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Quotation from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James
“our 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”
The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lectures XVI and XVII: Mysticism
James's conclusion from his own experiments with nitrous oxide.
Citation: "our 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" — William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lectures XVI and XVII: Mysticism. (id the-varieties-of-religious-experience-q11)
Portrait: William James by Alice M. Boughton, c. 1907, platinum print, from the National Portrait Gallery - NPG-NPG 87 37James-000001 (cropped), Alice Boughton, Public domain.
