ecause they had exalted sensibility, and to such things persons
of exalted sensibility are liable."[10]

The fact is unquestionable, but the question remains, In what sense were
these people exalted? Did their exalted sensibility really bring them
into touch with a form of existence hidden from persons of a coarser
fibre? Or did it belong to a class of cases which in a more violent form
comes within the province of the physician? The subjects, says Professor
James, "actually feel themselves played upon by powers beyond their
will. The evidence is dynamic; the god or spirit moves the very organs
of their body.... We have distinct professions of being under the
direction of a foreign power, and serving as its mouthpiece." Of course
we have, but for diagnostic purposes such professions are quite
valueless. What these people are conscious of, and all they are
conscious of, is a series of feelings of a more or less unusual kind.
Equally convinced was the medieval demoniac that a spirit moved the very
organs of his body. Equally convinced is the modern spiritualist medium
that his body is controlled by a disembodied spirit. It is not a
question of the actuality of certain states, but of their origin. The
intense conviction of the subject of the seizure is, as evidence, quite
irrelevant. The subjective state is always real, whether it belongs to a
saint in ecstasy or a drunkard in delirium tremens. There are no states
of mind more "real" while they last than those due to opium or hashish.
But it is never suggested that this is evidence of their veracity. In
such cases the testimony of a skilled outsider is of far greater value
than the conviction of the visionary. We are bound to appeal to Paul,
and Loyola, and Fox, and Wesley to know what their feelings were,
because here they are the supreme authorities. But we must consult
others to discover why they experienced these feelings. An illusion is
no more than a false interpretation of a real subjective experience;
although many are inclined to treat the rejection of the interpretation
as equivalent to a charge of imposture or deliberate lying.

It is also a matter of demonstration that these religious experiences
are strictly determined by environmental conditions. Thousands of
Christians have been favoured with visions of Jesus or of the Christian
heaven in their dying moments. Millions of Jews and Mohammedans have
lived and died without any such experience--the very persons t