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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
High utility, especially for the undergraduate, July 3, 2007
This review is from: Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World's Beliefs (Paperback)
As noted by other (negative) reviewers is true that Smart's system is a product of the 1950s. However, that does not mean it lacks utility. He presents a useful system for performing an taxonomy of a religious phenomenon. His system however is not related to the History of Religions. His is a phenomenological approach not an historical one. He generally looks at things from a synchronic rather than diachronic perspective. His basic taxonomy has seven axes: Mythical - religions have narratives Ritual - religions feature ritual performances Doctrine - religions feature theology Ethical - religions feature rules for regulating the affairs of men Social - religions feature institutions Experiential - they normally feature an encounter with some notion of the divine or mystical encounter Material - (this was added from his original system of 6) religions produce material works like art and architecture His addition of a Political dimension in this book is somewhat banal, poorly developed and could have been subsumed under the Social dimension. My main beef with Smart was his continual effort to fit non-religious ideologies into a religious framework - i.e., Marxism. It is true that he has passed out of favor among most academics, who have gravitated to either psychological, structuralist or post-structuralist interpretations of religions. In the case of psychological interpretations, the scholarship ultimately explores Myth, Ritual, and the Experiential dimensions well, but neglects other dimensions. The structuralists and post-structuralists suffer from the blindness that not everything can be interpreted as a text. Smart does write in a very fluid poetic style that comes across as not very academic, thus leading to the denigration of his work by those that choose to live in a world of specialized jargon. If his writing does have a fault, it is that he does not structure paragraphs well, it is hard to tell what the point is at times. Understanding the theory of the academic study of religion, the new student is well served to start with Smart and Geertz. The Introduction to Smart's The Religious Experience of Mankind covers the same material as this volume (leaving out the Material Dimension, thus 6 dimensions) in much shorter space, and Clifford Geertz's, The Interpretation of Culture has a number of key chapters on religion that are well worth reading.
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16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Reflects an already-refuted understanding of "Religion", February 18, 1999
Smart's book is a summation of his work as a subscriber to the morphological/Eliade branch of the "Chicago School" of Religious Studies, also called "Religionswissenschaft" or History of Religions. He divides religion into "Theistic" and "Non-Theistic" and then proceeds to identify, buffet-style, bits and pieces of different religions as fitting into his schema, with little attention to the particular historical, and social contexts involved. The discussion on Magic, Mysticism, and Heresy are especially banal. Smart either ignores or refuses to engage much of the scholarship of the last 100 years, presenting theories of magic and heresy that have long since been refuted. The discussion on mysticism is only marginally better, only half-heartingly engaging post-Steven Katz work on mysticism and mystical experience. You won't find any of the work of Francis Yates, Ioan Couliano, Walter Bauer, Bruce Janz or anyone else who has brought the fields of magic, mysticism and heresy out of Protestant Dogma. Smart's Episcopalianism shows through with little attempt to hide it, or openly acknowledge it as a prejudice. Read this book if you want to find out the way that religion scholarship was up to the 1950's. Don't read it if you want a serious engagement with contemporary approaches to religion. For a better approach to the same general topic, try reading Joseph Kitagawa's book, "The History of Religions."
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5 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
I agree, basically, with Christopher Chase, August 2, 2001
This review is from: Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World's Beliefs (Paperback)
I found this book nearly impossible to read. I don't think Smart's opinions are as passe as the other reviewer did, though they would have been uncontroversial so long ago. Smart's basic concern seems to be to avoid any kind of controversy. His perspectives are so mundane that they're boring. Further, his train of thought often amounts to hesitant implications rather than arguments. I think he misunderstands Theravada Buddhism very badly. I wouldn't have thought he was in Eliade's tradition. I've read a lot of Eliade books, but I don't know why the other reviewer said that he was. At any rate, Eliade's books are all much better than this. In short, I can't imagine why anyone would want to read this book. Instead, I recommend books by Mircea Eliade, Huston Smith, Solomon Nigosian, William James, Karen Armstrong, Evelyn Underhill, Levi-Strauss, Rudolph Otto, Mary Douglas, Clifford Geertz... nearly anyone...
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