Reflection On Varieties of Religious Experience by William James
Introduction
William James was a philosopher and psychologist. He wrote the book ‘The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature’ which comprises his edited Gifford Lectures on natural theology, which were delivered at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland between 1901 and 1902. As the name suggests, in this book, James explored the diverse variety of religious experiences and argued for understanding religion through the human experience.
My Reflection
In the modern age, our methods of inquiry into existence are immensely shaped through a utilitarian imagination of reality. With the rise of the industrial revolution, ideals of productivity, progress, and work are becoming to greatly define one’s life’s worth in quantitative terms. Corporations operate on the basic principle of maximizing revenues. Writers want their books to land on the best-seller charts. Musicians aim to hit millions of views on YouTube. In a way, we construct our reality around these abstract ideas of progress and growth. The focus of this essay is to explore this reality through the reading of ‘Varieties of Religious Experience’ by William James. Although James talks about the experiences of reality in a metaphysical sense, I aim to discover the applicability of his concepts in our practical lives.
James talks about spiritual objects of consciousness in the lecture ‘The Reality of Unseen’. He says that “the sentiment of reality can indeed attach itself so strongly to our object of the belief that our whole life is polarized through and through, so to speak, by its sense of the existence of the thing believed in, and yet that thing, for purpose of definite description, can hardly be said to be present to our mind at all.” This drives home the fascinating paradox of the modern day. Our sense of productivity leads us into thinking that we are dealing with a world external to ourselves and that it has to do with objects purely material. But as James said this sentiment of reality is a fundamental lens through which our existence is polarized and it is as abstract as our ideas of god, spirit, or philosophy. To illustrate by an example, we can look at an important element of modern-day capitalism: corporations. Google as a corporation does not exist as a ‘sense-content’ object in our minds. It gains its validity and truthfulness in our subjective experience through the law which establishes Google as a corporation. It acts as a higher abstraction which brings with it a palpable appeal. Such abstract ideas form the background for all our facts, the fountainhead of all the possibilities we conceive of. In the word of the author, “We can never directly look at them, for they are bodiless and featureless and footless, but we grasp all other things by their means.”
Next, I would see the notion of productivity in Jame’s framework of healthy-mindedness. He refers to the cultivation of happiness from a voluntary and an involuntary perspective. Involuntary healthy-mindedness is one in which a person immediately feels happy about whatever is in front of them. In its systematic or voluntary variety, it is an abstract way of conceiving things as good. Every abstract way of conceiving things selects some singular aspect of them as their essence for the time being and disregards the other aspects.
Since the economy is a cornerstone of the capitalist structure, we observe that systematic optimism is cultivated through an incentive-based model where certain behaviors are rewarded. A consciousness of careers, specialization, and work ethic is fostered through a high-level abstraction of progress. For instance, to foster a sense of well-being in the Japanese culture, collectivism is used as a systematic approach to appeal to an individual’s purpose. All countries present a deliberately optimistic scheme of life by zealously emphasizing the brighter and minimizing the darker aspects of the objective sphere of things at the same time. The selective narrative of systematic optimism is shown by the credo of production which urges individuals, firms, and governments to focus on the bright side of economic growth by discounting aspects such as preserving social equality, ensuring ecological harmony, or upholding traditions.
Moreover, James talks about the mind-cure movement which he describes as a system wholly and exclusively compacted of optimism. Mind curers emphasize the influence of thoughts as ‘forces’ that create one’s outer reality. For mind-curers, engaging in thoughts of evil is considered futile. “Why regret a philosophy of evil, a mind-curer would ask us if I can put you in possession of a life of good?” In our context, we can see how a mind-cure-like rationale is at work to justify the systematic and institutionalized approach to life. “What is the point of indulging in questions of meaning and spirituality?” a pragmatist would ask us if one can be in possession of a good life by thriving in the system. Besides what other ways are there to imagine one’s life?
Finally, I would conclude my reflections by observing the effects of this formation of the human self against the utilitarian backdrop. In my opinion, the narrative of productivity is not entirely wrong. This mindset has given us great fruits in terms of well-being but I believe the dominance of this mindset as the ‘only’ system to construct our reality is problematic. We build our reality through a variety of isolated systems of ideas that our minds have framed. Why should we then limit and measure ourselves through one such system of ideas? As James beautifully captures the idea in his conclusion on healthy-mindedness, “Why, after all, may not the world be so complex as to consist of many interpenetrating spheres of reality, which we can thus approach in alternation by using different conceptions and assuming different attitudes, just as mathematicians handle the same numerical and spatial facts by geometry, by analytical geometry, by algebra, by the calculus, or by quaternions, and each time come out right?”.
