THE FOLIO SOCIETY

William James’s fin de siècle classic, The Varieties of Religious Experience, was the first work to apply the new science of psychology to one of the oldest aspects of human culture, religion. The book reflects contemporary cultural and spiritual uncertainties, and his radical approach to the nature of faith paved the way for Freud and Jung. In the belief that it was ‘the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude’, not theologies or stifling church ritual, which held the key to the truly spiritual life, James explores conversion, repentance, saintliness and mysticism.

James grew up in a liberal yet ‘brain–working household’ – brother Henry became a great novelist, sister Alice was an avid diarist. His own intellectual pursuits, however, ultimately took their toll on his health. One of the most powerful passages in this work describes his fear of madness, which ‘came out of the darkness... like a revelation’. Exploring the way religion affects the human condition – sometimes renewing the spirit, sometimes crushing it – he makes a distinction between ‘the healthy–minded’ and ‘sick souls’ and reveals a profound understanding of the inner fears that can turn life into ‘one long drama of repentance’.

Encompassing history, myth, poetry and science, James recounts the religious experiences of diverse figures, from Aristotle, Saint Augustine and Bunyan to Nietzsche, Tolstoy and Thoreau, as well as personal examples of belief and fanaticism, salvation and the supernatural.

This new Folio edition is introduced by the philosopher Charles Taylor, who keenly observes William James’s relevance to our modern world of colliding faiths and spiritual uncertainties. Erudite, perceptive and compassionate, The Varieties of Religious Experience remains central to understanding man’s relationship with the divine.