul, which is the recipient, because not yet pure, 
 is involved in many miseries, the result is as two con- 
 traries cannot co-exist in the same subject that the soul 
 must suffer and be in pain. 2 
 
 When the rays of this pure light strike upon the soul, in 
 order to expel its impurities, the soul perceives itself to 
 be so unclean and miserable that it seems as if God had 
 set Himself against it, and itself were set against God. . . 
 The soul seeing distinctly in this bright and pure light, though 
 dimly, its own impurity, acknowledges its own unworthi- 
 ness before God and all creatures. That which pains it 
 still more is the fear it has that it never will be worthy, 
 and that all its goodness is gone.3 
 
 i Dark Night, p. 79. * ibid. p. 80. 3 Ibid. p. 81.
 
 262 Introversion 
 
 This little catena of texts from St. John of the 
 Cross gives the general idea of this form of mystical 
 experience which he describes at length in the Dark 
 Night, Book II. Let us see how our psychological theory 
 will apply to it. In the Night of Sense the negative 
 idea detached the will from its affections to created 
 things and, in thus purifying it, enabled it to respond 
 to the impress with love, giving a growing " sense " 
 of the presence of God. In this purgation the negative 
 idea has only a limited dynamism adjusted by grace 
 to the capacity of the will. It is the revelation by faith of 
 God to the will as the Supreme Good. But in the 
 Night of the Spirit the negative idea has a new and 
 terrible force, it is no longer doled out to meet the 
 will's capacity, it is excessive and awful in its energy 
 It is now the revelation of God to the will as the 
 Supreme Holiness, one veil of the Godhead has been 
 withdrawn and the soul is scalded in light. The 
 will cannot react with that love which gives comfort 
 and the "sense " of presence, it is terrified and its love 
 finds self-expression in a fearful sense of its own 
 unworthiness. The will feels the vast gulf between 
 itself and its Love. Imperfections and failings, forgotten 
 and self-forgiven faults, swarm up from the depths 
 of the deepest oblivion and the soul sees itself a leper. 
 The will is dragged from its End by the weight of its 
 sins, no longer seen by the rushlight of reason, but 
 in the blaze of Divine justice. The will feels sin as
 
 Varieties of Mystical Experience 263 
 
 it is, an offence against Infinite Holiness, and this 
 consciousness of sin causes a "sense" of remoteness 
 from God which is a "sense" of absence. It is the 
 absence of God, not His presence, which is felt in the 
 Dark Night of the Spirit. 
 
 Hence those feelings of despair, approaching to the 
 conviction of damnation, which we find in the narra- 
 tives of mystics who have passed through this exper- 
 ience. It differs from the most acute " conviction 
 of sin " in the revivalistic conversion-psychose. "They 
 who enter this night have, generally, had much sweet- 
 ness in God, and served him greatly ; but now, to 
 see themselves strangers to so much happiness, and 
 unable to recover it, causes them the greatest afflic- 
 tion." 1 It is not due to despair as a mere failure 
 of hope, to lack of " assurance," as Protestant theolo- 
 gians would term it, but to the sense of their own 
 vileness and the Holiness of God. 
 
 In this purgation 
 
 The desires of sense and spirit are lulled to sleep and 
 mortified, unable to relish anything either human or divine ; 
 the affections of the soul are thwarted and brought low, 
 become helpless, and have nothing to rest upon ; the imagi- 
 nation is fettered, and unable to make any profitable 
 reflections, the memory is gone, and the will, too, is dry 
 and afflicted, and all the faculties are empty, and, more- 
 over, a dense and heavy cloud overshadows the soul, 
 distresses it and holds it as if it were far away from God. 2 
 
 I Dark Night, p. 89. 2 Dark Night, p. 133.
 
 264 Introversion 
 
 By this process the last roots of self-will, of self-com- 
 placency, are grubbed up. As the ultra-violet rays 
 of the solar spectrum kill off bacteria, so the negative 
 idea of God kills off the hidden defects of the will and 
 fits it for a fuller experience. 
 
 There is a third purgation on the mystic way, 
 which St. Teresa has described as preceding the highest 
 state of union with God, that habitual presence which 
 mystics call the spiritual marriage.: 
 
 This is a trance of the senses and faculties of the soul, 
 for everthing else combines, as I told you, to make the 
 agony more intense. The understanding realises acutely 
 what cause there is for grief in separation from God, and 
 His Majesty now augments this sorrow by a vivid mani- 
 festation of Himself, thus increasing her anguish to such 
 a degree that the sufferer gives vent to loud cries, which she 
 cannot stifle, however patient and accustomed to pain 
 she may be, because this torture is not corporal, but attacks 
 the innermost recesses of the soul. l 
 
 This is the dart of love, a new enforcement of the idea 
 of God, revealing Him as the Infinite Reward, the 
 Final End of the soul. 
 
 The type of mystical phenomena which has attracted 
 most attention from the agnostic psychologist is the 
 ecstasy. Ecstasy may be defined as a mystical 
 experience of such intensity that the normal sense 
 relations of the soul with the outward world 
 are completely suspended, the subject perceives 
 
 i Interior Castle, Mansion VI.. chap. xi. par. 3.
 
 Varieties of Mystical Experience 265 
 
 nothing of what is going on around him, is most 
 frequently incapable of movement, and cannot 
 terminate the experience at will. The loss of sensi- 
 biliy and movement make ecstasy analogous to certain 
 morbid states, like catalepsy or intoxication by opium, 
 but it is sharply differentiated from these states in 
 its sequel, a notable addition of moral energy. In 
 some types of ecstasy there is speech and movement 
 but the subject remains unconscious of his surroun- 
 dings. This will suggest analogies to certain hypnotic 
 states, but with analogous differences in the moral 
 value of the sequel. The hypnotic subject is not 
 notably improved by his experience, either physically 
 or morally, but the ecstatic shows increased will- 
 power in the pursuit of moral good. The hypnotic 
 subject may be roused by whoever has hypnotised 
 him ; the ecstatic can only be recalled by someone 
 to whom moral obedience is due, a director, a religious 
 superior, etc. The recall of an ecstatic is essentially 
 a moral act, and has been exercised by those to whom 
 the superior has delegated authority for the purpose. 
 
 Thus it is that even in the external manifestation 
 of this experience there is a marked difference from the 
 morbid or quasi-morbid states to which it has been 
 assimilated. 1 
 
 The subjective experience of ecstatics is of immense 
 
 I Cf. Poulain, op. cit., chap, xviii., and Saudreau, Lcs Fails 
 Extraordinaires, chap. vi.
 
 266 Introversion 
 
 variety, with one marked characteristic in common : 
 an immense psychic activity, a sense of life more full 
 than ordinary, This feature of inner activity is a stan- 
 ding challenge to agnostic psychology, which first 
 treated it as an illusion, a hallucination, and then 
 sought to explain it by reduction to a pure affective 
 state. Murisier thus analyses an advanced mystical 
 state : 
 
 What is this simple idea of the Divinity which takes the 
 place of the complex vision and the associations which 
 have been got rid of ? It is often an abstract idea analogous 
 to the idea of good, the supreme object of the meditations 
 of Plotinus, or to the law of the causality of pain, whose 
 knowledge leads the Buddhist to the repose of Nirvana. 
 It is oftener a vague confused image, drawn from earlier 
 representations, or rather it is the residue of these repre- 
 sentations which are fused, drained, simplified by the grad- 
 ual blotting-out of distinction and contour. . . The isolated 
 image, the sovereign light, is soon in turn extinguished. 
 Memory, imagination, even understanding is lost, as the 
 mystics say. 1 
 
 He declares that ecstasy ends in the annihilation 
 of personality, that it is an absolutely monoideistic 
 state, with finally a total extinction of consciousness. 
 We reduce the field of consciousness to one idea, we 
 concentrate on that one idea abstractively until it 
 vanishes from consciousness. Thus we get the idea 
 
 I Les maladies du sentiment religieux (Alcan, 1901, p. 61), quoted 
 Poulain, p. 273.
 
 Varieties of Mystical Experience 267 
 
 of Nothing, and basing ourselves on the maxim that 
 " where there is nothing, there is God," we direct all 
 our affective energy to that nothing; and in so doing 
 get an affective sense of God which, if pushed to the 
 psychic breaking-point, results in unconsciousness, and 
 so we have ecstasy. Now, this process may well 
 account for the Buddhist " ecstacy," as it would con- 
 ceivably produce a psychic and somatic lethargy ; it 
 might even explain the alleged ecstasies of Plotinus, 
 for their affective value may have been only a psychic 
 throw-back, the retrojection of an emotion, subsequent 
 to the state, into the state itself by an easy illusion 
 of memory ; but it is inadequate to account psycho- 
 logically for the relations of ecstasies we find in St. 
 Teresa, Blessed Angela of Foligno, St. Catherine of 
 Siena, and other mystics. Clearly, the experience St. 
 Teresa refers to, in the following passage, is quite 
 other than a purely negative Nirvana : 
 
 " But," you will ask me, " if the mind cannot afterward* 
 remember the very sublime favours Our Lord bestows in 
 this mansion, what profit do they bring it ? " O my daugh- 
 ters ! their value cannot be over-rated, for though the 
 recipient is incapable of describing them, they are deeply 
 imprinted in the centre of the soul and are never forgotten. 
 " How can they be remembered, if nothing is seen, and the 
 powers of the soul do not comprehend them ? " I, too, 
 do not undertand this, but I know that certain truths of 
 the greatness of God remain so impressed on the spirit 
 by this favour, that, did not faith teach it Who He is and
 
 268 Introversion 
 
 that it is bound to believe He is God, it would henceforth 
 worship Him as such, as Jacob did when he saw the ladder 1 
 
 Does not this, too, reveal a cognitive, as well as an 
 affective activity ? 
 
 Before the soul fell into the trance, it thought itself 
 io be careful about not offending God, and that it did 
 what it could in proportion to its strength ; but now that 
 it has attained to this state, in which the Sun of Justice 
 shines upon it, and makes it open its eyes, it beholds so 
 many motes that it would gladly close them again. It 
 is not so truly the child of the noble eagle that it can gaze 
 upon the sun ; but, for the few instants it can keep them 
 .open, it beholds itself wholly unclean. It remembers 
 the words : " Who shall be just in Thy presence ? " When 
 it looks on this Divine Sun, the brightness thereof dazzles it 
 when it looks on itself, its eyes are blinded by the dust ; 
 the little dove is blind. So it happens very often : the 
 soul is utterly blinded, absorbed, amazed, dizzy at the 
 vision of so much grandeur. It is in rapture that true 
 humility is acquired humility that will never say any 
 good of self, nor suffer others to do so. 2 
 
 To awaken such interior energy a mere philosophi- 
 cal abstraction would be absurdly inadequate. We 
 might produce a state of coma or lethargy, but we 
 could hardly arrive at an outward coma and an in- 
 terior super-activity. Ecstasy is not a depression of 
 activity, but an augmentation by concentration. The 
 negative idea of God is impressed on the will with 
 such measure and proportion that it wholly absorbs 
 
 1 St. Teresa, Interior Castle, Mansion VI, chap. iv. par. 6. 
 
 2 St. Teresa, Life, chap. xx. par. 37 (Baker, 1904, p. 169).
 
 Varieties of Mystical Experience 269 
 
 its affective energy, and derivatively drains all the 
 other psychic energies. Hence, during the experience, 
 the soul has no force left, save what suffices to main- 
 tain the animal life in existence. A little more and 
 the mystic would cease to live. Breathing almost 
 ceases, the bodily temperature falls, the physical state 
 seems almost like death to the onlooker. And with 
 this collapse of the bodily organism there is this super- 
 abundant psychic life, showing itself, when the ecstatic 
 recovers normal consciousness, often in some sudden 
 and extraordinary progress in virtue. That ecstasy 
 involves a lowering of psychic activity is in flat con- 
 tradiction with the testimony of those who have ex 
 perienced it, the only competent witnesses as to the 
 psychic facts. If we accept their relations as psy- 
 chological documents, we are not entitled to explain 
 them by a process which would justly deprive them of 
 all evidential value Scientific probity must respect 
 the integrity of the fact. 
 
 It is during ecstasy, as a rule, that the Saints have 
 received those particular favours, visions, locutions, 
 and revelations which are distinct in character from the 
 general obscure contemplation of mystical experience. 
 These are of a charismatic order, being essentially 
 gratiae gratis datae, and psychology has nothing to say 
 to them, when genuine. When the visions or locutions 
 are perceived by the senses or the imagination there 
 is ample room for illusions of every kind. St. John of
 
 270 Introversion 
 
 ihe Cross devotes several chapters of his Ascent of 
 Carmel to showing how illusion may be detected, and 
 even modern psychology adds but little to what he has 
 said, despite our greater knowledge of morbid psy- 
 choses. The intellectual visions or locutions, higher 
 phenomena where the idea is communicated to the 
 intellect directly without images or any given of sense, 
 are less liable to illusion as they are more supernatural. 
 Their reality has been challenged by those who deny 
 their possibility a priori ; so have miracles. You 
 cannot prove either to the man who denies God. St. 
 John of the Cross is very formal in his doctrine that 
 these extraordinary favours should not be sought after, 
 desired, or even dwelt upon. 1 
 
 Pere Poulain, as we have seen, marks off very 
 sharply mystical experience from what he considers 
 the non-mystical prayer of simplicity. The Chanoine 
 Saudreau and Pere de Besse would separate ordinary 
 mystical contemplation from the extraordinary or 
 miraculous type, such as ecstasy obviously is. These 
 
 * Cf. St. John of the Cross, Ascent of Carmel, Bk. III. chap. 7. 
 "The spiritual director must be therefore careful not to make his 
 penitent narrow-minded by attaching any importance to these 
 supernatural visitations ; for they are nothing else but the motes 
 of the Spirit, and he who shall give his attention to these alone 
 will in the end have no spirituality at all. Yea, rather let him wean 
 him from all visions and locutions, and guide him into the liberty 
 and darkness of faith, where he shall receive of the abundance of 
 the Spirit, and consequently the knowledge and understanding of 
 ihe words of God." Ascent of Carmel, Bk. II. chap. 19 par. 13.
 
 Varieties of Mystical Experience 271 
 
 boundaries are somewhat artificial, for who can tell 
 the precise point of division ? The prayer of simplicity 
 melts into the prayer of quiet, and quiet deepens to 
 union ; union flames to ecstasy, and ecstasy passes in 
 the spiritual marriage. They are rather subjective 
 divisions, varying with each soul which is favoured 
 with mystical experience. In themselves they may 
 well be one in essence, but individuated by the spiritual 
 progress of the mystic. All are in the order of faith. 
 That which we have called the negative idea of God, 
 because it can only be expressed by negations, which 
 seems to vanish into nothingness when we try to 
 formulate it, yet which has such stupendous dynamism 
 when impressed on the will, may well be that unknown 
 psychic element in an act of divine faith which marks 
 it off so sharply in our experience from merely human 
 or scientific faith. If that be so, if the metanoetic 
 element in the faith of the everyday Catholic be the 
 latent mystic idea of God, the prima veritas, in which 
 and by which we believe, then we have a golden thread 
 which links up the prayer of the most ordinary of the 
 faithful with the ecstatic orison of the great saint. 
 We would then be able to trace out the progress of 
 spiritual experience, from the conversion-psychose to 
 ecstasy, as a continuous growth in faith, the stages 
 being set by the degrees of charity attained by the 
 soul. We will take this theological continuity and 
 look at it from the psychological point of view of the
 
 272 Introversion 
 
 reaction of the will to the impress of the negative 
 idea of God. 
 
 When this negative idea is first found in the inner- 
 most self by grace, be it by infusion from without or 
 by aiding the powers of the soul to push abstraction 
 from the given of consciousness beyond the natural 
 psychic ultimate, it is unrecognised, but not, in a measure 
 unfelt. Its proper place is the apex of the will, as it 
 is formed in the apex of the intelligence, but in the 
 unconverted there is little or no vital energy to be 
 found there. The whole force of the soul is spent in 
 the lower planes of consciousness, the inner man is 
 extroverted, turned towards the things of sense and 
 of self. The first action of the negative idea is general 
 and gradual, an unconscious drawing of the will to- 
 wards itself. There is a faint growth of vital energy 
 in the apex of the soul, and any increase there means 
 a large diversion from the total sum of vital energy. 
 There the vital potential is at its highest, and, to supply 
 it, the vital potential in the lower will and other 
 powers must decrease. Hence, the sense of discom- 
 fort, of incapacity, of disrelish for customary acts 
 which goes with the early stages of the conversion 
 psychose. The invisible, unfelt attraction draws away 
 the soul from the things to which it was attached. 
 There is the sense of stress, of conflict. The old habits 
 and feelings grow weaker, there is less attraction to- 
 wards them. As the drawing of the centre increases,
 
 Varieties of Mystical Experience 273 
 
 the ordinary field of consciousness loses more and more 
 of its psychic energy. Vices lose their grip and there 
 is an increase, as it were by suction, in the number 
 of centres of volitional instability. There is an ana- 
 logous process in the cognitive order. Views are 
 weakened, the power of intellectual prejudice lowered. 
 The will is no longer forcibly attracted to them and 
 ceases to buttress the cognitive element by its affec- 
 tions. What is doubtful and hypothetical in these 
 views becomes more apparent when the agreeable in 
 them ceases to attract. There is a sense of intellectual 
 deficiency generated, a loss of the cocksure spirit, a 
 growing conflict felt with truth, an expanding doubt 
 and desire for knowledge. Again, suction creates 
 centres of instability. Given the advent from without 
 of the nascent idea, the field of consciousness is al- 
 ready sapped and mined, and disintegration with re- 
 formation follows. Under the growing attraction of 
 the negative idea the conscious elements regroup 
 themselves. All the while the soul is unconscious of 
 this central attraction in itself, but it realises a some- 
 thing beyond itself yet within, when it observes the 
 steady direction of the whole psychic process. There 
 is a sense of an invisible educator aiding and shaping 
 what comes from without. The interior attraction co- 
 operates with the preacher. 
 
 But although the will is thus attracted by the ne- 
 gative idea, the action must be reinforced before it
 
 274 Introversion 
 
 can react with that conscious love which gives the 
 " sense " of presence. The mere readjustment of the 
 field of consciousness is in itself a " natural " process ; 
 it does not pass beyond the power of ordinary psychic 
 methods to accomplish. The soul continues extro- 
 verted, although its point of view is changed. The 
 " self " has been drilled but not substantially altered. 
 The "I" has been taught to look to God, but it still 
 stands erect. Self-will has been rectified, but it is 
 still self-will. Before the negative idea can exert its 
 specific action the will must be purified, as we have 
 seen in the Night of Sense. Then mystical experience 
 proper begins, as it continues, in suffering. It is very 
 probable that more Christians receive mystical experi- 
 ence than is usually thought, still the vast bulk do 
 not progress much beyond a well-directed cultivation 
 of the self for God. They build up their characters 
 admirably, but it is their characters. They will not 
 lose all, including self, to find all ; and so they remain 
 in the middle passage. Others have to fulfill active 
 duties ; their vocation is that of Martha, busied about 
 many things. Only the comparatively few corres- 
 pond with the inward energies of the negative idea and 
 make progress in the mystic way. 
 
 There is a psychic parallelism between the conver- 
 sion-psychose and the Night of Sense, indeed the latter 
 psychose has been termed mystical conversion. St. 
 John of the Cross has compared the three mystical
 
 Varieties of Mystical Experience 275 
 
 nights to periods of darkness in the natural night 
 the early dark of sense, the black midnight of the spirit, 
 and the dark that precedes the dawn. If we take 
 this analogy, the conversion-psychose would be re 
 presented by the twilight. By a kindred metaphor, 
 the prayer of quiet would represent the first streaks 
 of dawn and ecstasy the glory of the noontide. The 
 miraculous and extraordinary features are but the 
 individual accidents of the various states ; they may 
 well serve to delimit frontiers from the director's 
 point of view, but the states, in themselves, show a 
 continuity, a growth. Now, growth is never uniform, 
 for it is a vital, not a mechanical, act ; it may be 
 checked and promoted by activity, but it is largely 
 independent of our efforts. It is only those weeds, 
 our sins and failings, whose rate of growth we can 
 wholly direct, for that is all we own in the garden of 
 the soul. The seed the Master plants, we can only 
 water and watch. We cannot turn the violet into the 
 rose, or change the dwarf into the full-sized variety, 
 but we can keep off the slugs and keep the blooms 
 fresh.
 
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