{"collection":"etc","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/etc/vre/vre01.htm","path":"etc/vre/vre01.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/etc/vre/vre01.htm","text":"The Varieties of Religous Experience, by William James, [1902]\n| | PAGE | \n| LECTURE I RELIGION AND NEUROLOGY | 3 | \n| Introduction: the course is not anthropological, but deals with personal documents\u2014Questions of fact and questions of value\u2014In point of fact, the religious are often neurotic\u2014Criticism of medical materialism, which condemns religion on that account\u2014Theory that religion has a sexual origin refuted\u2014All states of mind are neurally conditioned\u2014Their significance must be tested not by their origin but by the value of their fruits\u2014Three criteria of value; origin useless as a criterion\u2014Advantages of the psychopathic temperament when a superior intellect goes with it\u2014especially for the religious life. | | \n| | | \n| LECTURE II CIRCUMSCRIPTION OF THE TOPIC | 27 | \n| Futility of simple definitions of religion\u2014No one specific \"religious sentiment\"\u2014Institutional and personal religion\u2014We confine ourselves to the personal branch\u2014Definition of religion for the purpose of these lectures\u2014Meaning of the term \"divine\"\u2014The divine is what prompts solemn reactions\u2014Impossible to make our definitions sharp\u2014We must study the more extreme cases\u2014Two ways of accepting the universe\u2014Religion is more enthusiastic than philosophy\u2014Its characteristic is enthusiasm in solemn emotion\u2014Its ability to overcome unhappiness\u2014Need of such a faculty from the biological point of view. | | \n| p. vii | | \n| LECTURE III THE REALITY OF THE UNSEEN | 53 | \n| Percepts versus abstract concepts\u2014Influence of the latter on belief\u2014Kant's theological Ideas\u2014We have a sense of reality other than that given by the special senses\u2014Examples of \"sense of presence\"\u2014The feeling of unreality\u2014Sense of a divine presence: examples\u2014Mystical experiences: examples\u2014Other cases of sense of God's presence\u2014Convincingness of unreasoned experience\u2014Inferiority of rationalism in establishing belief\u2014Either enthusiasm or solemnity may preponderate in the religious attitude of individuals. | | \n| | | \n| LECTURES IV AND V THE RELIGION OF HEALTHY\u2014MINDEDNESS | 77 | \n| Happiness is man's chief concern\u2014\"Once-born\" and \"twice-born\" characters\u2014Walt Whitman\u2014Mixed nature of Greek feeling\u2014Systematic healthy-mindedness\u2014Its reasonableness\u2014Liberal Christianity shows it\u2014Optimism as encouraged by Popular Science\u2014The \"Mind-cure\" movement\u2014Its creed\u2014Cases\u2014Its doctrine of evil\u2014Its analogy to Lutheran theology\u2014Salvation by relaxation\u2014Its methods: suggestion\u2014meditation\u2014\"recollection\"\u2014verification\u2014Diversity of possible schemes of adaptation to the universe\u2014APPENDIX: Two mind-cure cases. | | \n| | | \n| LECTURES VI AND VII THE SICK SOUL | 125 | \n| Healthy-mindedness and repentance\u2014Essential pluralism of the healthy-minded philosophy\u2014Morbid-mindedness: its two degrees\u2014The pain-threshold varies in individuals\u2014Insecurity of natural goods\u2014Failure, or vain p. ix success of every life\u2014Pessimism of all pure naturalism\u2014Hopelessness of Greek and Roman view\u2014Pathological unhappiness\u2014\"Anhedonia\"\u2014Querulous melancholy\u2014Vital zest is a pure gift\u2014Loss of it makes physical world look different\u2014Tolstoy\u2014Bunyan\u2014Alline\u2014Morbid fear\u2014Such cases need a supernatural religion for relief\u2014Antagonism of healthy-mindedness and morbidness\u2014The problem of evil cannot be escaped. | | \n| | | \n| LECTURE VIII THE DIVIDED SELF, AND THE PROCESS OF ITS UNIFICATION | 163 | \n| Heterogeneous personality\u2014Character gradually attains unity\u2014Examples of divided self\u2014The unity attained need not be religious\u2014\"Counter conversion\" cases\u2014Other cases\u2014Gradual and sudden unification\u2014Tolstoy's recovery\u2014Bunyan's. | | \n| | | \n| LECTURE IX CONVERSION | 186 | \n| Case of Stephen Bradley\u2014The psychology of character-changes\u2014Emotional excitements make new centres of personal energy\u2014Schematic ways of representing this\u2014Starbuck likens conversion to normal moral ripening\u2014Leuba's ideas\u2014Seemingly unconvertible persons\u2014Two types of conversion\u2014Subconscious incubation of motives\u2014Self-surrender\u2014Its importance in religious history\u2014Cases. | | \n| | | \n| LECTURE X CONVERSION\u2014concluded | 213 | \n| Cases of sudden conversion\u2014Is suddenness essential?\u2014No, it depends on psychological idiosyncrasy\u2014Proved p. x existence of transmarginal, or subliminal, consciousness\u2014\"Automatisms\"\u2014Instantaneous conversions seem due to the possession of an active subconscious self by the subject\u2014The value of conversion depends not on the process, but on the fruits\u2014These are not superior in sudden conversion\u2014Professor Coe's views\u2014Sanctification as a result\u2014Our psychological account does not exclude direct presence of the Deity\u2014Sense of higher control\u2014Relations of the emotional \"faith-state\" to intellectual beliefs\u2014Leuba quoted\u2014Characteristics of the faith-state: sense of truth; the world appears new\u2014Sensory and motor automatisms\u2014Permanency of conversions. | | \n| | | \n| LECTURES XI, XII, AND XIII SAINTLINESS | 254 | \n| Sainte-Beuve on the State of Grace\u2014Types of character as due to the balance of impulses and inhibitions\u2014Sovereign excitements\u2014Irascibility\u2014Effects of higher excitement in general\u2014The saintly life is ruled by spiritual excitement\u2014This may annul sensual impulses permanently\u2014Probable subconscious influences involved\u2014Mechanical scheme for representing permanent alteration in character\u2014Characteristics of saintliness\u2014Sense of reality of a higher power\u2014Peace of mind, charity\u2014Equanimity, fortitude, etc.\u2014Connection of this with relaxation\u2014Purity of life\u2014Asceticism\u2014Obedience\u2014Poverty\u2014The sentiments of democracy and of humanity\u2014General effects of higher excitements. | | \n| | | \n| LECTURES XIV AND XV THE VALUE OF SAINTLINESS | 320 | \n| It must be tested by the human value of its fruits\u2014p. xi The reality of the God must, however, also be judged\u2014\"Unfit\" religions get eliminated by \"experience\"\u2014Empiricism is not skepticism\u2014Individual and tribal religion\u2014Loneliness of religious originators\u2014Corruption follows success\u2014Extravagances\u2014Excessive devoutness, as fanaticism\u2014As theopathic absorption\u2014Excessive purity\u2014Excessive charity\u2014The perfect man is adapted only to the perfect environment\u2014Saints are leavens\u2014Excesses of asceticism\u2014\u2014Asceticism symbolically stands for the heroic life\u2014Militarism and voluntary poverty as possible equivalents\u2014Pros and cons of the saintly character\u2014Saints versus \"strong\" men\u2014Their social function must be considered\u2014Abstractly the saint is the highest type, but in the present environment it may fail, so we make ourselves saints at our peril\u2014The question of theological truth. | | \n| | | \n| LECTURES XVI AND XVII MYSTICISM | 370 | \n| Mysticism defined\u2014Four marks of mystic states\u2014They form a distinct region of consciousness\u2014Examples of their lower grades\u2014Mysticism and alcohol\u2014\"The an\u00e6sthetic revelation\"\u2014Religious mysticism\u2014Aspects of Nature\u2014Consciousness of God\u2014\"Cosmic consciousness\"\u2014Yoga\u2014Buddhistic mysticism\u2014Sufism\u2014Christian mystics\u2014Their sense of revelation\u2014Tonic effects of mystic states\u2014They describe by negatives\u2014Sense of union with the Absolute\u2014Mysticism and music\u2014Three conclusions\u2014(1) Mystical states carry authority for him who has them\u2014(2) But for no one else\u2014(3) Nevertheless, they break down the exclusive authority of rationalistic states\u2014They strengthen monistic and optimistic hypotheses. | | \n| p. xii | | \n| LECTURE XVIII PHILOSOPHY | 421 | \n| Primacy of feeling in religion, philosophy being a secondary function\u2014Intellectualism professes to escape objective standards in her theological constructions\u2014\"Dogmatic theology\"\u2014Criticism of its account of God's attributes\u2014\"Pragmatism\" as a test of the value of conceptions\u2014God's metaphysical attributes have no practical significance\u2014His moral attributes are proved by bad arguments; collapse of systematic theology\u2014Does transcendental idealism fare better? Its principles\u2014Quotations from John Caird\u2014They are good as restatements of religious experience, but uncoercive as reasoned proof\u2014What philosophy can do for religion by transforming herself into \"science of religions.\" | | \n| | | \n| LECTURE XIX OTHER CHARACTERISTICS | 448 | \n| Aesthetic elements in religion\u2014Contrast of Catholicism and Protestantism\u2014Sacrifice and Confession\u2014Prayer\u2014Religion holds that spiritual work is really effected in prayer\u2014Three degrees of opinion as to what is effected\u2014First degree\u2014 Second degree\u2014 Third degree\u2014 Automatisms, their frequency among religious leaders\u2014Jewish cases\u2014Mohammed\u2014Joseph Smith\u2014Religion and the subconscious region in general. | | \n| | | \n| LECTURE XX CONCLUSIONS | 475 | \n| Summary of religious characteristics\u2014Men's religions need not be identical\u2014\"The science of religions\" can only suggest, not proclaims a religious creed\u2014Is religion p. xiii a \"survival\" of primitive thought?\u2014Modern science rules out the concept of personality\u2014Anthropomorphism and belief in the personal characterized pre-scientific thought\u2014Personal forces are real, in spite of this\u2014Scientific objects are abstractions, only individualized experiences are concrete\u2014Religion holds by the concrete\u2014Primarily religion is a biological reaction\u2014Its simplest terms are an uneasiness and a deliverance; description of the deliverance\u2014Question of the reality of the higher power\u2014The author's hypotheses: 1. The subconscious self as intermediating between nature and the higher region\u20142. The higher region, or \"God\"\u20143. He produces real effects in nature. | | \n| | | \n| POSTSCRIPT | 510 | \n| Philosophic position of the present work defined as piecemeal supernaturalism\u2014Criticism of universalistic supernaturalism\u2014Different principles must occasion differences in fact\u2014What differences in fact can God's existence occasion?\u2014The question of immortality\u2014Question of God's uniqueness and infinity: religious experience does not settle this question in the affirmative\u2014The pluralistic hypothesis is more conformed to common sense. | | \n| | | \n| INDEX | 519 |","title":"The Varieties of Religous Experience: Contents","type":"page"}