THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

...the purely existential point of view from which these lectures must consider religious experience. When I discuss these experiences biologically and psychologically, as if they were merely curious facts of individual history, some of you may think it degrades such a sublime subject, and you might even suspect me—until my purpose is more fully expressed—of intentionally trying to discredit the religious side of life.

Such a result is, of course, entirely contrary to my intention. Because such a prejudice on your part would seriously obstruct the impact of what I have to share, I will devote a few more words to this point.

There is no doubt that, in reality, a life devoted exclusively to religion tends to make a person exceptional and eccentric. I am not speaking now of the ordinary religious believer, who follows the conventional observances of their country, whether they be Buddhist, Christian, or Muslim. Their religion has been created for them by others, transmitted by tradition, shaped into fixed forms by imitation, and maintained by habit. It would profit us little to study this second-hand religious life. We must instead search for the original experiences that served as the patterns for all this mass of suggested feeling and imitated conduct. We can only find these experiences in individuals for whom religion is not a dull habit, but rather an acute fever. Such individuals are "geniuses" in the religious field, and like many other geniuses whose work is significant enough to be recorded in biographies, these religious figures have often shown symptoms of nervous instability. Perhaps even more than other types of genius, religious leaders have been subject to abnormal psychic experiences. Invariably, they have been people of intense emotional sensitivity.