I know that on some of your minds it
leaves a feeling of wonder that such a method should have been applied
to such a subject, and this in spite of all those remarks about
empiricism which I made at the beginning of Lecture XIII.[225] How, you
say, can religion, which believes in two worlds and an invisible order,
be estimated by the adaptation of its fruits to this world's order
alone? 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. It goes back, then, after all,
to the question of the truth of theology. The plot inevitably thickens
upon us; we cannot escape theoretical considerations. I propose, then,
that to some degree we face the responsibility. Religious persons have
often, though not uniformly, professed to see truth in a special
manner. That manner is known as mysticism. I will consequently now
proceed to treat at some length of mystical phenomena, and after that,
though more briefly, I will consider religious philosophy.

[225] Above, pp. 321-327

Lectures XVI and XVII

MYSTICISM

Over and over again in these lectures I have raised points and left
them open and unfinished until we should have come to the subject of
Mysticism. Some of you, I fear, may have smiled as you noted my
reiterated postponements. But now the hour has come when mysticism
must be faced in good earnest, and those broken threads wound up
together. One may say truly, I think, that personal religious
experience has its root and centre in mystical states of consciousness;
so for us, who in these lectures are treating personal experience as
the exclusive subject of our study, such states of consciousness ought
to form the vital chapter from which the other chapters get their
light. Whether my treatment of mystical states will shed more light or
darkness, I do not know, for my own constitution shuts me out from
their enjoyment almost entirely, and I can speak of them only at second
hand. But though forced to look upon the subject so externally, I will
be as objective and receptive as I can; and I think I shall at least
succeed in convincing you of the reality of the states in question, and
of the paramount importance of their function.

First of all, then, I ask, What does the expression "mystical states of
consciousness" mean? How do we par