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The American Encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912: Victorian Culture and the Limits of Dissent, by Thomas A. Tweed. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992. Pp. 242.

This book should be available in all university libraries for use in graduate courses on the sociology of religion and religious studies. It is a model of clarity in the application of social scientific ideas to historical analysis of one "discourse community," in this case a loose network of Americans interested in Buddhism when it was first becoming well-known in the West as a separate religion. Based on a doctoral dissertation at Stanford (directed by William Hutchison of Harvard), it is relevant not only to the study of varieties of North American Buddhism but also to deeper understanding of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era in American history. Tweed has made a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the complexities of Buddhist doctrines and to the study of the reception of religious ideas by leading representatives of American culture during "the Victorian period" (1844-1912). (His work takes up the historical narrative where George H. Williams' work ends.) The book represents a highly skilled social historical analysis of American encounters with Buddhism. It is valuable in part because we are also given in-depth analysis of changing religious beliefs among American Protestants. Theological concerns which are no longer widely discussed in the pluralist 1990s were still very significant in terms of the "limits of dissent" in the 1890s. In several chapters Tweed makes the appeal of Buddhism to turn of the century Americans clear while also presenting the nuances of the subtle re-interpretation to which various kinds of Buddhism were subject. For example, Buddhism was interpreted as highly being tolerant, with a clear ethical dimension and a high degree of compatibility with natural science. At the turn of the century Protestant establishment values were still dominant and Tweed's book tell us as much about subtle changes in Protestantisms as the conversion of Americans to Buddhism.

The third chapter is particularly interesting for social scientists because it presents a useful Weberian-style typology of "Euro-American Buddhist sympathizers and adherents." While the typology is used to analyze turn of the century Buddhists in America it could probably also be applied to other time periods and communities. The three ideal type categories are: esoterics, rationalists and romantics. The esoteric type was characterized by belief in occult and hidden sources of religious truth. Esoteric Buddhists tended to be female, rural and spiritually eclectic. Names associated with the Esoteric tendency include Henry Steel Olcott, Sister Sanghamitta (Marie deSouza Canavarro) and Philangi Dasa (Herman C. Vetterling). Rationalist Buddhists, on the other hand, tended to be male, urban amd "scientific." They also tended to be influenced by Voltaire, Hume and other representatives of the European Enlightenment, as well as Spencerian evolutionism and the positivism of Auguste Comte. Moncure Daniel Conway, Eleanor Hiestand Moore and Dyer Daniel Lum are rationalists of this type. Most famous, however, is Paul Carus, who was one of the writers who was most infuential in stimulating American interest in Buddhism. Carus advocated applying reason and scientific thought to define the true essence of religion. Carus' Gospel of Buddha (1894) offered a Buddhism freed from dogmatic accretions. The third type of Buddhist, the romantics, like the rationalists, rejected the mysticism of the esoteric perspective. Nevertheless they were attracted to the exotic and distant apects of Buddhism, placing special emphasis on Buddhist national groups and high cultural forms -- art, architecture, music, drama, customs, languages and literatures. Ernest Fenollosa, a curator of the Department of Oriental Art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, who made two extended visits to East Asia, is an example of this type.

Tweed's use of Weber's ideal type approach is careful and accurate. He points out, for example, that in addition to pure types there were also mixed types. Of course, almost every individual expressed tendencies of more than one type from time to time. Some, like Lafcadio Hearn, author of twelve books on Japan, evidenced parallels with both romantic and rationalist viewpoints. Other Buddhist advocates, like Joseph Wade, exhibited elements of both the esoteric and romantic types. And, in the writings of others like Dr. Eleanor M. Hierstand Moore, esoterism and rationalism overlapped.

Regardless of their emphasis within Buddhism most American sympathizers tended to reject aspects of the dominant social, political, cultural and economic patterns of life in the U.S. in their day, while upholding other aspects. The Buddhists could draw on traditions of social dissent from a number of marginal spiritual groups. Some of the most popular and effective protests were linked directly with the Protestant mainstream. But Buddhists tended to be in the forefront of struggles for changes in dietary habits, medical practices, ethnic relations and gender roles. Buddhists, for example, tended to reject the Victorian cult of true womanhood, with its emphasis on a subservient female gender role, as bounded by the nursery and the kitchen.

Americans came to Buddhism In a variety of ways. William Sturgis Bigelow, a Harvard educated, wealthy and influential friend of Henry Cabot Lodge and Thedore Roosevelt, was attracted by the aesthetic beauty of the Tendai and Shingon symbols, art and rituals. He also had an intense and enduring affection for his teacher, Sakurai. The charisma of an Asian teacher, Dharmapala from Ceylon, also played a role in Marie Canavarro's interest in Buddhism. Her spiritual journey had led her from Roman Catholicism to Theosophy, Theravada Buddhism, Baha'i and finally Vedanta Hinduism. Some converts, however, were not drawn to a specific teacher but were intrigued by Buddhism simply on the basis of an intellectual encounter.

To explain conversion Tweed first rejects theories which emphasize deprivation, brainwashing, developmental stages and social roles. Instead, he adopts a new model, based on a modification of the "interactionist" model proposed by John Lofland and Rodney Stark in their study of the Unification Church of the Reverand Sun Myung Moon. The potential convert experiences some kind of personal spiritual crisis and is inclined to seek a solution by membership in a religious community. Potential Buddhists required the time, money and skill to pursue an alternative religious option. Many felt that in an era of spritual crisis Protestant inclusiveness and intolerance made it necessary to searh for other options. Buddhist apologists tended to portray Buddhism in ways which suited their own romantic, esoteric, or rationalist motivations.

Rodney Stark has argued that there are several conditions that must be met for a religious movement to be successful. For example, the religion must retain cultural continuity with the conventional faith. Also, the new religion must be different enough from the surrounding culture, but not too different! In this regard American Buddhists wanted dissent. but not too much dissent! They were as much "cultural consenters" as they were dissenters. Thus, they tended to paint a picture of Buddhism which did not contrast sharply with mainstream values like laissez faire capitalism, individualism, optimism, activism, pragmatism and democracy. For example, Hearn, Carus and others argued that Buddhist cosmology harmonized well with the "scientific" worldview, as represented by Spencerian evolutionism. Various apologists have rejected most of the negative interpretations of Buddhism. On the other hand, some Christian theologians, notably Reinhold Niehbuhr, have been critical of the tendency to downplay the gloomy and world-rejecting "dualistic mysticism" often held to be an aspect of Buddhism.

This study delineates the cultural restraints on religious dissent in the U.S. at the turn of the century. Tweed mentions at the end, in a tantalizing manner, that twentieth century converts have tended to repeat the same general patterns found in his analysis of conversion in the Gilded Age. His thorough research and careful analysis make that claim credible. It is to be hoped that he will continue his work for the period after World War I, supplementing Rick Field's How the Swans Came to the Lake (1986) with a more social scientific and analytical account of recent personalities and events.

J. I. (Hans) Bakker