William James's experience of presenting The Varieties of Religious Experience: His Gifford performance in historical context.

Abstract

William James delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 1901 and 1902, and his 20 lectures were published as The Varieties of Religious Experience. While the book is a classic in the psychology of religion, little to no attention has been given to the immediate context of James's lectures or his state of mind and perspectives during his delivery of each. This study aimed to understand James's 20 Gifford Lectures as separable performances and to uncover his experience of delivering each. We placed in conversation two first-hand accounts of the lectures-The Scotsman newspaper reports and James's correspondence. A word-count methodology was used to compare the newspaper reports among themselves. The results showed that the separate reports by James and The Scotsman were strongly correlated. For instance, both James and The Scotsman reported that the 1901 lectures were better received than the 1902 lectures. Further, both confirm that James and his audience engaged each other in a complicated dance involving competing expectations and worldviews. The results demonstrate that viewing the lectures as performance events experienced by James within personal and societal historical contexts clarifies our understanding of James, each of his 20 lectures, and the book that enshrined them. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).