The Sick Soul in William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience
The Sick Soul
William James was a powerful writer who explained many of his philosophies of religion and views on different personal religious experience in his book The Varieties of Religious Experience. Generally, throughout the book, James focuses on individual experience rather than institutional religion. Here James speaks of the “optimist” and the “pessimist”, also termed as the “healthy-minded” and the “sick soul”. James spends lectures 6 and 7 explaining the “sick soul” and what causes people to feel such despair. The “sick souls”, unlike the “healthy-minded”, are the melancholy or unhappy people who see the evil in all things. A “sick soul” is usually discontent and separated from the rest of the world. They long for point and purpose in life but cannot find one. Just as there are different levels of healthy mindedness there are also shallower levels of the morbid mind. There are actually two types of morbid mindedness. “The are people from whom evil means only a mal-adjustment with things… Such evil as this is curable…” [p 151]. Here James describes Latin races, or Catholic beliefs of religion. “But there are others whom evil is no mere relation of the subject to particular outer things…which require a supernatural remedy” [p 151]. James is describing the Germanic race, or Protestant religion, and how evil is seen as incurable amongst them. James then fixes his gaze upon those afflicted by pessimism. “Let us see whether pity, pain, and fear, and the sentiment of human helplessness may not open a profounder view.” James seems to think that with this pain and these trials will come a more insightful outlook on life. He implies that with these hardships a person will be brought closer to God. This is true to a certain extent for some, including myself. Happiness for many is associated with success. But what happens when success is reached and happiness is not felt? “But take the happiest man, the man most envied by the world, and in nine cases out
William James was a powerful writer who explained many of his philosophies of religion and views on different personal religious experience in his book The Varieties of Religious Experience. Generally, throughout the book, James focuses on individual experience rather than institutional religion. Here James speaks of the “optimist” and the “pessimist”, also termed as the “healthy-minded” and the “sick soul”. James spends lectures 6 and 7 explaining the “sick soul” and what causes people to feel such despair. The “sick souls”, unlike the “healthy-minded”, are the melancholy or unhappy people who see the evil in all things. A “sick soul” is usually discontent and separated from the rest of the world. They long for point and purpose in life but cannot find one. Just as there are different levels of healthy mindedness there are also shallower levels of the morbid mind. There are actually two types of morbid mindedness. “The are people from whom evil means only a mal-adjustment with things… Such evil as this is curable…” [p 151]. Here James describes Latin races, or Catholic beliefs of religion. “But there are others whom evil is no mere relation of the subject to particular outer things…which require a supernatural remedy” [p 151]. James is describing the Germanic race, or Protestant religion, and how evil is seen as incurable amongst them. James then fixes his gaze upon those afflicted by pessimism. “Let us see whether pity, pain, and fear, and the sentiment of human helplessness may not open a profounder view.” James seems to think that with this pain and these trials will come a more insightful outlook on life. He implies that with these hardships a person will be brought closer to God. This is true to a certain extent for some, including myself. Happiness for many is associated with success. But what happens when success is reached and happiness is not felt? “But take the happiest man, the man most envied by the world, and in nine cases out