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James, William, 1842-1910

"Varieties of Religious Experience, a Study in Human Nature"

For me this
Reality was not the pure Unknowable of Spencer's philosophy, for
although I had ceased my childish prayers to God, and never
prayed to IT in a formal manner, yet my more recent experience
shows me to have been in a relation to IT which practically was
the same thing as prayer. Whenever I had any trouble, especially
when I had conflict with other people, either domestically or in
the way of business, or when I was depressed in spirits or
anxious about affairs, I now recognize that I used to fall back
for support upon this curious relation I felt myself to be in to
this fundamental cosmical IT. It was on my side, or I was on Its
side, however you please to term it, in the particular trouble,
and it always strengthened me and seemed to give me endless
vitality to feel its underlying and supporting presence. In
fact, it was an unfailing fountain of living justice, truth, and
strength, to which I instinctively turned at times of weakness,
and it always brought me out. I know now that it was a personal
relation I was in to it, because of late years the power of
communicating with it has left me, and I am conscious of a
perfectly definite loss.


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