HEALING FROM DEPRESSION:

The Story of Henry James, Sr.
Rev. Wilma Wake 

Oct. 8, 2007

 

            In these modern times, I suspect all of us have encountered times of depression. It can be quite complicated to figure out whether our depression needs medication, or perhaps a deeper spiritual attunement. Or both!

            One of those who has struggled with spiritual depression is Henry James, Sr.  He was the father of psychologist William James, and writer Henry James, Jr.

Henry, Sr. found the answer to his depression in Swedenborg’s writing. Here is his story:

            Henry was born in Albany, NY, in 1811 to a wealthy family.

            At the age of 13, his leg had to be amputated just above the knee because of burns he got from a school prank. He learned to use a wooden leg, but continued to be haunted by the trauma. 

He later entered Union College and engaged in drinking, gambling, and generally being rebellious and obnoxious. His father wrote into his will that Henry would not get any of the family inheritance w/o reforming his ways.

So, after his father’s death, Henry got a lawyer to try to beat the will. He succeeded and then was free to live the life he wanted!

 But perhaps he had been more impacted by his father’s death than he realized. He entered Princeton Theological Seminary three years after his father died. He continued to be rebellious, however, refusing to say grace and rejecting the concept of an ordained clergy!

He left w/o a degree and married Mary Robertson Walsh. He continued to live a chaotic and impulsive life for quite some time.

            Things began to change, however, in 1842.  In  that year, James attended a lecture of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s. There was an immediate harmony between the two men, and James went home to write Emerson a letter, inviting him to “share in the love of truth.” He poured out his soul to Emerson, who responded warmly.

            Emerson went to James’ home, and met baby William, whom he called a young “philosopher to be.” William grew up to be a famous psychologist and Harvard lecturer.

            Emerson, James, and their families remained close for the next 40 years.

            Soon after they friendship began, Emerson was eager to introduce James to his friends, starting with Henry David Thoreau. 

            By 1844, Henry had a 2^nd son, Henry, Jr. , and set sail for England with the boys and his wife, Mary. Emerson sent a letter to Thomas Carlyle and John Sterling; friends of his in England to introduce James. So James was immediately accepted into this outstanding literary circle. It included John Stewart Mill, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and, many others.

            After a few months in England, he sat at the table alone after dinner one evening. He found himself in a spiritual crisis. He could no longer see any meaning in his life, and he became a complete emotional wreck. He began visiting local physicians, who suggested he visit the local baths and hope that the water cure would make a difference. So, he tried this remedy. At one local spa, he poured out his despair to a woman named Mrs. Chichester. He told her that he was adrift in a dark sea, and couldn’t figure out what was happening to him.

            Mrs. Chichester, as it turned out, was an avid reader of Swedenborg.    She told James that he was having what Swedenborg called a “vastation” or complete empyting out of all the contents of  the ego self to prepare to receive true spiritual insight. 

            James rushed out at once and purchased Divine Love and Wisdom as well as  True Christian Religion. He read them through, and then declared himself to be a convert to Swedenborgianism.

            Soon after this, he met James John Garth Wilkinson – probably through Carlyle. Wilkinson was a physician and a Swedenborgian, who became a kind of pastoral counselor to James and his family.

            Wilkinson used Swedenborg’s writings to help James through his spiritual depression. Later, James repaid him by suggesting that his friend explore homeopathy. Wilkinson became a noted homeopathic physician, with a profound influence on the development of homeopathic medicine in this country. A story for another day!

           

            What was it that James found in Swedenborg’s writings, and heard from Mrs. Chichester and Wilkinson that cured him of his depression?

            Here are some of those concepts:

 

            Swedenborg writes extensively about the process of spiritual growth, which he called “regeneration.” He says that:

 

“All who are being reformed and regenerated are gifted with charity and faith … but … there are evils and falsities with which one has [had] from infancy, which stand in the way  … these evils and falsities must be vastated before one can be regenerated; … for until corporeal things, … become quiescent (such as the things of the love of self and of the world), celestial and spiritual things, which are of the affection of good and truth, cannot flow in …”[AC 2967, 2]

 

In other words: the process of spiritual growth involves an emptying out of our selfish ego states in order to reach the depth of the Divine.

           

            Divine Love and Wisdom was one of the first Swedenborgian books that James read first. In it, he read:

 

“… we react against God as a result of our [human] evil. However, to the extent that we believe that our life comes from God and that everything good comes from an act of God then [we can become one with the Divine] ….. #68

 

            James read this in True Christian Religion:

#587

 

When “one acknowledges that evil is evil, and good is good, and thinks that the good ought to be chosen, he is in what is called the state of reformation, but when his will leads him to shun evil and do good, the state of regeneration begins.”

 

Others have called this transitional state, the “dark night of the soul,” – the time of cleansing the selfish ego to allow the Divine Light to enter.

 

         Christian mystic John of the Cross wrote a great deal about the dark night. He says that may of us start our spiritual journeys with active prayer and meditation, and leave us feeling filled, connected, warm and loved. 

 

         Then we lose those good feelings. We no longer find satisfaction in our spiritual practices, and we feel abandoned by God. We can no longer use our senses to experience the presence of the Divine. John wrote:

 

"Consequently, it is at the time they are going about their spiritual exercises with delight and satisfaction, when in their opinion the sun of divine favor is shining most brightly on them, that God darkens all this light and closes the door ..." (13)

 

 

         God’s darkening the light is the Dark Night. 

 

Swedenborg says:

 

 

“There is only one life and we are life-receivers. … Everything we think and intend is flowing into us …The self is nothing but the quality of its own receptivity. It is not some aspect of life that is actually ours. … there is no such self in us and there cannot be.’ Divine Providence #308.

 

         Jerry May was a well-known psychiatrist and spiritual director who died about a year ago. His final writings were focused on the Dark Night of the Soul, and the ensuing depression that one can experience. He said that sometimes one might need medication to help get through it, and that option should not be shunned. However, spiritual direction might be the central key -- especially if  the depression is one that takes ones to the depths of one’s being and one’s relationship with God. In such a case, one could use a good spiritual director to help in walking through the painful process of facing the parts of us that are focused on love of self over love of God and love of others. As we let go of these old parts of ourselves, we find ourselves bathed in the bright light of Divine Love.

         That is what Henry James found in Swedenborgians Mrs. Chichester and Dr. Wilkinson.   His life was transformed, as he delved into spirituality.   He read Swedenborg constantly, even traveling with a trunk of his books! That trunk and its books with notes in the margins are now in the archives of the Swedenborgian House of Studies in Berkeley, CA. They are an essential visit for anyone attempting to understand the life of Henry James, Sr., and the lives of his children.