William James The Varieties Of Religious Experience

At the turn of the nineteenth century, American philosopher and psychologist William James delivered a series of lectures on the topic of natural religion at the University of Edinburgh, which were later published as a collection under the title of The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. Within this collection, one encounters a profound discussion of many multi-faceted aspects of religion. With this discussion, James is able to ultimately conclude that a collective religious truth does not and cannot exist, but that the truth of religion may be found in the individual beliefs of each man or woman. Throughout the text, James proposes that religion is by nature an individual experience, stemming from one's personal thoughts and feelings and "the interest of the individual in his private personal destiny." Such a fundamentally solitary experience cannot be described through the impersonal canons of organized religion. Thus, throughout the text, James claims to "ignore the institutional branch entirely, to say nothing of the ecclesiastical organization, to consider as little as possible the systematic theology and the ideas about the gods themselves, and to confine [himself] … to personal religion pure and simple." From this emerges James' unique
James proposes that the religion of such a believer "has been made for him by others, communicated to him by tradition, determined to fixed forms by imitation, and retained by habit," and so is of little use when attempting to gain insight into authentic religious experience. Thus, for this context, religious experience refers to a moment of individual, divine