A conversion results when God or religion becomes the center of habitual energy. According to William James there are four main steps in a religious conversion. The first is some experience, or phenomenon tha

The next step then is to join a community to support you. For Synesios, this step seemed to come later in his conversion process. He first began a slight transformation of his false self. After learning of Nouty’s death, he battles with a divided self. A divided self is one that is unsure and can act in good and evil ways. The goal is to live a love-oriented life in a conversion and when impulses and experiences don’t leave with the initial shattering, the lingering traits of one’s false self persist. With Nouty’s death, Synesios appears lost, struggling and lonely. He sleeps with other women, parties, then takes a turn and begins intense studying which leads him to help others. But, one’s experience is ineffable and indescribable and there’s a need to symbolize your experience, but how? Its precarious existence can be voiced in a community where one can connect with people who’ve had similar experiences. The need to symbolize is ceaseless. In a community, there’s repetition of effervescence, and for Synesios, he found that community to be a religious order.

“…for the first time there was revealed to me the truth of divine revelation. I understood that real truth, the catharsis from every pity and every fear, exists only there. The power of suffering made me a Christian… only when I understood that I was really dead, when the vision of Nouty passed before me as something strange, like the account of the life of another person—only then did I proceed to the tonsure.”

Both Nouty and Synesios battled with the devil. The devil defeated Nouty after she left Synesios but conversely, just when Synesios was combating with his false self and the devil, he was transformed. The devil therefore took one life, but inadvertently converted another to complete and utter good.

Thomas Merton in his Rai

Some topics in this essay:
Dialogues Monastery, William James, Ron Rosenbaum, Solitude Solitude, Nouty Synesios, Max Weber’s, Raids Unspeakable, false self, religious conversion, divided self, william james, , solitude solitude, religion center, nouty’s death, death synesios, dialogues monastery, step conversion,