William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience. Possibly the classic about this subject ("'Varieties of Religious Experience' now stands as such a maste

William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience. Possibly the classic about this subject ("'Varieties of Religious Experience' now stands as such a masterly investigation of the psychology of individual theologies, that his other works tend to be rather pushed to one side. "). This is a study of the psychology of original religious experiences, not religious institutions. Religious geniuses have often shown nervous instability, such as George Fox or St Theresa. Medical materialism, sexual origins refuted. Perhaps the neurotic temperament is best to receive religious inspiration. There is an abridged version in the Squashed Philosophers: http://sqapo.com/james.htm http://sqapo.com/james.htm I particularly like this sentence: our morality appears as a plaster hiding a sore it can never cure, and all our well-doing as the hollowest substitute for that well-being that our lives ought to be grounded in, but, alas! are not.