The Varieties of Religious Experience

William James – The Varieties of Religious Experience

In this course Jeremy Carrette (University of Kent) explores William James and religious experience. In the first module we introduce William James, and his classic 1902 text ‘The Varieties of Religious Experience’. After that, we explore some of the common characteristics of religious experience, and the structure of James’ account. In the third module we come to conversion and its effects, before moving on to a module on mysticism and mystical experience. In the fifth module we look at the genuineness of religious experience. Finally, we bring all of our knowledge together to evaluate William James’ account of religious experience.

The Varieties of Religious Experience

In this module, we introduce William James, and his classic 1902 text ‘The Varieties of Religious Experience’, focusing in particular on (i) James’ method of gathering the data of experience, drawing on Darwinian ideas about the varieties of species (ii) James’ 1902 Gifford Lectures, in which the accounts of these religious experience were published and (iii) James’ psychological account, and his philosophical analysis of religious experience.