Varieties of Religious Experience
A Study in Human Nature
CENTENARY EDITION
First published in 1902, The Varieties of Religious Experience initiated the psycho-
logical study of religion, paving the way for Freud and Jung as well as for clinical and
paranormal branches of psychology. Written with humour and erudition, its theories
of conversion, saintliness, ecstasy and mysticism continue to provoke controversy
and enquiry. The book remains the best introduction to James’s thought, demon-
strating his characteristic insistence upon the importance of personal experience and
his almost devotional respect for the mysteries of the human mind. Richly illustrated
with personal accounts of belief and possession, intoxication and near-death experi-
ence, it is of central importance not simply to an understanding of religions, but to
modern psychology and psychiatric medicine.
The Routledge Centenary Edition, entirely reset from the original 1902 edition,
is prefaced with a specially commissioned foreword by the author’s grandson,
Micky James, and by new introductions from James specialists Eugene Taylor and
Jeremy Carrette. It also includes a new expanded index.
William James (1842–1910) physician, psychologist, and philosopher, was a founder
of American experimental psychology, and pioneer in psychical research, experi-
mental psychotherapeutics, and the psychology of religion. He launched C.S.
Peirce’s pragmatism, the first uniquely American philosophy to have international
consequences. His younger brother was Henry Janees, the novelist.
Eugene Taylor is an Executive Faculty member at Saybrook Graduate School and
Research Centre, Lecturer on Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Senior
Psychologist on the Psychiatry Service at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He
was the 1983 William James Lecturer on the Varieties of Religious Experience at
Harvard Divinity School, and is the author of William James on Exceptional Mental
States (Scribner’s, 1982); the award-winning William James on Consciousness
Beyond the Margin (Princeton, 1996); and a co-editor of Pure Experience: The
Response to William James (Thommes/Routledge, 1996).
Jeremy Carrette lectures win religious studies at the University of Stirling, and
has written extensively on the psychology of religion. He is the author of Foucault
and Religion: Spiritual Corporality and Political Spirituality (Routledge, 2000) and
editor of Religion and Culture by Michel Foucault (Manchester/Routledge, 1999).
London and New York
Varieties of Religious
Experience
A Study in Human Nature
CENTENARY EDITION
William James
with a foreword by Micky James
and new introductions by
Eugene Taylor and Jeremy Carrette
First published 1902 by Longmans, Green, and Co., New York
This edition first published 2002
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
Foreword © 2002 Micky James
Editorial matter and selection © 2002 Eugene Taylor and Jeremy Carrette
This edition © 2002 Routledge
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISB N 0-415-27809-0
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
ISBN 0-203-39847-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-39936-6 (Adobe eReader Format)
(Print Edition)
Contents
Foreword to the Centenary Edition by Micky James
Page xi
Editors’ preface by Eugene Taylor and Jeremy Carrette
xiii
Introduction by Eugene Taylor: The Spiritual Roots of James’s
Varieties of Religious Experience
xv
Introduction by Jeremy Carrette: The Return to James:
Psychology, Religion and the Amnesia of Neuroscience
xxxix
Preface from the 1902 Edition
5
THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
BY WILLIAM JAMES
LECTURE I
R
ELIGION
AND
N
EUROLOGY
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7
Introduction: the course is not anthropological, but deals with per-
sonal documents, 1. Questions of fact and questions of value, 4. In point
of fact, the religious are often neurotic, 6. Criticism of medical materi-
alism, which condemns religion on that account, 10. Theory that religion
has a sexual origin refuted, 11. All states of mind are neurally condi-
tioned, 14. Their significance must be tested not by their origin but by
the value of their fruits, 15. Three criteria of value; origin useless as
a criterion, 18. Advantages of the psychopathic temperament when a
superior intellect goes with it, 22; especially for the religious life, 24.
LECTURE II
C
IRCUMSCRIPTION
OF
THE
T
OPIC
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26
Futility of simple definitions of religion, 26. No one specific “religious
sentiment,” 27. Institutional and personal religion, 28. We confine our-
selves to the personal branch, 29. Definition of religion for the purpose
of these lectures, 31. Meaning of the term “divine,” 31. The divine is