Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature

First published in 1902 from the Gifford Lectures, this study treats religion as it appears in individual testimony rather than in churches or dogma. James sorts conversion, saintliness, mysticism, and the religion of healthy-mindedness against the sick soul, drawing on autobiographies, letters, and case reports. He asks what states of mind do for the person who has them, and he weighs medical and supernatural explanations without closing the question. The book is a psychological and philosophical survey of lived religion, not a history of denominations and not a devotional manual.

Three-quarter bound in blue cloth with a reproduction of an El Greco oil painting pasted on front board, gilt title to spine. Brown endpapers. Dark blue slipcase.