Abstract

: While browsing among the archival data that remain in the James Collection at Houghton Library and especially regarding the remains of "William James's Philosophical Library", it becomes clear that William James was a very active reader. Among the various fields which stirred his interests, possibly the most striking, as shown by the huge amount of documents, is the field covering such topics as abnormal psychology related to religious experiences, from the most serious monograph in German psychiatry to fly-by-night psychic publications. Can an exploration of these documents help scholars understand how James built up The Varieties of Religious Experience? Is it possible to consider these materials as scaffolding that remain behind the scene of his published writings? So, we interviewed a scholar who investigated for years into this material in order to collect some insights about James's sources, about the philosopher's work in the privacy of his own study.