The Devil is a Gentleman

Hallman first read William James's seminal book The Varieties of Religious Experience in college. The book's adventurous spirit and its compassionate take on the world of believers returned to him years later when, on a whim, he visited the Unarius Academy of Science, a UFO group in California, on the occasion of a failed prophecy. It was the beginning of an intellectual apprenticeship in which Hallman adopted James as patron and took him along on journeys to a variety of modern religious experiences.

The book visits Druids, Christian Wrestlers, Monks, Satanists, Atheists, and more, but is also a treatment of William James, whose combination of liberal thought and sympathy for religious expression makes him an appropriate sounding board for the state of modern spirituality.

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