This position seems to have been reached by him partly
through intellectual conflict which found relief and satisfaction in the
view of life taken by Goethe, Fichte, and other German "transcendental"
thinkers; but partly also through a definite psychical experience which
befell him in Edinburgh when he was twenty-six, and which from that day
changed for him the whole of his outlook on life. He speaks of it
himself as "a Spiritual New-birth, or Baphometic Fire-baptism." It came
to him after a period of great wretchedness, of torture with doubt and
despair, and--what is significant--"during three weeks of total
sleeplessness." These are conditions which would be likely to reduce his
body to the state of weakness and sensitiveness which seems often
antecedent to psychic experience. He has given an account of the
incident in _Sartor_ (Book ii. chap, vii.), when, he says, "there rushed
like a stream of fire over my whole soul; and I shook base Fear away
from me for ever. I was strong, of unknown strength; a spirit, almost a
god." The revelation seems to have been of the nature of a certainty and
assertion of his own inherent divinity, his "native God-created
majesty," freedom and potential greatness.
Pages:
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122