The Varieties of Religious Experience

• "Scientific theories are organically conditioned just as much as religious emotions are; and if we only knew the facts intimately enough, we should doubtless see 'the liver' determining the dicta of the sturdy atheist as decisively as it does those of the Methodist under conviction anxious about his soul. When it alters in one way the blood that percolates it, we get the Methodist, when in another way, we get the atheist form of mind."

These lectures concerned the nature of religion and the shortfall of science, in James' view, in the academic study of religion. Soon after James' time in Edinburgh, a published version of these lectures The Varieties of Religious Experience found its way into the canon of psychology and philosophy, where it has remained for the last one hundred years. James would go on to conceive his philosophy of Pragmatism, and although there may be many overlapping ideas in Varieties and Pragmatism, this summary should not be used as a primer for the latter.

The following is a short summary of James' major ideas put forth in these lectures.

Proposition of Value vs. Existential Judgment

James believes that the study of the origin of an object or an idea does not play a role in the study of its value. He asserts that existential judgment, or the scientific examination of an object's origin, is a separate matter from that object's value. One must not consider an object's physical derivation when making a proposition of value. As an example, he alludes to the Quaker religion and its founder, George Fox. Many of the scientists in James'audience, and many today, immediately reject all aspects of the Quaker religion because evidence suggests that Fox was schizophrenic. Calling this rejection medical materialism he insists that the origin of Fox's notions about religion should not come into account when propositioning the value of the Quaker religion. As an aside, many believe El Greco to have suffered from a stigmatism, yet no one would dismiss his art based on this medical detail. James proposes, somewhat sarcastically, that his audience's atheism is perhaps a dysfunction of the liver. Science, in his time as well as today, viewed religion as obsolete because of its vain, unfounded, or perhaps insane origin. In his lectures, James asserted that these claims, while perhaps historically or epistemologically interesting, play no role in the separate question of religion's value.

Healthy Mindedness vs. the Sick Soul

Ignoring the more scientific topic of medical health, James described two types of spiritual health: