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ladytetra777Lecture IX, "Conversion," begins a discussion on the shifting of consciousness via religious experience. It follows from the previous lecture on the divided self; where that lecture concludes that a unification of the psyche heals the divided self, this lecture examines that healing process as one of conversion to a new psychic baseline. The disparate parts of the divided self are reconciled into a a whole greater than its former constituents, firmer in resolve, and happier overall in result (189).
My initial understanding of this is the idea of the "born-again Christian," the person who has completed a transformation and now lives differently as a result. One example I immediately thought of is the musician Dave Mustaine; a member of Metallica kicked out of the band who would form the group Megadeth in the early 1980s to achieve success in an act to spite his old bandmates. Mustaine was fired from Metallica for issues with drugs and alcohol, which would continue into his career as the Megadeth frontman. Despite multiple platinum albums and several Grammy nominations, this success was plagued with intermittent periods of rehab stints.
Once Mustaine grew so physically weak from his addictions that he could no longer play guitar, he experienced his own conversion. After doctors told him he would be unable to recover to the point where his hands were too weak to play the instrument, he said he experienced a vision of himself on a cross in 2002. "What have I got to lose" he said, and then converted to Christianity, giving up all substances and disavowing black magick. He made a full recovery, and his band would eventually win their first Grammy in 2017 for the song "Dystopia," an anthem comparing the fractured consciousness and physically-weak body to a society out of control, discusses James' method of surrendering to a higher power and experiencing conversion through the lyrical metaphor of "the quickest way to end a war is lose."
This lecture is filled with such examples; people get fed up with their lives as they currently live them, surrender them, and then in that surrender make room for a higher consciousness to blossom. Another example I can offer comes from the myth of the Shani Mahatmya, translated as "The Greatness of Saturn." In it, a king is ignorant of the ways suffering in the physical world can lead to self-transformation, and is then subject to an intense period of suffering, losing his status as a King and becoming an oil extractor after being falsely convicted as a thief, away from his kingdom. The dramatic change from the top to the bottom of the social order humbles him, and when confronted by Saturn in the form of Shani years after the initial fall from grace, the god shares his truth that all are subject to law of karma, and in the surrendering of the ego mind, one may finally transcend the cycle of reincarnation.
I offer these examples as a means of mirroring James' lecturing style. He illustrates the personal topic of religion by using personal experiences, and in writing this post, I bring up a musician and the figure of a god. As a psychologist, James is expounding upon the concept of psychic healing and conscious integration, and the topic of religious conversion not only continues the previous lectures of an unhappy self, subjected to a sick soul, characterized by a divided self, but then moves to a resolution. This resolution comes about in the form of a change, whether gradual or sudden, the result of which is the formerly divided person becomes whole and their lifestyle and beliefs change. For many, that change is brought about by figures of Christ and the use of scripture, but the common theme is that it is a higher power brought about from within the individual.
My initial understanding of this is the idea of the "born-again Christian," the person who has completed a transformation and now lives differently as a result. One example I immediately thought of is the musician Dave Mustaine; a member of Metallica kicked out of the band who would form the group Megadeth in the early 1980s to achieve success in an act to spite his old bandmates. Mustaine was fired from Metallica for issues with drugs and alcohol, which would continue into his career as the Megadeth frontman. Despite multiple platinum albums and several Grammy nominations, this success was plagued with intermittent periods of rehab stints.
Once Mustaine grew so physically weak from his addictions that he could no longer play guitar, he experienced his own conversion. After doctors told him he would be unable to recover to the point where his hands were too weak to play the instrument, he said he experienced a vision of himself on a cross in 2002. "What have I got to lose" he said, and then converted to Christianity, giving up all substances and disavowing black magick. He made a full recovery, and his band would eventually win their first Grammy in 2017 for the song "Dystopia," an anthem comparing the fractured consciousness and physically-weak body to a society out of control, discusses James' method of surrendering to a higher power and experiencing conversion through the lyrical metaphor of "the quickest way to end a war is lose."
This lecture is filled with such examples; people get fed up with their lives as they currently live them, surrender them, and then in that surrender make room for a higher consciousness to blossom. Another example I can offer comes from the myth of the Shani Mahatmya, translated as "The Greatness of Saturn." In it, a king is ignorant of the ways suffering in the physical world can lead to self-transformation, and is then subject to an intense period of suffering, losing his status as a King and becoming an oil extractor after being falsely convicted as a thief, away from his kingdom. The dramatic change from the top to the bottom of the social order humbles him, and when confronted by Saturn in the form of Shani years after the initial fall from grace, the god shares his truth that all are subject to law of karma, and in the surrendering of the ego mind, one may finally transcend the cycle of reincarnation.
I offer these examples as a means of mirroring James' lecturing style. He illustrates the personal topic of religion by using personal experiences, and in writing this post, I bring up a musician and the figure of a god. As a psychologist, James is expounding upon the concept of psychic healing and conscious integration, and the topic of religious conversion not only continues the previous lectures of an unhappy self, subjected to a sick soul, characterized by a divided self, but then moves to a resolution. This resolution comes about in the form of a change, whether gradual or sudden, the result of which is the formerly divided person becomes whole and their lifestyle and beliefs change. For many, that change is brought about by figures of Christ and the use of scripture, but the common theme is that it is a higher power brought about from within the individual.
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