toward men in terms of a similar sympathy. The twenty-fifth Psalm calls upon Jehovah to remember his "bowels and lovingkindnesses," while the song of Zacharias ascribes the birth of John the Baptist to the "bowels of the mercy of our God." And Paul exhorts the Christians of Colosse to "put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies." 2 Most of those who report a feeling of hunger or emptiness also experience feelings of constriction or depression; while those in whom a feeling of satisfaction is more prominent in the Godexperience seem to have a sense of buoyancy or expansion. In several cases both types of experience are found, depending upon the mood or attitude in general. I am inclined to think that most people feel both these tendencies at various times. Among my papers I find the following: "I sometimes have a feeling akin to hunger when for any length of time I have not found leisure to meditate on things divine. Contrarily, reflection on these things brings on a feeling of satiety. Sometimes it is a sort of over-satiety, demanding occupation of the mind with things less deep and more related to the ordinary aspects of life." The feeling of need is surely a common element in the Godexperience, and many who do not analyze this feeling confess its prominence in their consciousness. If it be true that this feeling is partly based upon abdominal sensations, these sensations, or their imaginal correlates, if we can distinguish here between sensation and image, are of great significance. One young woman describes such a feeling of need, and then adds: "Some of the truest and best things of life we only know through the feeling;" an observation which embodies a profound truth. There is occasionally found in the literature of the God-experience a description of a sensation like that of nausea, and there may be elements of imagery in terms of this perculiarly unpleasant experience in cases where there is an acute sense of sin, contrasted with a feeling of God's purity. Thus Augustine "stood aghast" when God showed him how foul he was, "how crooked and defiled, Nauseabespotted and ulcerous." 3 Swedenborg, with his abnormal olfactory sense, describes certain spirits which he saw in his visions 1 Psalms 25: 6; Luke 1: 78; Philippians 2: 1. See also Standard Bible Dictionary, p. 513. 2 Colossians 3: 12. Mudge, James, Honey from Many Hives, New York, 1899, p. 274. tion as Affect ing the God- ence as known by "a certain fetid smell, exciting nausea in others when perceived." An undergraduate student describes a "sickening feeling" which accompanies his doubts of the existence of God, and there may be something of this feeling behind the words ascribed to God in his attitude toward the Laodiceans, in the Revelation: "Because thou art neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth." IX Kinesthetic Sense Experiences Strains THE vast variety of sensations originating in the deep tissues of the body demand further study before any psycho-physical basis for such variety can be determined. In fact, so infinite are the possibilities of combination and co-operation of intimate sense stimulations that any qualitative classification is unsatisfactory. In discussing motor strains involved in the God-experience we can only present introspective descriptions, grouping together those Motor experiences which seem to have some element in common. No doubt a thought of God as active, as moving, involves a variety of sense organs acting together, and it is possible that no practicable classification would be adequate to all the varieties and possibilities of sensation involved. The feelings of our own actual or potential activity or that of God may involve a very complicated co-operation of the sense mechanisms of the various visceral organs, beside muscles, tendons, and joints, and indeed may affect the delicate tensions of every part of the body. In this chapter are considered those cases in which God is imaged as moving, or we as acting with relation to him. In reply to a questionnaire, 170 college undergraduates answered the question, “What mental picture comes before your mind as you think of God?" Although the question suggested visual imagery, there were very clear motor elements in 53 cases, while, as has been previously indicated, the visual elements seemed to be held in comparatively low esteem. ences A large proportion of the more advanced students give evidence of a decided motor imagery of God or motor attitudes toward God. Motor ExperiThere are many cases of what is called "a sense of power," or "awareness of a higher power," or "a feeling of God's strength." Com"Great power" and "exact precision" constitute part of the God mon image of one scientist. One student says: "He is like the amount of energy in the world; remains constant." A young woman describes a vague image of God as conditioned by the thought of his power. Another refers to her "awareness or feeling of a higher power behind this universe and the pulsating, vibrating life of the universe." One man feels that there is an infinite power in whose Replac Visual grip he would be helpless. Just what inner tensions accompany these experiences cannot be said. They differ very widely with individuals. But it may be doubted if imagery of this sort is ever unaccompanied by some sort of actual sensation of strain. There are some who think of God as moving. Reference has been made to one who felt that God "might easily glide up and up." Others think of him as "slowly moving about from place to place," or "floating above the earth." One woman says: "I think of God as a spirit moving, though sometimes I think of him as everywhere and not needing to move." Another has the following experience, connected with a visual image of "a very thin cloud like a cloud of steam:” "I often have a very strong feeling of being led. God seems to descend from some point from which he had been looking over my pathway as it lies ahead. He comes nearer, a little ahead of me, and calmly moves on, expecting me to follow." In many cases the visual element has almost disappeared, while Motor the image of power or activity remains. This quite general attitude Imagery is represented by the case of one student who describes a visual ing image but says that it is becoming more forced, adding that he can now image God "only in activity," by which he probably means that only imagery of the latter type is spontaneous. The visual imagery which is common to childhood appears in many such cases less persistent than that involving more directly the organic and strain senses. Various experiments showing how a thought of motion or direction is accompanied by bodily movements or tendencies to movement, as, for example, the familiar experiments with the Ouija board, the Planchette, and the automatograph, indicate that the foregoing examples of an imagery of movement are probably correlated with actual sensations in the strain organs of the body, while their stability indicates that there are also imaginal elements. In many cases there are appreciable motor strains within the body beside the feelings of movement externally referred. Reference was made in the chapter on visual experiences to a graduate student whose imagery of God is "a feeling of movement outward accompanied by a feeling of tension or effort associated Various with the movement." Another person, whose imagery has also a Inner vague visual content, says: "I think of God as a force that is flowing from the back to forward, similar to an ever-flowing stream of a blue-gray something." This person also has a feeling of shar Strains ing some of the strength of this moving God. A feeling of being drawn or attracted toward God seems to be rather common. One person does not "think of God as a moving being, but one filling everything and present everywhere," but has, nevertheless, "a feeling of his great power, an attraction toward him." This attraction, as we might expect, is usually upward. One man who has a clear visual image, which is definitely localized, "north-west of me, about forty feet away, and almost forty-five degrees upward," describes a feeling of "strain under chin and throat,probably stretch of these parts due to the idea of looking upward for God." It may be impossible to analyze the feelings of inner opposing strains, as though between struggling forces, which mark certain phases of the God-experience for many people, but they seem to be common, and not confined to any land or time. The feelings of Inner inner strife preceding conversion have been many times described, OpposChapter V of Starbuck's Psychology of Religion, and Lecture VIII sions of James' Varieties of Religious Experience, being the most thorough studies. James emphasizes "a certain discordancy or heterogeneity in the temperament of the subject" for conversion, while Starbuck emphasizes the struggle between the motives toward conversion and the opposing sense of estrangement and tendency to resist conviction. Instances given in these works show the presence of inner feelings of twist and tension. The following extreme quotation is from one of Professor Starbuck's cases: "Every time I would call on God, something like a man's hand would strangle me by choking. I don't know whether there were anyone around or near me or not. I thought I should surely die if I did not get help, but just as often as I would pray, that unseen hand was felt on my throat and my breath squeezed off. Finally someone said: 'Venture on the atonement, for you will die anyway if you don't.' So I made one final struggle to call on God for mercy, with the same choking and strangling." 1 The objectification of a hand in this case is unusual, but the sense of struggle appears again and again in experiences preceding conversion. C. G. Finney thus describes his experience: "I then reproached myself for having promised to give my heart to God before I left the woods. When I came to try I found I could not. My inward soul hung back, and there was no going out of my 1 James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, New York, 1916, p. 250. |