E. E. Kellett

A survey of the world's major religions (and some minor ones) written for an early 20th century English Christian audience, likely Anglican. Informative but somewhat lacking, especially in Eastern religions. Remember this was before the broad flowering of the New Age spirituality, and the lower trunk of Spiritualism and Theosophy are the closest you will get to that in this book. Some religions are dealt with in greater detail than others, particularly Judaism and early Christianity. All of the Far Eastern traditions are compressed into one chapter of 19 measly pages.

The mindset is still post-Victorian, with all the social baggage that comes with that, but there is still much of worth here. The author is much fairer in his treatment than I would have thought. Beware of some untranslated Latin, and the author assumes you have a good grasp of English history from the 18th century on.

The most interesting piece of information I gained from this work was that Aphrodite had her own mystery tradition, with secret rites and initiations. Of course I've now ordered all five volumes of Farnell's The Cults of the Greek States… (more)