A host of Christians sing from their hymnals, “Dear Lord and Father of mankind, forgive our foolish ways!” But very few know that John Greenleaf Whittier’s “hymn” is actually the conclusion of a much longer recital of mankind’s effort to bring on a mystical experience by drugs or other means.
To read all seventeen stanzas of Whittier’s “The Brewing of Soma” is to gain a new perspective on the five that we sing. Set against a cacophony of sounds from ages past—the howl of the dervish, the crack of the whip, the drone of endless, repetitious prayers—the final words have a crystal clear, cool quality that ushers us almost startingly into the presence of our Saviour on a quiet Sabbath beside the Sea of Galilee.
In the first seven stanzas, Whittier vividly portrays a pagan priesthood in ancient India that brewed—and came to worship—Soma. The drug was not like an alcoholic intoxicant; it brought on more than “sacred madness” and “a storm of drunken joy.” Soma produced, temporarily, “a winged and glorious birth,” causing partakers to feel that they were soaring upward and, “with strange joy elate,” seeming to reach the very gates of paradise.
After that account of the “child-world’s early year,” the poet reviews in three stanzas the history of man’s efforts through the ages to induce artificially a “religious” experience.
Each after age has striven
By music, incense, vigils drear, and trance,
To bring the skies more near
Or lift up men to heaven.
Some fever of the blood and brain,
Some self-exalting spell,
The scourger’s keen delight of pain,
The Dervish dance, the Orphic strain …
The desert’s hair-grown hermit sunk
The saner brute below; …
The cloister madness of the monk,
The fakir’s torture-show.
A century after Whittier wrote those words, man has turned again to drugs in his search for mystical experiences. But now some of those hungering after eternal verities are coming to realize that there is something basically phony about any drug-induced “religious experience,” and some former drug freaks have turned their backs on chemicals and “turned on with Jesus.” Progress!
But Whittier’s poem is not yet done: “And yet the past comes round again,/ And new doth old fulfill;/ In sensual transports wild as vain/ We brew in many a Christian fane/ The heathen Soma still!” He seems to be saying, “Take it easy; it’s not just a matter of exchanging one way of ‘turning on’ for another.” It would be the height of presumption, however, to attempt to apply this warning only to the so-called Jesus freaks. There is a message here for all of us!
There used to be a lot said among Christians, especially among youths and young adults, about the “thrill” of knowing Christ. In fact, the word “thrill” was very much a part of the young Christian’s vocabulary, particularly in songs and testimony. Do Christians seek a thrill? And what about some of the music that is used in Christian circles—thick, cloying, sugary-sweet harmonies and the newer music with the “big” sensual beat? By listening to such music as a part of worship or meditation—music not evil in itself, to be sure—do we seek spiritual feelings or are they sensual? Are some of us in danger of confusing feelings engendered by beautiful church architecture, stained-glass windows, and high, vaulted ceilings with true reverence that springs out of a genuine Christian experience and a heart-knowledge of Christ?
Elation and ecstasy need not be condemned out of hand, but we should evaluate them to see whether they are an integral part of the spiritual life. We must differentiate between the essential experience of knowing Christ and the feelings that are basically side effects.
Whittier’s main thesis was not drugs; it was the propensity of men to try to propel themselves into the heavenlies, the self-induced “religious experience” in whatever form it appears. Perhaps we can epitomize it as self-will versus God’s will. It is about such human efforts that Whittier cries out: “Dear Lord and Father of mankind,/ Forgive our foolish ways!/ Reclothe us in our rightful mind,/ In purer lives Thy service find,/ In deeper reverence, praise.” Some may fault the Quaker poet for overemphasizing the “calm,” the “deep hush” and “silence,” the “tender whisper” and “still dews of quietness.” But there is an aspect of true Christian discipleship that says, with Whittier, “Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire.” We must be careful—that we don’t try to induce an experience—emotional, sensual, or spiritual—that in some way makes us feel “religious.” “Drop Thy still dews of quietness,/ Till all our strivings cease,/ Take from our souls the strain and stress,/ And let our ordered lives confess/ The beauty of Thy peace.”
To Whittier, this is true discipleship.
Paul A. Marshall is editorial assistant in the National Publications office of the Salvation Army, Chicago. He received an A.B. in sociology from Wheaton College.
