"The Varieties of Religious Experience is certainly the most notable of all books in the field of
the psychology of religion and probably destined to be the most influential [one] written on religion in the twentieth
century," said Walter Houston Clark in Psychology Today. The book was an immediate bestseller upon
its publication in June 1902.Reflecting the pluralistic views of psychologist-turned-philosopher William James,
it posits that individual religious experiences, rather than the tenets of organized religions, form the backbone
of religious life.James's discussion of conversion, repentance, mysticism, and hope of reward and fears of punishment
in the hereafter--as well as his observations on the religious experiences of such diverse thinkers as Voltaire,
Whitman, Emerson, Luther, Tolstoy, and others--all support his thesis."James's characteristic humor, his ability
to put down the pretentious and to be unpretentious, and his willingness to take some risks in his choices of ancedotal
data or provocative theories are all apparent in the book," noted Professor Martin E. Marty. "A reader
will come away with more reasons to raise new questions than to feel that old ones have been resolved."