Exploring Unseen Worlds: William James and the Philosophy of Mysticism

Exploring Unseen Worlds: William James and the Philosophy of Mysticism. By G. William Barnard. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1997. xiv + 422 pp. $21.95 (paper).

The explosion of philosophical interest in mysticism, and the indebtedness of that interest to the work of William James, renders timely this full scale treatment of James's own thoughts on mysticism. G. William Barnard widens the picture from its traditional focus on the chapters on mysticism in James's Varieties of Religious Experience, which he rightly protests are too often the limits of philosophers' acquaintance with James's thought on the subject. Barnard deliberately locates these chapters in the corpus of James's writing. Naturally he pays special attention to James's classical works like Principles of Psychology (1890) and Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912), but he also brings to light less well known essays such as 'A Pluralist Mystic' and 'A Suggestion About Mysticism,' both published in 1910.

Barnard's approach is that of an enthusiastic expositor. Although his book does contain critical analysis, his main aim is to expound what William James meant by mysticism, which Barnard specifies as 'a way of life that is centered around experiences of transformative, personally interpreted, contacts with transnatural realities' (p. 5). Ile shows how James was refreshingly open to sources of knowledge ranging from psychical research to experiments with nitrous oxide, sources often considered beyond the bounds of respectable philosophical study. He also roots James's academic work in the concerns of his personal life, especially his relationship with his father and its complicated aftermath. Barnard tries to defend James from his current critics, especially constructivists like Wayne Proudfoot and Steven Katz, though in my view this is not wholly successful. For example, he rejects Katz on the grounds that Katz's views must be based on Kantian assumptions (p. 115); but he gives no argument against these assumptions and ignores the fact that William James himself can be seen as engaging in constant critical dialogue with Kant.

Barnard is better at presenting the immediate biographical context of James's work than in locating it in the stream of late nineteenthcentury romanticism or the heavy influence of pietism of the variety made dominant in the period through the work of Jonathon Edwards. It is noteworthy that Edwards gets only a passing mention (p. 284) and Schleiermacher, whose account of religion as inwardness lies behind every page of James's work on mysticism, is present in Barnard only in epilogues to chapters and a single brief comment (p. 94). Such lack of engagement with the intellectual provenance of James's work means that Barnard never reflects on the possibility that 'mysticism' as a concept might have a genealogy, and that James's account of mysticism might both reflect and perpetuate such doubtful themes as its intense psychological and private character and even its alleged ineffability.

All of these would be further called into question if Barnard measured James's pronouncements on mysticism against a careful reading of some actual mystics. Barnard does, to be sure, cite snatches from a wide range of mystical texts much as James himself does. But there is no sustained analysis of any of them. If there had been, it would quickly have become apparent that James's account had much more to do with his own concerns at the centre of modernity than with what historical mystics, in all their great diversity, actually held to be important. We have here yet another example of a widespread current phenomenon: a book extolling mysticism that has little room for engagement with actual mystics.

GRACE M. JANTZEN

Centre for Religion, Culture and Gender The University of Manchester

Copyright Anglican Theological Review, Inc. Spring 1998
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