The varieties of religious experience

Psychology. Religion & Spirituality. Sociology. Nonfiction. HTML: Harvard psychologist and philosopher William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature explores the nature of religion and, in James' observation, its divorce from science when studied academically. After publication in 1902 it quickly became a canonical text of philosophy and psychology, remaining in print through the entire century. "Scientific theories are organically conditioned just as much as religious emotions are; and if we only knew the facts intimately enough, we should doubtless see 'the liver' determining the dicta of the sturdy atheist as decisively as it does those of the Methodist under conviction anxious about his soul. When it alters in one way the blood that percolates it, we get the Methodist, when in another way, we get the atheist form of mind.".… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member JBreedlove

A dry and brutally boring read. I know it is supposed to be a classic but 19th century religious psychology is not for me I guess. However, there were a few gems within this tome. I now know where the "streams of consciousness" idea comes from. Maybe its being so immersed in the world right now

makes reading about individuals who turn their back on it seem a waste of time.

Originally published in 1902

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LibraryThing member eschator83

James' atheistic arrogance and sarcasm drip through almost every page. This pretentious and deceitful pseudo-enlightenment of our privileged class is appalling and leads us to the effete socialism of Greece, Italy, France, Spain, etc.

LibraryThing member timbrown5

James asks: "Who know whether the faithfulness of individuals here below to their poor over-beliefs may not actually help God in turn be more effectively faithful to his own greater tasks?"James asserts the need for psychology to study individual spiritual experiences. This being a legitimate and

often fruitful occurrence with practical effects. He gives account of many individuals and their stories, and studies the thread recurring in many of them, the core being love of God and others, the feeling of relief and all will be alright as taken care of by something greater than oneself.

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LibraryThing member jonbrammer

_The Varieties of Religious Experience_ builds to the climax of James explaining his philosophy of Pragmatism. What I think is important here to the religion vs. rationalism debate is that James has no time for established religion, dogma, or theology. Rather, he focuses on the mystical, individual

life-changing experiences people have in sensing the presence of a higher power. These experiences are as real as falling in love - they are a psychological phenomenon that, according to James, bubble up from the subconscious and have direct, pragmatic, positive effects on a person's life. What is missing here is a discussion of cultural influence on these experiences - why do people in Christian culture only frame these experiences in terms of Christianity? Do people lack a language outside of their culture to describe these mystical experiences?

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LibraryThing member judyfederick

The basis of any understanding I might have of comparative religion.

LibraryThing member jwhenderson

Undoubtedly William James most popular book, I found this to be, as it always is with James, a joy to read. His style kept me going when both the combination strange ideas and impenetrable prose of his cited examples retarded my progress. His focus on the individuality of experience was what struck

me as central and certainly most important to me - the mature individualist that I am. While I was not convinced by the mysticism surveyed or the various rationalizations of religious pondering, I came away with a better sense of this type of thought. Unlike Santayana I was not bothered by the focus on "religious disease" or "sick souls", but my perspective, unlike his, is a bit more rational, if not more reasonable. On the whole a very good book about a subject that is spiritual in many ways.

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LibraryThing member antiquary

This had a profound experience on my faith, both negative and positive. It made clear that the ideas I had previously used to defend my faith were inadequate, but
cleared the way for my developing others.
It convinced me that conversion and mysterical experiences were objective phenomena, but not

always Christian ones.

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LibraryThing member LegalMove

A brilliant exposition by a brilliant mind. Hard to imagine how one set of parents gave birth to two such brilliant men: William and his brother Henry.

LibraryThing member bodhisattva

William James presented the "Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology" at the University of Edinburgh as 10 lectures each in 1901 and 1902, and later published his edited lecture notes as this book. James presents a psychology, a philosophy, and a science of religion, aspects of which are both

remarkably modern and out-dated.

His use of first-person narratives (many quoted from E.D. Starbuck's 1899 "The Psychology of Religion" -- full text available at books.google.com) provides a database which he then uses to build his thesis. Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and most directly Carl Sagan ("Varieties of Scientific Experience") all build on this foundation.

The clearly (and stated) Anglo-Protestant perspective which James takes dates this work, but the read is still more than worthwhile.

The first 15 lectures (or so) present his "psychological" data, while the remaining lectures provide his philosophical and "scientific" conclusions.

Now on to "The Varieties of Religious Experience: Centenary Essays" by Michel Ferrari and "William James and a Science of Religions: Reexperiencing The Varieties of Religious Experience" by Wayne Proudfoot. [Proudfoot edited the B&N version of "Varieties" and provides a good introductory chapter.]

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LibraryThing member Rumien

I've only read particular sections of this extensive study for a paper I was working on, but I learned so much from it, I want to revisit it and read more.

James' work is an extensive study looking at all sorts of emotional/psychological experiences (grief, guilt, sorrow, turmoil, etc.) in the

context of Scripture and God's work in humans' lives. Though I agree with brothers and sisters who caution us not to rely on our experience or understanding of our experience but to always lean on God's wisdom written in the Word and revealed by the Holy Spirit for guidance, all the accounts James presents in this book provide practical information about how people react to their circumstances and how their beliefs and God's work in their lives have affected these reactions.

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LibraryThing member Bidwell-Glaze

The book, The Varieties of Religious Experience, by William James is the result of the 1901 Gifford Lectures on Natural religion at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. My edition was published in 1958. William James was an American psychology professor (Harvard University). He came to philosophy

late in his life.

As can be expected of a non-fiction book written in the early part of the last century (1901-2), it is dense. The vocabulary and grammar are a bit stiff and academic. As can be expected of a book that has remained in print for over a century, Varieties in Religious Experience is a fascinating, landmark book.

It takes over 20 pages to define religion as it will be discussed in the lectures/book. “Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine.” is a quotation from the middle of this discussion, which further defines divine so that it includes the non concrete divine such as in Emerson's Natural Law and Buddhism's atheism.

James' view is of individual extremes of religious emotions, objects, and acts. Apparent unity is artificial, and it is in the variety where one finds the reality of religious inspiration and truth.

This is the first draft of this review, which will be continued when I finish the book, which will be a while, as it is an incredibly dense book.

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LibraryThing member zangasta

I am actually glad I read this. It was rather educational. Maybe the most educational example in here is poor old Henry Suso. Yup, he of the "undergarment studded with a hundred and fifty brass nails, sharpened and so fixed as to pierce his skin".

Thomas Paine dismissed this kind of nonsense easily

a hundred years before James in The Age of Reason. Someone else's private "revelations" are nothing to me.

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LibraryThing member pickwick817

James describes the phenomena of many different kinds of religious experineces in this book. It is a very analytical look at an emotional / spiritual subject. He appears to keep objective throughout, but we all know in the end that is immpossible. It was more objective than I think I could ever be.

Again, another book on philosophy that while good, I found incomplete. Some day I am going to begin to write my own thoughts so that I will have a book to read that at least attempts to cover everything I'm looking for.

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LibraryThing member JVioland

A good, although difficult, read. How does human nature act upon our perceptions of what we consider supernatural? There is validity to our spiritual bent. It comes about through culture and belief. The validity of that belief is independent of scientific verification.

LibraryThing member MarcusBastos

Understanding Religious Experiences
This book contains lectures given by William James in Scotland in which he examines diverse religious experiences in search of their meaning. The lectures formed a systematic work and are written in a clear way. James’s conception of pragmatism - the emphasis

in the experimental method and the idea of meaning that dismiss hard/dogmatic truth - influences the exposition. The lectures deal with many personal expositions of religious experiences - the ways in which they are exposed and their meanings for each and everyone involved. James gives his analysis of these various episodes and tries to elaborate a grand narrative. In search of understanding, one finds tolerance toward the diverse religious attitudes. A book worth reading (listening).

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LibraryThing member maryroberta

Early qualitative research. Appreciate the pragmatism of approach/philosophy.

LibraryThing member b.masonjudy

This is a classic text intersecting religion and psychology and what I found most intriguing was the relevance of James's insights on religion that still resonate today. Debates in the merit, barbarity, utility, and experience of religion are all addressed. In this way I believe it could be a

helpful resource to depolarize what I find is a dead-end debate between fundamentalist atheists and fundamentalists Christians because both points of view are seriously engaged without the assertion of a big T truth.

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LibraryThing member MaowangVater

Conclusions... the religious life... includes the following beliefs:
1. That the visible world is part of a more spiritual universe from which it draws its chief significance;
2. That union or harmonious relation with that higher universe is our true end;
3. That prayer or inner communion with the

spirit thereof—be that spirit "God" or "Law"—is a process wherein work is really done, and spiritual energy flows in and produces effects, psychological or material, within the phenomenal world.

Religion includes also the following psychological characteristics:
4. A new zest which adds itself like a gift to life and takes the form either of lyrical enchantment or of appeal to earnestness and heroism.
5. An assurance of safety and a temper of peace, and, in relation to others, a preponderance of loving affections."

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LibraryThing member TanyaRead

Easy to follow despite being a classic. Provides a very thoughtful and interesting context for the writings and experiences of extraordinary people in the history of religion. It is suitable for believers and those who are not believers.

LibraryThing member melsmarsh

I really found this boring

LibraryThing member Arthur_Kennedy

I marked this classic 5 out of 10 stars or 9 out of 20 stars because of this publisher's format or layout of this edition not because of the original treatise.

The original treatise is worth reading and I found it enjoyable to a point but this 2012 edition by Oxford World's Classsics contains just

an inordinate quantity of the tiniest scriptface that is too tiny to read safely or comfortably

William James is both pragmatic and charismatic

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LibraryThing member Lyndatrue

I wore a copy of this book out, and replaced it in the early nineties with this edition. It is both a worthy reference (still, more than 100 years after it was first written), and a pleasure to read.

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