W. James in Russian Academic Theology at the Beginning of the 20th Century. Part I. Towards James

The influence of William James on Russian religious thought is well known, but the contributions of spiritual-academic scholars who developed their own concepts after encountering James's ideas remain underexplored. This encounter was prepared by academic science's interest in empirical psychology and by contacts with philosophers and psychologists from the Moscow Psychological Society. For academic theologians, James's scientific recognition of mystical experience provided support for preaching Christianity in a secular world while requiring them to distinguish Christian experience from other religions. The question of how personal religious experience relates to Christian social action further fueled their interest. The concepts of mystical experience by I. Popov and S. Zarin, previously unconsidered, show a gradual approach to issues legitimized by the 1910 Russian translation of "The Varieties of Religious Experience."

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Abstract

The impact of W. James’s ideas on Russian religious thought is a well-known fact, however this topic cannot be considered exhausted, since the names and works of the representatives of spiritual and academic science, for whom an in­tellectual meeting with James became the impetus for creating their own con­cepts, still remain in the shadows. We should not forget that this meeting was prepared both by the previous development of academic science with its interest in empirical psychology, and by the close contacts of its representatives with philosophers and psychologists who united around the journal “Questions of Phi­losophy and Psychology”, which had been published for many years by the Mos­cow Psychological Society. For representatives of academic theology, the scien­tific recognition of the reality of mystical experience, on the one hand, provided a visible point of support for the preaching of Christianity in the secular world, and on the other hand, it made it necessary to identify the specificity of Christian experience as distinct from the experience of other religions. In addition, for aca­demic theologians, the question of how personal religious experience and Chris­tian action in society relate to each other has become an additional factor of in­terest in mystical problematics. From this point of view, the concepts of mystical experience of such authors as I. Popov and S. Zarin, which have not been consid­ered so far, are of particular interest. In their works, we find a gradual approach to the problematics that was finally legitimized with the release of the Russian translation of “The Varieties of Religious Experience” in 1910.