The simplest rudiment of mystical experience would seem to be that deepened sense of the significance of a maxim or formula which occasionally sweeps over one.
William JamesVolition . . . takes place only when there are a number of conflicting systems of ideas, and depends on our having a complex field of consciousness.
William JamesHow can the moribund old man reason back to himself the romance, the mystery, the imminence of great things with which our old earth tingled for him in the days when he was young and well?
William JamesWoe to him whose beliefs play fast and loose with the order which realities follow in his experience; they will lead him nowhere or else make false connections
William JamesThe sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully, and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. If such conduct does not make you soon feel cheerful, nothing else on that occasion can. So to feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end, and a courage-fit will very likely replace the fit of fear.
William James