The Varieties of Religious Experience - Penn State University

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The Varieties of Religious ExperienceIf there were such a thing as inspiration from a higher realm, itmight well be that the neurotic temperament would furnish thechief condition of the requisite receptivity. And having said thusmuch, I think that I may let the matter of religion and neuroticismdrop.The mass of collateral phenomena, morbid or healthy, with whichthe various religious phenomena must be compared in order to understandthem better, forms what in the slang of pedagogics is termed“the apperceiving mass” by which we comprehend them. The onlynovelty that I can imagine this course of lectures to possess lies inthe breadth of the apperceiving mass. I may succeed in discussingreligious experiences in a wider context than has been usual in universitycourses.32
William JamesLecture e IICIRCUMSCRIPTION CUMSCRIPTION OF THE TOPOPICICMOST BOOKS on the philosophy of religion try to begin with a precisedefinition of what its essence consists of. Some of these wouldbedefinitions may possibly come before us in later portions of thiscourse, and I shall not be pedantic enough to enumerate any ofthem to you now. Meanwhile the very fact that they are so manyand so different from one another is enough to prove that the word“religion” cannot stand for any single principle or essence, but israther a collective name. The theorizing mind tends always to theoversimplification of its materials. This is the root of all that absolutismand one-sided dogmatism by which both philosophy andreligion have been infested. Let us not fall immediately into a onesidedview of our subject, but let us rather admit freely at the outsetthat we may very likely find no one essence, but many characterswhich may alternately be equally important to religion. If we shouldinquire for the essence of “government,” for example, one man mighttell us it was authority, another submission, an other police, anotheran army, another an assembly, an other a system of laws; yet all thewhile it would be true that no concrete government can exist withoutall these things, one of which is more important at one momentand others at another. The man who knows governments most completelyis he who troubles himself least about a definition whichshall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with alltheir particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstractconception in which these were unified as a thing more misleadingthan enlightening. And why may not religion be a conception equallycomplex?99 I can do no better here than refer my readers to the extended and admirableremarks on the futility of all these definitions of religion, in an articleby Professor Leuba, published in the Monist for January, 1901, aftermy own text was written.33
Page 1 and 2: The Varieties ofReligiousExperience
Page 3 and 4: ContentsPREFACE....................
Page 5 and 6: William JamesLECTURE II CIRCUMSCRIP
Page 7 and 8: William JamesLECTURES XI, XII, AND
Page 9 and 10: William Jameseses: 1. The subconsci
Page 11 and 12: William Jamesmy colleague Dickinson
Page 13 and 14: William Jamesits heroic obligations
Page 15 and 16: William Jamesas a guide to life and
Page 17 and 18: William Jamespower. Yet from the po
Page 19 and 20: William Jamesthors are actually abl
Page 21 and 22: William Jamesin favor of the sexual
Page 23 and 24: William Jamesof our states of mind,
Page 25 and 26: William Jamesstrictly to the medica
Page 27 and 28: William Jamesment from origin has s
Page 29 and 30: William Jamesthe bugaboo of morbid
Page 31: William Jamesreligious evolution. T
Page 35 and 36: William Jamesnot prevent me from ta
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The Varieties of Religious Experience - Penn State University

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