A Psychological Study Of Religion Its Origin Function And Future PDF Download

Excerpt from A Psychological Study of Religion Its Origin, Function, and Future In April, 1896, there appeared in the American Journal of Psychology my doctor's thesis, Studies in the Psychology of Religious Phenomena, a study of Christian conversion. Since then I have continued to devote what time I could to psychological investigations of religious life, and from time to time I have published in various periodicals provisional fragments belonging to different parts of the somewhat systematic scheme I have in mind. A list of these papers will be found on page 361. In this volume I have endeavored to deal with the topics announced in the subtitle, as scientifically as their nature permits. Light comes to the problems of origins from three sources: the present customs and beliefs of the most primitive peoples known to us; the behavior and ideas of children; and the teachings of general psychology. I trust that my information in these several provinces has been on the whole sufficient to keep me on the right road. For data I have had to depend upon the work of students of anthropology, sociology, and psychology, and upon documents I have gathered myself, at first hand, either by questionnaires or by private correspondence. The explanations of religion which the psychologist and the sociologist can give leave unanswered, of course, the question of ultimate origin. But science does not come up against impassable limits any sooner when it occupies itself with religious experience than when it takes as its object any other phase of psychic life. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.