It must not be supposed that the life of the Spirit begins and with the
sublimation of, the instinctive and emotional life; though this is
indeed for it a central necessity. Nor must we take it for granted that
the apparent redirection of impulse to spiritual objects is always and
inevitably an advance. All who are or may be concerned with the
spiritual training, help, and counselling of others ought clearly to
recognize that there are elements in religious experience which
represent, not a true sublimation, but either disguised primitive
cravings and ideas, or uprushes from lower instinctive levels: for these
experiences have their special dangers. As we shall see when we come to
their more detailed study, devotional practices tend to produce that
state which psychologists call mobility of the threshold of
consciousness; and may easily permit the emergence of natural
inclinations and desires, of which the self does not recognize the real
character. As a matter of fact, a good deal of religious emotion is of
this kind. Instances are the childish longing for mere protection, for a
sort of supersensual petting, the excessive desire for shelter and rest,
voiced in too many popular hymns; the subtle form of self-assertion
which can be detected in some claims to intercourse with God--e.g. the
celebrated conversation of Angela of Foligno with the Holy Ghost;[77]
the thinly veiled human feelings which find expression in the personal
raptures of a certain type of pious literature, and in what has been
well described as the "divine duet" type of devotion. Many, though not
all of the supernormal phenomena of mysticism are open to the same
suspicion: and the Church's constant insistence on the need of
submitting these to some critical test before, accepting them at face
value, is based on a most wholesome scepticism. Though a sense of meek
dependence on enfolding love and power is the very heart of religion,
and no intense spiritual life is possible unless it contain a strong
emotional element, it is of first importance to be sure that its