The drive for meaning in William James' analysis of religious experience

Summary Now that we have looked at the characteristics of mystical experience, we are ready to discuss the assumption made in this paper that mystical experience can be translated into an understanding of integration or the drive for meaning which Fingarette pursues in a much more analytic fashion. Reviewing the conversion process as an integration process we have seen that for the sick-souled, beset with the meaninglessness or melancholy which paralyzes his will, his own awareness of wrong in his situation prevents him from opening up to larger views of reality. But, as James has described, at the same time as the subject is attending so strongly to his own sense of worthlessness, all the while the forces of mere organic ripening within him are going on towards their own prefigured result, and his conscious strainings are letting loose subconscious allies behind the scenes, which in their way work toward rearrangements. Yet the rearrangements can only come about by obeying the command of Chaung-Tse: Cease striving. The result is self-transformation in reconciling, unifying states. There is achieved a supersensuous meaning to the ordinary outward data of consciousness; facts already objectively before us fall into a new expressiveness and make a new connection with our active life.However, James cautions us to realize that the same incursions of the subconscious which produce such reconciling, unifying states can also produce pathological states, a diabolical mysticism, a sort of religious mysticism turned upside down. In such a state the meanings of events become dreadful and the ruling emotion is pessimism. To this possibility James applied the pragmatic test, By their fruits..., and concluded that the mystical experience which brings optimism to the individual is a genuine experience and one which brings truth. In our context then, we would say that real integration brings the subject away from the melancholy and meaninglessness he felt into the genuinely insightful resolution of which Fingarette speaks.Conversion, then, is a process in James's analysis of religious experience analogous to the process of integration and meaning-discovery while mysticism is analogous to the state in which integration or meaning-discovery is achieved. Conversion is climaxed by self-surrender; mysticism is characterized by new determination, self-transformation: two ways of describing an indivisible event. Furthermore, the four characteristics James applies to mysticism are indeed characteristic of the experience of integration.Two other points should be added here which are much in line with James's treatment of experience. In the first place, one of the basic principles of radical empiricism is that not only objects but relations between objects are the subject of experience. Such an experience of relationships, of wholeness, is exactly what characterizes integration. At the same time, the five senses are suspended, and the insight is experienced with such a strong immediacy that it is almost sensed. James refers to this quality of mystical states: The records show that even though the five senses be in abeyance in them, they are absolutely sensational in their epistemological quality, if I may be pardoned the barbarous expression, - that is, they are face to face presentations of what seems immediately to exist.I am not saying that every integration is a mystical experience. Rather I have been saying that James's discussion of religious experiences such as healthy-minded, sick-souled, melancholy, conversion, and mysticism provide analogues for better understanding the phenomenological processes and characteristics of the drive for meaning and integration which Fingarette analyzes. In fact, the very notion of religion itself for James bears not just an analogous resemblance but perhaps an identification with integration. For in his personal letters James had defined religious experience as Any moment of life that brings the reality of spiritual things more home to one. And in Varieties James defines religion as a man's total reaction upon life....; his attitude towards what he felt to be the primal truth.If we look upon this outlook of James toward religion as an exaggeration of the reality of integration, we can follow James to what he perceives as the importance of religion upon an individual's life. The man of religious feeling possesses the excitement of a higher kind of emotion, an enthusiastic temper of espousal in regions where morality strictly so called can at best but bow its head and acquiesce. So we are brought again to the area of creativity in which an individual has experienced the widening of the area of his immediate experience and is re-born in the karmic pattern, a valid pattern for both James and Fingarette. As Fingarette describes it, the converted individual creates values which the dead reality he had previously faced did not possess. The result of the achieved integration is explained by James when referring to religious experience as an excitement of the cheerful, expansive, dynamogenic order which, like any tonic, freshens our vital powers. This emotion overcomes temperamental melancholy [meaninglessness] and imparts endurances to the subject, or a zest, or a meaning, or an enchantment and glory to the common objects of life.We might sum up this discussion not by a criticism of the shortcomings of James's treatment of the religious life, such as his apparent insensitivity to the part played by institutions in the religious experience itself, but rather by underscoring the richness of the phenomenological analysis James has undertaken. James Edie acknowledges that James's studies of religious experience itself rather than of religion. ... are not only more sound phenomenologically than some of the studies which have, under the influence of Husserl, up to now explicitly invoked the phenomenological method, but they are also the first to establish any solid basis for a true phenomenology of religious experience.And John Wild has pointed out the parallel between James's concept of melancholy and Heidegger's concept of anxiety as the genesis of the process of becoming: beginning with the prospect of death and nothingness, the individual gropes toward new birth.As we have seen, then, James's analysis of the varieties of religious experience leads to a fruitful discussion of the psychological processes involved in melancholy and meaninglessness, rearrangement and integration. In all such experiences, a sense of inner unity is reached to which the following words of Fingarette would apply by analogy: The soul-racking death which leads to blissful rebirth is the death of the subjectively experienced, anxiety-generated self perception; it is the emergence into the freedom of introspective self-forgetfulness of the psychically unified self.     

“Emotionally, Soulfully, Spiritually ‘Free to Think and Act’: The Helen Flanders Dunbar (1902–59) Memorial Lecture on Psychosomatic Medicine and Pastoral Care”

This essay aims to stimulate rethinking about religious and medical healing and wholeness. While psychiatrist (Helen) Flanders Dunbar (1902–1959) is well known as a psychosomatic investigator and as Medical Director of the Council for Clinical Training, the initial home of Anton Boisen's groundbreaking movement for the clinical pastoral education of institutional chaplains and parish ministers, she is less appreciated as a theologically-trained scholar. This essay explores an earlier era's understanding of the spiritual and the more soulful components of healing and how Dunbar combined these to focus on helping all peoples become free to think and act. This essay was originally delivered as The Helen Flanders Dunbar Memorial Lecture on Psychosomatic Medicine and Pastoral Care at Columbia Presbyterian Center of the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, New York on November 2, 1999.     

Carl Rogers and Martin Luther—A “reformation” in the helping professions

The 16th century schism in Christian thought leading to the Reformation has an interesting analogy in Carl Rogers' attempt to reform the helping professions. An exploration of this analogy clarifies much of the theoretical tension in the contemporary arena of pastoral counseling.     

Hick's interpretation of religious pluralism

Conclusion There is no question that Hick's theory rests upon multiple assumptions about a singular, transcendental grounding and the fundamental equality of the various religions that cannot be inductively verified beyond all doubt. That need not mean, however, that the attractiveness of his theory derives solely from the peculiar charm of supposing that the One and the Many are no more at odds in the realm of religion than anywhere else. For Hick's assumptions are not just an exercise in wishful thinking or wild speculation. They are based upon experience from within what he calls the benign circle of faith. Because the reality experienced is ambiguous, acceptance or rejection of his views will, of course, be a matter of choice. And, admittedly, this choice will be dictated not so much by a weighing of empirical evidence that might prove the various religions to be exactly as he sees them, as by a consideration of what we have been surveying in the preceding pages, namely, the import of seeing things as Hick does.

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God,mother and me: An object relational perspective on religious material

This essay addresses the problem of finding a theologically and psychologically adequate listening perspective from which to interpret religious imagery in counseling contexts. The essay proposes that the revision of psychoanalytic theory broadly termed object relations theory, with its attention to the distinctive inner representational world of each individual, may provide just such a resource. This perspective adopts Freud's basic insights on the genetic origins of the individual's God representation in the family romance, but avoids the reductionism of the Freudian position by positing a different understanding of fundamental human motivation, namely that it involves the creation and maintenance of a sense of being a self-in-relationship. The essay considers how the psychic representation of God may therefore be understood to function in this life of the self and illustrates this by reference to a clinical case from the work of D.W. Winnicott and a case from pastoral work.     

Depression and Anxiety in Persons with Parkinson's Disease With and Without “On–Off” Phenomena

On–off phenomena in Parkinson's disease (PD) are unpredictable motor fluctuations associated with long-term levodopa use. Mood fluctuations have been found to coincide with the motor fluctuations in that depression and anxiety increase while the person with PD is in the off state. What has been relatively unexplored is whether those persons with PD who have on–off phenomena differ psychologically in fundamental ways from those who do not have on–off phenomena. In the present study, depression and anxiety symptoms were assessed in 36 persons with PD (n = 14 with on–off phenomena, n = 22 without on–off phenomena). All those with on–off phenomena were assessed in their on state. Those persons with PD with on–off phenomena had significantly higher levels of anxiety than those without on–off phenomena. However, both groups, regardless of on–off status, were mildly depressed. Neurobiological interpretations of the results implicate the locus coeruleus in the pathogenesis of both on–off phenomena and anxiety, whereas psychological interpretations of the results involve the issues of learned helplessness and control over health symptoms in PD.     

A Chemically Induced “Shadow”?

Stevenson's classic yarn, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, is explored as a vivid, insightful story of addiction. In spite of clinical temptations to chase deeper issues connected with the dark side, this article suggests that pastoral counselors and psychotherapists need to first ask whether a client's shadow may be chemically induced.     

Pastoral care and the people of god

Various attempts in the last twenty years have sought to understand pastoral care as a function of the congregation, yet even ardent supporters have lost sight of their own vision. This article proposes that we define pastoral care as the work of the church, tie it more closely to the suffering associated with carrying out the church's mission, and develop a model of pastoral care that will differentiate everyday untrained lay pastoral care, care by clergy and trained laypersons, and pastoral psychotherapy. It offers theological rationales and draws implications for pastoral theory.Reverend Burck is Chaplain-Supervisor and Assistant Professor of Religion and Health, Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, 1753 West Congress Parkway, Chicago, Illinois 60612     

“God as Friend”: Metaphoric Theology in Pastoral Care

Because of postmodernity's claim of deconstruction, the naming of God has become a crucial issue for a hermeneutics of pastoral care. Inadequate and inappropriate perceptions of God, because of specific experiences of faith, create unhelpful images of God which eventually lead to a pathology of faith. Taking into consideration the figurative means of symbolic language and its rootedness in culture, this article explores the possibility of the metaphor, God as Friend, in order to move beyond the paradigm of the suffering God (theopaschitic theology) to the paradigm of the faithful God—God as our Soul Friend.     

On Potentiality And Respect For Embryos: A Reply To Mary Mahowald

In order to understand the nature of human embryos I first distinguish between active and passive potentiality, and then argue that the former is found in human gametes and embryos (even in embryos in vitro that may fail to be implanted) because they all have an indwelling power or capacity to initiate certain changes. Implantation provides necessary conditions for the actualization of that prior, active potentiality. This does not imply that embryos are potential persons that do not deserve the same respect as actual persons. To claim that embryos become persons is to understand the predicate person as a phase sortal, roughly equivalent to adult person. This entails that we would not be essentially persons. In order to explain the traditional understanding of person as a proper sortal rather than a phase sortal, the author distinguishes between proximate and remote potentiality, and shows that, unlike feline embryos, human embryos, by their genetic constitution, possess the remote potentiality to later exercise the typically human activities. It follows that they are already persons essentially.     

Spirituality in Older Adults: A Cross-Cultural and Interfaith Perspective

The definition of spirituality poses a variety of problems for the development of theory and research, as well as practical problems for persons interested in promoting the spiritual well-being of older adults. Although any definition of spirituality is problematic, a definition is proposed that comes out of the writer's clinical experience and is relevant to his understanding of the aging process in different cultural and religious contexts. Two case studies are presented to illustrate the relevance of the definition to the experience of older persons from different cultural and religious backgrounds. Reflections on the case studies suggest ways that an appropriately trained advocate might have helped the persons in these illustrations make changes in their situations that might have improved the quality of their lives. Material from the case studies is also used to clarify differences among terms such as spirituality, religion, religiosity, and piety. The paper proposes to be a contribution to a theoretical foundation for studying and working with spirituality in older adults.     

Maturing Religious Experience and the Postmodern Self

Past attempts to define mature religion have been rooted in a modernist theological anthropology which assumes an atomistic, universal, rational, and stable human self. Yet postmodernists resist universal statements about humanity and understand the self as an ever-changing social construct. This paper suggests a theological anthropology more adequate to the postmodern world, examines maturing religious experience from this perspective, and considers ways pastoral care/counseling can nurture healthy, integrative, and maturing Christian faith in postmodern culture.     

From the word to the conversation: Paradigms and psychology in German protestant pastoral thought

Under steady pressure from ordinary pastoral practice German Protestantism gradually made proclamatory pastoral care more responsive to human need and more adequate to human complexity. In doing so it drew heavily from psychology, but the very refinements helped obscure its original intent. For that and other reasons it came into crisis and was replaced by therapeutic pastoral care, which now dominates German pastoral thought and practice. Each of these paradigms of pastoral work reflected in its own way on the theological aspects of pastoral care, producing quite different theologies of pastoral care and employing psychology in that process in quite different ways.Dr. Burck is Assistant Professor of Religion and Health and Chaplain-Supervisor at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, 1753 W. Congress Parkway, Chicago, Illinois 60612. This article is a sequal to his The New Pastoral Care in Germany, published in the Summer, 1978 issue ofPastoral Psychology.     

Pastoral care and AIDS: Assessing the stress and satisfaction from caring for persons with AIDS

Members from religious communities in New York City (17 men, 8 women) who volunteer pastoral care to persons with AIDS completed and returned through the mail the (AIDS) Caregiver Scale and the Attitudes toward AIDS Scale. Results indicated that satisfaction from providing care was related to pastoral training, an understanding of the spiritual nature of death, and a positive attitude toward persons with AIDS. Self-reported stress from providing care was inversely related to pastoral training to deal with death. The pastoral volunteers also reported greater satisfaction and lower stress from caregiving than volunteer buddies from upstate New York.     

A Translation of Intuitionistic Predicate Logic into Basic Predicate Logic

Basic Predicate Logic, BQC, is a proper subsystem of Intuitionistic Predicate Logic, IQC. For every formula in the language {, , , , , , }, we associate two sequences of formulas 0,1,... and 0,1,... in the same language. We prove that for every sequent , there are natural numbers m, n, such that IQC , iff BQC n m. Some applications of this translation are mentioned.     

One pastoral perspective on “anticipatory grief: The search for destiny”

I have been asked to respond to this case (Black, 1994) from the pastoral perspective of soul. More specifically, the perspective is that of minding the soul as a way of remembering who we are. For in Marcia's being present with Bill and Esther we are privileged to enter into their holy of holies, the inner sanctum of their souls as they found a way of remembering who they were together and individually. First, I will say more about soul and its meaning in relation to what Marcia has described. Next, I will briefly sketch an expanded view of the object-seeking frame in which she places it by including meaning-making as the destiny-fulfilling dynamic of all object-seeking relatedness. Finally, I will venture a response to her question of her being their descendant and this paper-presentation being their last legacy.     

The knowledge and use of quantitative research by pastoral counselors

This study investigated the degree of training, experience and interest in quantitative research among pastoral counselors. It was found that a little over half of the subjects had had at least one statistics course and thought that research was valuable. However, less than 6% had ever published research and only one subject (less than 1%) had published more than two quantitative articles. This suggests there is a research vacuum in the field of pastoral counseling. There is no scientific core of scholars publishing a systematic program of research. Recommendations for ways to involve pastoral counselors more actively in research are made.New Perspectives, Owings Mills, MD.     

Codependence and Interdependence: Cross-Cultural Reappraisal of Boundaries and Relationality

This article explores the cross-cultural implications of the Western notion of boundaries and the Asian matrix of relationality for pastoral care ministry. Theorists of codependence (relationship addiction) show that American awareness of boundaries produces phobic attitudes toward the interwoven interplay of human relationships. Noting the underlying American cultural ideal (i.e., individual autonomy), evidences that boundaries are culturally defined are reviewed. Drawing upon the social-psychological concept of interdependence (Asian construal of self), the author proposes that there is a need for a different understanding of boundaries, since some Asian people have strikingly different construals of the self, of others, and of the interdependence of the two. Boundaries and relationality need to be in dialogue with each other so as to create relational boundaries that empower mutual relations within which we may come to experience the power of the relational, triune God.     

Overcoming Self-Negation in Women

The significant overrepresentation of women in depression and a seeming addiction to self-downing are viewed as heavily influenced by internalized gender role messages and further compounded by societal discrimination. The healthy self is defined, and ways of helping women in therapy move toward greater self-acceptance are described, with an emphasis on REBT women's groups. A case study illustrates the process.     

Heidegger's Brightness as a Responsibility of the Therapist in Existential Family Therapy

The author reflects upon the Heideggerian concepts of thrown-ness, death imagery, arrogance and brightness and their usefulness in existential family therapy. The article describes and illustrates with clinical material the process of helping a couple or family to move from an arrogance response to thrownness and death imagery to the response of brightness as attendants of Being. The responsibilities of the therapist in facilitating such a process are also described.Director of the Worthington Logotherapy Institute, co-director of Lantz and Lantz Counseling Associates, and a professor at The Ohio State University. College of Social Work