The Blog
In his classic book The Varieties of Religious Experience, psychologist William James argued that there are two kinds of religious people.
On the one hand are the “healthy-minded,” who naturally hold an optimistic view of the universe, God, etc. On the other are “sick souls,” who tend to fixate the darker aspects of existence. Sick souls, according to James, need to go through a conversion to a new way of being if they are ever going to experience the happiness that comes easily to healthy-minded folks.
I first heard about James’s ideas out of context, and thought that “Sick Souls” would be a great name for a blog focused on the tougher aspects of religious experience, contemplation, meditation, and so on. Super heavy metal. But, when I finally got around to reading James’s whole book, I found another phrase that stuck out to me—less sexy, but a better match for what I hope this blog will be about.
James refers to those sick souls who’ve successfully made it through a conversion experience as “twice-born.” These are the people who have been through their dark night of the soul and come out the other side, often so transformed that they seem—to others, as well as themselves—to have become fundamentally different persons. In other words, they’ve been re-born into a new way of living and relating to their own existence.
Twice-Born will be a place where I write down my own thoughts, feelings, and experiences as I try to make that jump from sickness to rebirth. Broadly speaking, this blog will explore mysticism, theology, comparative religion, and the philosophy of religion. Given my own background, expect a particular focus on Catholicism, Buddhism, radical skepticism, and existentialism, with some pop culture thrown in for kicks.
The current project: a workable, mystical Catholicism for real people—one that can actually handle post-modernism, non-duality, and queerness without freaking out and burying its head in the sand.
Hopefully, the blog title will remind me not to take any of this too seriously.
The Author
Myles McDonough is a writer who thinks too much for his own good. You can find him screaming into the void somewhere between the Cross and the Bodhi Tree, while friends and family look on with concern.