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Name: The Varieties of Religious Experience
Rating: 3.9 (44 reviews)
Author: William James

William James

A Study in Human Nature

3.9 (44 ratings)

26 mins

Topics

Buddhism Christianity Spirituality

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The Varieties of Religious Experience
Summary of 12 key ideas

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What’s in it for me? Discover what can be learned from the many facets of religious experience.

Worldwide, atheism is on the rise. However, an article published in the Washington Post, in 2012, article states that about 8 out of 10 people still identify with a religious group. Religion is an integral part of modern life – not only in people’s daily lives, but in politics, too.

But if you strip away the churches, mosques and temples, the dogma and the holy books, what is religious experience? What is it on a deeper, more personal level?

These blinks, based on a series of lectures given by the author near the turn of the 20th century, take you on a journey through the multifaceted world of religious experience. Among other things, the author explains why we simply can’t understand human psychology without studying religious experience, and that these experiences can help cure mental illness.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

what we can learn from the psychotic;
how religious experience cured Russian writer Leo Tolstoy’s depression; and
what laughing gas can teach you about religious experience.

Studying religious experience sheds light on otherwise mysterious parts of human psychology.

What springs to mind when you think of religion? A church or mosque? A prayer chanted or sung? Psychology may not be the first thing one thinks of, but it turns out that religious experiences has much to teach about the mind. Of course, science and philosophy have their place, but they simply can’t explain everything in the world.

In the author’s time, science and philosophy were burgeoning, and today we’re witnessing even more developments in these fields. Yet science and philosophy simply aren’t enough to explain everything that we experience and perceive. For instance, the way we see the world is subjective; no two people view it in exactly the same way. As we shall discover in the following blinks, we’re filled with emotions and judgments that inform our unique perceptions.

Furthermore, religious experiences expose people to new emotions and guide them toward new conclusions. Such effects clearly bear on human psychology.

Some people might regard certain religious experiences as symptomatic of mental illness or instability, but regardless of whether they are or aren’t, such experiences can still be immensely valuable and educational.

Take, for example, the founder of Quakerism, George Fox. Fox experienced revelatory visions; he saw the streets running with blood and had bizarre epiphanies that some would consider psychotic. But by drawing on all his experiences, Fox founded a religion that is alive and well today.

So what exactly is the value of religious experience? In order to answer this question, we have to separate the history, constitution and the origin of religion, and then extrapolate its importance and significance to us.

There is institutional religion and personal religion, and the latter is the basis of religious experience.

Religion is all about churches, temples and people donning special garments, right? Well, there’s more to it than that. Let’s first take a look at the two main facets of religion: the institutional and the personal.

Institutional religion involves systems of religious participation and is often not concerned with choice; rather, it’s a result of the culture in which you grow up. For example, many of us recite the Lord’s Prayer at a funeral because convention says we should. But the prayer itself isn’t necessarily deeply significant to us.

The unseen can be as real as the seen – and can affect the way we think.

You likely have a notion of goodness, but can you picture it? Perhaps not. But the unseen can be just as real as the seen. Here’s why.

We all believe in things that can’t be seen. In fact, sometimes pictures in our mind seem even more real than what we actually see in front of us. For example, the memory of being insulted is often far more visceral than the actual experience of affront.

Religion can lead to a happy, healthy mind that can help cure its own illnesses.

We’ve all heard the expression mind over matter. But what if this was absolutely accurate? And what makes you a healthy-minded person anyway?

Let’s consider two types of people who achieve healthy-mindedness in different ways. The first are happy and healthy-minded by nature. Let’s call them the once-born. Their minds simply don’t experience bad in the world and so they struggle to find reasons not to be happy.

A sickly soul can lead to depression, but this can be alleviated by religious experience.

The people who see both good and evil – the twice-born – don’t all reach happy-mindedness. This is because experiencing the evil in life can lead to a sickly soul filled with sinister thoughts. But how does this happen?

Well, first there are two types of sickly souls.

The soul of the twice-born is divided and that division can be bridged through religious experience.

So twice-born people can’t help but see the darker side of life. But is this necessarily problematic?

Once-born people maintain the simple view of life as complete; they see the world, and themselves, as part of a benign unity.

Conversion happens in two main ways and leads to new religious experiences.

Saint Augustine's conversion arose from a feeling of conflict and crisis, but it’s not the only way conversion happens. So how else can it occur?

First, we must understand that conversion comes from transferring power from one set of ideas to another.

One result of religious experience is the development of characteristics we attribute to saints.

After conversion through religious experience, what happens? One significant outcome is something we’ll call saintliness.

This characteristic arises when our spiritual emotions become the habitual center of personal energy – that is, the collection of ideas that dominate our behavior.

We ascribe value to saintliness and this value changes depending on time and place.

Who would we call a saint today? Would modern saints be people like Francis of Assisi, or would they demonstrate different characteristics?

What we value does indeed change over time and these changes are based on their usefulness. For example, pagan gods were needed in order to explain natural phenomena like thunderstorms and earthquakes, but, as people became more educated, this gave way to Christianity.

Mysticism and mystical experiences are key ingredients in personal religion.

Have you heard of people fainting in church, being touched by God, or even seeing Him? These are examples of mystical experience. But what exactly is a mystical experience?

It can be explained by mystical states of consciousness, which consists of four traits.

Religious philosophy is secondary to religious experience.

Have you ever done something bad and then justified your actions with an argument? We often reason out experiences after the fact; theology, for example, could be said to be an attempt to explain religious experience.

Religious philosophy, or theology, is based on a deeper feeling of religious experience and has historically attempted to prove the existence of God.

Prayer and access to the subconscious are important aspects of religion.

The word “religion” tends to invoke images of prayers or revelations. Sure enough, these facets play integral roles in religion.

First let’s examine prayer – a cornerstone of religion. The act that defines religion, prayer connects the person praying to the higher power in which that person believes. However, prayer shouldn’t be thought of as a mere recitation of words or traditional sayings, but instead as a true movement in the soul.

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What is The Varieties of Religious Experience about?

Based on a series of lectures given by William James between 1901 and 1902, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) is an in-depth exploration of how we experience religion and how a personal approach to religion can be profoundly useful to us.

Best quote from The Varieties of Religious Experience

Instinct leads, intelligence does but follow.

—William James

Who should read The Varieties of Religious Experience?

People interested in psychology
Students of philosophy and religion

About the Author

Trained physician William James (1842-1910) was an American psychologist and philosopher. Considered by some to be the father of American psychology, he played a key role in the development and both pragmatism and radical empiricism.

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Psychology Philosophy Religion & Spirituality

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