The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural...

After completing his monumental work, The Principles of Psychology, William James turned his attention to serious consideration of such important religious and philosophical questions as the nature and existence of God, immortality of the soul, and free will and determinism. His interest in these questions found expression in various works, including The Varieties of Religious Experience, his classic study of spirituality. Based on the prestigious Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion he gave at the University of Edinburgh in 1901 and 1902, the book--studded with richly concrete examples-- documents and discusses various religious states of consciousness and covers such topics as the meaning of the term divine, the reality of the unseen, the religion of healthy- mindedness, the sick soul, the divided self and the process of its unification, conversion, saintliness, and mysticism. One of the author's most popular works, The Varieties of Religious Experience remains one of the great books on the subject, espec...