Many people have very decided feelings of expansion and buoyancy at times, and just as decided feelings of constriction and depression at other times and under other circumstances. These different attitudes sometimes involve just as different views of God. These In the attitude of expansion and buoyancy God is described as in RelaFeelings great and powerful, but kindly, fatherly, often near the worshiper. tion to The other attitude seems to put God at a distance, and to make and Athim stern and relatively unfriendly. I can best illustrate this by titudes quotations from three clergymen :

"It happens that during extemporaneous prayer
I have a feeling of expansion, as if my body would
follow the mind in its effort to come in touch with the
life of God, so far transcending the limits of human
experience. But such feelings cannot always be con-
jured up. Often one has a feeling of restriction, and
there is no flow of thought
With me the
feeling of buoyancy is more frequent than that of de-
pression. Nor is the latter kind so enduring with me
as the former.”

"When I think God in an active way,
there comes
inevitably a feeling of buoyancy. I feel at home in
the world and want to run and leap and play.

When I am in a mood of depression and feel my un-
worthiness I begin to criticize myself definitely. Then
the resolve comes to do some specific thing to better
conditions. With the first act confidence is restored
in myself and I become conscious of a self that can
achieve. Then God is at the time the end of the whole
line of achievements and the immediate inspirer of
my actions."

"Sometimes I feel buoyant, and sometimes, after
I have thought too long or spent too much time in
religious matters I have a feeling of depression. Once
in awhile the Old Testament conception comes surging
up within me, and the awful majesty and power and
wrath of God seem to be his outstanding character-
istics, and then I feel as David: 'Why art thou cast
down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within
me?'
When I consider the littleness of my
own life in comparison with the universal God-life,
this gives a feeling of constriction; but when I think
of my life merging, or flowing over, into the life of
God, 'as the dewdrop slips into the shining sea,' this
gives a feeling of expansion,-a feeling that I, too,
may be great and universal, and be the embodiment
of the big God-life. . Sometimes when I am in
'low spirits,' prayer or thought of God causes the
heart to beat little faster and with a new power
I feel lighter within, and more buoyant."

Moods

Most of those who have reported the alternating experiences described above seem to have blended them together into a consistent relation, or attempted to do so. To many of them prayer is a remedy for the feeling of depression, as in the last case quoted above, or they experience a feeling of "lightness and ease" after prayer has relieved this sense of depression and inner constriction. But one paper describes two divergent views of God, which seem to involve two very different complexes:

"We know we live in a vast universe, how vast we
can scarcely dream, but the power which moves it all
according to law is so infinitely greater, how can we
conceive of it?
We say at times 'God is good,'
when everything for us goes smoothly; and at other
times, 'As flies to the wanton boys are we to the gods;
they kill us for their sport.'

It seems probable that here are two moods involving very different complexes of the tensions described in this chapter. In general, however, in the cases which I have studied, the Godexperience seems to involve feelings of buoyancy and expansion in greater degree than those of depression and constriction.

X

Experiences Involving Kinesthetic and
Organic Fusion

THERE are times in the lives of many when the God-experience is
marked by feelings of a nervous thrill throughout the body, or by a Bodily
condition approaching ecstasy. These feelings are not confined, Thrills
however, to experiences while definitely thinking of God. They static
Feelings
may come under various circumstances, as an element in our appre-
ciation of the wonders of nature, the beauties of art, human love,
devotion or heroism,—any of the higher appreciations which mark
the more exalted experiences of men.

Nervous thrill, perhaps consisting of rapid and rhythmical sense processes throughout the body or large parts of it, is a common element in relatively intense experiences of emotion, in the Godexperience. Various students describe "a stimulation within my veins," or some such feeling of thrill throughout the body. One describes a thrill "as though music were rushing through my veins." There is perhaps a certain sense-affinity between the thrill of religious enthusiasm and that of intoxication, and this may give point to the exhortation of Paul: "Be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the spirit." Among some peoples such a relation between the emotional aspect of the God-life and the nervous tingling of alcoholic stimulation has been clearly recognized. Union with God has been represented by this characteristic thrill, relief from inhibitions, irresponsibility, or a feeling of being affected by a force outside one's self, all of which are found in intoxication. A remarkable instance of what has been called "the devout Bacchanalia" of the Persians is the song from which the following is quoted:

"Know'st thou who the Host may be who pours the
spirit's wine?

Know'st thou what the liquor is whose taste is so
divine?

The Host is thy Beloved One-the wine annihilation,
And in the fiery draught thy soul drinks in illumi-
nation."

1

1 Vaughan, Hours With the Mystics, 5th ed., London, 1888, Vol. II, p. 24f.

In the Vedic Hymns there are frequent references to soma, of Signifi- which the gods as well as men are supposed to partake. Some cance of of the medieval mystics describe the God-experience very vividly cation in terms of intoxication. Thus Saint Francis is described as being "drunken with the love and compassion of Christ," and says:

Intoxi

"The high grace of contemplation is

a

sweet emanation of the Holy Ghost, and a rapture and
an exaltation of the mind, which is inebriated in the
contemplation of that ineffable savour of divine
sweetness.'

Here, probably, is an experience which has actually been affected by sense-elements suggested by this rich mixture of organic reactions. Saint Bernardino of Siena frequently employed the imagery of intoxication in his sermons. In addressing a congregation of women, he exclaimed:

"O, women, would that I might behold you all, and myself along with you, intoxicated with the wine of the glory of life eternal." 2

Again in a sermon on the text: “Si quis sitit, veniat ad me et bibat,”
he said:

"The sinner Magdalen had doubtless heard her
call in the temple, wherefore, as a thirsty sheep, she
hurried to the fountain of love, where she drank and
drank to intoxication.
Bibite et inebriamini,
carissimi, in the words of the canticle, since Jesus
Christ is addressing you all." 3

3

It is clear that this is figurative language, but it seems probable, at least possible, that certain resemblances between the states of alcoholic stimulation and "God-intoxication" may have dictated this particular type of figures. The value of the experiences of those to whom intoxication makes such an appeal may be doubted, but that the God-experience sometimes involves feelings of inner thrill is certain. Among some of the American Indians the use of “peyote," an intoxicating drug, is given a religious significance, and its effects are valued as being actual religious experiences.

Ecstatic states, in which one seems to be carried beyond the bounds of sense, in which the mind is strangely open to what seem Esctasy inspired truths, experiences which seem ineffable and indescribable, and the have come to many people as distinct God-experiences. Similar experiences have been induced by beautiful music, magnificent

Senses

1 The Little Flowers of Saint Francis, Everyman's Library, pp. 174 and 267.

2 Thureau-Dangin, op. cit., p. 195.

Thureau-Dangin, op. cit., p. 157.

scenery, great works of art, or other things which awaken deep appreciation. There are appreciable stages in such experiences, perhaps first the very keen sense-feelings appropriate to the reaction; then a dropping off of conscious sense processes, first those which most clearly objectify the world, and then, more gradually, the intimate sense experiences, until there is only a confused blend of inner feelings, perhaps with a feeling of bodily lightness, so that one seems to be lifted up; then a drifting off into actual unconsciousness; and at last the gradual return to the realm of sense. Because particularly of the delightful blending of intimate sense elements, probably, the ecstatic state has been highly valued and believed to be a medium of divine illumination.

Evelyn Underhill thus describes what she terms the state of "Quiet":

"To one who is entering into this state of orison, the external world seems to get further and further away: till at last nothing but the paramount fact of his own existence remains. So startling, very often, is the deprivation of all his accustomed mental furniture, of the noise and flashing of the transmitting instruments of sense, that the negative aspect of his state dominates consciousness: and he can but describe it as a nothingness, an emptiness, a 'naked' orison. He is there, as it were, poised, resting, waiting, he does not know for what; only he is conscious that all, even in this utter emptiness, is well. Presently, however, he becomes aware that Something fills this emptiness; something omnipresent, intangible, like sunny air." 1

The difficulty of describing these states is illustrated by the fact that another writer denies even the feeling of one's own existence:

"In all the stages of religious ecstasy, æsthetic pleasure, and creative inspiration, is to be traced what we know as the loss of the feeling of self.

It is the feeling of personality that has faded." 2

Since ancient times states of ecstasy have been common elements in the God-experience. Paul describes being "caught up to the third heaven," where he heard "unspeakable things." The mystics describe these states, which they value highly, in many ways. They involve the stilling of the bodily senses, being "lost and

1 Underhill, op. cit., p. 379f.

2 Puffer, The Psychology of Beauty, Boston, 1905, p. 60. Suso, in Connell, op. cit, p. 88.

3