ABSTRACT
William James’s suggestion is simply ‘that the states of mystical intuition may be only very sudden and great extensions of the ordinary “field of consciousness”.’ James contends that our field of consciousness is ordinarily narrow. The mode of consciousness was perceptual, not conceptual – the field expanding so fast that there seemed no time for conception or identification to get in its work. Human consciousness is narrow, a wedge of light moving through time, creating a perpetual present. For the delusions of passive consciousness make man particularly susceptible to pessimism: that is, to ‘intentionalising’ his perceptions so that they take on a negative flavour. The only ‘safe’ way to an enlargement of consciousness is through phenomenological discipline. The Easter bells declare that the source of all pessimism is the limitations of human consciousness. Easter bells are a symbol of the ‘beyond,’ the assertion of the real existence of a world of beauty and intensity beyond our narrow human consciousness.
