Psychology of religion

The discipline of psychology of religion has as it's object of study the psychological tendencies and predispositions associated with religious belief, activity, practice, expression and experience. A large variety of approaches have been taken to studying the psychology of religious believers, including historical analysis, depth psychology, case studies, controlled scientific experiment, surveys and questionnaires and psychoanalytic theory.

The American pragmatist philosopher and psychologist William James is commonly seen as the founder of the field, the basic tenets of which he expressed in a series of lectures given at the University of Edinburgh as his contribution to the Gifford Lecture Series known as The Varieties of Religious Experience. James' lectures presented an analysis of religion which he claimed to be free of any particular sect's belief or dogma. A large number of recorded experiences from those who James considered to have a particular talent for religion were cataloged, including those of the laity, those of priests and preachers, and those in monastic orders, poets and others. James splits the religious experiences he finds into a variety of different categories, including a division between what he describes as the religion of the healthy-minded and the religion of those with a sick soul. The former he typifies in the writer Walt Whitman, a man of optimism and cheer.