Pragmatism

William JAMES (1842-1910). American psychologist and philosopher whose writings on religion and mystical experience have influenced the human potential movement. While James was not especially interested in such notions as "God" or "Absolute Truth", he stressed personal growth and self-improvement, and valued the mystical or transcendental experiences as a means to that end. For him, cosmic consciousness was a continuum "into which our several minds plunge as into a mother-sea reservoir." James helped to found the American "Society for Psychical Research" in 1884 and was a pioneer of psychedelic research. He came to believe that hauntings, phantasms, and trance experiences were essentially natural phenomena that would eventually be explained scientifically. James was the author of several books, including "Principles of Psychology" (1890), "The Varieties of Religious Experience" (1902), and "The Meaning of Truth" (1909).