¶ … William James, complete religious experience is far more than simply a theoretical, or abstract living-in -- the moment feeling. For him, religion has to be lived and experienced in a wholesome, holistic manner. It has to be conscious and permeate man's entire being.
James described this in the following way:
If religion be a function by which either God's cause or man's cause is to be really advanced, then he who lives the life of it, however narrowly, is a better servant than he who merely knows about it, however much. Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another. (489)
For James, this "effective occupation" requires experience that is a "full fact":
A conscious field plus its object as felt or thought plus an attitude towards the object plus the sense of a self to whom the attitude belongs... (499)
In other words, religion cannot be divided into parts. It has to demonstrate a phenomenological relationship with the other -- a sort of I-Thou attitude -- where the other becomes absorbed into the self.
We spoke about this before in terms of the conversion experience which is one that transforms the whole man. This includes the I and the me. In regards to the ME, it has to thoroughly penetrate all spheres of the empirical life, such as man's relationship to others in all its materialistic indications (bodies, family, possessions); man's social self (I.e. The conversion experience has to shape the feeling of the many different social selves that he has); and the feelings of...
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