46 pages • 1 hour read
William JamesThe Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature
William JamesNonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1902A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Pluralism and Universal Experience
The Varieties of Religious Experience is unique for the equal weight it gives all religious experiences and the broad definition it provides of religion itself. James explains that religion is any feeling that gives the individual a sense of connection with the divine. The latter part of this definition also has an all-encompassing description: The divine represents anything that symbolizes primal truth. Under this large umbrella, the divine may represent a god, science, philosophy, nihilism, morality, or any other system of belief. All parts of the religious experience are entirely individual and personal, yet the wide range of religious experiences hold many similarities.
James proposes that universal experiences of religion bring people back to an emotional equilibrium. He divides individuals into two categories: healthy-minded and morbid-minded. The most lasting religions are those which appeal to both categories of people. James suggests that morbid-minded individuals always see the discontinuity and evil in the world, while healthy-minded people are focused solely on goodness. The morbid-minded exhibit a division of spirit that is unified through emotional stimulus. Religious revelations and conversions are extreme emotional experiences that help to unify individuals’ aims and bring them back to their equilibrium. James compares this process to a machine run by steam power: The right amount of “steam” can help the mental mechanism of the mind run more effectively.
Rather than seeking concrete truths or establishing the validity of religious institutions, James encourages his listeners to understand the nuances of religious experiences and the unique perspectives of believers. He challenges his audience to consider that Christian conversion may not be that different from the conversions to other major religions, cults, or secular institutions: “Religious rapture, moral enthusiasm, ontological wonder, cosmic emotion, are all unifying states of mind, in which the sand and grit of the selfhood incline to disappear” (279). Conversion is established as a moment of emotional experience and the unification of a divided spirit and aims. The moment of religious conversion transforms the individual and sets them on a path toward a singular motivation. James asserts that this is true across religious institutions and cultures.
Pluralism recognizes and embraces diversity. James’s use of radical empiricism emphasizes both individual emotional experience and the widespread experiences of diverse groups. James argues that the wide range of experiences does not detract from the study or diminish the significance of the religious revelations themselves. Instead, pluralism contributes to the complexity and richness of human experience and how people understand and interact with the divine.
Radical Empiricism and Belief
The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus is credited by Plato as saying, “No man ever steps in the same river twice.” This idea has paved the way for a wide range of philosophical ideals, including radical empiricism, a philosophical principle developed by William James. Heraclitus meant that life and experience is always changing; in his example, the river is always flowing, and the man himself evolves over time. While this principle applies to a person as an individual, it also applies to people as a collective. No two people can have identical experiences. For example, two students listening to the same lecture may extract entirely different details; their experience is unique to them as individuals. William James argues that scientists are often too quick to dismiss the fluidity of human experience in their analyses.
Radical empiricism combines knowledge with experience, bringing together objective and subjective elements. In The Varieties of Religious Experience, James reveals how important radical empiricism is to the study of religion. The work is filled with examples of personal experiences which emphasize the importance of the intangible. This empirical and qualitative evidence provides a new model for scientific examination. Rather than dismissing the accounts as discreditable manifestations of mysticism, James shows that mystical and emotional experiences hold elements of value. James argues that religious experiences are innately subjective and, while they vary across religious institutions and cultures, they hold fundamental similarities that are worthy of philosophical study.
Many elements of religious life which cannot be understood through concrete evidence lend support for James’s theory of The Functional Value of Religion. He explores the emotions (e.g., peace, freedom, self-sacrifice) and unexplained phenomena (e.g., hearing voices, seeing spirits) of religious experiences and conversions. These elements cannot be separated from the concrete and tangible realm of human experience. James argues that experience is a tapestry of sensory data, meaning, and emotion. As humans take in sensory data, they attach meaning and emotions in a complex manner. This makes it impossible to divide experience from concrete knowledge.
Both mind and matter form true experience, and James is quick to remind his audience that reality is only as real as it appears to the individual. For the saint kneeling before a deity, the experience is as valid as buying a bag of apples at the grocery store. After his death, James’s collection Essays in Radical Empiricism was published. This work expands upon the ideas he presents in his writing on religion. James proposes that the mind and the body are so closely interwoven that their experiences of the world cannot be separated from one another.
The Functional Value of Religion
Although James does not present the term “pragmatism” until Lecture 18, the ideas of pragmatism permeate the work. James’s work differs from other philosophical writings on religion. Previous scholarly work focused on the validity of religious institutions and gods, attempting to uncover whether some religions held concrete truth over others. Often, these arguments were attempts at proving that one religion held more intrinsic value than another. Throughout his lectures, James reminds his audience to keep an open mind and to avoid limiting their understanding to their own prejudices. The Varieties of Religious Experience sets the question of validity to the side to examine the functional value of religion to individuals rather than the validity of the belief itself.
James suggests that individual religious experiences, not large religious institutions, provide insight into the role religion plays in human life. Pragmatism, developed by James and his colleagues at Harvard, promotes the idea that knowledge cannot be separated from functionality or agency. One way to think about pragmatism is the analogy of building a house. Imagine a man has decided to build a house for his family. He maps out the blueprint, gathers his materials, and sets to work. His planning and use of formulas represent his knowledge. The man makes choices about where to place walls and electrical lines based upon sound practice. However, he begins to realize that some of his choices do not feel practical for his family, so he adjusts. This represents the functional side: The carpenter’s knowledge is only as useful as it relates to the functionality of the home.
James makes the same argument about religion: The value of religion is determined by its functionality. His lectures explore how religion contributes to an individual’s emotionality and action. The collective name for the fruits of religious experience is “saintliness.” Feelings of peace, freedom, and purpose emerge because of religious experience, regardless of institution. Religious converts feel that their lives have more meaning and purpose than they did before: “A feeling of being in a wider life than that of this world’s selfish little interests” (272). They feel more positively toward others and experience genuine happiness.
James suggests that these elements of subjective experience are as important as the tangible effects of religious revelation. The actions that people take as a result of belief also indicate the value of the religious experience: “To develop a thought’s meaning we need therefore only determine what conduct it is fitted to produce; that conduct is for us its sole significance” (444, emphasis added). James thus asserts that all religious experiences are valid and valuable because of the effects they produce within the individual.
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