Could
you describe your spiritual experience for us and your
understanding of what happened?
Answer
In
December 1934, I appeared at Towns Hospital, New York.
My old friend, Dr. William Silkworth shook his head.
Soon free of my sedation and alcohol I felt horribly
depressed. My friend Ebby turned up and although glad
to see him, I shrank a little as I feared evangelism,
but nothing of the sort happened. After some small talk,
I again asked him for his neat little formula for recovery.
Quietly and sanely and without the slightest pressure
he told me and then he left.
Lying there in conflict, I dropped into the blackest
depression I had ever known. Momentarily my prideful
depression was crushed. I cried out, "Now I am ready
to do anything - anything to receive what my friend
Ebby has." Though I certainly didn't expect anything,
I did make this frantic appeal, "If there be a God,
will He show Himself!" The result was instant, electric
beyond description. The place seemed to light up, blinding
white. I knew only ecstasy and seemed on a mountain.
A great wind blew, enveloping and penetrating me. To
me, it was not of air but of Spirit. Blazing, there
came the tremendous thought, "you are a free man." Then
the ecstasy subsided. Still on the bed, I now found
myself in a new world of consciousness which was suffused
by a Presence. One with the Universe, a great peace
came over me. I thought, "So this is the God of the
preachers, this is the great Reality." But soon my so-called
reason returned, my modern education took over and I
thought I must be crazy and I became terribly frightened.
Dr. Silkworth, a medical saint if ever there was one,
came in to hear my trembling account of this phenomenon.
After questioning me carefully, he assured me that I
was not mad and that perhaps I had undergone a psychic
experience which might solve my problem. Skeptical man
of science though he then was, this was most kind and
astute. If he had of said, "hallucination," I might
now be dead. To him I shall ever be eternally grateful.
Good fortune pursued me. Ebby brought me a book entitled
"Varieties of Religious Experience" and I devoured it.
Written by William James, the psychologist, it suggests
that the conversion experience can have objective reality.
Conversion does alter motivation and it does semi-automatically
enable a person to be and to do the formerly impossible.
Significant it was, that marked conversion experience
came mostly to individuals who knew complete defeat
in a controlling area of life. The book certainly showed
variety but whether these experiences were bright or
dim, cataclysmic or gradual, theological or intellectual
in bearing, such conversions did have a common denominator
- they did change utterly defeated people. So declared
William James, the father of modern psychology. The
shoe fitted and I have tried to wear it ever since.
For drunks, the obvious answer was deflation at depth,
and more of it. That seemed plain as a pikestaff. I
had been trained as an engineer, so the news of this
authoritative psychologist meant everything to me. This
eminent scientist of the mind had confirmed everything
that Dr. Jung had said, and had extensively documented
all he claimed. Thus William James firmed up the foundation
on which I and many others had stood all these years.
I haven't had a drink of alcohol since 1934. (N.Y. Med.
Soc. Alcsm., April 28,1958).
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