1901, Edinburgh, great American psychologist William James, brother of Henry James, founder of American psychology and American philosophy, gives the first in a series of talks on the psychological nature of

mystical experiences,

and static experiences.

And William James, given his open-minded quality is probably the very first psychologist who is interested

in mystical experiences for the one, the psychology of them, what is the

underlying mechanism that's going on, but two, he doesn't look at them from the point of

view of pathology.

In other words, the idea that mystical experiences

are delusional by nature because they activate a different level of consciousness or quality of perception

than one is normally in one day to day life.

Even though the consciousness of mystical,

ecstatic, spiritual experience

is hardly the one that you would want to be in

while you're engaging in a conference call because that would be stupid but it has its

own value and William James proposes that in fact spiritual experiences have great beneficial value and are many ways

contributory to our well-being.

So he's not on the one hand simply saying that all of them are good,

but he's not coming from the point of view

that spiritual experiences as many psychologists of this time had approached them,

just viewed them as a form of delusion that had to be cured or were in some way lesser than what he, James, calls normal waking rational consciousness.

I'm going to read you a little bit of some of the things he says so you get a feeling of what he proposed.

And again, this was 1901.

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