The Varieties of Religious Experience

The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature

2012 Reprint of 1920 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. "A milestone in religious thought. . . . James combines a positive approach to religion with a non-dogmatic and thoroughly empirical approach to the religious life. The combination is not only rare but creative." -Reinhold Niebuhr
Philosopher and psychologist William James championed the value of individual experience with an eloquence and zeal that placed him beside Emerson and Whitman as a classic exponent of American democratic culture. In "The Varieties of Religious Experience" he takes on "the very inner citadel of human life" by focusing on intensely religious individuals from different cultures and eras, in order to explore from within how religion enriches human lives. This work comprises the edited version of the Gifford Lectures on natural theology, which James delivered at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland in 1901 and 1902. These lectures concerned the nature of religion and the neglect of science, in James' view, in the academic study of religion. Soon after its publication, the book entered the canon of psychology and philosophy and has remained in print for over a century.