The culmination of William James' interest in the psychology of
religion, "The Varieties of Religious Experience" approached the
study of religious phenomena in a new way -- through pragmatism and
experimental psychology. The most important effect of the
publication of the Varieties was to shift the emphasis in this
field of study from the dogmas and external forms of religion to
the unique mental states associated with it. Explaining the book's
intentions in a letter to a friend, James stated:
"The problem I have set myself is a hard one: first, to
defend...'experience' against 'philosophy' as being the real
backbone of the world's religious life...and second, to make the
hearer or reader believe what I myself invincibly do believe, that,
although all the special manifestations of religion may have been
absurd (I mean its creeds and theories), yet the life of it as a
whole is mankind's most important function."
Drawing evidence from his own experience and from such diverse
thinkers as Voltaire, Whitman, Emerson, Luther, Tolstoy, John
Bunyan, and Jonathan Edwards, "The Varieties of Religious
Experience" remains one of the most influential books ever written
on the psychology of religion.
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