“The Varieties of Religious Experience” by William James Revisited

Abstract

In 1901 it was up to William James (1842-1910) to give the renowned Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he spoke about “The Varieties of Religious Experience,” published afterwards in a single volume by The Modern Library (NY) in 1902. Our objective herein will be, firstly, to review his Lecture XVIII, which deals with “Philosophy” – in which he shows the impotence of theology and of idealism to handle Life in general and mystical experience in particular -, introduces Peirce (1839-1914) and Pragmatism as the ideal method of investigation. Secondly, once there is a major difference between James’ Pragmatism and Peirce’s Pragmaticism, we will try to retrace the trail of this idea, Pantheism, or Objective-idealism, of which Peirce is legitimate heir, which Schelling (1775- 1854) -, departing from Kant’s (1724-1804) Critiques and from Fichte’s (1762-1814) Science of Nature - , went to fetch, especially (I) in the mysticism of Meister Eckhart (c.1260-c.1328), (II) in the occultism of Böhme (1575-1624), inspired in the Jewish kabbala, (III) in philosopher and theologian Franz Xaver von Baader (1765-1841) and, (IV) in the Upanishads, translated (1844) for him by Max Müller (1823-1900) -, to change the course of Western Philosophy and help to bring about the advent of a new science, Psychology. Thirdly, we will pass on to Lectures XVI and XVII on Mysticism, in which we will introduce Astanga-Yoga – the heart of this magnum-opus of Hindu mystical literature, which are the Yoga-Sūtras (“Aphorisms of Yoga”), codified by Sri Patañjali in c. 147 BCE – as an example of the “methodic cultivation” (James, 390) which promises to lead the practitioner to “mystical experiences of plateau” (Pierre Weil; Ken Wilber). So as to analyze it better -, when possible with the lenses of Peirce (or else with other thinkers’) -, we will reveal the socio-historical context (large sense), its epistemic-ontological structure (strict sense), always aiming at “translating” it through analogies with the narratives produced by other mystics and artists of that and other traditions.