________________ 86 REVIEWS tree had, according to him, two circles of meaning, an outer circle of ritual and public myth, and an inner circle of esoteric meaning with a background of shamanist ecstasy and the practice of yoga (p. 200f.). The author's main concern is, accordingly, to reveal this "deeper meaning" (p. 80), the "true nature" (p. 172), the "ultimate significance" (p. 176), the "inner nature" (p. 226) of this cosmic symbol and of many myths connected with it. The book focusses on Ancient Greece and the world of the Eastern Semites, where an explanation for the spiritual background of Greek religious concepts is sought. Much use, however, is made of the doctrine of the Indian KundaliniYoga, which in the author's opinion has its origin, more likely than not, in Western Asia (p. 197). The method of this book can be defined as "comparison" and "interpretation" (Deutung), and its character is, accordingly, entirely different from, e.g., The Tree of Life by E. O. James (Leiden, 1966), whose sub-title, An Archaeological Study, clearly indicates its divergent approach. An analysis of myths and archaeological finds (particularly seals) from Mesopotamia, which the author interprets in the light of what is known about shamanist religions in Siberia and Indian Yoga, leads him to explain the mountain and the Tree of Life as having originally been symbols of forms of supernatural or ecstatic discipline and experience. In the course of time, however, they became symbols of kingship and, as a result of this, the ecstatic discipline dwindled away (p. 148). The epic of Gilgamesh is held to be a story of paradise lost: Gilgamesh, by taking upon himself the Sumerian kingship, abandons the ecstatic experience of immortality for the secular duties of the ruler. Quite apart from the question whether this interpretation is correct or not, the reader cannot help wondering if the general approach of this book does not reflect, in this rather negative appreciation of worldly power, something of the mental atmosphere of the Western world in 1970. Every period is necessarily sharp-sighted (and accordingly blinded) in its own way. Anyway, this book contains a wealth of interesting material and even more interesting conclusions. Since, however, the major part of the material discussed by Butterworth is taken from fields which are not covered by this journal and which lie outside the competence of this reviewer, the latter can only confine himself to some marginal notes on the author's method, which cannot fail sometimes to provoke serious objections. 2. In the last half century or so, after an age of unsystematic comparison of religions, scholars have come to tealise that every religion should first and foremost be studied in the context of the particular culture of which it forms part. On the basis of such analyses there is, of course, ample scope for comparative studies. A return, however, to the wild guess-work which once brought "comparative religion" into disrepute would obviously threaten the scholarly character of these studies. It may be true that interpretation (Deutung) belongs to the very nature of the Geisteswissenschaften but this fact, far from being an excuse for subjective handling of the material, should rather be an earnest warning against the drawing of any ill-founded conclusion. The search for a deeper meaning, if not pursued with the utmost circumspection and a flawless method, runs the risk of being little more than a mere projection of the author's mental make-up on the ancient symbols. It is, indeed, the basic methodological weakness of the so-called humaniora that in this field the truth of a statement cannot be verified by an experiment and that many interpretations are inevitably arbitrary since they can be neither proved nor disproved. No reader of this book, whatever his admiration for the vistas it opens up, can be blind to the fact that many interpretations are mere suggestions, which are insufficiently based on facts. It is readily admitted that without some intuitive insight and empathy no results of material importance can be attained. Far too often, however, the reader meets with phrases like the following (italics mine): "It is clear in the light of the symbolism of tree and serpent, that in these stories Garuda represents the flight of the
