Want to learn the ideas in The Varieties Of Religious Experience better than ever? Read the world’s #1 book summary of The Varieties Of Religious Experience by William James here.
Read a brief 1-Page Summary or watch video summaries curated by our expert team. Note: this book guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher or author, and we always encourage you to purchase and read the full book.
Video Summaries of The Varieties Of Religious Experience
We’ve scoured the Internet for the very best videos on The Varieties Of Religious Experience, from high-quality videos summaries to interviews or commentary by William James.
1-Page Summary of The Varieties Of Religious Experience
Overview
Lectures 1-3
James begins the lecture by defining what he will be talking about and stating that his lectures are based on personal documents rather than studies or scholarly evidence. He then goes into details of how these documents were made, as well as why they were written.
James discusses the emotional experience of religious feelings, which are immediate and can affect a person’s life for good. He does not judge those who have unexplainable experiences as mentally unstable; rather he looks at them by their results.
James stresses that his lectures aren’t directed at any religion, but rather at the individual’s experience. He says there are two ways of accepting the universe: a passive stance, in which one accepts it no matter what; and an active stance, in which one agrees with it because they like it. The emotional mood makes all the difference.
In the third lecture, James writes that most people believe in both good and evil. He explains mystical experiences as rare moments when a person senses God’s presence. Opposite to that is an unpleasant feeling of evil. These feelings cannot be explained and therefore cannot be proven with rationalism, which downplays mysticism. However, James believes that rationalism gives us only a superficial understanding of life.
Lectures 4-10
James believes that one of the primary goals in life is to find and maintain happiness. If this is true, then it’s easy to conclude that “any persistent enjoyment may produce the sort of religion which consists in a grateful admiration of the gift of so happy an existence.” This is not be confused with hedonism but rather understood as a deeper inner happiness. From this thought, it can easily be taken that the proof for a religion might come from how happy it makes someone feel. Some people appear to have been born with a propensity to see life as entirely good. James refers to Francis W. Newman’s statement about two types of people: The once-born rarely considers evil or imperfections within themselves; they’re innocent and childlike individuals who are naturally optimistic about their lives’ purpose and meaning because they’ve never experienced any hardships or problems before in their lives (i.e., everything goes smoothly). The twice-born on the other hand, understand pain and suffering much more than others do due to some kind of unfortunate event(s) occurring early on in their lives (i.e., something bad happened which caused them distress).
James later discusses his own experience with being born twice—once into wealth at birth, then again after losing his family fortune when he was four years old—and concludes by stating how important it is for every person alive today to determine what type they belong under: Once-born or Twice-Born?
Healthy-mindedness is a term that James uses to describe people who see the world as good. This attitude has led to what he calls the mind-cure movement, which was started by Ralph Waldo Emerson and believes in faith healing. Scientists often believe reality is independent of the mind; however, some religious groups believe that reality can be controlled or created by one’s mind.
In the sixth and seventh lectures, James discusses a sick soul. This person is different from someone who has a healthy mind because he or she believes that life itself is evil. However, James finds it difficult to believe that everything in the world is good. Some people think that God created all things and only allows evil into the world temporarily. But this makes one question why there’s so much evil in the world if God made it perfect at first? The paradox of how an all-good God could allow for any kind of evil also exists in philosophy today.
