[On a subsequent occasion], there was not a mere consciousness of something there, but fused in the central happiness of it, a startling awareness of some ineffable good. Not vague either, not like the emotional effect of some poem, or scene, or blossom, or music, but the sure knowledge of the close presence of a sort of mighty person.
“Of course,” added James, “such an experience as this does not connect itself with the religious sphere . . . [and] my friend . . . does not interpret these latter experiences theistically, as signifying the presence of God.”
But one can readily see why others, perhaps of a different disposition, might interpret the “sure knowledge of the close presence of a sort of mighty person” and “a startling awareness of some ineffable good” in mystical, if not religious, terms. Other case histories in James’s chapter bear this out, leading him to say that “many persons (how many we cannot tell) possess the objects of their belief not in the form of mere conceptions which the intellect accepts as true, but rather in the form of quasi-sensible realities directly apprehended.”
Thus the primal, animal sense of “the other,” which may have evolved for the detection of threat, can take on a lofty, even transcendent function in human beings, as a biological basis for religious passion and conviction, where the “other,” the “presence,” becomes the person of God.
Acknowledgments
I am most grateful, first and foremost, to the hundreds of patients and correspondents who have shared their experiences of hallucinations with me over many decades, and especially to those who have allowed me to quote their words and tell their stories in this book.
I owe an enormous debt to my friend and colleague Orrin Devinsky, who has stimulated my thoughts with his many published and forthcoming papers and referred many of his patients to me. I have
enjoyed and benefited from discussions with Jan Dirk Blom and from reading his wonderfully comprehensive
I must also thank Molly Birnbaum, Daniel Breslaw, Leslie Burkhardt, Elizabeth Chase, Allen Furbeck, Kai Furbeck, Ben Helfgott, Richard Howard, Hazel Rossotti, Peter Selgin, Amy Tan, Bonnie Thompson, Kappa Waugh, and Edward Weinberger. Eveline Honig, Audrey Kindred, Sharon Smith, and others at the Narcolepsy Network kindly introduced me to many people with narcolepsy and sleep paralysis. Bill Hayes, a friend and a writer whom I much admire, read each chapter with his own writerly eye and made many valuable suggestions.
For their support and encouragement, I thank David and Susie Sainsbury; Dan Frank, who has patiently reviewed draft after draft of this book (as with many previous ones); Hailey Wojcik, invaluable research assistant, typist, and swimming companion; and Kate Edgar, my friend, editor, and collaborator for thirty years, to whom this book is dedicated.
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