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Yaden and Newberg, The Varieties of Spiritual Experience,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022, 440 pp.
pansbert@gmail.com
This comprehensive book covers the latest discovery of the psychological
as well as neurological variety of states of consciousness that relate to spiri-
tual experiences, they also use a well-rounded survey of around 500 subjects
these mental states the book interprets that they can provide continuity and
developing the classical project of the 1902 classic work of William James: The
Varieties of Religious Experience.
became a complete classical study of religious experience, but James’ life was
unfortunately cut short all too early for him to carry on the continuation of
this ground-breaking work.
The authors of the book interpret their work as a conscious continuation
of James’ project, aiming for an update of what they take to be a project of
psychology. They believe that this project can account for James’ intimation
for a “science of religion”, but they do not want to consider their project as
those of Freudian psychoanalysis on the one hand, neither they want to be
caught up in an overly positive view of these experiences in the light of sym-
bols such as Jungian archetypes.
The authors think that the foundation of their interpretation has to give
room to a science of religious experience that is experimental and phenome-
nologically sensitive, it is obviously subjective in character due to the expe-
riential dimension of those who undergo spiritual experiences. However the
case, the experiences shared are evidential reports that have been unfairly
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Their approach also aims to be philosophically sensible from the platform
provided by pragmatist philosophy, i.e., by a philosophical approach that
explains that the ultimate meaning of cognition or a belief is given in the set
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tion of the last data allowed by neuroscience, psychology as an observational
science and the medical sciences.
but it will be sensible to put it in context to help us see the project: Part I em-
perspective on spiritual experience. They shift the language of “religious ex-
perience” given in James to the more generic one of “spiritual experience”
that not necessarily presupposes membership to a particular religious com-
munity. They try to recover inasmuch as it is possible the value of James’ clas-
that were considered in that study.
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velatory, synchronicity experience, feelings of unity and oneness (mystical
In Part III they carry an interpretation and integration that values the re-
ality of religious and spiritual experience endorsed by its transformational
character in the lives of those who live them, the ever so more growing sense
of value and authenticity that vindicates them against a positivistic back-
ground, their transformative potential, their ability to be harnessed for hav-
relation to consciousness that is rendered by them.
Part I, as stated above, provides a study of human nature as per the study
the Varieties should not be considered as an isolated conception of experien-
ce. The authors unfortunately seem to study the material of the Varieties in
an isolated way -they almost exclusively focus on the Varieties, but we must
remember that James’ account includes the value of a conception of experien-
ce involved in his other works related to pragmatism, the principles of psy-
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Oxford: University Press, 2022, 440 pp
chology and last but not least, his radical empiricism. Let us consider them
before moving back to the study of Yaden and Newberg.
For James, the tradition of empiricist psychology that goes from Locke to
independent, and substantive, this is not the kind of empiricism that James
avows for. By his remarkable and seminal work on the Principles of Psychology
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true science involves a recognition of the biased view of experience previous
psychology holds. The imposition of a discrete nature to experience is, in-
deed, an atomisation of experience that James (very much like his friend and
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perience that James was prepared to accept respected the continuous stream
experience of atoms of individual experience. In his chapter “The Stream of
as units of image and sensation. What is true for the psychology of perception
is also true for the theory of knowledge that dominated modern philosophy
and its view of consciousness. James’s proposal in the Principles of Psychology
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ted insofar as there are some philosophical misconceptions that can bias our
interpretation of experimental conditions. This is why it was necessary for
James to propose a more radical theory of experience: his radical empiricism.
James explains to us that rationalism emphasises universals and makes
wholes prior to parts in logic and in being, while empiricism stresses the part
and treats the whole as a collection and the universal as an abstraction. For
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poses some preconceptions to experience that in fact impede it from being ra-
of religious experience. James tells us: “To be radical, an empiricism must nei-
ther admit into its constructions any element that is not directly experienced,
We have good evidence to see that the richness of James’ conception of ex-
perience is an open and dynamic one, when it comes down to his pragmatism
the great example that comes to mind is his “Will to Believe”, an important
document that defends the right to believe in a momentous circumstance and
defends religious belief as connected to religious experience and pragma-
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conception for an account of religious experience, one can note that James’s
experience. James himself tells us in the Varieties of Religious Experience that
we must look at the fruits and not so much at the roots of religious expe-
riences, in a pragmatist fashion, what James is claiming is the transformative
value of religious experience as its claim for the right to be believed.
interest in the James of the Varieties, they explain that contemporary psy-
somehow refreshes James’ opinion that religious experience should be as-
sessed by their fruits and not by their roots.
When it comes to psychology and the study of the experiences of the sub-
experimental displays of neurology actually vindicate that there is more to
the consciousness and mental states of people that what comes to the surface,
and the authors tell us that under no circumstances we should hide that caus-
us that there are prevalent experiences that go beyond what we know, and
In addition, when they speak about the types of spiritual experience, they
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neous character, the personality types that have the experiences, the genetics
of the experiences and the genetics of the people who have the experiences,
the brain processes, the religious rituals that prompt experiences, they psy-
chopharmacology that can be associated to the experiences taking place, the
religiosity of the people who live the experiences, the context and circum-
stances of the experiences, the situations that are in the limit of life and death
and the border of trauma experiences, the rites of passages of the cultures in
which persons live important transitions of their lives, the practices and the
neurological stimuli that can play a part.
All these elements are assessed by Yaden and Newberg as considerations
in a life as opposed to pathological outcomes speaks of deep levels of conscious
transformation, especially when a moral transformation is achieved. This vin-
dicates the value of the experience regardless the oddity of the situations in
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Yaden and Newberg, The Varieties of Spiritual Experience,
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metimes Yaden and Newberg tend to interpret the nature of spiritual experien-
ce as discrete individual experience. A good dose of radical empiricism could
have a more Jamesian and pragmatist tone, as well as help reclaiming the value
of the community, cultural and historical aspects of experience.
The work of Yaden and Newberg is truly remarkable and appreciated, this
work surely will mark a milestone of a renewed and unbiased study of spiri-
tual experience. However, I am not so sure as they are that they are following
the path of James and fully recovering the “science of religion” that James
envisioned. It seems to me that the view of religious experience defended by
James builds up in more than observational data of experiential reports: in
order to understand “the fruits” of genuine spiritual experience as transfor-
mative one has to understand the meaning of lived spiritual experience and
in that regard, the study of spiritual experience goes hand in hand with the
academic study of spirituality.
References to James’ works
The Principles of Psychology
The Principles of Psychology,
Psychology (Briefer Course
The Varieties of Religious Experience, New York: Simon & Schuster,
Pragmatism and Other Writings, New York: Penguin, 2000 (abbre-
, Essays in Radical Empiricism -
