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Abstract

THIS treatise on religious conversion by the professor of psychology in the University of Rome is of importance. The author defines conversion as “an exceptional process representing an intellectual and moral regeneration of the person in whom it occurs”; but its etiology is “far too complex to allow us to ascribe it to disease, age, endocrine variations, or the like.” Of its psychic antecedents the experience of suffering, whether of illness, domestic misfortune, moral perturbation, or some similar condition, seems the most common. With regard to the suddenness of onset of conversion, this is probably less definite than appears to the patient, since “an emotional shock suffices to blot out mnemonic pictures nearest to the event itself.” Yet Prof. De Sanctis does not regard the process as dissociated from the will of the patient. Lasting effects upon the consciousness cannot be produced “unless it has been adapted by preparation and unless it assumes a decisive attitude of action”; and Ruysbroeck’s saying is quoted, “You are saints according to the measure of your desire to be such.”

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Religious Conversion: a Bio-Psychological Study

THIS treatise on religious conversion by the professor of psychology in the University of Rome is of importance. The author defines conversion as “an exceptional process representing an intellectual and moral regeneration of the person in whom it occurs”; but its etiology is “far too complex to allow us to ascribe it to disease, age, endocrine variations, or the like.” Of its psychic antecedents the experience of suffering, whether of illness, domestic misfortune, moral perturbation, or some similar condition, seems the most common. With regard to the suddenness of onset of conversion, this is probably less definite than appears to the patient, since “an emotional shock suffices to blot out mnemonic pictures nearest to the event itself.” Yet Prof. De Sanctis does not regard the process as dissociated from the will of the patient. Lasting effects upon the consciousness cannot be produced “unless it has been adapted by preparation and unless it assumes a decisive attitude of action”; and Ruysbroeck’s saying is quoted, “You are saints according to the measure of your desire to be such.”

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conversion

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J.C.H.,.Religious Conversion: a Bio-Psychological Study. 121 (3056),824-825.

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