may first distinguish between the control of the
cognitive, the volitional, and the executive faculties. For our present
inquiry we may leave aside those cases where the control of the
executive faculties, normally subject to the will and directed by the
mind, seem to be wrested from that control by a foreign agent possessed
of intelligence and volition, as, for example, in such a case as is
narrated of the false prophet Balaam, or of those who at the Pentecostal
outpouring spoke correctly in languages unintelligible to themselves, or
of the possessed who were constrained in spite of themselves to confess
Christ. In these and similar cases, not only is the action involuntary
or even counter to the will, but it manifests such intelligent purpose
as seemingly marks it to be the effect of an alien will and
intelligence. Of this kind of control exercised by the agent over the
outer actions of the patient, it may be doubted if it be ever effected
except through the mediation of a suggestion addressed to the mind, in
such sort that though not free, the resulting action is not wholly
involuntary. Be this as it may, our concern at present is simply with
control exercised over the will and the understanding.

With regard to the will, it is a commonplace of mystical theology that
God, who gave it its natural and essential bent towards the good of
reason, i.e., towards righteousness and the Divine will; who created
it not merely as an irresistible tendency towards the happiness and
self-realization of the rational subject, but as a resistible tendency
towards its _true_, happiness and _true_ self-realization--that this
same God can directly modify the will without the natural mediation of
some suggested thought. We ourselves, by the laborious cultivation of
virtue, gradually modify the response of our will to certain
suggestions, making it more sensitive to right impulses, more obtuse to
evil impulses. According to mystic theology, it is the prerogative of
God to dispense with this natural method of education, and, without
violating that liberty of choice (which no inclination can prejudice),
to incline the rational appetite this way or that; not only in reference
to some suggested object, but also without reference to any distinct
object whatsoever, so that the soul should be abruptly filled with joy
or sadness, with fear or hope, with desire or aversion, and yet be at a
loss to determine the object of these spiritual passions. S