The Varieties of Religious Experience
E170998
The Varieties of Religious Experience is a landmark 1902 work of psychology and philosophy in which William James analyzes personal religious and mystical experiences to explore the nature and value of religion.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Varieties of Religious Experience canonical | 2 |
| Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences | 1 |
| The Varieties of Scientific Experience | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1489071 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Varieties of Religious Experience Context triple: [William James, notableWork, The Varieties of Religious Experience]
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A.
The Natural History of Religion
The Natural History of Religion is a philosophical work by David Hume that examines the origins and development of religious belief in human societies through a skeptical and empirical lens.
-
B.
God and Man at Yale
God and Man at Yale is a 1951 book by William F. Buckley Jr. criticizing Yale University for promoting secularism and collectivism over traditional religious and conservative values.
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C.
The Perennial Philosophy
The Perennial Philosophy is Aldous Huxley’s influential 1945 work of comparative mysticism that explores the shared spiritual truths underlying the world’s major religious traditions.
-
D.
The Phenomenon of Man
The Phenomenon of Man is a philosophical and theological work by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin that explores human evolution and consciousness within a cosmic, spiritually oriented framework.
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E.
Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion
Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion is a posthumously published collection of G. W. F. Hegel’s university lectures that systematically interpret the historical religions through the lens of his idealist philosophical system.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Varieties of Religious Experience Target entity description: The Varieties of Religious Experience is a landmark 1902 work of psychology and philosophy in which William James analyzes personal religious and mystical experiences to explore the nature and value of religion.
-
A.
The Natural History of Religion
The Natural History of Religion is a philosophical work by David Hume that examines the origins and development of religious belief in human societies through a skeptical and empirical lens.
-
B.
God and Man at Yale
God and Man at Yale is a 1951 book by William F. Buckley Jr. criticizing Yale University for promoting secularism and collectivism over traditional religious and conservative values.
-
C.
The Perennial Philosophy
The Perennial Philosophy is Aldous Huxley’s influential 1945 work of comparative mysticism that explores the shared spiritual truths underlying the world’s major religious traditions.
-
D.
The Phenomenon of Man
The Phenomenon of Man is a philosophical and theological work by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin that explores human evolution and consciousness within a cosmic, spiritually oriented framework.
-
E.
Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion
Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion is a posthumously published collection of G. W. F. Hegel’s university lectures that systematically interpret the historical religions through the lens of his idealist philosophical system.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
non-fiction book ⓘ philosophy book ⓘ psychology book ⓘ religious studies book ⓘ |
| approach |
phenomenological description
ⓘ
pragmatic evaluation ⓘ psychological analysis ⓘ |
| author | William James ⓘ |
| basedOn | Gifford Lectures ⓘ |
| centralThesis | religious experiences should be evaluated by their practical consequences for the individual ⓘ |
| containsCaseStudiesOf |
conversion experiences
ⓘ
mystical states ⓘ saintly lives ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| focus | individual religious experience rather than institutional religion ⓘ |
| genre | lecture collection ⓘ |
| influenced |
20th-century religious studies
ⓘ
William James’s later work ⓘ existentialist thought ⓘ modern understandings of mysticism ⓘ pragmatist philosophy ⓘ psychology of religion as an academic field ⓘ |
| keyConcept |
fruits of religion
ⓘ
healthy-mindedness ⓘ sick soul ⓘ twice-born ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| lectureSeriesLocation | University of Edinburgh ⓘ |
| lectureYears |
1901
ⓘ
1902 ⓘ |
| notableFor |
integration of psychology and philosophy in the study of religion
ⓘ
systematic study of first-person religious reports ⓘ |
| numberOfLectures | 20 ⓘ |
| philosophicalOrientation |
empiricism
ⓘ
pragmatism ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1902 ⓘ |
| publisher |
Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer
ⓘ
surface form:
Longmans, Green, and Co.
|
| structure | series of lectures ⓘ |
| subject |
conversion
ⓘ
mystical experience ⓘ mysticism ⓘ philosophy of religion ⓘ pragmatism ⓘ psychology of religion ⓘ religious belief ⓘ religious emotion ⓘ religious experience ⓘ saintliness ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Varieties of Religious Experience Description of subject: The Varieties of Religious Experience is a landmark 1902 work of psychology and philosophy in which William James analyzes personal religious and mystical experiences to explore the nature and value of religion.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
The Varieties of Scientific Experience
this entity surface form:
Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences
The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy
→
relatedWork
→
The Varieties of Religious Experience
ⓘ