The varieties as an inspiration: confessions of a slow learner.

A recent survey designed to estimate eminence among psychologists in the twentieth century, which produced a list of the 100 most eminent ones (Haggabloom et al., 2002), ranked Willam James as number 14, above John B. Watson (17), the historical spokesman for behaviorism. What we observe here is that the historical status of James within academic psychology is quite secure. He was actually one of the creators of academic psychology, a founder of the American Psychological Association in 1896. He was president of the APA in 1904. It is noteworthy that among James's contemporaries, John Dewey (APA president in 1899) was ranked 93.5 (tied) and G. Stanley Hall (president in 1924) was ranked 72.5.

According to some historians, James's Harvard laboratory, established in 1875, was the real starting point for the new discipline, beating Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig by four years. His Principles of Psychology, published in 1890, remains in print and serves as a model for what academic psychology is all about. A 2003 survey among leaders of the American Psychological Society, an organization of hard-nosed academics, has named the Principles "the classic of all classics," comparing James to Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Faulkner for clarity of perception and elegance of style (AlaS Observer, 2003). Moreover, the James-Lange theory of emotion is often mentioned, and not just by historians of the field.

What we find in James whatever we read is a thoroughly modern mind with a modern self-perception, despite all appearances of tradition and style. In the Principles of Psychology (1890), he convinces us that the idea of the Soul is an unnecessary hypothesis for psychology, and in the Varieties he similarly states "When I say 'Soul' you need not take me in the ontological sense" (164). James E. Dittes, looking at The Varieties of Religious Experience thirty years ago, finds that "James's spirit seems remarkably contemporary. Secularism, pluralism, existentialism, confrontation, involvement, search for authenticity, the struggle of the individual against the establishment--these are the characteristics of James's spirit" (Dittes, 1973: 295).

James's relationship to the psychology of religion is often presented in a context of ambivalence. When it comes to the academic psychology of religion, the Varieties is always cited in an empty ritual, but in most cases it is no more than lipservice, as no specific ideas are borrowed or used:

   The psychology of religion has gone "beyond" William James
   ... His psychology is not employed by the field, and, far more
   importantly, his spirit does not inspire it. If William James is
   honored as the "father" of the psychology of religion, it is in
   a very special sense, which can be interpreted in terms of
   ambivalence appropriate to the psychology of religion. He is
   revered as a great and distant hero but hardly needed.
   (Dittes, 1973: 328-329)

   His ideas are summarized in historical surveys but do not feed into
   contemporary empirical research or substantive discussion in the
   psychology of religion. Typically, James is revered in the first
   chapter of a textbook then ignored in the substance of the book.
   His ideas are not tested, debated, or applied (Dittes, 1973: 292).

Greatness must inspire awe and respect; it does not always inspire identification or adherence. In my own case, I would like to demonstrate that Jamesian ideas have been the most useful guide for an understanding of conversion, and for a research program on converts. I want to show that in my own work on the phenomenon of conversion, the Varieties has become the source of real and concrete learning and actually the source of what has made my work possible. Using the Varieties today can be far from the empty gestures of ancestor worship or lipservice.

As an academic psychologist of religion, a large part of my work has been devoted to learning from Sigmund Freud's ideas and applying them (Beit-Hallahmi, 1989, 1996, 2002; Beit-Hallahmi & Argyle, 1997). For whatever reason, it seemed like a natural affinity, though to an observer it might seem like something that would create a barrier on the road to Jamesian inspiration. Moreover, it is easy to demonstrate that Freudian ideas do have a stronger following in the psychology of religion than Jamesian ones. Just like James in the Varieties, Freud was a great collector of striking experiences, which he could present with the help of a great literary talent. Unlike James, Freud can appear to us today as much more systematic than he really was, because of the systematizing work of many disciples and followers. Can the two legacies be combined? I would like to state that, when dealing with conversion, one can learn from both James and Freud. Learning from both James and Freud is possible and desirable. Today, they both represent a personological tradition, which is clearly outside the mainstream of academic psychology.

My debt to James is easily documented. I have quoted him in my writings when presenting the basic definition of religion, and am quite proud to demonstrate that I have moved away from the crowded tradition and have used the lesser-known definitions, which, to me, are the more useful ones (Beit-Hallahmi, 1989; Beit-Hallahmi & Argyle, 1997). This is not the famous definition given in the Varieties, quoted thousands of times, it seems ("the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, etc.", 42), which I have never used. In the definition I prefer, which is rarely quoted, James gives us a separation of the visible and the invisible worlds, which parallels the separation between sacred and profane:

   Religion has meant many things in human history: but when from now
   onward I use the word I mean to use it in the supernaturalist sense,
   as declaring that the so-called order of nature, which constitutes
   this world's experience, is only one portion of the total universe,
   and that there stretches beyond this visible world an unseen world
   of which we now know nothing positive, but in its relation to which
   the true significance of our present mundane life consists, A man's
   religious faith ... means for me essentially his faith in the
   existence of an unseen order of some kind in which the riddles of
   the natural order may be found explained. (James, 1897/1956: 51)

Moreover, I have often quoted James on the function of religion, as follows: "Religion, in fact, for the great majority of our own race, means immortality and nothing else" (]ames, 1961: 406).

In this article, I am going to limit myself to the issue of studying religious conversion.

Conversion has been the classical topic in the psychology of religion, and has been studied earlier and more extensively than many of its students today realize. As Allport attested, "no subject within the psychology of religion has been more extensively studied than conversion" (Allport, 1950: 37). And when speaking of the psychological study of conversion, we should all be reminded of Pascal. On Monday, 23 November, 1654, Blaise Pascal had a vision in which he saw "Fire. GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacob, not of the philosophers and of the learned. Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace." His clear but gentle warning to philosophers has not always been heeded, but the Varieties is based on Pascal's implied advice to the learned who must now listen to the believers. And listening to the believers leads to generalizations and discoveries. Our challenge has been to shed light on conversion and converts as a general phenomenon, across time and space, and here the Varieties has given us everything we need.

Let me now turn to a case study which I have used in other writings (Beit-Hallahmi, 1992).

The Case of K

The man sitting across the table from me was unusually handsome, confident in his manner, and articulate. Like many Israelis, he was a chain-smoker, and looked more like an athlete than like the academic that he was, holding a position at a leading university. He was telling me the story of his individual salvation, his conversion from great misery to great happiness, a metamorphosis which only a few can experience. His life was transformed in an instant of revelation, and he was telling me about that instant. Ten years before our meeting, in October 1973, he was a soldier fighting on the Syrian front during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. He was wounded in battle, and his injuries, while not serious, left him handicapped psychologically and physically. He simply could not do anything.

He was staying home, preoccupied with his narrowing world, considering ways of getting out of his predicament, including suicide. Then, one day, in one instant of revelation, he realized that there was an answer. It was in turning to the spiritual world, which existed, invisible, above and beyond our obvious material world here on earth. He knew that this material world is only an illusion. It is the spirit world that determines what happens here, in the material one, through positive and negative energies. Death just means that the soul moves on. In that instant, his physical and psychological sufferings ended. He became committed to relations with the spiritual creatures inhabiting the invisible world and later formally joined one of the new religious movements then active in Israel.

As we were talking, in 1983, K was no longer a member of any group, but held to a combination of Hindu and Jewish beliefs. The other dimension of living, that of the eternal soul, colored his perceptions of others and of his own experiences. He related to people on the basis of their spirituality. Some people were recognized as having "spiritual connections" with the invisible world. Others were judged inferior, lacking in spirituality. Events in this world were determined by spiritual "forces" and "energies." Political and ideological changes, according to K, were the results of positive and negative "energies," which could be stored and used over time. Thus, there have been negative political developments in Israel since the 1967 War, which were caused by the release of enormous negative energy, stored for centuries around the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. These energies, left there by successive generations of praying and mourning Jews, who came to the Wall to bewail their bitter fate, were let loose when many buildings around the Wall were torn down in June 1967 by the Israeli government. It would take time before the negative energies could dissipate. On the whole, however, things in West Asia were moving in a peaceful direction, as positive energies were taking over. K believed that death was not such a terrible thing, because it meant a liberation of the soul from its material shackles, but suffering, which often precedes death, is a problem. His attitude towards war was ambivalent, therefore, as it brought liberation to some souls, but suffering to others. While he was no longer a member of a recognized group or a movement, he met regularly with spiritual teachers, whose identities had to be kept secret. Occult knowledge was an important part of his life, but it was not shared with his academic colleagues. Such knowledge could be shared only with the saved and the enlightened. What he told me was more in the way of a personal odyssey, a miraculous transformation, but he was not sure that I could appreciate the fine points of his occult observations of people and events. Twenty years later, in 2003, K, at age fifty, has become known as a "spiritual teacher". He is married and has one young son.

What I am presenting here is a "Jamesian" case study, and that is not just because of the personal narrative, but because the perspective offered is psychological and not religious. Moreover, the outlook is always directed at finding further psychological--and not religious--changes.

Despair and Deliverance (1992) reports on the appearance of private salvation as a sudden cultural development, and of the appearance of private salvation discourse in one society: Israel after 1973. The empirical and theoretical frame-work is that of the definition of conversion, as presented by James. The observable behavior of individuals telling others about their miraculous conversion experiences is the core of the research project. The claim presented in the book is that such behavior is evidence and proof of an individual experience, which within this particular historical context, and in sufficient quantity, becomes a major cultural change. The book documents the epidemic of conversions which was observed in Israel between 1973 and 1990. And if there is an epidemic, there must be an epidemiology, which could have appeared only in this way and in such a context.

Conversions in Israel after 1973 took three forms. The majority were those of "born-again" Jews, non-observant individuals who became ultra-Orthodox. A smaller group included those reporting sudden transformations as the result of secular psychotherapy. The smallest group included those joining new religious movements such as Messianic Judaism, ISKCON ("Hare Krishna"), Transcendental Meditation, or Jehovah's Witnesses.

This epidemic was made up of thousands of individual conversions. Not all converts actively sought out the listeners who would serve as the audience, witnessing and validating a miracle, but it has become quite easy, since 1973, to hear such stories. It is possible that many converts kept the story to themselves, but many others did not. Some in this modern society were presented to the mass media and indeed reached masses of listeners. The discourse of conversion, which was totally absent from Israeli culture as of 1970, became an integral part of public discussion by 1980.

The epidemic must be interpreted as a desperate response to a collective crisis. Each individual narrative related its own unique pattern of suffering and confusion, but their sudden appearance in such numbers reflected the historical trauma which the 1973 War was for most Israelis. The Despair and Deliverance project looked at a whole society through the perspective of the before-and-after narrative formula.

In this project, the Varieties was the inspiration. Despite the huge difference in the nature of the research, the empirical criterion was that offered by William James, and it was able to serve me well despite the unique cultural and historical setting in which I worked, so distant from the world he lived in. The formula which seemingly reflected a New England Protestant tradition proved itself to be of universal validity. The simple and observable fact of the sudden appearance of such stories in a particular culture was a historical symptom worthy of attention. My own project documenting it could not have started without the Varieties.

Discovering the Jamesian Blueprint

As a student, I heard little about James beyond his being mentioned as a founding father. When I developed an interest in the psychology of religion, my encounter with the Varieties was not easy or simple. It took me quite a while to understand what James had to offer. Looking at conversion meant reading and re-reading the Varieties, and then realizing at some point that James had made three major discoveries. Maybe not for others, but for me these were new discoveries, which were not easy to grasp. And then I became a convert, presenting these discoveries probably hundreds of times in lectures and presentations. The process of my own gradual conversion (or rather slow learning) is well-documented in my published work over the years (Argyle & Beit-Hallahmi, 1975; Beit-Hallahmi, 1989; Beit-Hallahmi, 1992; Beit-Hallahmi & Argyle, 1997)

What did James discover in his work on conversion? He made three real, basic, and related discoveries about conversion. More than 100 years ago he stated:

   To be converted, to be regenerated, to receive grace, to experience
   religion, to gain an assurance, are so many phrases which denote the
   process, gradual or sudden, by which a self hitherto divided,
   consciously wrong, inferior and unhappy, becomes unified and
   consciously right, superior and happy, in consequence of its
   firmer hold upon religious realities.(James, 1902/1961: 160)

This brief description, which I have read aloud hundreds of times before students and colleagues, and which I now know by heart, is not just a definition or description, but a theoretical model.

A more recent rendition of the same process, without any credit or homage to James, reads as follows:

   [W]e would characterize the period before religious conversion as
   one of severe demoralization ... the person becomes confused and
   attributes inner experiences to the outer world, entering a state
   of transient psychosis. Dominant affects include despair, hatred,
   resentment, and helpless fury, often directed by youngsters toward
   a parent or parent-substitute.... The person in such a state longs
   to submit to an all-powerful, benevolent figure who can give
   absolution and restore order ... At the moment of conversion the
   convert feels closer to God and confident of divine favor. This
   experience is intensely emotional and may be followed by a sense of
   inner joy and peace. (Frank & Frank, 1991: 81)

In all conversion stories a past of doubt and error is transformed into a present of wholeness in one great moment of insight and certainty. This is a new birth, leading to a new life. And the new birth creates a wider belief in "a world in which all is well, in spite of certain forms of death, indeed because of certain forms of death--death of hope, death of strength" (James, 1943: 305).

What we get first is the description of the process, and the change in self-perception as its phenomenological essence. The description focuses on the subjective report of identity change and the conscious mood change, which follows a narrative formula. The convert's autobiography is divided into Before and After, and life until the break is described as wasted, a total mistake. This can be regarded as a literary or folklore genre, a cliche of a miracle narrative, and so we tend to doubt it.

The second generalization, which is a discovery to many, is that a profound personal crisis is always the prelude to the dramatic personality change which is observed in those who have found their salvation in one way or another. The description of despair which must precede conversion is simply heart-rending:

   In none of these cases was there any intellectual insanity or
   delusion about matters of fact; but were we disposed to open
   the chapter of really insane melancholia, with its hallucinations
   and delusions, it would be a worse story still-desperation
   absolute and complete, the whole universe coagulating about the
   sufferer into a material of overwhelming horror, surrounding him
   without opening or end. Not the conception or intellectual
   perception of evil, but the grisly blood-freezing heart-palsying
   sensation of it close upon one, and no other conception or
   sensation able to live for a moment in its presence. How
   irrelevantly remote seem all our usual refined optimisms and
   intellectual and moral consolations in presence of a need of help
   like this! Here is the real core of the religious problem: Help!
   Help! No prophet can claim to bring a final message unless he says
   things that will have a sound of reality in the ears of victims
   such as these. (James 1902/1961: 139)

In the Varieties, James described a number of well-known converts, such as Bunyan, Tolstoy and St. Augustine, who showed marked signs of melancholia, and how some of them managed to throw off their despair and preoccupation with evil by conversion.

The new birth follows upon reaching the lowest depths of despair, and consists of "an unexpected life succeeding upon death ... the deathlike terminating of certain mental processes ... that run to failure, and in some individuals ... eventuate in despair" (James, 1943: 303). There is a parallel, noted by James (1902), between the psychological state of despair, preceding the experience of "conversion" or salvation, and the elation and happiness following it. One might suggest that the intensity of any salvation experience is going to be matched by the despair that preceded it. "But the deliverance must come in as strong a form as the complaint, if it is to take effect; and that seems a reason why the coarser religions, revivalistic, orgiastic, with blood and miracles and supernatural operations, may possibly never be displaced. Some constitutions need them too much." (James 1902/1961: 139).

And we hear about profound crisis in the contemporary testimonies of those who have been saved. This loss of self-confidence, the restlessness which leads to the search for an answer, is the sine qua non for the transformation of the self through conversion. "Perhaps the strongest qualitative characterization of tension supportable by the data is that pre-converts felt themselves frustrated in their various aspirations and experienced the tension rather more acutely and over longer periods that most do" (Lofland, 1978: 41).

The hardest to absorb for me was the third discovery. In everyday thinking and speech we make a distinction between several kinds of conversion, and James clarified the psychological essence unifying two of its varieties.

The Random House dictionary lists 16 meanings for the word conversion, including:

3. spiritual change from sinfulness to righteousness

4. change from one religion, political party, viewpoint, etc. to another

5. a change of attitude, emotion, or viewpoint from one of indifference, disbelief, or antagonism to one of acceptance, faith, or enthusiastic support, esp. such a change in a person's religion.

When I first approached the field, as a callow youth, I used to make a distinction between "real" conversion, that is a change according to definition 4 above, and "conversion" that fits definitions 3 and 5 (Argyle & Beit-Hallahmi, 1975). Under the heading of conversion we are dealing really with two seemingly separate kinds of identity change. In the first, a nominal (often minimal) affiliation with a religious tradition becomes intensified. This is the "born again" variety, where a nominal Presbyterian, Baptist, Jew, or Muslim proclaims a new commitment and changes life accordingly. In the second, an individual rejects his former religious affiliation in favor of a new one, and thus a Baptist may become a Jew, or vice versa. Culturally and interpersonally, it makes a big difference whether an individual member of a nominally Jewish family becomes a Roman Catholic (definition 4) or an ultra-Orthodox Jew.

In his third discovery, William James showed us that above and beyond cultural meanings, these cultural distinctions are secondary, if not irrelevant, to any serious psychological analysis. Beyond the varieties of religious conversions and the uniqueness of each human being and each conversion experience, all conversions fit the general definition, because the basic psychological process of change is the same, The Varieties gives us a summary of observations and a key to understanding the phenomenon. Above and beyond the varieties of conversion, there is one underlying psychological process.

We naturally look first at external changes, in identities and labels, but the important changes are internal and private. It was first James (and then Freud) who directed our thinking to these internal processes. These three discoveries should be classified as merely hypotheses, and then we should look at the evidence supporting them.

What we can learn from the Varieties is not just how to use dramatic case studies of conversion, but how to adopt a conceptual framework that can guide our work. What James has done for us is to articulate conversion as a psychological process, and the framework he has given us is eminently relevant to all work in the field. In the Varieties, we have been given a blueprint for modern research on conversion. First, the before-and-after personal testimony as the empirical criterion for selecting "real" converts, and second, the before-after process which leads us to look at personality and psychological functioning, the vulnerability preceding conversion and the improved functioning and self-esteem afterwards. What this definition gives us is a new way of looking at the observable behavior of converts. It directs us away from examining the visible social and cultural change in religious identity and the attendant social ties. Instead, we are directed to look at psychological changes in the way the self views itself, and what may be related developments in the convert's personality and non-religious aspects of his behavior. This is an essentially secular gaze, looking at the convert from the outside, while recording self-report as the starting point for any real research. The research is not a matter for religion, but for psychology.

For me personally, this has been the framework for all I have done to study conversion. It has made it possible in my own work to look at both individual converts and at religious movements (Beit-Hallahmi, 1992; Beit-Hallahmi & Argyle, 1997). James gives us a description, but also an analysis, and a narrative formula which becomes a method. We now have a clear behavioral criterion: Has such a narrative formula been used? Thus, the unsystematic James has provided us a system and a method.

Method and Findings on the Pre-Conversion Crisis

While conscious reports focus on precipitating incidents, some of which seem miraculous, the psychological viewpoint searches for a predisposing vulnerability or character. Who are those that make up this relative minority?. Research on converts has been dominated by the crisis resolution model, following the definition in the Varieties.

Systematic research looking at large numbers of converts and characterizing their crisis and its resolution has found first that it is indeed troubled individuals, sometimes quite seriously disturbed, who are more likely to experience such sudden transformations, which in themselves are evidence of severe pathology. The picture that emerges from the literature is one of numerous weaknesses and vulnerabilities in those who choose the religious option.

It is weak social ties that create candidates for conversion. The unattached, those who do not feel a sense of belonging to any immediate, primary social groups, are the most likely to feel detached from wider ideologies and to be open to new ideas. We can safely predict, in view of research findings, that those likely to report dramatic conversions are also likely to be socially isolated. Research has shown that, as predicted, the lack of constraining attachments and commitments, or fewer other competing commitments, will lead to conversion. Individuals are more likely to join groups when they have few other social obligations, and when they have close relationships with members. This personal exposure to the group's beliefs allows potential members to check whether these beliefs match their own quest. The data on adolescents are relevant here as adolescents are in a stage of non-attachment, confusion, and identity diffusion. Many studies show that those likely to adhere to new religious groups, and to seek salvation in secular forms, are overwhelmingly unattached, and that women outnumber men among them. Data on those who joined new religious movements in the USA in the 1960s and 1970s show them typically to be unmarried adolescents. This has been found in several parts of the world (Argyle & Beit-Hallahmi, 1975; Beit-Hallahmi & Argyle, 1997).

What are the psychological antecedents of the crisis and the search? Ullman (1982, 1989), in a comparative study of converts and individuals with a stable religious identity, showed that converts' perceptions of their parents was more negative, and the incidence of father absence was much higher in their life histories. Converts were more likely to have had fathers who were absent, passive or hostile, and mothers who were hostile, unstable or overprotective. Converts described their childhood and adolescence as unhappy, and recalled more traumatic childhood events. Personal stress was reported as characterizing the two-year period preceding the conversion.

Beit-Hallahmi and Nevo (1987) compared 59 male converts to Orthodox Judaism in Israel with matched controls. The converts were higher on authoritarianism, and reported significantly lower identification with their parents. They reported fewer relationships with women, but they were more ready to ask other people for help when faced with personal problems. The converts are also lower on two different measures of self-esteem, and lower in their level of aspirations. The matched controls, who share some of the same stresses (adolescent identity crisis, alienation) without opting for a religious solution, seem to be more active and more self-confident.

The enthusiastic believers who tell us about their conversion may be covering up a deep depression. Pruyser (1968) suggested that sudden religious conversion is an indication of a severe psychological crisis, and, at the same time, a way of warding off a total breakdown. The minority of individuals who report experiencing conversion may be regarded as being more vulnerable and more disturbed in terms of psychopathology, as indeed they may be, Schimel (1973) stated that "the quest for identity and meaning can be seen as an index of pathology. When the processes of maturation that optimally go on outside of conscious awareness become a matter of continual conscious scrutiny, concern and implementation, there is the strong suggestion that something is amiss. It is the continuous preoccupation with, rather than the fact of, a concern with identity that is the index of difficulty" (407).

Conversion as Resolution

While converts seem to be more vulnerable or even seriously disturbed before conversion, the process of adopting religious faith seems to have positive consequences for many of them. This is not self-evident, because crisis-triggered radical changes may result in poorer performance. Radical transformation is not always for the better.

For many individuals, especially adolescents, functioning improves following a conversion, which supports the notion of a defensive solution. The most immediate improvement is in having a subjective feeling of meaning and purpose in life. In some cases, the effect of joining a group and being a member should be clearly therapeutic. Joining a group often provides structure and support, and often improves individual functioning significantly. Severely disturbed individuals are held together by group support and group practices. "Religious communities can also provide a haven for those who are disturbed or do not cope well with the world, and they can have a therapeutic value because of that. While religious institutions could carry those influences uniquely, religious (and other group) participation is itself linked to psychological well-being and social integration, simply because it offers social involvement rather than isolation" (Brown, 1988: 57). Several studies report that joining new religious movements did enhance self-confidence in many converts.

There is little doubt that conversion, especially with group support, helps the individual rebuild his ego and function better. It is also possible that the same process of rehabilitation operates for group leaders themselves, and other individuals who serve in leadership roles in salvation moments. This is indeed what has happened to these individuals. They have been converted and regenerated, their divided and inferior selves happy and unified. James's words still ring as the truest description of such a metamorphosis, be it religious or secular. Conversion, as described by James, leads to a subjective sense of power. It also leads to an objective growth in energy and activity, and to better adjustment. These are the non-religious consequences of religious change, and they are our concern as psychologists.

Religious conversion seems to be helpful as a treatment for certain self-destructive behaviors, such as drug abuse and gambling, By invoking belief and reliance on a higher power and mobilizing strong group pressure, religious groups may create a motivation strong enough to put an end to the use of drugs. They may also provide the continuing support needed to maintain the recovering addict's or habitual user's improvement.

How stable is the resolution and how stable are the conversions? All forms of individual conversion are rather precarious (Beit-Hallahmi & Argyle, 1997). Religious identity change will also be susceptible to reversals. Following the dramatic events surrounding conversion, there must be a decline in excitement and gratification, and the new doctrines may be seen as no longer attractive. Personality transformation under dramatic conditions is notoriously unstable. The individual is always in danger of reverting to his old self, because of internal (psychological) or external reasons. Whether this will happen or not depends on both personality and social circumstances.

For me, as for other researchers, the phenomenon of conversion is not just the subjective report of an amazingly positive change. When we look at the changes in non-religious aspects of the self, they are similarly unstable. However, as students of conversion, we are all interested in the small minority of converts where we can find strong, stable, and remarkable transformations of personality and behavior.

While being well aware of the instability of conversion and the gap between subjective and objective changes, I have been involved in thinking about and looking for the lucky few, those whose conversion has led to stable and significant transformations, shown in turning away from behaviors destructive to the self and to others. Religious conversion does save individuals from wasting their lives and destroying others. We do know that such cases, even if unfortunately less common, are real. Examining these seeming miracles should teach us something about religious ideas and much more about the human personality.

References

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Beit-Hallahmi, B. (1989). Prolegomena to the Psychological Study of Religion. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press.

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Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi is the author of seventeen books and monographs on the psychology of religion, social identity, and personality development. In 1993 he was the recipient of the William James Award (Division 36 of the American Psychological Association) for his contributions to the psychology of religion.