s of a non-religious character.
I believe it is quite possible to do this. From medical records and from
numerous biographies it is possible to parallel all the experiences of
the religious mystic. We can see the same sense of exaltation, the same
conviction of illumination, the same belief that one is the tool of a
superior power. Take, as merely illustrative of this, the case of J.
Addington Symonds, as narrated by Professor James, who cites it as an
example of a "mystical experience with chloroform." Symonds tells us
that until he was twenty-eight years of age he was liable to extreme
states of exaltation concerning the nature of self. (It is worth while
pointing out that Sir James Crichton-Browne expresses the opinion that
Symonds's higher nerve centres were in some degree enfeebled by these
abnormal states.) In addition to this confession he placed on record an
interesting experience while under the influence of chloroform. He
says:--

"After the choking and stifling had passed away, I seemed at first in a
state of utter blankness; then came flashes of intense light,
alternating with blankness, and with a keen sense of vision of what was
going on in the room around me, but no sensation of touch. I thought
that I was near death; when suddenly my soul became aware of God who was
manifestly dealing with me, handling me, so to speak, in an intense
personal reality. I felt him streaming in like light upon me.... I
cannot describe the ecstasy I felt. Then, as I gradually awoke from the
influence of the anaesthetic, the old sense of my relation with the
world began to return, the new sense of my relation to God began to
fade.... Only think of it. To have felt for that long dateless ecstasy
of vision the very God, in all purity, tenderness, and truth, and
absolute love, and then to find that I had after all had no revelation,
but that I had been tricked by the abnormal excitement of my brain."

With a slight variation of expression this confession might have come
direct from the lips of the most pronounced mystic. There is no question
of the intense reality of the experience. That was as vivid as anything
that ever occurred to any saint in the calendar. Still, no one will
dream of claiming that the way to get _en rapport_ with the higher
mysteries is by way of a dose of chloroform. The distinction here is
that Symonds knew and described the cause of his experience. And no one
will question that the phrase "tricked by the