William James\' Understanding of the Sick Soul;

¶ … William James' Understanding of the Sick Soul; from the book The Varieties of Religious Experience. The writer of this paper takes the reader to explore the book and then determine how James depicts the process of healing and several other questions. There was one source used to complete this paper.

Conversion Questions

Throughout history, we have studied religious faiths and asked for answers to the most basic of questions. Is there good and evil? Is there an afterlife? How should we be living now to prepare for it? These and other questions are the center of religious debates worldwide some that can get quite heated. William James, author of The Varieties of Religious Experiences, addresses this very issue in his works. He explains to the reader what conversion is about in the world of faith and whether or not he believes it to be real or supernatural. Along the way he treats his reader to understanding unification processes and many other processes.

James believes that people do indeed have sick souls. One might choose to believe or discount his theory about the evilness of some but in his book he presents some very concrete and believable theories of how conversion and unification occur among those who want their souls healed for good.

According to James, evil is a disease. It is a sickness that eats away at the human soul the way cancer eats away at the human body. James believes that worrying to much about evil can also cause evilness to invade the spirit and soul as a separate disorder. The cure according to the theorist is to forget about sin, and conduct ourselves in such a manner that it appears we have lived sin free our entire lives. The old saying act as if it is and it will be can work wonders in this area of our lives according to the theory of James.

Conversion is both gradual and sudden according to this book. Using several examples including the athlete who "suddenly " gets it, the reader is reminded that the athlete actually was being trained all along and it came together that one second that felt like a sudden understanding. This is the same with conversion. While it may feel sudden to some it has been brewing for quite some time in the subconscious. In others they have been brooding for some time and it then comes together. So the suddenness is not sudden in reality terms but may feel so to those who experience the conversion.

While the process has supernatural assistance along the way, as it must for the spirit to touch the soul it also has natural components as well because the subconscious processes and stores as it goes before converting the person fully.