Visions and Visualizations in the Here and Hereafter

Abstract

On 10 March 2005, Professor Bernard McGinn delivered the William James Lecture on Religious Experience at the Harvard Divinity School. The founding bequest of this annual lectureship was made for the purpose of having an outstanding scholar or scholars lecture on some aspect of this subject, which received classic treatment in William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience . James's aim was not to defend religion by scientific proof, but to stake out his own position as a “piecemeal supernaturalist, one who admits miracles and providential leadings, and finds no intellectual difficulty in mixing the ideal and real worlds together” to locate where the “ideal region” interacts with “the real world's details” to cause experiences—prayer, epiphany, or visions—that generate faith.