The Varieties of Religious Experience - Penn State University

The Varieties of Religious Experiencebe the better for a religion of consolation and reassurance, whilstothers are better for one of terror and reproof? It might conceivablybe so; and we shall, I think, more and more suspect it to be so as wego on. And if it be so, how can any possible judge or critic helpbeing biased in favor of the religion by which his own needs are bestmet? He aspires to impartiality; but he is too close to the strugglenot to be to some degree a participant, and he is sure to approvemost warmly those fruits of piety in others which taste most goodand prove most nourishing to him.I am well aware of how anarchic much of what I say may sound.Expressing myself thus abstractly and briefly, I may seem to despairof the very notion of truth. But I beseech you to reserve your judgmentuntil we see it applied to the details which lie before us. I doindeed disbelieve that we or any other mortal men can attain on agiven day to absolutely incorrigible and unimprovable truth aboutsuch matters of fact as those with which religions deal. But I rejectthis dogmatic ideal not out of a perverse delight in intellectual instability.I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do Ifear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly.That we can gain more and more of it by moving always in the rightdirection, I believe as much as any one, and I hope to bring you allto my way of thinking before the termination of these lectures. Tillthen, do not, I pray you, harden your minds irrevocably against theempiricism which I profess.I will waste no more words, then, in abstract justification of mymethod, but seek immediately to use it upon the facts.In critically judging of the value of religious phenomena, it isvery important to insist on the distinction between religion as anindividual personal function, and religion as an institutional, corporate,or tribal product. I drew this distinction, you may remember,in my second lecture. The word “religion,” as ordinarily used,is equivocal. A survey of history shows us that, as a rule, religiousgeniuses attract disciples, and produce groups of sympathizers.When these groups get strong enough to “organize” themselves,they become ecclesiastical institutions with corporate ambitionsof their own. The spirit of politics and the lust of dogmatic ruleare then apt to enter and to contaminate the originally innocent300