William James, Henry James’ brother, and a pioneer American psychologist, teaches us about two basic personality types in his classic, The Varieties of Religious Experience: the once –born vs. twice-born. For the once-borns, adjustments to life are straightforward and their lives are a smooth flow since birth. Twice-borns, however, struggle to attain a sense of meaning and refuse to take things for granted. These personalities have distinctly different world-views. For a once-born, the sense of self is derived from a feeling of being at home with one’s environment. For a twice-born, the sense of self derives from a feeling of profound separateness.
That sense of belonging or separateness has a practical significance for both. The once-borns are conservators and regulators of the existing order. The twice-borns never belong to that order. Their sense of who they are does not depend on roles or social indicators of identity. They are driven by a need to profoundly alter human, economic and political relationships.
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