Searching in the syntax of things;: Experiments in the study of religion

by Maurice S. Friedman

Book by Friedman, Maurice S

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

Reviews

[Debra Leigh Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a long-time student of religions and spiritual practices, I recommend this book, which I first encountered as an undergraduate student. It remains on my shelf, and is something I revisit -- because who among us doesn't continue searching, through life, for deeper meaning and greater understanding? Two of its authors, Thomas Burke and Samuel Laeuchli, had been my own professors. Sam Laeuchli was an essential part of life for many years - a mentor beyond compare. He had studied and worked with Joseph Campbell and other scholars of mythology, had been a scholar of Patristics and the Desert Fathers, and had come to the interdisciplinary study of arts and spirituality (which has long been among my own areas of special consideration) while I was a student studying with him. Thomas Burke was a more traditional historian of religion, whose perspective, as a former monk, was a bit more staid and conservative. Both of them provide invaluable perspective on what we, in new age parlance, often call the "search for meaning" -- but it is a phrase that began long ago, and it is a practice that is as old as the human species, I think.