References
E.g., the Apostle Paul, St. Augustine, St. Francis, Tolstoy, John Wesley, etc. See Underwood, Alfred C.,Conversion: Christian and Non-Christian (New York, Macmillan, 1925) for a comprehensive historical survey.
Clark, Elmer T.,The Psychology of Religious Awakening. New York, Macmillan, 1929, and more recently in Allport, Gordon W.,The Individual and His Religion. New York, Macmillan, 1950.
Freedman, Daniel X., “Perspectives on the Use and Abuse of Psychedelic Drugs.” In Efron, Daniel H., et al., eds.,Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs. Washington, D. C., Public Health Service Publication No. 1645, 1967, pp. 77–102; also Aberle, David F.,The Peyote Religion among the Navabo. Chicago, Aldine Publishing Co., 1966.
Malcolm X.,The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York, Grove Press, 1965; also Draper, Edgar,Psychiatry and Pastoral Care. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1965, p. 21.
Wallace, Anthony F. C., “Revitalization Movements,”American Anthropologist, 1956, 58, 264.
Psychotherapy may have this same dual potentiality. See. Bergin, Allen E., “Some Implications of Psychotherapy Research for Therapeutic Practice”,Int. J. Psychiatry 1967,3, 136.
Later published in his extensive two-volume work on adolescence: Hall, Granville Stanley,Adolescence. New York, Appleton, 1905.
James, William,The Varieties of Religious Experience, a study in human nature; being the Gifford lectures on natural religion delivered at Edinburgh in 1901–1902. New York, The Modern Library, 1936.
Coe, George A.,The Spiritual Life, New York, Eaton & Mains, 1900.
,The Psychology of Religion. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1916.
Starbuck, Edwin D.,The Psychology of Religion, New York, Scribner & Sons, 1899.
Leuba, James H., “A Study in the Psychology of Religious Phenomena,”Amer. J. Psychol., 1896, 7, 309.
The issue ofgradual versussudden experiences was extensively considered by early students of conversion: Ames, Edward S.,The Psychology of Religious Experience. Boston, Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1910; Pratt, James B.,The Psychology of Religious Belief. New York, Macmillan, 1907, James,op. cit., James B.,The Psychology of Religious Belief. New York, Macmillan, 1907 and Starbuckop. cit. Starbuck, Edwin D.,The Psychology of Religion, New York, Scribner & Sons, 1899 Conversion as used in this paper will refer only to abrupt conversions, where a sense of crisis and subsequent resolution is experienced within a matter of hours or days.
James,op. cit.; Starbuck,op. cit. Starbuck, Edwin D.,The Psychology of Religion. New York, Scribner & Sons, 1899. and Leuba,op. cit.Leuba, Mames H., “A Study in the Psychology of Religious Phenomena,”Amer. J. Psychol., 1896, 7, 309.
The conversion experience, being practically as ancient as recorded history (see Underwood,op. cit.), had been extensively described in the literature of history and theology. This was, however, a kind of first performance for the newly-established science of psychology, where the wish was to be as empirical as possible.
Starbuch,op. cit., p. 155.
Coe,The Spiritual Life op. cit.. p. 51.
James,op. cit..
Daniels, Arthur H., “The New Life: a Study of Regeneration,”Amer. J. Psychol. 1893,6, 61.
Starbuck,op. cit., 1899
James,op. cit., 1936.
Starbuck,op. cit., 1899.
Coe,op. cit..
James,op. cit.. Also of interest are the views on temperamental factors in conversion expressed by Clarence D. Royse in “The Psychology of Saul's Conversion,”Amer. J. Relig., Psychol., and Ed., 1904,1, 141.
James,op. cit..
Coe,The Spiritual Life, op. cit..
Starbuck,op. cit..
Pratt,op. cit..
James,op. cit..
Ames,op. cit..
Although forced by the religion-science polemic of the day to take a stand on this issue, early authors were well aware of the attendant complexity. “The ultimate test, doubtless, will be, does it [i.e. conversion] contribute, in the long run, in the individual and in groups of individuals to permanent growth? The settlement of such a question far exceeds the maturity of the psychology of religion.”op. cit..
Pfister, Oskar, “The Entwicklung des Apostels Paulus,”Imago 1920,4, 243.
Jung, Carl G., “The Psychological Foundations of Belief in Spirits.” InThe Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. New York, Pantheon Books, Bollingen Series, XX, 1960, pp. 301–318.
Jung was familiar with the positive psychotherapeutic nature of conversion in many individuals, and it is interesting to note how his comments about conversion in alcoholics were influential with one of the later founders of Alcoholics Anonymous.Alcoholics Anonymous; Cornwall, N. Y., The Cornwall Press, Inc., 1965, p. 27.
Freud, Sigmund, “A Religious Experience” (1927).Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. XXI. London, Hogarth Press, 1964.
Conversion referred only to those situations in which there was a relatively consistent subsequent living-out of a changed religious perspective, not where such a change was abortive or absent. De Sanctis, Sante,Religious Conversion. New York, Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1927.
Jung, “A Review of Complex Theory,” InThe Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, op. cit. pp,. 92–106.
Freud, “The Unconscious” (1915).Standard Edition, Vol. XIV, 1964.
Sullivan, Harry S., “Schizophrenia: Its Conservative and Malignant Features” (1924). In Sullivan,Schizophrenia As a Human Process. New York, W. W. Norton, 1962, pp. 7–22.
Boisen, Anton J., “Personality Changes and Upheavals Arising Out of the Sense of Personal Failure,”,Amer. J. Psychiatry, 1926,82, 531.
,Out of the Depths, New York, Harper & Bros, 1960.
,The Exploration of the Inner World. New York, Harper & Bros, 1936.
Ibid..
Ibid..
Carrier, Hervé,The Sociology of Religious Belonging. New York, Herder & Herder, 1965, Jones, W. Lawson,A Psychological Study of Religious Conversion. London, Epworth Press, 1937.
Weininger, Benjamin, “The Interpersonal Factor in the Religious Experience,”Psychoanalysis, 1955,3, 27.
Boisen, “Economic Distress and Religious Experience—a Study of the Holy Rollers,”Psychiatry 1939,2, 185. Carrier (op. cit.) Carrier, Hervé,The Sociology of Religious Belonging. New York, Herder & Herder, 1965 interprets the Pentacostal conversion of Puerto Rican immigrants to New York City as a protest against social exclusion.
Clark, Walter H.,The Psychology of Religion. New York, Macmillan, 1958.
Jones,op. cit..
Salzman, Leon, “The Psychology of Religious and Ideological Conversion,”Psychiatry, 1953,16, 177.
Maloney, James C., “Mother, God and Super-ego,”J. Amer. Psy. Assn., 1954,2, 120.
Salzman,op. cit..
Isaacs, Kenneth, et al., “Faith, Trust, and Gulliblity,”,Int. J. Psa., 1963,44, 461. Mann, Jas., reporter, “Clinical and Theoretical Aspects of Religious Belief,”J. Amer. Psa. Assn., 1964,12, 160.
Plath, Sylvia, “In Plaster”Tri-Quarterly, 1966, 7, 16.
Mann,op. cit..
Leavy Stanley A., “A Religious Conversion in a Four-Year-Old Girl,”Bull. Phila. Assn. Psa., 1957, 7, 85.
Kliegerman, Charles, “A Psychoanalytic Study of the Confessions of Saint Augustine,”J. Amer. Psa. Assn., 1957,5, 469.
Maloney,op. cit.. Mann,op. cit. Mann, Jas., reporter, “Clinical and Theoretical Aspects of Religious Belief.”J. Amer. Psa. Assn., 1964,12, 160.
Southard, Samuel,Conversion and Christian Character. Nashville, Tenn., Broadman Press, 1965.
Salzman,op. cit..
Christiansen, Carl W., “Religious Conversion,”A.M.A. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry, 1963.,9, 207.
Diagnostically, two were schizophrenic, one schizoid, and the remaining nineteen variously neurotic.
Federn, Paul.Ego Psychology and the Psychoses. New York, Basic Books, 1961. Weiss Eduardo,Principles of Psychodynamics. New York, Grune & Stratton, 1950.
Christiansen (op. cit.). feels that this repeated a childhood situation of consciously, offering total submission to a parent.
—op. cit..
Carlson, Helen B., “Characteristics of an Acute Confusional State in College Students,”Amer. J. Psychiatry, 1958,114, 900–909.
The process of “deautomization,” discussed by Arthur Deikman (“Deautomization and the Mystic Experience,”Psychiatry, 1966,29, 324) describes the initial phase of conversion quite well.
See the autobiographic accounts in Leuba,op. cit. (note11), and Begbie, Harold,Twice-born Men. New York, Revell, 1909.
See Southard's one—year follow—up study of Baptist revival convertsSouthard,op. cit. (note 57).
Christiansen,op. cit. (note 62).
Cf. the maturational role of even profoundly regressive expriences in adolescence as formulated by Erik H.Erikson (“Identity and the Life Cycle,”Psychological Issues, 1959,1, 15, andYoung Man Luther. New York, W. W. Norton, 1962).
Salzman,op. cit. (note 48).
There is surprisingly little contemporary empirical work on this problem. Reports by F. J. Roberts (“Some Psychological Factors in Religious Conversion,”Brit. J. Social and Clinical Psychol., 1965,4, 185) and Gordon Stanley (“Personality and Attitude Correlates of Religious Conversion,”J. Scientific Study of Religion, 1964,4, 60) are contradictory on the point. As pointed out above, authors have held divergent opinions on this in the past. The issue is confused by the variety of different abrupt conversion experiences, the possible differences between group and individual conversions, the specific individuals studied, and the complexities of related sociological issues (such as urbanization and the liberalization of Protestant theology. See Clarkop. cit., note 2). Clark, Elmer T.,The Psychology of Religious Awakening. New York, Macmillan, 1929
This is especially clear in the case of group conversions, which may involve whole communities (like the conversion of one-third of the students at Yale in 1802. See Clark,op. cit., quotingop. cit..
Christiansen,op. cit. (note59).
Divorce, separation, or psychosis had occurred in 18 out of 20 of these families before the patient was six years old. Carlson, Helen B., “The Relationship of the Acute Confusional State to Ego Development,”Int. J. Psa., 1961,42, 517.
Ibid..
Erikson, Erik H.,Childhood and Society. New York, W. W. Norton, 1950.
See Deikman, Arthur, “Implications of Experimentally Induced Contemplative Mediation,”J. Nerv. Ment. Dis., 1966,142, 101, for a demonstration of “regressive” deautomatization in normal subjects. See also Maslow, Abraham H.,Toward a Psychology of Being, New York, Van Nostrand, 1962, for a discussion of the role of “peak experiences” (clearly involving deautomatization) in the aesthetic and creative lives of normal individuals.
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H. Roberts Bagwell, M.D., resident in psychiatry at the University of Chicago from 1964 to 1967, has been serving with the Mental Health Career Development Program of the United States Public Health Service since 1963 and is now staff psychiatrist in the United States Public Health Service Hospital in San Francisco, California.
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Bagwell, H.R. The abrupt religious conversion experience. J Relig Health 8, 163–178 (1969). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01533143
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01533143