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 -