Religion and Psychology 321 



be explained in terms of the actual associations of the sounds or 

 meaning of the words, but apparently touch some hidden chord in 

 the mind, and thereby stir the soul deeply. Muscular and kinaes- 

 thetic sensations sometimes arouse a similar feeling. Well-ordered 

 muscular activity may often induce a feeling of unity with nature. 

 On a beautiful spring morning, when away from one's fellow men 

 in the fields, one may be suddenly overtaken with a feeling of the 

 direct continuity of one's own life with the life of nature. One 

 looks with different eyes upon the scenery and welcomes it as a 

 part of one's self, or rather, as something infinitely greater than 

 one's self in which one is merged. This feeling maybe intensified 

 in special circumstances, as e.g. when riding, in which no doubt 

 sympathy with the horse as well as the muscular exercise play their 

 part. We might perhaps explain these, often extremely pleasant, 

 experiences as a sort of reversion to an earlier and more primitive 

 form of consciousness, when we were less aware of our own 

 individuality and its problems : when we were more in touch with 

 the animals and plants around us, and felt our kinship with them 

 more vividly. Since it is not an experience constantly present, 

 when it does come it comes with a special vividness, as intensified 

 pleasure, which is not surprising ; it is normal and healthy, not 

 pathological. Communion is in general a healthy form of ex- 

 perience. It is the feeling of isolation from nature, animate and 

 inanimate, which is the terrible thing, and which we find in such 

 pronounced form among some of our mentally deranged patients. 

 Secondly, there are the mental states sometimes produced by 

 anaesthetics — the so-called " anaesthetic revelation." Under the 

 influence of alcohol, ether, chloroform, and especially of nitrous 

 oxide gas, many people get extraordinary feelings of deepened 

 insight into the meaning of things. They may come out of the 

 anaesthetic with the conviction that they have solved the riddle of 

 the universe, and suffer great disappointment because all they can 

 find in their minds at the moment of awakening are some doggerel 

 rhymes that have no significance whatever. Then again, a 

 similar mystical experience can come over one in conditions of 

 self-hypnosis. If one lies passive on a couch with the eyes closed 

 and all voluntary muscles relaxed, and breathes slowly and deeply 

 in order to increase that relaxation, one may feel oneself slipping 

 away from the world of clear consciousness, losing the feeling of 

 orientation and of sensitivity in the limbs. The body seems to be 



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