William James (1842–1910) was an American psychologist and philosopher and one of the most popular thinkers of the nineteenth century. He is the author of many works, including his monumental The Principles of Psychology (1890), Human Immortality (1898), and The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902).Gordon W. Allport (1897–1967) was one of the first psychologists to study personality, and also researched human attitudes, prejudices, and religious beliefs. He is the author of Personality (1937), The Individual and His Religion (1950), and The Nature of Prejudice (1954).

"This book . . . was originally published in 1892 by Holt and republished by Harper in 1961. A durable classic in the field, it is developed on the structure of seventeen definitive chapters treating cryptic themes such as Habit, Stream of Consciousness, The Self, Attention, Conception, Discrimination, Association, Memory, Imagination, Perception, Reasoning, Emotion, Instinct, Will, and the like. . . . Today . . . it is still eminently readable scholarship." —Journal of Psychology and Christianity"The re-publication of James's work written in 1892 is a testimony to his monumental importance in the field of psychology. The work, a brief of his larger work, Principles of Psychology, illustrates to the modern mind how far we have come in returning to some of James's insights." —Studies in Formative Spirituality