The Varieties of Religious Experience Section 1 (Lectures I-X) Summary and Analysis

Lecture I - Religion and Neurology

In the first lecture, James posits two important points about the nature of inquiry. On one hand inquiry is designed to evaluate what is the essential nature of a thing, and on the other hand what is the meaning or importance of that thing. He states that the first line of inquiry leads to an "existential judgment" and that the second leads to a "proposition of value."

James comments on medical materialism and the focus on the existential judgment piece and lack of proposition of value while the religious do the opposite. Mystical experience carries with it a sense of authority; however, it is often contradicted by the day to day experience and it is this contradiction that causes so much...