The Varieties & Illusions of Religious Experience: Chapter 8, Saints of Darkness

Before moving on to the empirical evidence concerning Freud and James's rival theories regarding the relationship between faith and existential consolation, it might prove helpful to examine convergent evidence regarding the existence of the "sick soul" experience. This is important as the sick soul, it has been argued, is a point of contrast between Freud and James. Freud claimed that religious faith functions as form of existential consolation. By contrast, William James posits a religious experience that purports to face reality honestly. Faith exists but it is not functioning as a mode of repression or illusion.

As noted in the last chapter the sick soul experience can seem bizarre and contradictory. For most people to be religious means to believe in a loving, solicitous God who protects us from suffering. Having "faith" means absolute conviction and assurance. In this view, doubt and uncertainty are symptomatic of faith problems.

But scholars of the religious experience have long known that faith and doubt often co-exist. Faith and doubt are not polar opposites. Further, experiences with God are frequently not peaceful and rewarding. Very often, God is absent or even antagonistic. Finally, many religious persons minimize the emphasis upon personal immortality and see faith as intimately involved with life this side of the grave. Faith isn't about surviving death. It's more about being freed from the tyranny of death, existentially speaking. In short, before leaving William James it will prove helpful to bring alongside The Varieties of Religious Experience corroborating evidence regarding the experience of the sick soul. This is important as it helps to show that Freud's diagnosis of religious illusion fails for large portions of the religious population.

i.
Interestingly, the experience of the sick soul is amply attested to in the Judeo-Christian scriptures. The Tanakh (the Christian Old Testament) is a rich repository of religious lament, protest, complaint and doubt. This "protest literature" ranges from the complaint of Job to the existential meditations of Ecclesiastes. But the most poignant expressions of the sick soul are the lament psalms.

Somewhat ironically, contemporary Christianity has generally avoided a consistent use of the lament psalms. These psalms seem too "dark" and "depressing" for most worship settings. This phenomenon provides an interesting case study in Freud/James debate. Specifically, the avoidance of the lament psalms appears to support Freud's notion that existential honesty is avoided by many Christians. Positivity and praise are preferred. In short, worship must be consoling, even if it's dishonest about the pain and disarray in life. To use James's terminology, churches are too "healthy-minded" to dip too deeply into the abyss of the lament psalms.

And yet, the lament psalms represent the majority of the psalms. And the sick souls are attracted to them. Although Freud's diagnosis might describe large portions of the Christian community the existence and continued attraction of the lament psalms suggest that motives other than consolation animate the religious experience. Take, for example, this assessment from Walter Brueggemann (pp. 51-52, emphases in original) from his book The Message of the Psalms:

It is a curious fact that the church has, by and large, continued to sing songs of orientation in a world increasingly experienced as disoriented…It is my judgment that this action of the church is less an evangelical defiance guided by faith, and much more a frightened, numb denial and deception that does not want to acknowledge or experience the disorientation of life. The reason for such relentless affirmation of orientation seems to me, not from faith, but from the wishful optimism of our culture. Such a denial and cover-up, which I take it to be, is an odd inclination for passionate Bible users, given the larger number of psalms that are songs of lament, protest, and complaint about an incoherence that is experienced in the world…I believe that serous religious use of the lament psalms has been minimal because we have believed that faith does not mean to acknowledge and embrace negativity. We have thought that acknowledgement of negativity was somehow an act of unfaith, as though the very speech about it conceded too much about God’s “loss of control”…The point to be urged here is this: The use of these “psalms of darkness” may be judged by the world to be acts of unfaith and failure, but for the trusting community, their use is an act of bold faith…

Brueggemann's diagnosis regarding the evangelical avoidance of the lament psalms appears very Freudian. This avoidance is a "frightened, numb denial and deception." The positivity is pathologically "relentless." The optimism is "wishful." In the end, all we have is "denial and cover-up."

Sigmund Freud could have written those words. The point being that Christians have to take Freud's analysis seriously. Consolation is at work in religious faith. Thoughtful Christians acknowledge the cogency of Freud's analysis. However, thoughtful Christians ultimately side with William James noting that faith comes in varieties. There are sick souls amongst us. On the outside this experience, in its embrace of "darkness," the sick soul might seem to be "an act of unfaith" but in reality it is "an act of bold faith."

ii.
Connecting William James with the psalms is helpful as it fleshes out his notion of the "sick soul" and makes his typology recognizable. But even this connection can be questioned. Are not the psalms of lament episodic and situational? That is, just about every Christian would admit that we all experience time-limited seasons of lament. But could lament typify a religious experience? Can lament, protest and complaint be a "type"? Could the lament experience be one's default spiritual setting?

James clearly saw the sick soul as a chronic condition. But James did discuss how even the sick soul could achieve a rebirth and attain peace. For example, James discusses the spiritual journeys of John Bunyan and Leo Tolstoy. Each man, after extraordinary difficulty and suffering, reached a place of salvation. But even then their experience wasn't one of blissful oblivion. The experience of the sick soul is essentially irreversible. As James describes:

But neither Bunyan nor Tolstoy could become what we have called healthy-minded. They had drunk too deeply of the cup of bitterness ever to forget its taste...Each of them realized a good which broke the effective edge of his sadness; yet the sadness was preserved as a minor ingredient in the heart of the faith by which it was overcome.

An illuminating account of the dispositional, chronic and long-lived experience of the sick soul comes from the theologian W. Paul Jones's book Theological Worlds. In Theological Worlds Jones discusses five unique theological experiences (“worlds”) which structure a believer’s spiritual journey. These five worlds are identified by unique experiences of what Jones calls obsessio and epiphania. It is Jones’s general formulation of obsessio and epiphania, rather than the specific and unique formulations of his five theological “worlds,” that will occupy us here.

Jones suggests that the faith journey truly begins in earnest when we experience our obsessio. To quote Jones (p. 27, emphases in original), the obsessio is:

An obsessio is whatever functions deeply and pervasively in one’s life as a defining quandary, a conundrum, a boggling of the mind, a hemorrhaging of the soul, a wound that bewilders healing, a mystification than renders one’s life cryptic. Whatever inadequate words one might choose to describe it, an obsessio is that which so gets its teeth into a person that it establishes one’s life as plot. It is a memory which, as resident image, becomes so congealed as Question that all else in one’s experience is sifted in terms of its promise as Answer. Put another way, an obsessio is whatever threatens to deadlock Yeses with No. It is one horn that establishes life as dilemma…The etymology of the word says it well: obsessio means “to be besieged."

If obsessio is experienced as the predicament or brokenness of existence, then epiphania is experienced as resolution, answer and salvation (pp. 28, 37, emphases in original):

…epiphania, etymologically meaning “to show upon,” that which keeps the functioning obsessio fluid, hopeful, searching, restless, energized, intriguing, as a question worth pursuing for a lifetime. It keeps one’s obsessio from becoming a fatal conclusion that signals futility…Epiphania is epiphany precisely because its absurdity resides in being too good to be true.

Jones's distinction between the experiences of obsessio and epiphania are helpful as they allow us to examine the relative balance between the experiences. That is, moment-to-moment the lived intensity of each experience may vary, perhaps dramatically. Peace and contentment are the experiences when ephiphania has more intensity than obsessio. In lament, the experience of obsessio overwhelms epiphania. Again, most Christians would agree that there are seasons in life when the brokenness of existence, the experience of obsessio, comes to dominate. But Jones's formulation is interesting in he contends that obsessio/epiphania asymmetries might be congenital. That is, the sick soul experience (obsessio dominating over epiphania) can be one's spiritual "personality." As Jones writes (pp. 40-41, emphases in original):

There is one more factor to be identified in the emergence of a theological World—the role played by what we will call temperament (“proper mixing”). While the dynamic of obsessio and epiphania is universal, for some individuals, the emphasis falls heaviest on obsessio; for others, on epiphania…There is reason to believe that such temperaments become established at an early age.

iii.
The point of exploring these topics, and there is a vast literature that we are leaving unexplored, is simply to note the biblical, biographical, theological and spiritual voices that support James's notion of religious varieties, the sick soul in particular. This is not to dismiss the power of Freud's analysis. As we noted above, thoughtful Christians are very aware of the fact that many religious believers deploy their faith as a kind of existential drug, just as Freud observed. But the anecdotal evidence supporting the existence of the sick soul as a religious type (and not just a fleeting experience) suggests that religious faith cannot be reduced to the function of existential consolation. Freud's assessment is bounded and limited, applying to some but not to all of the religious population. And, intriguingly, the part of the religious population picked out by Freud is very often the least interesting, spiritually speaking. That is, in trying to penetrate to the very heart of religion Freud seems to have missed his mark. The wound he inflicts is not deep, it's superficial. Take, as an example, the case of Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu.

On September 26, 1928 Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, then 18 years old, left her home in Skopje to join the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Ireland. In 1947, in a letter to her Archbishop, Agnes (now Sister Teresa) recounted how the Voice of Jesus had consistently come to her, asking for her to create the Sisters of Charity to reach out to the poor of India. The Voice asked and demanded:

"I want Indian Missionary Sisters of Charity--who would be My fire of love amongst the very poor--the sick--the dying--the little street children--The poor I want you to bring to me--and the Sisters that would offer their lives as victims of my love--would bring these souls to Me. You are I know the most unacceptable person, weak & sinful, but just because you are that I want to use you, for my Glory! Wilt thou refuse?"

This incident and others pushed Sister Teresa to begin her work among the poor in Calcutta. During the time of her calling she described her experiences with Jesus as "so much union." Her mystical experiences of union with Christ were experienced as "love," " trust," "sweetness," and "consolation."

On December 21, 1948 now Mother Teresa entered the slums of Calcutta as a Missionary of Charity for the first time. After so much effort, petitioning, and preparation she had finally fulfilled the call of God. She had obeyed the Voice of Jesus. But suddenly, mysteriously, and painfully, that Voice suddenly went silent.

Since her death in 1997 we have learned a great deal about the spiritual journey of Mother Teresa as she worked among the poor of India. Recently, many of the private letters of Mother Teresa have been published in the book Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light. These letters were shocking in that they revealed the dark spiritual journey Mother Teresa walked for so many years. As noted above, prior to the beginning of the Calcutta work Mother Teresa's mystical encounters with Christ were vibrant, powerful, and intimate. But God seemed to abandon her just as the ministry started. For the next 40 years Mother Teresa's experience with the Divine was characterized by a profound sense of God's absence. Both the depth and length of her "dark night of the soul" was startling to those who only knew her public face of faith.

To experience the profound distress of Mother Teresa during those forty years, here are some of her words:

July 3, 1959
In the darkness...

Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The child of your love--and now become as the most hated one--the one You have thrown away as unwanted--unloved. I call, I cling, I want--and there is no One to answer--no One on Whom I can cling--no, No One.--Alone. The darkness is so dark--and I am alone.--Unwanted, forsaken.--The loneliness of the heart that wants love is unbearable.--Where is my faith?--even deep down, right in, there is nothing but emptiness & darkness.--My God--how painful is this unknown pain. It pains without ceasing.--I have no faith.--I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart--& make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me--I am afraid to uncover them--because of the blasphemy--If there be God,--please forgive me.

September 1959
Part of My Confession Today
My own Jesus,
...They say people in hell suffer eternal pain because of the loss of God--they would go through all that suffering if they had just a little hope of possessing God.--In my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss--of God not wanting me--of God not being God--of God not really existing (Jesus, please forgive my blasphemies--I have been told to write everything). That darkness surrounds me on all sides--I can't lift my soul to God...

In my heart there is no faith--no love--no trust--there is so much pain--the pain of longing, the pain of not being wanted.--I want God with all the powers of my soul--and yet there between us--there is terrible separation.--I don't pray any longer...

Much later, forty years after beginning her ministry, Mother Teresa did begin to re-experience the presence of God. But like William James observed with Bunyan and Tolstoy, Mother Teresa did not return fully into the bliss of her first encounter with God. Mother Teresa began to see her experience of the absence of God as a form of God's presence. In this, Mother Teresa began see her experience of abandonment as a mystical union with Christ in his abandonment at Golgotha:

October 1961
No, Father [Neuner], I am not alone.--I have His darkness--I have His pain--I have the terrible longing for God--to love and not to be loved. I know I have Jesus...

Faith as the experience of "not being loved" by God. Faith as owning "darkness" and "pain" of God. It's worth dwelling on the experience of Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu because her story of faith greatly illuminates the discussion between Freud and James. First, Mother Teresa's story helps us see that the "sick soul" isn't unfaithful, immature, deviant, rare or dysfunctional. In fact, many of the greatest saints, living and dead, were and are "sick souls," saints of darkness. And secondly, the story of Mother Teresa shows some of the inadequacy of Freud's thesis concerning illusion, consolation and faith. No doubt, many cling to a notion of God that is comforting, childish, superficial and sweet. Many churches do avoid the harsh witness of the lament psalms. But Freud's thesis, we must also admit, has great difficulty explaining why someone would pursue a heroic life among the poorest of the poor in the service of a God who didn't love you.