William James's 'The Varieties of Religious Experience'

In Our Time: Philosophy

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2010

⏱️ 42 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss 'The Varieties of Religious Experience' by William James. The American novelist Henry James famously made London his home and himself more English than the English. In contrast, his psychologist brother, William, was deeply immersed in his American heritage. But in 1901, William came to Britain too. He had been invited to deliver a series of prestigious public lectures in Edinburgh. In them, he attempted a daringly original intellectual project. For the first time, here was a close-up examination of religion not as a body of beliefs, but as an intimate personal experience. When the lectures were printed, as 'The Varieties of Religious Experience', they were an instant success.They laid the ground for a whole new area of study - the psychology of religion - and influenced figures from the psychiatrist Carl Jung to the novelist Aldous Huxley. To date, James's book has been reprinted thirty-six times and has been hailed as one of the best non-fiction books of the twentieth century.With:Jonathan ReeFreelance philosopherJohn HaldaneProfessor of Philosophy at the University of St AndrewsGwen Griffith-DicksonEmeritus Professor of Divinity at Gresham College and Director of the Lokahi FoundationProducer: Natasha Emerson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for down learning the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.uk.
0:09.0	I hope you enjoy the program.
0:11.0	Hello, one day in the 19th century in America a man locked himself in a room and refused food
0:16.4	and water.
0:17.4	It fell to the floor in a faint.
0:19.2	When he came to he found himself on his knees praying, infused with a deep sense of peace he'd been converted
0:25.0	to God. It was accounts like these of an intensely personal moment of conversion that
0:30.4	inspired the American psychologist William James
0:33.1	to attempt a daring project.
0:34.8	In 1901, he spoke of his examination of the psychology of religion
0:40.0	as a means to explore not the doctrines of belief,
0:42.4	but the nature of the individual experience itself.
0:45.0	In 1901, William James, the brother of the novelist Henry James,
0:50.0	made the voyage from America to deliver a series of public lectures on his findings to the people
0:53.8	of Edinburgh when the lectures were published as the varieties of religious
0:57.6	experience they're an unexpected and influential success in the century
1:02.0	since they've been reprinted 36 times and had a wide and deep
1:05.2	influence inspiring figures from the psychoanalyst Carl Jung to the novelist Aldous Huxley.
1:10.5	With me to discuss William James and the variety of religious experience are John
1:14.5	Haldane professor of philosophy at the University of St Andrews, Gwen Griffith Dixon
1:18.8	a Maritist professor of divinity at Gresham College and Jonathan Ray
1:22.2	a freelance philosopher.
	...

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