William James – author of the book The Varieties of Religious Experience.
Is it possible to study the world of mystical experiences scientifically?
Psychology may hold the key to understanding the religious mind.
One of the best books written on the subject of mystical experience is called: “The Varieties of Religious Experience” by William James.
There James identified general characteristics of what mystical experiences actually are.
James said that mystical experiences are likened to feelings and/or intense emotion, as opposed to intellect…That perhaps the simplest types of mystical experiences are exampled by a deepened sense of significance and importance.
He described it in terms of those “Ah ha” moments of life, such as the birth of a child or the discovery of something new and unexpected. That mystical experience are like to a new idea, revelation and paradigm shift within the consciousness of the individual that radically changes that person.
These experiences are intensely personal, profound, ineffable and indescribable. This is because they portent to something outside the normal conventions of both time and space in some cases.
Furthermore James was absolutely convinced that mystical experience are something real and psychological in nature…In “Varieties”, James laid hold of a global topic, the many dimensions of religious experiences. The sorts of experiences he (James) described represent the essential facts to be dealt with.
James also establishes religious experience as the central focus for the psychological interpretation of religion. James stated that “Varieties”, as a research endeavor, has two aims: 1) To defend experience (and not philosophy) as the backbone of religion, and 2) to introduce his readers to believe that religion is mankind’s most important function.
James continues on the priority and authority of first hand experience in contrast to philosophic, ecclesiastical and impose ideology.
Interestingly James himself disavowed having any such first hand experience, seeking instead to approach the subject of religion from the psychological perspective. After all, William James was himself convinced that a psychological approach was absolutely necessary to because of the intimate nature and connection religion has to individual personal experiences. It is for that reason that James turned to works of obscure autobiographies, confessionals and diaries for his primary research material.
James made it clear that his central concerns would be religion as it appears in the life of the individual, in contrast to the institution of theology. See the well known working definition of religion proposed for the purposes of the lectures:
“the feelings, acts and experiences of individuals in their solitude, insofar as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine.”
James supplements his definition by calling religion “man’s total reaction to life.”
He continues:
“Were one asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an UNSEEN order and that our supreme purpose lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.
This belief and adjustment are the religious attitude in the soul. I wish…to call your attention to some of the the psychological peculiarities of such an attitude as this, of belief in an object which we cannot see. All our attitudes, moral, practical or emotional, as well as religious, are due to the objects of our consciousness, the things which we believe to exist, whether really or ideally, along with ourselves. Such present only in thought. In either case, they elicit from us a reaction.”