MEPHISTOPHELES AND THE ANDROGYNE: Studies in Religious Myth and Symbol

The essays collected in this work are intended to illustrate the progress being made, in the history of religion, in explaining certain religious practices and spiritual values of non-Europeans. The first section of the book examines mystic experiences in various parts of the world in modern times, from America to the Far East; the second studies the symbolism, in literature and in mystical experience, of the devil and of ""diabolical"" and ""divine"" androgyny; the third part considers the subject of eschatological renewal as myth and symbol, and the fourth attempts to place in their proper perspective such ""mystic"" phenomena as are accomplished in some of the non-European civilizations -- e.g., the ""Indian rope trick."" A concluding section synthesizes the observations and conclusions of the preceding chapters. Mephistopheles and the Androgyne, while its field of study is, properly speaking, religion, is a book that will be of basic interest to those versed in literary criticism, in Jungian psychology, and in the scientific aspects of comparative religious studies. It is therefore to be commended to the scholar and to the proficient amateur, rather than to the general reader, as an interesting, though perhaps too diversified, survey of the role of myth and symbol in religion.