# Alphonse Ratisbonne — The Varieties of Religious Experience character guide

> Alphonse Ratisbonne in The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** M. Alphonse Ratisbonne, M. Ratisbonne, Alphonse, Ratisbonne

**First appearance:** 0012-lecture-ix-conversion

## Snapshot

A skeptical young French Jew who walked into a Roman church and emerged, minutes later, a Catholic — James's cleanest case of sudden, involuntary conversion.

## Who they are

Ratisbonne had no interest in Christianity and reportedly wore a miraculous medal only to mock a friend's piety; then, in the church of Sant'Andrea delle Fratte, he was seized by a vision he could neither explain nor resist. James uses the episode to probe the borderland between psychology and grace — whether such instantaneous upheavals are pathology, suggestion, or something the categories of either cannot hold. Ratisbonne's later life as a priest and missionary to Jews makes his case, for James, both a puzzle and a proof of religion's power to reorganize a personality from the root.

## Relationships

### [William James](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/characters/william_james)

_psychological_

James recounts Ratisbonne's sudden and dramatic conversion experience to illustrate the power of divine grace in a skeptical mind.

### [William James](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/characters/william_james)

_psychological_

James recounts Ratisbonne's sudden and dramatic conversion experience to illustrate the power of divine grace in a skeptical mind.

### [William James](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/characters/william_james)

_psychological_

James recounts Ratisbonne's sudden and dramatic conversion experience to illustrate the power of divine grace in a skeptical mind.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/characters/alphonse_ratisbonne
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/characters