There are moments of sentimental and mystical experience … that carry an enormous sense of inner authority and illumination with them when they come. But they come seldom, and they do not come to everyone; and the rest of life makes either no connection with them, or tends to contradict them more than it confirms them. Some persons follow more the voice of the moment in these cases, some prefer to be guided by the average results. Hence the sad discordancy of so many of the spiritual judgments of human beings ….

William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher

The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture 1 “Religion and Neurology” (1902)
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