Varieties of Religious Experience, a Study in Human Nature

by William James

there is a certain uniform deliverance in which religions all appear to meet. It consists of two parts:— 1. An uneasiness; and 2. Its solution. 1. The uneasiness, reduced to its simplest terms, is a sense that there is SOMETHING WRONG ABOUT US as we naturally stand. 2. The solution is a sense that WE ARE SAVED FROM THE WRONGNESS by making proper connection with the higher powers. In

Purpose

What is the objective "truth" of their content?[352] [352] The word "truth" is here taken to mean something additional to bare value for life, although the natural propensity of man is to believe that whatever has great value for life is thereby certified as true.

Religious

the most interesting and valuable things about a man are usually his over-beliefs.

Overbelief

The turning to a higher plane is a distinct act of consciousness.

Consciousness

God is the producer of immortality; and whoever has doubts of immortality is written down as an atheist without farther trial.

God