What Really Happens in a Conversion Story?

[chaplin]

I've read a little recently on the different psychiatric attitudes and theories on how and what a conversion experience is. Freud classified a fellow psychiatrists sudden conversion to Christianity as a result of a hallucigenic episode; but also added that such a classification could not be applied to all such stories.

Some psychiatrists claim that Paul's famous conversion story, perhaps the most famous, was a result of a type of severe seizure he was suddenly afflicted with.

Many people claim their own conversion experience was sudden, and had some sort of supernatural/spiritual influence or intervention; others describe it as more of a gradual, intellectual conversion. Famous examples of the latter type come from the lives of gifted artists and writers such as C.S. Lewis and Leo Tolstoy.

In A Confession, Tolstoy explains the process of his conversion, or return, to Christianity. It was built up of many lonely days in the woods around Yasnaya Polyana hammering out the philosophical points, conclusions, and ramifications of life with faith and life without faith. Lewis also described his conversion from strict Atheist to pious Christian as very gradual, mostly brought about by intellectual study of the New Testament, followed by intellectual ruminations of what he had just read.

I personally feel that "conversion" experiences are almost exclusively of the sort that Tolstoy and Lewis had. I regard the stories of sudden, divine nudging (or pushing) towards "the light" as, mostly, excited exaggeration of the intellectual, personal conclusions and choices that form the changing or soldifying of one's beliefs.

That is one man's thoughts. What about yours? If you feel inclined to do so, perhaps give a short description of a conversion experience you had (either towards or away from religious faith), and describe what led up to this experience and what you think it was made up of.

[Visionary3]

I, personally, have not had a conversion experience but I know others who have. First let me say that when Paul heard and saw Jesus as written in Revelation , who was suppose to be gone, ascended to heaven, you may well imagine the overwheming realization of such a happening would greatly affect him. In fact he fainted. Even when I saw and touched my father who is in fact deceased, in a dream I was feeling great amazement and joy, which stayed with me for a time after the dream.

I cannot speak for all conversions but some I know said when they confessed their sins and asked God publically for forgiveness, they got a great feeling that a heavy burden was lifted off them.
Others talk about a great feeling of peace and serenity that invades their spirit and lives now inside them. Some flat out pass out at the altar and I have no clue what they are thinking or feeling, or why that happened to them and not others standing right next to them.

I have heard conversion stories on TV religious channels and these folk were usually in a desperate life situation and just cry out to God saying if you are real and help me I will live for You. And something that changed their lives happened that was convincing to them that God is real.

[kiobe]

I cannot speak for all conversions but some I know said when they confessed their sins and asked God publically for forgiveness, they got a great feeling that a heavy burden was lifted off them.
Others talk about a great feeling of peace and serenity that invades their spirit and lives now inside them. .

As a child of about 9 years old, my friends and I would go to confession every third saturday, taken by my best friends mom. After confession there was most definitly a feeling of a burden lifted. Where that feeling resides in one own psyche is something I will leave to a professional, but it seems that there are many acts that we do to get the same feeling of lightness. Doing anything 'good' will result in a good feeling. Volunteering at a hospital or the humane society will give a person the same feeling of goodness and lightness. I am not trying to take the feeling away from anyone but when discussing it rationally, religious conversions seem to be nothing more than getting what you wish for, which can be very satisfying, in a nonmaterialistic way. And waking up every day knowing that the wish come true is not a dream, can be the reason for a feeling of goodness on a daily basis.

[MaryLupin]

was both an incredibly good writer and a profound thinker about the nature of religion. The Varieties of Religious Experience talks about conversion experiences in Lecture IX (http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/james/james8.htm). You might want to have a look at that.

There is an interesting article called Religious Conversion: Is It an Adolescent Phenomenon? The Case of Native British Converts to Islam (http://www.leaonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327582ijpr0604_2?cookieSet=1&journalCode=ijpr). It is from the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion.

And for those of who write, here is a favorite - The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain (http://books.google.com/books?id=PUORuyqcfeIC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=secular+conversion+experiences&source=web&ots=fF35qHI3-Z&sig=K60u3ZrzQvZBs6kxbbnqG9P43VM#PPA51,M1) by Alice Flaherty. Amazon has it used for $4.31. On Amazon, Publisher's Weekly has a one-paragraph summary of the book.

[NikolaiI]

Well I was raised Presbyterian by my mother, and I went to church and I was taught about the bible and God, and all that. My father was an atheist. My mother had studied religion in college, and she wanted to be a pastor, so I got at least an intelligent interpretation of things. Sometime when I was fairly young, I accepted Jesus at one church or another, which was of course a happy occasion for everyone involved, and I told them that I had seen him, or Him, as the case may be. As time went on I examined this night, and realized I hadn't seen Him at all, it was just a shape in my mind. Then a couple years passed and I started to wonder what I believed, and saw that I didn't believe in God. Perhaps it was just that I was being raised by my father, an atheist. Anyway, I still went to church with my mother, and sometimes with my father, so I was still exposed to it, but it didn't really bear any truth for me. Within the last couple of years, I believed again, but now I believe in pantheism if anything.

Believing the second time would be the closest thing I ever had to a conversion, I think. That probably just happened because I saw the strong faith of my pastor, and listening to his sermons, because he was a great preacher. The reason I don't believe now is because I think the Bible and all religions were invented by man, and I cannot take seriously the claim that any of them are divinely inspired. If that makes me a naturalist, then that's what I proudly am; when I look at the universe and nature, I try to keep in mind everything that has led up to us, and it's been here a long time. I try to figure our place in things, and anyway, looking at things cosmically I am not persuaded by any religions or spiritualism, which need I say is not the same thing as spirituality.

Oh, the other strong reason that I believed again was both my mother believing I did, and her wanting me to. That can be a very strong reason for believing, is someone else wanting you to believe, especially if they feel it is important. And you can believe something just because you think it is what is the right thing to believe, and not because you were forced to by God or whatever. I'm referring to Pascal's wager here.

[PrinceMyshkin]

May I first express my appreciation to you for proposing such an interesting thread?


In A Confession, Tolstoy explains the process of his conversion, or return, to Christianity. It was built up of many lonely days in the woods around Yasnaya Polyana hammering out the philosophical points, conclusions, and ramifications of life with faith and life without faith. Lewis also described his conversion from strict Atheist to pious Christian as very gradual, mostly brought about by intellectual study of the New Testament, followed by intellectual ruminations of what he had just read.

Of the gradual sort you mention, e.g. Tolstoy and CS Lewis, may I suggest that even before the first moment they began their long, patient investigations into the arguments for faith, belief, Christ and/or God, they were already predisposed to find what they eventually found. They did not, after all, reach out for books on evolution or the must current theories of physics.

If I have had what might be called a conversion experience, it has assuredly been away from 'God' or religion, of which latter the only experiernce I'd had was what I thought was the unthinking and passionless practice of my parents. The process of my 'conversion' has been a little of both kinds that you cite: the slow gradual one began when I perceived nothing but the dry, mechanical, rather lifeless practice of my parents and their and my co-religionists in synagogue. The less I believed, the less reason I saw to believe -the parallel opposite, I think, to those who begin to believe and then find more and more affirmations of that belief.

The other kind, the Saul on the road to Damscus kind, was when I first encountered the phenomenon of "Holocaust Denial," in a CBC news broadcast. Until that moment the Holocaust had been no more than the wash on which the colours of my consciousness had been painted, sort of the background cosmic radiation. Until that moment I had assumed that the Holocaust was the worst that had been or could be done to 'my' people. Now I understood that there was still worse. We could be accuised of having invented the deaths of those 5,100,000 for our advantage. In effect, it was we who had killed them.

But I realized that I had taken the Holocaust for granted; I knew the sensational headlines: the 6,000,000 (which according to the survey by the Red Cross after the war was more like 5,100,00 - still too round a figure to be accurate); Buchenwald, Dachau, Auschwitz, the SS, the cattle-cars ans 'shower baths,' the crematoria...

So I undertook to better acquaint myself with the facts, beginning with Raul Hilberg's encyclopaedic The Destruction of European Jewry where I learned of the Einsatzgruppen, that went ahead of the German army to kill of the local Jews, the mass graves, the genickschusspezzialiszten, soldiers who were specially trained to shoot Jews in the neck so that they would fall forward into the mass graves they had been obliged to dig, and much, much else.

And all this while 'God' had stood by or was otherwise occupied...

[Orpheus]

I think the conversion experience, when converting to a religion, changes as you get older. I'm thinking of my own experience here. When children have a so-called conversion, they have not really been exposed to a diverse brand of ideas, so when something radically different is presented to them in an enthusiastic and persuasive manner, the child will have a tendency to latch on to that idea without question. This is especially true, if one of their best friends or a large number of people is seen to be followers of this faith. They may even claim to have seen god or that god was speaking to them. Most likely they were just excited and thought that someone was speaking to them, when in fact they were just talking to themselves. However, if a person should pass through adolescence without having any such conversion, it is likely that they will have learned to question new ideas and will not just let their emotions take control over their intellect so readily. The time for blind-faith will have passed. If there is to be any conversion after this time, I think it would have to be one of a more intellectual conversion where the evidence that is perceived through reason and their senses becomes the determining factor in the change of what they hold to be true.

If someone should have the first kind of conversion without any previous knowledge of that faith, other faiths and ideas, or the issues surrounding that faith that have spurred the mess of arguments and debates present today, I would very be surprised if upon learning of these things that they did not start to question what they believed and whether the conversion was, in fact, genuine. When this happens, the only hope of a future conversion will rest upon the shoulders of an intellectual persuasion.

The conversion away from religion, god, or particular ideas, is, I think, completely different.

In this case there will be no blinding lights of truth, except perhaps from looking into the lamp after many hours of meticulous study. There won’t be the sudden apparition of a disembodied voice confirming your hearts desires; the only voice that you will hear is that of your conscience, reason, and empiricism. It really comes down to choice. We choose to either accept or reject the ideas that are presented to us. I think we need to hear from someone that has had a recent conversion.

[MaryLupin]

It was during the year in which I was 17, while I was traveling in western Britain, during the same years that I was learning the value of the dark and of my non-visual senses that I finally realized that how I lived was largely my decision. It wasn’t that I hadn’t been living a fairly free life already, especially given my age. The difference was that I came to be aware of the power of the freedom to choose how one physically responds to what happens. I remember at the time being anxious to know the truth about things and thinking that someone, whether in a book or in person, could tell me where truth was located. This anxiety was my response to not knowing “how it turns out.”

It was early summer and I was at a place that I was later told was called Hecate’s Corner (although it was actually a crossroads). Western Britain is a fluid mixture of moor, meadow, forest, rock, sky and water. It is sometimes dark and cold but, at least to my memory, always beautiful. I remember there being a powerful place-sense of living greenness—as if green was a live thing—a burning power of light that sizzled out of leaves, leapt in sparks between trees, to be carried aloft in soft air and to alight dancing in a shimmer of laughter in the dewdrops of early morning. It was here in this place that I came to the realization that I could never know the “truth” of any of the various metaphysical (whether religious, psychological or philosophical) representations of the nature of reality and that all I could really do is pay attention to what was around me.

I traveled for part of these years with a black canvas rucksack of books. Among them were Edwin Abbot’s Flatland, a copy of the Bible, some Mesopotamian tales, a really battered copy of the basic writings of Freud and Mao’s little red book. Others came and went but those are the one I remember most vividly. I remember the weight of them and the swirl they created in my head. I thought they cannot all be true. I could not distinguish how to tell which was true and which was not.

It caused, for a few months at least, quite some anxiety. I would let my mind play in the field of what ifs. I have learnt to control that now, but at 17 this form of self obsession (plummeting suddenly on some days into self-pity) was perhaps my primary vice, since because of my somewhat different sensory system, I had chosen not to utilize chemical forms (i.e. neither drugs nor alcohol) of cognitive manipulation. Frankly, I was afraid of what would happen if I tried it.

The state of anxiety broke open on a misty morning in a round grass meadow that appeared as I walked out of the forest along the road. I think I was south of the Bristol Channel just east of Exmoor and in Somerset almost certainly. I cannot be sure of my location because at the time I was choosing my daily direction by what bird first caught my attention after I awoke, and sometimes I got a ride in someone’s car telling the driver that “by coincidence” I was going to the same place they were. I did not, at 17, have the same appreciation of the specificities of place that I have come to develop. I broached the wall of trees through which the road wound and came out into the open. I had woken thinking of hell and my problem of figuring out what was true in the books I carried and how their various ways of knowing could be welded tighter into some meaningful whole. I was in an ugly mood—inside my mind it was dark, morose and self-pitying—and I felt I could not walk that day. I wanted a car to come along to carry me to someplace where I could huddle. I didn’t make the connection between the two states (the physical and the psychological), at least not consciously. Nevertheless, as I came up to the crossroads in the middle of the meadow it was as if a light bloomed suddenly in my belly. I felt released—warm—and then, drifting up from inside my body, came the knowledge that not only would I never be able to know which system of knowledge was true, but that no one could know. I realized, with real joy, it wasn’t humanly knowable.

I was within twenty feet of the crossroads at that moment. I walked on a bit dazedly, came up to the black rectangular stone that sat behind the County crossroad marker and put my left hand on it. It felt warm despite the day, and it was clearly very old. (If one wanders for any length of time in Britain, the sight of really old marks of human presence is not a startling event.) I don’t remember thinking about what to do exactly, but I put down the rucksack, took out the books and left them fluttering on the stone at the crossroad. What I knew was that I no longer needed them because it really was as simple as I got to decide which truth I was going to live by. That choice is a radical freedom and, to me, not at all existentially upsetting.

And here is where my earlier training kicked in to story the experience. My immediate assumption, one I didn’t question or articulate even in my own head, was that the choice would be guided by which system was the kindest to people and animals, which is what had been the prime guiding principle of the ones who taught me about plants, animals, chants, tarot, dream interpretation and other “esoteric” arts as a child. That made the decision simple. Even for a 17-year-old mind, history is very clear about the effects of various belief systems on people and on the non-human world—the world that people need to live well and happily. I chose witchcraft. I have not once regretted it.

[kiobe]

I traveled for part of these years with a black canvas rucksack of books. Among them were Edwin Abbot’s Flatland, a copy of the Bible, some Mesopotamian tales, a really battered copy of the basic writings of Freud and Mao’s little red book. Others came and went but those are the one I remember most vividly. I remember the weight of them and the swirl they created in my head. I thought they cannot all be true. I could not distinguish how to tell which was true and which was not.

And here is where my earlier training kicked in to story the experience. My immediate assumption, one I didn’t question or articulate even in my own head, was that the choice would be guided by which system was the kindest to people and animals, which is what had been the prime guiding principle of the ones who taught me about plants, animals, chants, tarot, dream interpretation and other “esoteric” arts as a child. That made the decision simple. Even for a 17-year-old mind, history is very clear about the effects of various belief systems on people and on the non-human world—the world that people need to live well and happily. I chose witchcraft. I have not once regretted it.

A little 'light reading' in that rucksack. What a great revelation, and at such a young age. Too bad it takes most of us sooooo long to come to be truly at peace with life. Good for you. Wine anyone?

[MaryLupin]

Wine anyone?

Yes please!

[Bookworm4Him]

I myself became a Christian very young. I had been raised in a Baptist church, and knew everything about God, and then when I was old enough to actually understand it, i accept Christ. As I got older, I didnt doubt Christ, but I began to equip myself to prove it, b/c even though I knew it in my heart, I had to show others. Some just believe, cause they know it in their heart, but others, like C. S. Lewic, first have to prove it to their mind. But there's a verse that says that God will "quicken us", though we were dead, to live in Christ."

[Pendragon]

My own experience is that when God becomes something more to you than a word, when forgiviness and mercy and grace develop real meaning in your heart, that it isn't just a mental conception, but a sense of belonging, a change you might not be able to fully explain but people notice, that's conversion.

God Bless.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Smilies/PuppyLove.gif

[A MM]

MaryLupin wote at the beginning of this thread

"William James was both an incredibly good writer and a profound thinker about the nature of religion. The Varieties of Religious Experience talks about conversion experiences in Lecture IX. You might want to have a look at that.

There is an interesting article called Religious Conversion: Is It an Adolescent Phenomenon? The Case of Native British Converts to Islam. It is from the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion.

And for those of who write, here is a favorite - The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain by Alice Flaherty. Amazon has it used for $4.31. On Amazon, Publisher's Weekly has a one-paragraph summary of the book."

Considering that William James was also a good writer, why is he not among the authors whose works are made available in this site?

[weepingforloman]

Copyright laws, mostly.

[A MM]

Peace, & Peace to you again weepingforloman.

Are you a William James reader?

[MaryLupin]

Considering that William James was also a good writer...

Have you read Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism: A Study in Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness?

[A MM]

Yes. I read her book many years ago, as part of some course work I had to do for a thesis. I had not read William James then. I have started reading some of his works only in recent years.

Somehow James appeals to my mind more than Evelyn Underhill did. Is it his writing style?

Just a few days ago I read some long excerpts from Underhill by another author. This author uses Underhill's work to establish that mystical experiences are a kind of ritual, which may have therapeutic functions. He also mentions in passing that descriptions of mystical experiences evoke considerations of sexual experiences.

I believe James would disagree with that.

I believe it is possible that ordinary activities such as eating and sex have spiritual and perhaps mystical elements. However, it may be a questionable spirituality.

I cannot speak for everybody's spirituality and mysticisim. This is clealry an area where, "different folks, different strokes" applies.

Do you think that Underhill's account maybe more real than James's for a woman reader?

[MaryLupin]

Do you think that Underhill's account maybe more real than James's for a woman reader?

Well I can't speak for women in general, but not for me. I like James' better as a writer and as a thinker. I find him less tendentious than Underhill, although I must admit she really knows her stuff and I admire her scholarship. I think difference between them may be because James was interested in intellectual patterns and Underhill was interested more in the practicalities of experience. Maybe I think that because reading James is so intellectually satisfying as if a giant puzzle had been put together and reading Underhill feels more like the nitty gritty of research. Don't know if this makes sense, and I certainly don't intend to slam Underhill in anyway. Her book is a critical piece of scholarship.

One book I found really fascinating in this area is Ecstasy in Secular and Religious Experiences. It is a compendium of experiences and an analysis of component parts (like up and down, light and dark, the sense of intensity, of withdrawal, notions of self, of grief, etc) of what are traditionally called mystical experiences, except in this case many of the subjects are not religious and do not interpret these experiences as such. It is fascinating to hear these events recounted without the religious terminology that often goes along with them. The book is by Marghanita Laski.

[A MM]

MaryLupin wrote


"reading James is so intellectually satisfying as if a giant puzzle had been put together..."
Beautifully put.

Psychologists seem to place James enitrely in a psychology, literature, and philosophy box.

But I can't help thinking that James's family background in Swedenborgianism must have had somethig to do with his deep committment to a Christian kind of theism, which also comes through in the Varieties book.

[MaryLupin]

But I can't help thinking that James's family background in Swedenborgianism...

Have you read Genuine Reality: A Life of William James by Linda Simon?
The first chapter is posted here (http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/simon-reality.html). There is also a pretty good review of the book here (http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/15/reviews/980315.15reynolt.html).

What I find fascinating is how deeply these kind of European spiritual/religious ideologies effected American notions of self and country. I mean Emerson and his whole crowd and the notions of transcendentalism were pretty closely allied with James' pragmatism in their assumptions about what it means to be human. There was a paper "Transcendentalism and Pragmatism" by Riley. As I remember it Riley focused on the shared assumptions of "self reliance" and emotional wisdom as opposed to the recognition of tradition and intellectualism. These assumptions appear to still hold true in the US today. It always amazes me how powerful writing can be, especially in a society that undermines the intellectual tools by which such power (and its use) can be made conscious and available for intelligent public debate.

[A MM]

Thanks very much for your suggestions.

I cannot access the NYT links. I am not much of a fan of that newspaper in any case.

There is much to think about in your brief, 1 paragraph view of what I suppose is written in those articles.