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In his Gifford lectures of 1901, later published as Varieties o] Religious Experience, William James (1) suggested that consumption of alcohol satisfies need for transcendental experience: The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its to stimulate mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by cold facts and dry criticisms of sober hour. Over 60 years later Clinebell (2) offered an intriguing modification of James's notion, stating that an important factor in etiology of alcoholism is the attempt to satisfy religious needs by a nonreligious means--alcohol. Clinebell sees three aspects of man's fundamental religious need: (1) need for an experience of numinous and transcendant; (2) need for a sense of meaning, purpose, and value in one's life; and (3) need for a feeling of deep trust and relatedness to life. As alcoholic's illness develops, he tends increasingly to handle all three aspects of his religious needs by means of This observation certainly is congruent with Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), which contain six references to importance of belief in and closer contact with a higher power or deity in attainment and maintenance of sobriety (3). Thus one could infer from orthodox A.A. ideology that--contrary to James--the mystical sensibilities, of alcoholics at least, are dulled by use of alcohol.
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