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This book of Flower's is a real serious attempt to formulate the meaning of the religious response in terms of psychology and as such is necessarily dependent upon a theory of consciousness which the author first develops and then shows how, out of this theory, there can naturally be deduced the sort of situation, under certain specified conditions, which is termed religious.
The theory of consciousness which Flower arrives at in his preliminary discussion, while by no means new, is very clearly and attractively presented. It is what I like to call the frustration theory of consciousness and holds that consciousness only arises when some obstacle interposes between stimulus and reaction which prevents or interferes with the smooth flow of the former into the latter, thus creating a condition of intrapsychic tension, which from the introspective point of view is known as emotion or affect. Consciousness arising under these conditions can be seen to depend upon a relatively complex situation presented to the organism which tends to release opposing reactions. It is in the moment of delay, while these opposing reactions are struggling for control, that consciousness is born, and its function is to illuminate the possible path-ways that activity may take and again, from the introspective point of view, choose the most expedient. Consciousness thus functions to relieve intrapsychic tension. Also we can see that in order that consciousness should arise there must be a temporary withdrawal of the organism from reality in the sense of a delayed reaction. It is during this period of withdrawal that consciousness illuminates the possibilities. In this interval man “is not under the immediate urge of a tendency to respond which does not wait, but fulfills itself; he has to begin to fabricate the situation, or features in it, to project something from himself upon them and endow them in phantasy and imagination with characteristics which will bring them within the scope of his a