Exploring Unseen Worlds

Preface

Chronology

Introduction

1. Establishing Foundations: Ladders and Laughing Gas, Phantoms and Fathers


Expanding the Boundaries of the Mystical
An Unseen Definition of Mystical Experience
James's Mystical Germ
Climbing the Mystical Ladder
Laughing Gas Revelations
A Pluralistic Mystic
Back on the Ladder of Mystical Experience
The Reality of the Unseen
An Hallucinatory Interlude
Psychical Research
Meetings with a Remarkable Woman: Lenora Piper
"A Suggestion about Mysticism"
"On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings"
Diabolical Mysticism: Mystical Experience and Psychopathology
Saintly Fathers and Suffering Sons

2. Experiencing Unseen Worlds: Towards a Jamesian Epistemology of Mysticism


"We Feel Sorry Because We Cry, Angry Because We Strike": James's Psychology of Emotion
Thoughts about Feelings: James's Emphasis on Religious Experience
A Contemporary Critique of James's Theories of Religious Experience
"Intensely More Real Than Any Ordinary Perception": Mystical Modes of Awareness
Knowledge-By-Acquaintance and Knowledge-About
Carving the State Out of the Stone: Sensing and Perceiving
Mystical Discoveries
Something Old and Something New: Religious Geniuses and Cultural Change
Countless Radiant Windows
Pure Experiences and a Radical Empricism

3. "Fields within Fields within Fields": Mysticism and a Jamesian Psychology of the Self


The Psychology of the Self: From the Outside In and From the Inside Out
Thinking through the Body and Seeing with an Ever-Changing I
How Does the "I" See Itself?
"A Dome of Many-Colored Glass, Stains the White Radiance of Eternity"
The Subliminal Self
The Psychology of Conversion
Salvation and the Higher Self
Earth Angels and Cosmic Selves
The Compounding of Consciousness
A Field Model of the Self and Reality

4. Beyond Words, Beyond Morals: The Metaphysical and Ethical Implications of Mysticism


The Authority of Mystical Consciousness
The Transformative Power of Religious Beliefs
The Science of Religions
What Sort of Oneness?
Mystical Nondualism
A Dual Allegiance
The Moral Holidays of Monistic Mysticism
A Literally Finite God
Beyond Oneness
An Experience of the Problem of Evil
A Spectrum Model of Ethical Life
"Enlightened" Ethics

5. Telling Truths, Touching Realities: Spiritual Judgments, Saints, and Pragmatism


Ambivalent Standards: James's Three Criteria
"By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them"
The Mind-Cure Movement
A "Bad Speculative Omission": The Mind-Cure Movement and the Problem of Evil
Saintliness: "Ripe Fruits of Religion in a Character"
The Ever-Changing Value of Saintliness
A Critique of the Critique: An Examination of James's Assessment of Saintliness
A Philosophical Sleight-of-Hand: Valuable Mystical Experiences or Verified Mystical Truths?
Prayerful "Differences in Fact"
A Pragmatic Theory of Truth
Worlds of Belief
"The Fight is Still Under Way": Different Understanding of Reality
The "Cash-Basis" of Truth
Transforming Visions

Notes

Bibliography

Index