CIRCUMSCRIPTION OF THE TOPIC – William James
Now in these lectures I propose to ignore the institutional branch entirely … and to confine myself as far as I can to personal religion pure and simple.
SAINTLINESS – The Varieties of Religious Experience
Speaking generally, our moral and practical attitude, at any given time, is always a resultant of two sets of forces within us, impulses pushing us one way and obstructions and inhibitions holding us back. “Yes! yes!” say the impulses; “No! no!” say the inhibitions.
THE SICK SOUL – The Varieties of Religious Experience
With such relations between religion and happiness, it is perhaps not surprising that men come to regard the happiness which a religious belief affords as a proof of its truth. If a creed makes a man feel happy, he almost inevitably adopts it.
OTHER CHARACTERISTICS -The Varieties of Religious Experience
In this lecture we must revert to description again, and finish our picture of the religious consciousness by a word about some of its other characteristic elements.
REALITY OF THE UNSEEN – Varieties of Religious Experience
Like all positive affections of consciousness, the sense of reality has its negative counterpart in the shape of a feeling of unreality by which persons may be haunted
PHILOSOPHY – The Varieties of Religious Experience
I do believe that feeling is the deeper source of religion, and that philosophic and theological formulas are secondary products, like translations of a text into another tongue. But all such statements are misleading from their brevity, and it will take the whole hour for me to explain to you exactly what I mean.