he calls the type of phenomena found in individual's accounts of their own experiences) precedes organized religion. As he notes, "the founders of every church owed their power originally to the fact of their direct personal contact with the divine" (35). Thus, while allowing that his definition is arbitrary and constructed for his present purposes, James defines religion in this context as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men [human beings] in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider
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