Dear Tom,

By David Pendery

Dear Tom,
Since I returned to school I have spent a lot of time
studying an interest that has long simmered just below the
surface of my consciousness: religion. It began two years
ago when I took a "Philosophies of Religions" course in
junior college. At that time I convinced myself that I was
simply satisfying a humanities requirement toward my
degree, but the truth is I was ready to look into religion
and spiritualism with new eyes. But first I had to explore
my (then current) views. I wrote this piece at that time,
Tom:

Maybe

Maybe we atheists feel that we have an advantage in

life because we are cool and remote, above the fray of
religious fervor, dogmatism, narrow-mindedness and
ritual. Free from these liabilities, we rely on reason,
and dispassion, rather than passion, steers our lives
and choices.

© David Pendery
 Maybe we atheists feel that we have an advantage in
life because we are never reduced to submitting to a God—
known, unknown, or unknowable; named, unnamed, or
unnameable—begging for mercy, praying for forgiveness, or
seeking guidance. In short, maybe we atheists feel
guiltless, unfettered, and confident in ourselves.
Maybe we atheists feel that we have an advantage in
life because we are more aware. We have made our life
discoveries on our own, and our interpretations and
assessments are free from the emotion and pat answers of
religion and pseudo-spiritualism.
Maybe we atheists are self-assured, uncompromising,
realistic, and unflappable.
Or maybe we atheists are just outside looking in,
faces at the window…

That's where I stood, Tom—I felt like my plate was

empty. Yet, somehow I knew there was an unperceived, or
unappreciated, feast right in front of me. So I took a
second look at the world's religions. That required a leap
of faith on my part, but I was ready for such a leap.
Remember my "don Juan" phase, Tom? The key concept in
Castaneda's philosophy is to break free of the attention
you lavish on the everyday world and your own affairs, in
order to access a whole spectrum of other experiences. As
you remember, Tom, he called these experiences "separate
realities.” I myself had only nominal success peering into
these alternate realities, but the idea always seemed sound
to me. Recently my assumption was given some support by
none other than William James. You probably remember this
passage:

© David Pendery
 [O]ur normal waking consciousness, rational
consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of
consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by
the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of
consciousness entirely different. We may go through life
without suspecting their existence; but apply the
requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all
their completeness, definite types of mentality which
probably somewhere have their field of application and
adaptation.

In years past, I attempted to access these other

realities by searching for waking awareness during my
dreams, as don Juan urged. Attempting to look at one’s
hands in one’s dreams is one of the most useful meditative
techniques I have ever discovered. Nowadays it’s called
“lucid dreaming,” and I still believe it is a key to
enlarged appreciation of everyday life, and those alternate
realities. As don Juan said:

The first truth about awareness…is that the world out

there is not really as we think it is. We think it is a
world of objects and it’s not…[W]hat man senses is such
a small portion of [the world; reality] that it’s
ridiculous to put much stock in our perceptions.

My newfound interest in religion is a shift in my

attention—a shift in my "personal center of energy" as James
put it. My former study of Castaneda prepared me for my
current explorations, Tom. I am waking up to a new
consciousness, or a new appreciation for whole new areas

© David Pendery
and explanations of human existence and behavior. They are
called religion.

Yours,
Chris

Dear Chris,
I must say I was a little amused with your letter. Who
would have guessed old Chris—the inveterate atheist—would be
toying with religious conversion? And so now you're reading
every ecclesiastical and philosophical treatise you can get
your hands on. Good enough, Chris, but keep your eyes on
the road and your hands on the wheel.
Sigmund Freud asked, “In what does the peculiar value
of religious ideas lie?” His answer was less than salutary.
Religion is simply “a store of ideas…born from man’s need
to make his helplessness tolerable and built up from the
material of memories of the helplessness of his own
childhood and the childhood of the human race.” Does this
apply to your current interest in religion, Chris?
You asked if I remember your "don Juan" phase, Chris.
Of course I do. I also remember your self-actualization
phase, your Eastern phase, your Timothy Leary phase, and
your Aldous Huxley phase. Need I remind you of Screwtape's
words to his nephew—

© David Pendery
 A moderated religion is as good for us [Devils] as no
religion at all—and more amusing.

So take care against watered down, secular

spiritualities; you have indulged in them before. Yet, I
worry that I am prodding you into a full-blown conversion.
Before you attempt such a thing, Chris. I think you should
examine your sources.
James was, in a sense, a sham. He hems himself in with
all sorts of inconsistencies. Throughout "The Varieties of
Religious Experience," one senses the ramblings of a man
who doesn't really know what he's talking about. He was not
religious, and his method of constantly reducing religion
and spirituality to so much psychology, emotions and
"centers of energy" is tepid. Castaneda, on the other hand,
wrote of “a universe of energy fields,” and “aligning
[oneself] with…[external energy] emanations….” This is new
age gobbledygook at its worst.
James writes that ineffable mysticism is the very
substance of religious experience, yet then he quietly
slips in the fact that "my own constitution shuts me out
from [the] enjoyment [of mystical states] almost entirely,
and I can speak of them only at second hand." The old
conniver had dismissed second-hand religious experience as
“profit[ing] us little” earlier in the book, but now he
figures he is above his own criticism.
A few sentences after the example you cite James
claims that "One must have musical ears to know the value
of a symphony." True enough! But James’s descriptions of
religious experience, while compelling and brilliantly

© David Pendery
exposited, come from someone with a tin ear for the music.
He ignores that the real pleasure lies in the music itself:

“The Lord is my strength and song…”

Psalm 118:14

James was a rank rationalist, Chris, excising God from

religion, and denuding the very idea of the divine ("any
object godlike" indeed!).

Yours,
Tom

Dear Tom,
I was surprised at your attack of James. I mean,
excising the concept of God from religion is probably
exactly what religion needs!
Until recently, Tom, I had formulated no particular
idea of God or the specifics of what such an entity could
or would accomplish in the universe. Yet, I could very much
feel and understand the idea of religious experience. After
all, most everyone feels that there must be some purpose or
object to humanity’s existence. Identifying and
personifying that purpose are difficult and abstract to the
extreme; but getting to the realities of how we feel about,
communicate with, and connect to the larger object is

© David Pendery
fairly down-to-earth. This is essentially what James
attempted to do, and admirably in my view.
Additionally, attempting to concretely identify
conceptions of God and his methods can be arrogant. Don
Juan said, “As long as you feel that you are the most
important thing in the world you cannot really appreciate
the world around you.” Humanity has always conceived
anthropocentric (that is, egoistic) descriptions of God,
and thus we have set ourselves apart from divinity. James’s
antidote to anthropomorphism’s inherent vanity is to say up
front that humanity’s conceptions of God have always been
imperfectly and vaguely described. Thus, at a personal
(egocentric) level, our anthropomorphic views are not truly
influential. Nonetheless, life is so permeated, “through
and through…by [a] sense of [God’s] existence,” that we can
attempt to understand religious experience “as if” God
exists. James wisely excises anthropomorphism (codified and
solidified in theologies) from religious experience. Yet,
the experiences remain, and they are the true doors of
perception and awareness.
I mentioned James’s view of the unseen and unknown
aspects of existence in my last letter, and as you know he
deeply explores this idea. You may call him a “rank
rationalist,” Tom, but thoughts such as this one are useful
and, I think you would agree, uncannily perceptive:

Were one…to characterize the life of religion in the

broadest and most general terms possible, one might say
that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen
order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously
adjusting ourselves thereto.

© David Pendery
 This is the crux of my current feelings, Tom. In
observing the capacities and propensities of humans, I now
believe that there is an “unseen order” (consisting of both
good and evil), which is the stuff and sinew of humanity’s
purpose. Perhaps I am idealistic when I place the greater
importance of our purpose as being connected to the good,
the compassionate, the just, the constructive, and the
truthful. But we must also “harmoniously adjust” ourselves
to the evil force in the world. We must, in short, be
prepared to face anything, including evil. Castaneda also
wrote of adjusting oneself to larger forces, though he
never labeled them as values such as good or evil. Rather,
don Juan’s descriptions were quite abstract and mystical.
The forces that are available for us to align ourselves
with (with the “requisite stimulus” James wrote of) are the
infinite other realities, and are given the name “the
Eagle’s emanations” by don Juan (no doubt you scoff at such
incarnations). Through constant repetition of our routine
lives, we cement our connection to only a small band of the
emanations and thus limit our understanding and experience.
Until we learn to shift our attention and awareness to the
unperceived universe at large, we are forever limited in
the way we perceive the world and thus any associated
values (including religious experience)…

[T]he world we all know…is only a description…a description

that had been pounded into [us] from the moment [we were]
born.

© David Pendery
 The description that has been pounded into me since
youth, Tom, is the atheism I wrote of previously. Mine was
a family of agnostics and atheists (“steady, consistent
scoffers and worldlings,” as Screwtape wrote). Although I
was certainly aware of the existence of religious
experiences, I had always denigrated them. Such was my
arrogance, for I was denigrating and shutting myself out
from a whole spectrum of experience. This is the
foolishness of humanity, as don Juan so perspicaciously
observed:

For me the world is weird because it is stupendous,

awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been
to convince you that you must assume responsibility for
being herein this marvelous world…in this marvelous
time. I wanted to convince you that you must learn to
make every act count, since you are going to be here for
only a short while; in fact too short for witnessing all
the marvels of it.

The world is too complex, mysterious, and unfathomable

to limit it, Tom. This is the source of my change of heart.

Yours,
Chris

Dear Chris,

© David Pendery
 So I have a wholesale conversion on my hands, do I?
Well, have you examined your “change of heart” in light of
Varieties, Chris? If you do, you may be in for a shock.
James, for all his apparently respectful attitude toward
religion, is in fact condescending to the whole business.
But you have got me on one point: You are right in that by
excising God (or more specifically, tracts about God) from
religion, James focuses on the animating energy that makes
religion tick. That focus in turn may lead one to God.
You have been rather vague about the nature of your
conversion and beliefs, Chris, and in this respect you are
right up James’s alley. Although James claims vague
religious experiences possess a “reality” that warrants our
attention, he is back-handedly dismissive of their worth.
When James writes of the “absolute determinability” of
one’s outlook when under the influence of the
“abstractions” of religious belief, I somehow feel he meant
that we are all a bunch of malleable idiots, ready for
mindless conversion. He then passingly refers to religious
experience as “dumb intuition,” with no possibility of
rational support (or, conversely, undermining).
Given your hedging about consciousness, reality, God
and creation, I am not so sure that James might be correct,
Chris. But no offense is intended. For that, simply read
some more James. According to him, your religious
experiences are “quasi-sensible realities;” your belief in
God is merely your overactive “ontological imagination”
giving birth to something “like that of an hallucination.”

© David Pendery
 Such respect for the world’s religious traditions,
Chris! They are so many “hallucinations” which we may
address “as if” they exist.
Of course, James is careful throughout Varieties to
qualify everything he writes with his claim of simon-pure
objectivity, and thus his observations are free of any
judgments—good or bad, considered or foolish, valid or
ridiculous. In a sense, James is committing the cardinal
sin of scientific observation and research: he adorns (by
his own admission) the most subjective material in a cloak
of objectivity. James’s religion is a secular religion—a
contradiction in terms.
Neither does Castaneda allow for God, which is perhaps
a characteristic of such encompassing mystical
philosophies. As James wrote, “[M]ysticsm…is too private
(and also too various) in its utterances to be able to
claim universal authority.” Still, Chris, I am interested
in your beliefs. Just how do your conceptions of God, only
hinted at in your letters, fit into your current views?

Yours,
Tom

Dear Tom,
You always were the quick one, the skeptic ready to
probe an idea, searching for its validity. And perhaps
you’re right: perhaps James spends too much time describing

© David Pendery
only the surface of religious experience. After all, the
magnificence of Jesus’ behavior in John 8:3-11—

He said to her, “Woman, where are your accusers? Has no

man condemned you?”
She answered, “No one, Lord!”
And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you either. Go on your
way and from now on sin no more.”

—does not simply result in a shift if my “personal

centers of energy.” The awe I feel is not “the same organic
thrill that we feel in a forest in twilight, or in a
mountain gorge.” The way I feel when I read the above
passage is different from any other feelings in my “common
storehouse of emotions.” Rather, I believe I am witnessing
humanity’s messiah, and that this realization influences me
in ways that James seems to overlook. The results that
ensue from my realization that Jesus is a perfectly loving
and forgiving Lord are good “fruits” indeed, but the
cohesive philosophy (or theology) that surrounds Jesus and
his teachings are important rational works as well.
Further, I sense that Jesus was indeed a divine being—not
simply “godlike,” but a god indeed—and thus is greater than
James’s pragmatic, objective observations and conclusions.
And so there you have it, Tom. I am a Christian. I am
a bad Christian, for as I wrote you before, I have no
conception of God to connect to Jesus (as his “Father”).
Yet, I accept several other of the underpinnings of
Christianity: that Christ is humanity’s Messiah; that
humanity is sinful and must atone and change; and that one
must be unstintingly tolerant and generous to all people.

© David Pendery
These beliefs are not “feeling at the expense of reason,”
nor “translations of a text into another tongue.” They are
rational conclusions about life as I have witnessed it.
James wrote “The more concrete objects of most men’s
religion, the deities whom they worship, are known to them
only in idea,” and I feel that in this respect too, he is
rather dry and chalky. Seeing a child’s birth, reveling in
the fantastic and evolving complexity of life, or communing
with and drawing strength from the divine—these are more
than ideas, and may be viewed as true manifestations of God
and divinity. And so James’s conclusion that “Not God, but
life, more life, a larger, richer more satisfying life, is,
in the last analysis, the end of religion,” while close to
the truth, dodges a key (admittedly sometimes difficult to
quantify) element of religious experience.
Look at me Tom! You have me criticizing James. But I
hope I have given you some insight into my current
“conversion.”

Yours,
Chris

Dear Chris,
You have indeed given me insight into your views. Yet,
I sense there is more. The tone of your letters suggests as
much. But that has always been true of your letters, Chris.

© David Pendery
 Your exploration of Christianity does not surprise me.
Christ always stuck up for the underdog, and that suits
you. As well, Christ’s ignominious ending (if it was an
ending), squares with your tendency to view life
pessimistically. Your morbid state of mind also puts you in
James’s camp, as you know. He went on and on about the
deadly-serious “sick soul,” and that poor soul’s
inclination toward religious explanations and solutions to
life’s vicissitudes. The sick soul, according to James, has
access to a more profound and well-rounded grasp of life’s
mysteries. Yet, is this really true, Chris? Are “The
completest religions…those in which the pessimistic
elements are best developed.”? I hope that I am not making
a sort of false appeal to authority when I ask you to
recall Hemingway’s discerning words:

They say the seeds of what we will do are in all of us,

but it always seemed to me that in those who make jokes
in life the seeds are covered with better soil and with
a higher grade of manure.

We have both noted the rich connection to life’s

animating spirit that “those who make jokes in life”
possess. Don Juan’s message was always infused with
laughter and spirit:

“[T]here are examples of people, sorcerers or average

men, who…get peace, harmony, laughter, knowledge,
directly from the spirit.

© David Pendery
 James’s focus on the serious and melancholy as
conduits to more profound awareness, to deeper initiations
into the religious and spiritual, is heavy-handed at times.
Remember how we laughed at don Juan’s delightful
insouciance:

You take yourself too seriously,…You are too damn

important in your own mind. That must be changed! Your
are so goddamn important that you feel justified to be
annoyed with everything. You’re so damn important that
you can afford to leave if things don’t go your way. I
suppose you think that shows you have character. That’s
nonsense! You’re weak, and conceited!”

Don’t forget to laugh, Chris.

Your citation from John shows that Christianity can be

a very optimistic and forgiving creed. I have always
believed this myself, though I can’t believe that Christ
was “a god indeed” as you write. In any case, I want to
hear that you are not weighted with the “unease” that there
is “something wrong about us” that James’s identified as
one of religion’s universal precepts.

Yours,
Tom

© David Pendery
 Dear Tom,
In answer to the question at the close of your last
letter: “Yes and no.”
Isn’t that just like me, Tom!!
The “unease” that James wrote about, the “wrongness”
that “takes a moral character,” is not truly the source of
my current explorations. Yet, there is certainly something
wrong in my life. My “wrongness” is connected to things
James said earlier in his book, and has parallels in
Castaneda as well. The wrongness is indeed the morbidity
that you noted in your last letter. The wrongness is
sadness and depression, Tom.
My sadness is rooted in a constant feeling of
isolation that has pervaded my life since I was a child.
The feeling appears so prosaic, so mundane, when put in
writing. Perhaps this poem I wrote as an adolescent will
shed some light:

all loneliness it seems

springs from one source
cold, sweet, eternal

and when you have tasted of that deep well

you become part of a long tradition

I know of no one
who has never drank, or lapped, or sipped
of that source
and relinquished innocence
to become part of the vastness
that the springs of loneliness flow to and feed

© David Pendery
 I want a man or a woman
—it makes no difference—
who has not nourished his or herself
from the wellsprings of loneliness.
I want to see their eyes
and look deep
into the vastness

Isn’t it curious how these images match (my

universalized images of) James’s:

But [some people can never] become what we have called

healthy-minded. They [have] drunk too deeply of the cup
of bitterness ever to forget its taste….They [have]
realized a good which broke the effective edge of
[their] sadness; yet the sadness was preserved as a
minor ingredient in the heart of the faith by which was
overcome.

As in my poem, as in James: I have drunk too deeply of

isolation’s cup. How I want to know pure happiness, Tom! My
plate was, and in too many ways still is, empty.
Yet, sadness is not an altogether debilitating
element. You rather lightly dismissed James in this
respect, quoting Castaneda to support yourself. A tad
incautious of you, Tom. Recall Castaneda:

Yet at the same time, there was a frightening feeling of

sadness and longing that went hand in hand with that
freedom and joy. Don Juan had told me that there is no
completeness without sadness and longing, for without
them there is not sobriety, no kindness. Wisdom without

© David Pendery
 kindness, he said, and knowledge without sobriety are
useless.

And further,

In the life of warriors it is extremely natural to be

sad for no overt reason.

But my sadness and isolation did not point me toward a

reexamination of my beliefs, through some inherent quality
they possess. They were not the conduits or concomitants to
deeper religious experience as James and Castaneda suggest,
but rather, because they had become so prevalent in my
life, they pointed to a Jamesian “wrongness” that needed
attention. (In fact, James’s wrongness points toward a
religious conception of sin, rather than simply personal
isolation or disquiet). Christianity provided the key to
understanding my own isolation and depression, Tom. This
passage from the Nag Hammadi Gospel of Thomas guides me:

Jesus said, “If you bring forth what is within you, what
you bring forth will save you.
“If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you
do not bring forth will destroy you.”

That is what I am doing, Tom: reaching inside myself,

just as we did when we studied Castaneda those years ago;
examining the experiences of my life in a new context, just
as James examined experience; seeking to connect myself to
the “MORE” of James, and the “separate realities” of
Castaneda. Religious study fits all of these aims. If the

© David Pendery
whole edifice collapses, so be it. I guess I will then have
to look up another alley, go through another “phase.”
But I won’t forget to laugh, Tom.

Yours,
Chris

© David Pendery