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The Psychology of Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

James Bissett Pratt
James Bissett Pratt
Affiliation:
Williams College
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Extract

As every one knows, psychology is a word to conjure with. We have today the Psychology of Art, the Psychology of Business, the Psychology of Advertising, the Psychology of Childhood, of Adolescence, and of Old Age, the Psychology of various great men and of various centuries and epochs, until one stands quite aghast at the psychological insight of our times, and feels that the key to everything and anything worth knowing must surely be in the hands of the omniscient psychologist. In fact, psychology would seem to have enlarged her bounds at the expense of every other subject, and to have chosen all knowledge to be her province; so that he who desires his book or treatise on any subject whatever to be regarded as strictly “modern” and “scientific” must needs endow it with a psychological title. This is indeed a short and easy method of becoming a psychologist; and the result is— as one might expect—that all the psychology contained in many of these works is spread, usually in large letters, upon the titlepage. All is not gold that glitters; neither is every treatise psychological which bears that mystic word upon its cover.

In no field of serious inquiry are these remarks more pertinent than in that of religion. Our book-shelves and our periodicals are laden with works on “religious psychology,” most of which prove on examination to be hardly more psychological than anatomical or geographical. Treatises on theology and statistics, on Church history and Sunday-school methods, as well as that large and amorphous class of writings which twenty years ago would have appeared under the title “Philosophy of Religion”—all these are now pressing themselves upon our attention by the use of that potent shibboleth, “Psychology.” And yet, though one-half the works with titles of this nature have not much more to do with genuine psychology than with the weather, there is, I believe, a young branch of scientific inquiry which rightly deserves the name Psychology of Religion.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , October 1908 , pp. 435 - 454
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1908

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References

1 New Series, IX, 26–45.

2 “A Study of Adolescence,” by Burnham, William H., Pedagogical Seminary I (1891), 174–195CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

“The New Life; a Study in Regeneration,” by Daniels, Arthur H., American Journal of Psychology, VI (1895), 61–103Google Scholar.

3 If space permitted, mention should here be made of the investigations in the religion of childhood by Hall, Barnes, Brown, and others, carried on at this same time.

4 American Journal of Psychology, VII 309–385.

5 Professor Leuba's rather limited reputation and influence among the reading public may be due in part to the fact that he has never put his contributions in book form. I am glad to be able to add, however, that he is now engaged in the preparation of two books, one a small volume to be entitled The Psychological Origin and the Nature of Religion (Constable & Company, London), the other a much larger work, whose title and publisher are not yet determined upon. I give herewith a list of his more important articles in the order in which they appeared:

“Psychology of Religious Phenomena,” American Journal of Psychology, VII (1906), 309–385Google Scholar.

“Introduction to a Psychological Study of Religion,” Monist, XI (1901), 195–255Google Scholar.

“The Contents of Religious Consciousness,” Monist, XI (1901), 535–573Google Scholar.

“Religion: Its Impulses and its Ends,” Bibliotheca Sacra, LVIII (1901), 757–769Google Scholar.

“Tendances fondamentales des mystiques Chrétiens,” Revue Philosophique, LIV (1902), 1–36Google Scholar; 441–487.

“The State of Death,” American Journal of Psychology, XIV (1903), 397–409Google Scholar.

“Faith,” American Journal of Religious Psychology and Education, I (1904), 65–112Google Scholar.

“The Field and Problems of the Psychology of Religion,” American Journal of Religious Psychology and Education, I (1904), 155–167Google Scholar.

“On the Psychology of a Group of Christian Mystics,” Mind, XIV (1905), 15–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

“Fear, Awe, and the Sublime in Religion,” American Journal of Religious Psychology and Education, II (1906), 1–23Google Scholar.

“Religion as a Factor in the Struggle for Life,” American Journal of Religious Psychology and Education, II (1907), 307–343Google Scholar.

6 “The Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence,” by E. G. Lancaster, Pedagogical Seminary, V, 61–128.

7 The Psychology of Religion, London, 1903. (First appeared in the American Journal of Psychology.)

8 In connection with the Clark school reference should be made to three other contributions: Hylan's Public Worship (Chicago, 1901); Dr. Hall's Adolescence (New York, 1904); and Moses's Pathological Aspects of Religions (Worcester, 1906).

9 In this connection I should mention the foundation in May, 1907, of another journal in the same field and with the same object, the Zeitschrift für Religionspsychologie, edited by Dr. Johannes Bresler, in Halle, and appearing monthly. The articles that have thus far appeared in it pay especial attention to pathological religious phenomena. A large part of each number is devoted to excellent reviews of the literature of the subject.

10 “Sex and Religion,” Association Outlook, 1897–98.

11 Page 515.

12 Psychological Review, Monograph Supplement, January, 1905

13 I have already referred to the German periodical of religious psychology, and if space permitted mention should here be made of the work of Vorbrodt, Kinast, Vierkandt, Braasch, and others, as well as of two or three English investigators. In neither of these countries, however, has the psychology of religion been so clearly differentiated from the philosophy of religion as is the case in America and France.

14 Le sentiment religieux en France, Paris, 1903.

15 Mention should, however, be made of Charbonnier's Maladies des mystiques (1874), and Lejeune's Introduction à la vie mystique (1899), which, though not chiefly psychological in aim, contain much genuine psychology.

16 Delacroix's book is entitled Études d'histoire et de psychologie du mysticisme (Paris, 1908)Google Scholar. It is not only the latest, but the most elaborate and exhaustive, treatment of the subject yet made.

Boutroux's work appeared in the Bulletin de l'Institut Psychol. Int., that of the others in the Revue Philosophique, between 1902 and 1905.—I make no mention here of the work of Binet-Sanglé, as it deals almost exclusively with the pathological side of religion.

17 LIV, 1–36; 441–487.

18 Professor Flournoy's most important contributions are the following: “Les principes de la psychologie religieuse,” Archives de Psychologie, II, 33–57; and “Observations de psychologie religieuse,” Ibid. II, 323–366.

19 See the numbers for April 15, May 1 and 15, June 1 and 15, and July 1, 1907. Professor Goblet d'Alviella has published a brief summary of the investigation in the Revue de Belgique, which was reproduced in translation in the Open Court for January, 1908.

20 Something of the sort has of course been done by a number of writers: cf. Shailer Mathews's The Church and the Changing Order, and Dr. Broda's review of the religious situation the world over in the International for March, 1908.

21 Quoted from Flournoy, who reports the case at length. See his “Observations de psychologie religieuse,” in Archives de Psychologie, II, 327–366.