Varieties of Religious Experience by William James is one of The Fifty Psychology Classics – you find reviews on more than twenty of the other Psychology Classics, together with about five thousand essays on magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other sites, plus about the same number of notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html maybe you wish to subscribe

 

Varieties of Religious Experience by William James is one of The Fifty Psychology Classics – you find reviews on more than twenty of the other Psychology Classics, together with about five thousand essays on magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other sites, plus about the same number of notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html maybe you wish to subscribe

 

 

9 out of 10

 

The Varieties of Religious Experience is one of The Fifty Psychology Classics https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/12/50-psychology-classics-by-tom-butler.html a marvelous book by Tom Butler Brown, which has probably changed my life – I like to think that I am more positive now, after reading a good number of those

 

On the issue of religion, there seem to be two camps among the crème de la crème of psychology, on the one side you have Tal Ben Shahar, Sonja Lyubomirsky & co https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-myths-of-happiness-by-sonja.html and on the other Nathaniel Branden and others

I used to be well established in the latter group, only I seem to be shifting now, Varieties of Religious Experience may help with that, just as other books by luminaries like Karen Armstrong – I am reading her The Case for God these weeks – CS Lewis and others, our very own Andrei Plesu would be another example

 

Walt Whitman https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2023/12/selections-from-leaves-of-grass-by-walt.html is analyzed in the first part of Varieties of Religious Experience – incidentally, I have not even finished the first part, but seeing that this is such a monumental magnum opus, literally and figuratively, it is time to put some views down

The fantastic poet was such a happy man, they say that he was never upset, was not bothered by criticism, had never had a negative word to say about anything, humans, birds, though he did not appear to have a partner – at least in this section here, surely, if we read his biography, we find more details on this

 

Walt Whitman has had a huge impact on our group, and among young people in general in our part of the world (in many regions, we can be sure) and he helped us survive in times of terror: under The Ceausescu regime, this excellent thespian, Florian Pittis, produced a show called The Poetry of The Music of The Young

He included songs from The Beatles and other great nads and Song of Myself https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/12/song-of-myself-by-walt-whitman-dazzling.html furthermore, in our small gang we had Norocel, someone on the autistic side, with an incredible memory, who knew Walt Whitman and so much more by heart

 

Ergo, we could hear this chef d’oeuvre quite often…on the other side of the religious versus atheism divide in psychology we have Nathaniel Branden https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/psychological-effects-of-religion-by.html the ultimate expert on self esteem

He argues that the Psychological Effects of Religion are horrible, the notion that you have this almighty figure watching everything you do, and then punishing the adult for the fact that the teenager had masturbated, and other such ‘sins’, is terrifying, then there is the loss of this (only?) life that we have, because of the (false?) conviction that there is heaven waiting at the end…

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence

Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

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