Presence
The whole room seemed to me full of God
Historical account
VBG Archives·Cambridge, US
presencewonderunexpected
Modern language summary…
The poet James Russell Lowell was at a friend's home in Cambridge, in the middle of an ordinary argument about whether spirits exist, when the experience arrived mid-sentence: the room filled with what he could only call the presence of God, the air itself seeming to move with Something he couldn't name. He wrote afterward that he spoke with the calmness and clearness of a prophet -- and that he couldn't yet explain what had been revealed to him, only that it had.
▸ Read the original account
"I had a revelation last Friday evening. I was at Mary's, and happening to say something of the presence of spirits (of whom, I said, I was often dimly aware), Mr. Putnam entered into an argument with me on spiritual matters. As I was speaking, the whole system rose up before me like a vague destiny looming from the Abyss. I never before so clearly felt the Spirit of God in me and around me. The whole room seemed to me full of God. The air seemed to waver to and fro with the presence of Something I knew not what. I spoke with the calmness and clearness of a prophet." -- James Russell Lowell, from his published letters.
Source: William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), Lecture III. Public domain. View source