ABSTRACT
“Conversion,” says Starbuck, in words which are really far more descriptive of mystical awakening than of the revivalistic phenomena encouraged by American Protestantism, is primarily an unselfing. Sometimes the emergence of the mystical consciousness is gradual, unmarked by any definite crisis. The self slides gently, almost imperceptibly, from the old universe to the new. The records of mysticism, however, seem to suggest that this is exceptional: that travail is the normal accompaniment of birth. The great oscillations of the typical mystic between joy and pain are here replaced by a number of little ones. The “two thirsts” of the superficial and spiritual consciousness assert themselves by turns. Each step towards the vision of the Real brings with it a reaction. Madame Guyon’s value to the student of mysticism consists largely in this feeble quality of her surface-intelligence, which hence had little or no modifying or contributory effect upon her spiritual life.
