PHILOSOPHY – The Varieties of Religious Experience
I do believe that feeling is the deeper source of religion, and that philosophic and theological formulas are secondary products, like translations of a text into another tongue. But all such statements are misleading from their brevity, and it will take the whole hour for me to explain to you exactly what I mean.
CONVERSION – The Varieties of Religious Experience
To be converted, to be regenerated, to receive grace, to experience religion, to gain an assurance, are so many phrases which denote the process, gradual or sudden, by which a self hitherto divided, and consciously wrong inferior and unhappy, becomes unified and consciously right superior and happy, in consequence of its firmer hold upon religious realities.
THE DIVIDED SELF, AND THE PROCESS OF ITS UNIFICATION
These examples may suffice to acquaint us in a general way with the phenomenon technically called “Conversion.”
THE VALUE OF SAINTLINESS William James
It is its truth, not its utility, you insist, upon which our verdict ought to depend. If religion is true, its fruits are good fruits, even though in this world they should prove uniformly ill adapted and full of naught but pathos.
CONCLUSIONS The Varieties of Religious Experience
Our conclusions cannot be as sharp as dogmatic conclusions would be, but I will formulate them, when the time comes, as sharply as I can.
CONVERSION – con. – The Varieties of Religious Experience
In other words, the persons who have passed through conversion, having once taken a stand for the religious life, tend to feel themselves identified with it, no matter how much their religious enthusiasm declines.