Biography
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3. Henry's "Vastation"
William's pre-adolescent years are marked more by the concerns and events of his father's life than of his own. Henry James, Sr. was a man in search – in search of insight into human life and religious understanding, in search of recognition by other "intellectuals" (in particular, such New England intellectuals as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Amos Bronson Alcott), and in search of home. These searches led his restless spirit to wander, both mentally and physically, and these wanderings implicated others. Henry often displaced his family, moving between the United States and Europe, typically to alleviate his own frustrations with his philosophical work or family dynamics.
Henry was prone to mood swings and a pivotal moment came one night in May of 1844. After dinner Henry sat alone
when suddenly – in a lightning flash, as it were – "fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake." To all appearances it was a perfectly insane and abject terror, without ostensible cause, and only to be accounted for, to my perplexed imagination, by some damned shape squatting invisible to me with the precincts of the room, and raying out from his fetid personality influences fatal to life.[2]
This event had a powerful effect on Henry, launching him into his deepest depression.
Seeking specialists to help him, Henry found his "cure" through an introduction to the philosophy of Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. In particular, Swedenborg posited the concept of "vastation" – a catharsis that leads to positive ends – and Henry came to see his own moment of dreadful anxiety as his personal vastation. Further, in Swedenborgianism Henry found a philosophy that unburdened any remaining Calvinist guilt, for Swedenborg believed that since selfhood came from the universal God, it could not be individually unique. Each of us, in essence, is equal and divine. Swedenborgianism gave Henry a renewed spirit and a new concern for social justice, for Henry saw that, at a person's core, no individual was better than another, and all this conspired to provide a new sense of purpose.
[2] See McDermott JJ (ed). 1977. The writings of William James: a comprehensive edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p 3.
Source: Talisse RB, Hester DM. 2004. Lives in transition: experiencing James. In On James, chap 1. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing. pp. 3-4. [Adapted by permission of the authors.]
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