EHE Book Reviews

Human Development/Consciousness Evolution ,Self; Evolution Record Type: Review ID: 267
On Losing the Soul: Essays in the Social Psychology of Religion Fenn, Richard K., & Capps, Donald (Eds.).
The primary aim of this anthology is "to recover professional discourse on the soul" (p. 11). Various definitions of soul are offered and defended. Sociological definitions are both drawn upon and criticized for not going far enough. In this book "soul" is used "as an end-term: a word that comes at the end of a series of terms like the individual, individuality, the person, personality, self, selfhood, and even beyond the inner or essential self. The soul represents a hypothetical point in the individual’s subjectivity: the point from which it is possible to become aware of an essential self or of its possible loss or corruption" (p. 2). There are four parts, the first on Soul-Loss and Retrieval (2 chapters), the second on Abuse and Soul-Loss (2 chapters), and the third Professional Discourse Without Soul (3 chapters), and the last Soul-Loss; the Decadence of Ritual, and Play (3 chapters). Ideas from sociology, anthropology, and psychology are interwoven in the text.
Publisher Information:	Albany: State University of NY Press, 1995. Chap. bibl; Ind: 245-249

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On Losing the Soul: Essays in the Social Psychology of Religion