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