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James, William, 1842-1910

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


"I sat quietly with the healer for half an hour each day, at
first with no result; then, after ten days or so, I became quite
suddenly and swiftly conscious of a tide of new energy rising
within me, a sense of power to pass beyond old halting-places, of
power to break the bounds that, though often tried before, had
long been veritable walls about my life, too high to climb. I
began to read and walk as I had not done for years, and the
change was sudden, marked, and unmistakable. This tide seemed to
mount for some weeks, three or four perhaps, when, summer having
come, I came away, taking the treatment up again a few months
later. The lift I got proved permanent, and left me slowly
gaining ground instead of losing, it but with this lift the
influence seemed in a way to have spent itself, and, though my
confidence in the reality of the power had gained immensely from
this first experience, and should have helped me to make further
gain in health and strength if my belief in it had been the
potent factor there, I never after this got any result at all as
striking or as clearly marked as this which came when I made
trial of it first, with little faith and doubtful expectation.


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