The Varieties of Religious Experience
by William James, Dr. William James, James, William, CrossReach Publications · first published 1817
48% recommend48% neutral4% critical
Why HN recommends it
Psychological investigation of individual spiritual experience, treating mystical and conversion accounts seriously; suits readers curious about the inner life, belief, and religion without a doctrinal agenda.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
This is one of the most remarkable books ever written about religious experience. James captures the reader’s attention with vivid instances of religious experience collected from diverse sources, including classical religious texts, newspaper articles, and clinical studies. In this collection of Gifford lectures given in Scotland in 1901, James analyzes religious experience, using wonderful examples, penetrating psychological analysis, and memorable typologies.
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…TAOCP, I always realise "this is the path of least resistance to understanding X" & then that scares me, because there is so much to know & it's really hard to understand anything well. -William James The Varieties of Religious Experience For those that deny the possibility of spiritual experience within a naturalistic world view. A lot of atheism that is public today misses empathy with religious experience. -Martin Gardner's articles…
on “Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Eight Books Everyone Should Read” ↗Hey, It's a week later, I think I will give the KJV bible a try again sometime. Have you gotten onto The Varieties of Religious Experience yet? Do you think I was warranted to recommend it to the audience I did?
on “Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Eight Books Everyone Should Read” ↗…I see them almost as like a grammar which could be fed to a parser generator; we change our beliefs, the grammar is updated, the parser is updated. My favorite source on the subject is William James' Varieties of Religious Experience. His project is largely attempting to account for wide ranges of internal experience based on belief changes, by analyzing extreme neurotics on one end and people like (certain) saints on the other (who…
on “Alan Kay – The center of “Why”? (2004) [pdf]” ↗I’m sure more experienced scholars will have more up-to-date recommendations, but William James ‘Varieties of Religious Experience’ is a classic.
on “Ask HN: Best books on the psychology of religion?” ↗William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience. Possibly the classic about this subject ("'Varieties of Religious Experience' now stands as such a masterly investigation of the psychology of individual theologies, that his other works tend to be…
on “Ask HN: Best books on the psychology of religion?” ↗…interested in becoming a saint ... Wittgenstein’s siblings knew what his detractors apparently did not: that he was referringl ... to a favourite theme from one of his favourite books: William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience." VRE is a decent read by a great mind, and reading it can only illuminate what W. was getting at. And yes, it's far from the 'everyday'.
on “Wittgenstein: The Young Man One Hopes For” ↗you ever read "The Varieties of Religious Experience" by William James? It's a good book despite its late-19th-century understanding of the brain and nervous system. In talking about individuals who have had profound religious experiences, he distinguishes…
on “Posiopaths: Positive only attitude can be toxic” ↗There are a lot of great suggestions here: https://fivebooks.com/category/religion/ But other than Taylor, I recommend Robert Bellah's Religion in Human Evolution, William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience, and most books by Nietzsche, but specifically Beyond Good and Evil and The Genealogy of Morality. You might want to pick up an anthology of papers / topics, like Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology…
on “Young people are flocking to astrology” ↗…only book that immediately jumped to mind without me needing to check my "read" list. I vaguely recall The Soul Of Sex giving me a healthier foundation for my own sexuality. The Power Of Myth and The Varieties Of Religious Experience for general spiritual goodness. The Selfish Gene has probably had a deep lingering effect on my thoughts about my life as a biological creature. Every Page Is Page One is very helpful for realizing…
on “Ask HN: Which non-fiction books had the biggest impact on you?” ↗William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Varieties_of_Religious_E...
on “The Varieties of Mystical Experience” ↗…best, damaging at worst. If you do need a Spiritual guide, or help, look to the East. Maybe Buddhism (not pure land), or Advaita Vedanta (hindu influenced by buddhism). Or even some William James (The Varieties of Religious Experience). Technically, they are also wrong, because no religion/philosophy can explain reality to our little monkey brain, but will at least get you in the right direction. I repeat, they are also wrong, everyone…
on “Insects rely on sounds made by vegetation to guide reproduction” ↗…questions.) BTW there's a book "The night of fire" by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt that describes a similar experience he got staying alone in a desert. And, of course, countless other descriptions, e.g. "The varieties of religious experience" by W. James. You cannot convince anyone, of course; but there's also no way to fake it.
on “A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (1988)” ↗…the 'hacker ethic'. The hacker ethic, especially as exemplified by early MIT programmers in the book, was hugely influential on how I came to think about programming and creative work generally.) The Varieties of Religious Experience - William James (It's largely an attempt at a scientific account of the potential cognitive/emotional impacts of adopting various beliefs, though especially religious/philosophical beliefs. James was…
on “Ask HN: What books have most influenced the way you see the world?” ↗The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James (1902).
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite books or essays written at least 100 years ago?” ↗The Varieties Of Religious Experience was a great read for me
on “"Are We Automata?" by William James (1879)” ↗