The Varieties of Religious Experience - Penn State University

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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
William Jamesthing; so that when we hear the word “religion” nowadays, wethink inevitably of some “church” or other; and to some personsthe word “church” suggests so much hypocrisy and tyranny andmeanness and tenacity of superstition that in a wholesale undiscerningway they glory in saying that they are “down” on religionaltogether. Even we who belong to churches do not exempt otherchurches than our own from the general condemnation.But in this course of lectures ecclesiastical institutions hardly concernus at all. The religious experience which we are studying is thatwhich lives itself out within the private breast. First-hand individualexperience of this kind has always appeared as a heretical sort ofinnovation to those who witnessed its birth. Naked comes it intothe world and lonely; and it has always, for a time at least, drivenhim who had it into the wilderness, often into the literal wildernessout of doors, where the Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, St. Francis,George Fox, and so many others had to go. George Fox expresseswell this isolation; and I can do no better at this point than read toyou a page from his Journal, referring to the period of his youthwhen religion began to ferment within him seriously.“I fasted much,” Fox says, “walked abroad in solitary places manydays, and often took my Bible, and sat in hollow trees and lonesomeplaces until night came on; and frequently in the night walkedmournfully about by myself; for I was a man of sorrows in the timeof the first workings of the Lord in me.“During all this time I was never joined in profession of religionwith any, but gave up myself to the Lord, having forsaken all evilcompany, taking leave of father and mother, and all other relations,and traveled up and down as a stranger on the earth, which way theLord inclined my heart; taking a chamber to myself in the townwhere I came, and tarrying sometimes more, sometimes less in aplace: for I durst not stay long in a place, being afraid both of professorand profane, lest, being a tender young man, I should be hurtby conversing much with either. For which reason I kept much as astranger, seeking heavenly wisdom and getting knowledge from theLord; and was brought off from outward things, to rely on the Lordalone. As I had forsaken the priests, so I left the separate preachersalso, and those called the most experienced people; for I saw there301
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The Varieties ofReligiousExperience
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ContentsPREFACE....................
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William JamesLECTURE II CIRCUMSCRIP
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William JamesLECTURES XI, XII, AND
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William Jameseses: 1. The subconsci
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William Jamesmy colleague Dickinson
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William Jamesits heroic obligations
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William Jamesas a guide to life and
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William Jamespower. Yet from the po
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William Jamesthors are actually abl
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William Jamesin favor of the sexual
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William Jamesof our states of mind,
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William Jamesstrictly to the medica
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William Jamesment from origin has s
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William Jamesthe bugaboo of morbid
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William Jamesreligious evolution. T
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William JamesLecture e IICIRCUMSCRI
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William Jamesnot prevent me from ta
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