ic work The Varieties of Religious Experience, psychologist William James summed up common elements that run through enlightenment accounts from every time and place. They include:
A subjective experience of “inner light”
A deepening of moral or spiritual values
An increased sense of intellectual illumination
A loss of the fear of death
A loss of a sense of sin or guilt
A lasting transformation of personality
Educated people in our culture either ignore such states of illumination, dismiss them as overheated religiosity, or see them as mental illness—despite the fact that people who’v
The Way of Integrity
Martha Beck