For years, William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience has sat on my bookshelf reproaching me for my laziness and ignorance. It was one of a handful of “great books” in my modest library that I hadn’t yet got around to reading. Few people dispute the notion that Varieties is a hugely significant book, by one of America’s greatest thinkers, on a vitally important subject. No more excuses, then. The time had come to enlighten myself. So, a few weeks ago, I pulled out my copy, blew off the dust, opened it, and was met with the horrifying sight of my own handwriting. At the end of each chapter, I had scribbled detailed, hideously pedantic notes summarizing James’s arguments. In fact, I had read The Varieties of Religious Experience. And hadn’t remembered a word of it.
Judging by the solemnity of my notes, I’d like to think my reading of Varieties dates from my earnest twenties, when my intellectual insecurity compelled me to disfigure many of my books with superfluous annotations. But no, I’m even more horrified to see that the 2004 publication date of my Barnes & Noble Classics edition confirms that my lifelong habit of useless pedantry continued at least into my late forties. And probably to this day. A sampling of my notes will give the flavor of my autodidactic aspirations at their least ingratiating:
W.J.’s interest in religion is entirely on the personal & inward, not on the institutional or theological. This inward experience of religion is extremely broad & does not necessarily require belief in a specific God—Emersonian mysticism, for example, or Buddhism. Furthermore…
My only excuse is that in inscribing these tedious and probably not even accurate summaries, I was attempting to engage seriously with James’s thought and lodge its insights in my memory. And how did that go?