“The characteristics of the religious life…[include]
the following beliefs: that the visible world is part of a more spiritual
universe from which it draws its chief significance; that union or harmonious
relation with that higher universe is our true end; [and] that prayer or inner
communion with the spirit thereof—be that spirit 'God' or 'law'—is a process
wherein work is really done, and spiritual energy flows in and produces
effects, psychological or material, within the phenomenal world." —
American philosopher and psychologist William James (1842-1910),
The
Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902)
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