Fingerprints of God_ The Search for the Science of Spirituality - Barbara Bradley Hagerty [134]
My “small group” has been a bedrock of support, bumping along with me through every valley and helping me negotiate every cliff: Nelda Ackerman, Michelle Brooks, Caroline Comport, Kelly Cowles, Cherie Harder, Jody Hassett Sanchez, Shawn Walters. I am fortunate to count you as my dearest friends.
As for my family, what can I say about Mom, who listened breathlessly to the accounts of my findings every single day? You inspired me and questioned me, and your genuine interest encouraged me to believe that perhaps a few people would read my book. My dad, Gene Bradley, and his wonderful wife, Nancy, never ceased to be excited about this project. To my sister-in-law, Katherine, who loved the idea from the start, read through the early, dismal drafts, and offered spot-on editorial guidance, thank you. To my brother, David, who has always seen more ability in me than I see in myself, you will always be my kuya. And thanks to the world’s greatest nephews, Spencer, Carter, and Adam, who listened to my exploits around the dinner table.
I am blessed with an extraordinary stepdaughter, the beautiful and brilliant Vivian Grace Hagerty, who gives me great joy and who made some sage comments on the manuscript—not bad for a then thirteen-year-old. Surely the person to whom I am most indebted is my husband, Devin, who told me to take risks, to write that proposal, to take that leave of absence, to blaze through the research and writing in little more than a year.You comforted me when I cried after that little peyote episode, laughed at my “God helmet” stories, and edited my manuscript line by line.What can I say? You are a rock star.
Notes
CHAPTER 2. THE GOD WHO BREAKS AND ENTERS
1 Sophy Burnham, The Ecstatic Journey (New York: Ballantine, 1997).
2 Here is Saint Paul’s description to the Corinthians: “I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows—was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell” (2 Corinthians 12:1-4).
3 The Revelations of Divine Love in Sixteen Showings Made to Dame Julian of Norwich, trans. M. L. Del Mastro (St. Louis: Liguori Publications, 1994), chapter 27.
4 William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985; originally published 1902), p. 3.
5 Ibid., p. 138.
6 Ibid., p. 124.
7 Ibid., p. 415.
8 Ibid., p. 422 (italics mine).
9 Ibid., p. 461.
10 J. H. Leuba, The Psychology of Religious Mysticism (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925). For an excellent summary of spirituality and science, see B. Spilka et al., eds., The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach (New York: Guilford Press, 2003), pp. 291-98.
11 Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, trans. J. Strachey (New York: W. W. Norton, 1961; originally published 1930).
12 Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life: A Study in Religious Sociology, trans. J. W. Swain (London: Allen & Unwin, 1915).
13 R. M. Bucke, Cosmic Consciousness: A Study of the Evolution of the Human Mind (Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1961; originally published 1901).
14 C. G. Jung, Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, in H. Read, M. Fordham, and G. Adler, eds., The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, trans. R. F. C. Hull, 2nd ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968; originally published 1954), vol. 9, part 1, pp. 3-41.
15 A. H. Maslow, Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences (Columbus: Ohio State University