The Making of Religion

An excellent book that takes an almost Fortean approach to the anomalous incidents that decorate human existence. In each chapter, anecdotes and claims are presented, discussed and are usually supported by other sources. Such tales represent colourful accounts of mysterious incidents through a method of simply presenting them to the reader. Over the decades, this kind of subject matter has been a source of conflict with some dismissing it as over-active imaginations and others ascribing layers of meaning (religious and so forth) according to their cultural drives. Lang avoids these pitfalls and challenges the logic of these ideas throughout the book. For example, he describes several, referenced, accounts of poltergeist activities and apparitions and then discusses the explanations by researchers like Podmore and Tylor. As they put the purported experiences of 'savages' and 'half-imbeciles' down to 'sickness, exhaustion and terror,' Lang remarks how these emotional states are absent in the cases. He then raises questions of what would make 'savages' interpret experiences in ways different to the 'civilised' inhabitants of Europe and the US. By using Western examples of similar experiences, the late 19th Century reader is gently asked to look at their own prejudices. Time and technology moves on and we have different interpretations of some of the phenomena discussed in the book. Nevertheless, several remain unexplained, even today, and Lang's open approach and willingness to acknowledge them, without prejudice, is refreshing.