# Edwin Diller Starbuck — The Varieties of Religious Experience character guide

> Edwin Diller Starbuck in The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Professor Starbuck, Professor Starbuck of California, Starbuck, Dr. Starbuck, E. D. Starbuck, Edwin D. Starbuck

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

## Snapshot

The California psychologist whose questionnaires turned conversion into data, giving James hundreds of first-person accounts to sort, count, and quote.

## Who they are

Starbuck is James's silent collaborator — the man who asked ordinary people, mostly adolescents, to describe the exact moment their lives turned toward God, and then tabulated the answers. His method supplies the book's empirical spine: patterns of crisis, surrender, and sudden peace that recur too often to be dismissed as accident. James both relies on him and gently pushes past him, using the statistics as a floor from which to speculate about what such transformations actually mean.

## In the story

### [Lecture III: The Reality of the Unseen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/chapters/lecture-iii-the-reality-of-the-unseen)

Source of a manuscript collection from which James quotes a clergyman's experience of the divine.

### [Lectures IV and V: The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/chapters/lectures-iv-and-v-the-religion-of-healthy-mindedness)

His circular of questions provided the document quoted as an example of healthy-mindedness.

### [Lecture IX: Conversion](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/chapters/lecture-ix-conversion)

His statistical studies on conversion are cited, distinguishing between gradual and sudden conversions and the role of crisis.

### [Lecture X: Conversion—Concluded](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/chapters/lecture-x-conversion-concluded)

His statistical studies are referenced as supporting the view that conversion is akin to ordinary spiritual growth.

### [Endnotes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/chapters/endnotes)

Quoted for a case of purification by elimination and for his study of religious experiences.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/characters/edwin_starbuck
- 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