The Varieties Of Religious Experience

The Varieties Of Religious Experience will show you that spirituality isn’t limited to church and that you too can benefit from trying a variety of religious practices, even if you identify with no religion in particular.

Similar to ideas in Think and Grow Rich and The Magic of Thinking Big, James argues that belief has the power to change our physical world. Often paraphrased “mind over matter,” this notion was widely challenged for it’s potential scientific inaccuracy.

Rather than being passive objects, however, humans are active participants in affecting reality. All one needs to do is unleash the force for change within through belief. Once you introduce faith to your life, religious or not, anything becomes possible. Let’s take a look at one example of how the power belief from a religious experience can heal depression.

Leo Tolstoy, in his book My Confession, explains how he overcame deep despair through a religious experience. The source of his depression came from the notion that life was finite, therefore meaningless. After attempts to find meaning in a life that, from a scientific perspective would one day end, he continued feeling nothing.

Through recognizing the potential for the infinite life through belief in the spiritual, Tolstoy understood that life does have meaning. He saw that reason and facts on their own couldn’t explain meaningful existence. The weariness with life he felt was the result of the superfluous, artistic, upper-class life of which he was a part. Once he realized that all he had to do was believe, not even become dogmatic or zealous, Tolstoy felt better.

When you hear the word conversion, you may think it’s exclusively religious. But this word simply means “to change,” and isn’t only an occurrence for those who go to church. It’s not just any change though, but the movement of energy from one set of beliefs to another. We all develop within us a set of ideas that dominates our inner minds. For good or for bad, the energy of these thoughts determines the direction of our lives. James refers to this part of ourselves as “the habitual center of personal energy.” When we change, or experience conversion, this center shifts. Whether political or religious views, each of us can change our beliefs to improve our lives. But there’s a couple ways this can happen. The first is volitional, or intentional and conscious. Tolstoy’s recovery from depression described earlier is just one example of this type of conversion. Second, we have self-surrender, which takes place in the subconscious part of the brain. Let’s look at an example to illustrate both of these. Let’s say you lose your keys. Volitionally seeking them involves retracing your steps to discover…