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Of its kind, this is an excellent book: a comprehensive and authoritative discussion not alone of mysticism, which is defined in the Preface as 'the art of inner adjustment by which man approaches the universe as a whole, instead of its particular parts', but of religion in general. It is also a defense; for, according to the author, the highest religion, which 'has kept alive in society a faith in certain ultimate values that has also guaranteed social development towards higher levels', is today labeled mysticism and 'shares with magic, myth, and miracle a common disrepute'. But in spite of its undoubted merits within its field, the psychoanalytically oriented reader will be unable to regard the book otherwise than as Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, for despite its inclusions he will be even more aware of its omissions, even though the latter are of a nature wholly to be expected.
There are three references to Freud or to psychoanalysis; in these the author shows himself rather less well-informed than is otherwise his wont. 'The conviction has gained ground that mysticism, which is the soul of living religion, implies aberration rather than normal growth of personality… Thus, from Ribot to Freud and Leuba, what is for the most part religious aberration or mania has been examined, though not without sympathy, and the result has been that religion itself is discredited or regarded as illusory.' Again, voicing anew a well-worn misapprehension: 'The rôle of religion is underestimated further by a group of thinkers of the Psycho-Analytic school, who regard religion as a purely subjective thing, an outcome of an infantile projection of consciousness, surviving simply because it meets certain elementary tendencies of human nature [as assuredly it does: 'The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want'—'O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?' etc., etc.]. Such an analysis, which has sometimes been carried to extremes, is defective because it