20th Century Psychology of Religion

William James was another great figure in the discipline of Psychology of Religion. He stressed that human nature cannot be understood unless the religious element is taken into consideration.. He wrote a classic on the discipline, 'Varieties of Religious Expeiences' in 1902. This work served as model and it still serves as religious classic. Some of the topics included in 'Varieties of Religious Experiences' are, the experience of well being or of conflict in human response to God, the experience of religious conversion and of saintliness and mysticism.

Two years later Stanley Hall published a book 'Adolescence' (1904). In his work Hall studied how the notion of God and the moral sense developed among youth. And in 1910, the social aspects and anthropological development of religion were stressed by Irving King and E.S. Ames. They wrote 'The development of Religion' and 'ThePsychology of Religious Experience' respectively.

There were also contributions from French sociologists like Emile Durkheim, Levy Brhul, Hubert and Maurs.