The Varieties of Religious Experience
by James, William (Author); Barzun, Jacques (Foreword by)Format: Trade Book
Publisher(s): Signet
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Summary
American pastoral counseling movement, and beyond its role in spawning the psychology of religion, it remains a book that empowers individuals and inspires readers with erudition, insight, and kindness. No discussion of current religion - from the fundamentalist revival to the New Age movement - is complete without an appreciation of this groundbreaking work.
Table of Contents
| Introduction | p. v |
| Author's Preface | p. 1 |
| Religion and Neurology | p. 3 |
| Introduction: the course is not anthropological, but deals with personal documents | |
| Questions of fact and questions of value | |
| In point of fact, the religious are often neurotic | |
| Criticism of medical materialism, which condemns religion on that account | |
| Theory that religion has a sexual origin refuted | |
| All states of mind are neurally conditioned | |
| Their significance must be tested not by their origin but by the value of their fruits | |
| Three criteria of value; origin useless as a criterion | |
| Advantages of the psychopathic temperament when a superior intellect goes with it | |
| Especially for the religious life | |
| Circumscription of the Topic | p. 21 |
| Futility of simple definitions of religion | |
| No one specific "religious sentiment" | |
| Institutional and personal religion | |
| We confine ourselves to the personal branch | |
| Definition of religion for the purpose of these lectures | |
| Meaning of the term "divine" | |
| The divine is what prompts solemn reactions | |
| Impossible to make our definitions sharp | |
| We must study the more extreme cases | |
| Two ways of accepting the universe | |
| Religion is more enthusiastic than philosophy | |
| Its characteristic is enthusiasm in solemn emotion | |
| Its ability to overcome unhappiness | |
| Need of such a faculty from the biological point of view | |
| The Reality of the Unseen | p. 41 |
| Percepts versus abstract concepts | |
| Influence of the latter on belief | |
| Kant's theological Ideas | |
| We have a sense of reality other than that given by the special senses | |
| Examples of "sense of presence" | |
| The feeling of unreality | |
| Sense of a divine presence: examples | |
| Mystical experiences: examples | |
| Other cases of sense of God's presence | |
| Convincingness of unreasoned experience | |
| Inferiority of rationalism in establishing belief | |
| Either enthusiasm or solemnity may preponderate in the religious attitude of individuals | |
| The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness | p. 60 |
| Happiness is man's chief concern | |
| "Once-born" and "twice-born" characters | |
| Walt Whitman | |
| Mixed nature of Greek feeling | |
| Systematic healthy-mindedness | |
| Its reasonableness | |
| Liberal Christianity shows it | |
| Optimism as encouraged by Popular Science | |
| The "Mind-cure" movement | |
| Its creed | |
| Cases | |
| Its doctrine of evil | |
| Its analogy to Lutheran theology | |
| Salvation by relaxation | |
| Its methods: suggestion | |
| Meditation | |
| "Recollection" | |
| Verification | |
| Diversity of possible schemes of adaptation to the universe | |
| Two mind-cure cases | |
| The Sick Soul | p. 96 |
| Healthy-mindedness and repentance | |
| Essential pluralism of the healthy-minded philosophy | |
| Morbid-mindedness: its two degrees | |
| The pain-threshold varies in individuals | |
| Insecurity of natural goods | |
| Failure, or vain success of every life | |
| Pessimism of all pure naturalism | |
| Hopelessness of Greek and Roman view | |
| Pathological unhappiness | |
| "Anhedonia" | |
| Querulous melancholy | |
| Vital zest is a pure gift | |
| Loss of it makes physical world look different | |
| Tolstoy | |
| Bunyan | |
| Alline | |
| Morbid fear | |
| Such cases need a supernatural religion for relief | |
| Antagonism of healthy-mindedness and morbidness | |
| The problem of evil cannot be escaped | |
| The Divided Self, and the Process of Its Unification | p. 125 |
| Heterogeneous personality | |
| Character gradually attains unity | |
| Examples of divided self | |
| The unity attained need not be religious | |
| "Counter conversion" cases | |
| Other cases | |
| Gradual and sudden unification | |
| Tolstoy's recovery | |
| Bunyan's | |
| Conversion | p. 142 |
| Case of Stephen Bradley | |
| The psychology of character-changes | |
| Emotional excitements make new centres of personal energy | |
| Schematic ways of representing this | |
| Starbuck likens conversion to normal moral ripening | |
| Leuba's ideas | |
| Seemingly unconvertible persons | |
| Two types of conversion | |
| Subconscious incubation of motives | |
| Self-surrender | |
| Its importance in religious history | |
| Cases | |
| Conversion--Concluded | p. 162 |
| Cases of sudden conversion | |
| Is suddenness essential? | |
| No, it depends on psychological idiosyncrasy | |
| Proved existence of transmarginal, or subliminal, consciousness | |
| "Automatisms" | |
| Instantaneous conversions seem due to the possession of an active subconscious self by the subject | |
| The value of conversion depends not on the process, but on the fruits | |
| These are not superior in sudden conversion | |
| Professor Coe's views | |
| Sanctification as a result | |
| Our psychological account does not exclude direct presence of the Deity | |
| Sense of higher control | |
| Relations of the emotional "faith-state" to intellectual beliefs | |
| Leuba quoted | |
| Characteristics of the faith-state: sense of truth; the world appears new | |
| Sensory and motor automatisms | |
| Permanency of conversions | |
| Saintliness | p. 193 |
| Sainte-Beuve on the State of Grace | |
| Types of character as due to the balance of impulses and inhibitions | |
| Sovereign excitements | |
| Irascibility | |
| Effects of higher excitement in general | |
| The saintly life is ruled by spiritual excitement | |
| This may annul sensual impulses permanently | |
| Probable subconscious influences involved | |
| Mechanical scheme for representing permanent alteration in character | |
| Characteristics of saintliness | |
| Sense of reality of a higher power | |
| Peace of mind, charity | |
| Equanimity, fortitude, etc. | |
| Connection of this with relaxation | |
| Purity of life | |
| Asceticism | |
| Obedience | |
| Poverty | |
| The sentiments of democracy and of humanity | |
| General effects of higher excitements | |
| The Value of Saintliness | p. 243 |
| It must be tested by the human value of its fruits | |
| The reality of the God must, however, also be judged | |
| "Unfit" religions get eliminated by "experience" | |
| Empiricism is not skepticism | |
| Individual and tribal religion | |
| Loneliness of religious originators | |
| Corruption follows success | |
| Extravagances | |
| Excessive devoutness, as fanaticism | |
| As theopathic absorption | |
| Excessive purity | |
| Excessive charity | |
| The perfect man is adapted only to the perfect environment | |
| Saints are leavens | |
| Excesses of asceticism | |
| Asceticism symbolically stands for the heroic life | |
| Militarism and voluntary poverty as possible equivalents | |
| Pros and cons of the saintly character | |
| Saints versus "strong" men | |
| Their social function must be considered | |
| Abstractly the saint is the highest type, but in the present environment it may fail, so we make ourselves saints at our peril | |
| The question of theological truth | |
| Mysticism | p. 281 |
| Mysticism defined | |
| Four marks of mystic states | |
| They form a distinct region of consciousness | |
| Examples of their lower grades | |
| Mysticism and alcohol | |
| "The anaesthetic revelation" | |
| Religious mysticism | |
| Aspects of Nature | |
| Consciousness of God | |
| "Cosmic consciousness" | |
| Yoga | |
| Buddhistic mysticism | |
| Sufism | |
| Christian mystics | |
| Their sense of revelation | |
| Tonic effects of mystic states | |
| They describe by negatives | |
| Sense of union with the Absolute | |
| Mysticism and music | |
| Three conclusions | |
| Mystical states carry authority for him who has them | |
| But for no one else | |
| Nevertheless, they break down the exclusive authority of rationalistic states | |
| They strengthen monistic and optimistic hypotheses | |
| Philosophy | p. 319 |
| Primacy of feeling in religion, philosophy being a secondary function | |
| Intellectualism professes to escape subjective standards in her theological constructions | |
| "Dogmatic theology" | |
| Criticism of its account of God's attributes | |
| "Pragmatism" as a test of the value of conceptions | |
| God's metaphysical attributes have no practical significance | |
| His moral attributes are proved by bad arguments; collapse of systematic theology | |
| Does transcendental idealism fare better? Its principles | |
| Quotations from John Caird | |
| They are good as restatements of religious experience, but uncoercive as reasoned proof | |
| What philosophy can do for religion by transforming herself into "science of religions" | |
| Other Characteristics | p. 339 |
| AEsthetic elements in religion | |
| Contrast of Catholicism and Protestantism | |
| Sacrifice and Confession | |
| Prayer | |
| Religion holds that spiritual work is really effected in prayer | |
| Three degrees of opinion as to what is effected | |
| First degree | |
| Second degree | |
| Third degree | |
| Automatisms, their frequency among religious leaders | |
| Jewish cases | |
| Mohammed | |
| Joseph Smith | |
| Religion and the subconscious region in general | |
| Conclusions | p. 359 |
| Summary of religious characteristics | |
| Men's religions need not be identical | |
| "The science of religions" can only suggest, not proclaim, a religious creed | |
| Is religion a "survival" of primitive thought? | |
| Modern science rules out the concept of personality | |
| Anthropomorphism and belief in the personal characterized pre-scientific thought | |
| Personal forces are real, in spite of this | |
| Scientific objects are abstractions, only individualized experiences are concrete | |
| Religion holds by the concrete | |
| Primarily religion is a biological reaction | |
| Its simplest terms are an uneasiness and a deliverance; description of the deliverance | |
| Question of the reality of the higher power | |
| The author's hypotheses | |
| The subconscious self as intermediating between nature and the higher region | |
| The higher region, or "God" | |
| He produces real effects in nature | |
| Postscript | p. 385 |
| Philosophic position of the present work defined as piecemeal supernaturalism | |
| Criticism of universalistic supernaturalism | |
| Different principles must occasion differences in fact | |
| What differences in fact can God's existence occasion? | |
| The question of immortality | |
| Question of God's uniqueness and infinity: religious experience does not settle this question in the affirmative | |
| The pluralistic hypothesis is more conformed to common sense | |
| Index | p. 391 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
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