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The Varieties of Religious Experience | Introduction

In The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902), William James offers a sense of validity to the formerly abstract idea of spiritual experience. With an understanding of physiology, psychology, and philosophy, James studied cases of religious inspiration and concluded there were specific aspects of human consciousness that contained energies that could come to a person’s assistance in time of great need. The result is what he refers to as the religious experience.

Trained in chemistry and medicine, James looked at religious experience as a scientist might, by researching many case studies. However, his theories about religious experience were also heavily influenced by his philosophical interests, which drew him to conclude that an unseen reality does exist and is available to everyone for exploration. His sentiments were somewhat aligned with the beliefs of the transcendentalists, with his work honoring the individual rather than the institutions of religion.

The Varieties of Religious Experience is actually a collection of lectures James delivered in Edinburgh, Scotland. The lectures were sponsored by Adam Gifford, who was interested in promoting a series of studies of what he referred to as a natural theology. James’s lectures became by far the most popular in the series. James also received international attention and praise as one of the first American philosophers to have his ideas welcomed and respected in Europe. Although not cited as James’s best book, The Varieties of Religious Experience continues to be referred to as one of the best books on religion. In his day, intellectuals tended to categorize religious experiences as no more than a nervous condition or a reaction caused by indigestion. The Varieties of Religious Experience portrays the need for a sense of the spiritual as a natural and healthy psychological function.

The Varieties of Religious Experience has been so successful that it has been reprinted thirty-six times. It is lauded as being as influential and as significant in the twentieth century as it was when first published. To emphasize this point, the board of the Modern Library established that James’s book is the second-best nonfiction book of the twentieth century.

The Varieties of Religious Experience Summary

Lectures 1–3
In the first two lectures, James sets the ground rules or parameters of the topic he will be discussing. He begins with definitions and establishes the fact that his lectures are not based on anthropological evidence or studies but rather on personal documents that relay personal experience. He states that as he is neither a theologian nor a scholar in the history of religion, his talks are based on ‘‘a descriptive survey’’ of religious tendencies that exhibit themselves through the examples he offers.

James also discusses how he defines religious experience through the emotion of excitement, which offers immediate delight and dispenses enough good feeling to affect a good portion of the individual’s life. Unlike the scientific dialogue of his time in regards to religious experience, he does not judge an individual as mentally deranged merely because that person has an unexplainable incident. Rather, he looks at religious experience by its results.

James emphasizes that his lectures are in no way directed at institutionalized religion but rather at individual experience, or what one person might experience in solitude. He then notes there are two different ways of accepting the universe: a passive, stoic stance, in which one agrees to the circumstances whether one likes them or not; or a passionate happy stance, in which one agrees with the circumstances. The emotional mood of the individual makes the difference.

In lecture three, James writes that most people have a sense of the presence of evil as well as that of good. Mystical experiences are those rare, brief experiences in which a person senses the presence of God. The opposite sensation—that of evil— presents itself in the form of something unpleasant. These feelings often cannot be explained and therefore cannot be proven. This lies in conflict with philosophical rationalism, which discounts mysticism. However, James believes that rationalism provides a superficial account of life.

Lectures 4–10
James states that one of the primary goals in life is to find and maintain happiness. If this is true, then it is easy to conclude that ‘‘any persistent enjoyment may produce the sort of religion which consists in a grateful admiration of the gift of so happy an existence.’’ This is not to be confused with a hedonistic outlook on life but rather understood in terms of a deeper, inner happiness. From this thought, it can easily be taken that the proof of a religion might be based on how happy it makes someone feel. Some people appear to have been born with a propensity to see life as entirely good. James refers to a statement by Francis W. Newman in which the concepts of the ‘‘once-born’’ and the ‘‘twice-born’’ are defined. The once-born rarely considers evil, or even imperfections within the self. An individual is innocent and childlike. James later discusses the twice-born.

Healthy-mindedness is the term James applies to the once-born, who have a way of seeing everything as good. This optimism has led to what James calls the ‘‘mind-cure movement,’’ with Ralph Waldo Emerson being one of its strongest influences. The basic belief with this movement is that healthyminded attitudes... » Complete The Varieties of Religious Experience Summary