The Varieties of Religious Experience

This groundbreaking book brought the scientific approach to a subject area rife with abstract theory while standing at the nexus of psychology and religion. Instead of the doctrines of established religions William James thought that the fundamentals of religious life worldwide were personal religious experiences. This argument is supported by his talks of conversion repentance mysticism saintliness and his observations of actual personal religious experiences. Martin E. Marty explains how James's tolerance of extreme religious behaviour his challenging highly innovative theories and his welcome lack of pretentiousness in all of his observations on the human and the divine were all influenced by his pluralistic view of religion in his introduction.