This work presents the first systemic account of the author's innovative theory of semiotic phenomenology and its place in the philosophy of communication and language. The creative and compelling project presented here spans more than fiifteen years of systematic eidetic and empirical research into questions of human communication. Using the thematics of Merleau-Ponty's existential phenomenology, the author explores the concepts and practices of the human sciences that are grounded in communication theory, information theory, language, logic, linguisitcs, and semioitcs. The hermeneutic discussion ranges over contemporary theories that include Roman Jakobson's phenomenological structuralism, the semiotics of Umberto Eco, Charles Pierce, and Alfred Schutz, the theory of speech acts offered by Jurgen Habermas and John Searle, and Michel Foucault's phenomenological rhetoric of discourse. In general, this highly developed study offers the reader a fresh account of the problematic issues in the philosophy of communication. It is a work that any scholar in communication, philosophy, linguistice, or social theory would welcome for its scope and sustained research.

(I) Existential Communication as Phenomenology: (1) Existential Communication; (2) The Apparent Antinomy of Existential Communication; (3) Communication as Existentialism; (4) Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy as Existential Communication; (II) Existential Phenomenology as Semiology: (1) The Cartesian Dualism: Semiotic Phenomenalism (Peirce, Morris, Ogden and Richards, Russell); (2) Dualistic Synthesis: Semiotic Existentialism (Jaspers, Heidegger, Sartre); (3) Semiotic as Existential Phenomenology (Barthes, Merleau-Ponty); (III) Perception: The Lived Body Experience: (1) The Primacy of Perception (Description); (2) Radical Reflection as Gestalt [Reduction]; (3) Radical Cogito [Interpretation]; (IV) Expression: Existential Phenomenology as Speaking: (1) Expression as Phenomena; (2) Langugae; (3) Tongue [Langue]; (4) Speaking [Parole]; (V) Introduction to the Prose of the World. Definitive Bibliography of Merleau-Ponty's work [Primary Sources] and commentaries [Secondary Sources] on it (in eight langugaes, including English).

William Wolf's book explores the diversity of theological development in the Anglican Communion by bringing together descriptions and analyses of three major Anglican thinkers'Hooker, Maurice, and Temple'to illustrate both historical development and breadth of range of what can be classified as 'Anglican' theology. Wolf concedes that there are many other theologians who might have been included; the Anglican Communion doesn't have a definitive person (apart from Jesus Christ)''the Anglican Communion sets aside no special authoritative place for a great reforming figure such as Luther or Calvin'' (p. 137) Wolf also states that 'the Communion has unfortunately produced no systematic theologians of the first rank.' (p. 137). That being said, the theological thoughts and development presented for Hooker, Maurice, and Temple illustrate the branching streams that feed Anglicanism today, a stream that continues to branch forward.

Richard Hooker
Hooker was alive and active as a theologian during a tumultuous period in the development of the Church of England as a distinct body. Politics entered into church affairs on a grand scale; the idea that church and state issues were one in the same was as strong in England in the sixteenth century as it ever was in any continental kingdom or empire. Religious tolerance was a new concept, imperfectly conceived; the idea that each kingdom must be united in religious practice was strong. Hooker was an active apologist for the Church of England, his main opponent being the Puritan factions. 'Hooker's magnum opus was addressed to Puritans who attacked the church of England in the name of a purer, more scriptural ecclesiastical settlement.' (p. 9)

F.D. Maurice
Maurice would agree with Hooker that prayer is social action. Working in the nineteenth century, Maurice was exposed to the social ills that befell England as an imperial power in simultaneous growth and decay. The situation in society was deteriorating. 'Maurice saw that this social breakdown was rooted in a theological breakdown.' (p. 50) Maurice was unique in that he lived a prophetic life (and, like many prophetic persons, was often disliked for his prophecy). He made 'Christology the starting point of all Christian theology and ethics' and made Christ the central focus of all he said and did. (p. 49) Maurice made the Gospel the centrepoint of his educational philosophy, as well as the call not for revolution, but for regeneration of English society upon a truly Christian foundation. (pp. 64-67)

Maurice's view of theology is, like Hooker and Temple, rooted firmly in the communal action of the Book of Common Prayer. 'The Prayer Book becomes the key for understanding the views of the Church of England on the six signs of the Catholic Church,' these six signs being baptism, creeds, forms of worship, eucharist, ordained ministry, and the Bible. (p. 61) This practical and tradition approach was in keeping with the general spirit of the English society. 'Maurice expressed both English empiricism against the conceptualism of continental thinkers and the Anglican's respect for historical institutions as points of departure for theological analysis.' (p. 72)

William Temple
Temple was, in the words of G.B. Shaw, 'a realised impossibility.' A man born and raised in the church, he rose to the position of Archbishop of Canterbury and made the broad church appeal for Anglicanism that renewed its spirit for the mid-twentieth century. 'The general tendency of his faith and theology was toward a more catholic or orthodox position. But this was always balanced by his concern for freedom in doctrine and by his generally liberal attitude of mind.' (p. 104) Temple saw an intimate connection with God through Jesus Christ, perhaps thinking in proto-process theological terms by believing that 'because of Jesus' perfect union and communion with God, it can be asserted that in him God has a real experience of human life, suffering and death.' (p. 112) For Temple, this communion and experience is worked out both individually and communally''the inner unity of complete personality and the outer unity of a perfected fellowship as wide as humanity.' (p. 117)

Temple felt it important to be open to new ideas and developments modernity (perhaps a reaction to having been raised in an era with the expectation of long-term stability and subsequently living in a world turned upside-down by warfare and other social change). Temple felt that freedom of churches and freedom of individuals for inquiry and development, with the guidance of the Spirit, was more important than a rigid adherence to tradition. 'Temple was quite open to the new truth and insights of the modern world and to the critical and constructive use of reason in Christian faith and life. this can be seen clearly in his commitment to philosophic truth.' (p. 133) This, coupled with his call to social action by the church and the working out of Christian faith in everyday life and action, made Temple a major ecumenical figure.

The Current Spirit of Anglicanism
A key word for the current spirit of Anglicanism is comprehensiveness. Anglicanism incorporates catholics and protestants, literalists and agnostics, high church, low church, broad church, in all ways these terms can be defined. 'The Anglican synthesis is the affirmation of a paradoxical unity, a prophetic intuition that Catholicism and Protestantism'are not ultimately irreconcilable.' (p. 143)

The current spirit of Anglicanism is largely based upon Scripture, tradition and reason, with definitions of these three varying a great deal. The authority of Scripture is important, but this does not mean a literalist view. The authority of tradition, best summed up by adherence to the Book of Common Prayer's liturgical forms, is locally adaptable. Reason is used to interpret both the authority of Scripture and of tradition, but must be held in restraint by these as well. 'The spirit of Anglicanism ought in its rich resources to find the wisdom to retain its identity and yet to develop through constructive change to meet the demands of the fast-approaching world of the twenty-first century.' (p. 187)

This book was great. I learned so much that I thought my head would explode. The Yellow kid is funny and I really enjoyed being able to see what the actual drawings looked like. I give it 5 stars.

loved this book as a child - and as an adult - the pictures (black & white sketches) are marvelous and remained with me for years.

Beautifully written tale of the last griffin who visits a town where his image-a statue- has been part of the old church for hundreds of years. The only person with enough courage to speak with the terrifying Griffin is the Minor Canon. The townsfolk are sure that the Griffin will eat their children. Their selfishness and small-mindedness leads them to a life they couldn't have imagined. A great fantasy in a very realistic world!

Bucke, in 1872, studying medicine in London, had a powerful, spontaneous mystic experience. Comparing the qualities of his experience to others in literature, he thought he saw a pattern: the experiences typically occurred mostly to men in their middle years, and were increasing in number with time. (In fact, one can imagine many ways in which all three trends could be statistical flukes; assertions of this kind are to a modern eye not justified by the evidence.)

Bucke leaped to the optimistic conclusion that humankind was evolving to a higher level of mental attainment, and that someday, instead of a favored few having sporadic flashes of Insight, all would possess Cosmic Consciousness all the time. In this book he tries to show that this one mind-state was the driver of great intellectual and moral attainments throughout history.

Bucke finds the image of his own experience in just about every spiritual and intellectual leader known to history. According to Bucke, the alternate state he calls Cosmic is, among other things, what Christ meant by "the kingom of heaven," what St. Paul meant whenever he referred to "Christ," what Dante referred to when he said "Beatrice," and the subject to whom Francis Bacon was writing when he composed the first 110 sonnets now incorrectly attributed to Shakespeare!

Although Bucke was highly educated in the science of his day, this book is in no way a work of science. Bucke is so avid about his hypothesis that he can't let any evidence stand on its own feet; he must select and interpret everything. Some of his interpretations are clearly over the top (the assertion that Paul meant "alternate state of consciousness" whenever he wrote "Christ" would cause most Biblical scholars to choke on their tea, yet it is put forward casually in a footnote), and those exaggerations make us suspicious of all his claims. He is guilty of circular argument: discussing his cases as a group, he claims to show that most who get Cosmic Consciousness, get it in their thirties or forties. Then when discussing each case alone, whenever he can find evidence that the person had some kind of experience in his middle years, he takes that age as evidence that the experience was Cosmic Consciousness! And he is poorly served by nineteenth-century science, as for example when he asserts that humankind only recently evolved color vision, based partly on a German philologist's claim that Sanskrit had no color words, or speculates that "low races" such as "the Bushmen of South Afrika" do not have the same level of consciousness as we Aryans.

In short, while Bucke's own two-paragraph account of his experience is quoted in William James' "Varieties of Religious Experience" and in almost every other book on mystical experience, his explanation for the experience, and the philosophical and historical theories he spins from it, are not of any use to a modern reader.

What is cosmic consciousness? Why does it happen? Who has possessed it? What does it mean? These are but a few questions Richard Maurice Bucke attempts to address in his book (first published in 1901): Cosmic Consciousness. After describing the evolution of consciousness in man from simple consciousness to self-consciousness and then cosmic consciousness, he touches upon the lives of fourteen individuals (all men - including Jesus, Buddha, Dante, Bacon and Whitman) who he believes experienced illumination, or cosmic consciousness, and draws common characteristics leading to and resulting from the experience.

His initial description of the movement from simple consciousness (conscious of the things you see but not conscious of yourself) to self-consciousness (conscious of what you see and aware that you are seeing it) has merit. His comparison of the overall evolution of consciousness to the growth of an individual from birth and when they acquire aspects of consciousness tended to give his ideas perspective.

However, his theory that the rapidly evolving Aryan people have more incidence of insanity due to this rapid mental growth or "very few would claim that the negro mind is advancing at anything like the same rate" smacks of racial prejudice and weakens the author's credibility. At a minimum, it dates an ageless subject. I also find it remarkable that he failed to find many examples of women who attained cosmic consciousness. What about Saint Teresa or Joan of Arc? They are not even dismissed.

Whether the details of each of his examples are entirely accurate is not as important as the list of common attributes that are part of or result from cosmic consciousness. Most would appear to make sense - the light, moral elevation, increased intelligence, sense of immortality, loss of fear of death, loss of sense of sin, the suddenness of the event, the age at the awakening, the resulting charisma and change in appearance of the person. These same characteristics reminded me of the stories of those who have had near death experiences. Many returned understanding universal truths, the oneness and eternity of life and the loss of fear of death. Many vowed to live life with purpose, service and love as a result of that experience. I wonder how Bucke would treat them?

Unfortunately, it is hard to give credence to the factors he finds in part VIII of the last chapter "that enter into and finally decide for illumination" especially when it comes to discussing the attributes of the mother and father. He hardly discussed the parents of his handpicked examples to warrant such conclusions. He appears to be making something out of nothing. Bucke certainly presents some cogent ideas but many of the details pale under the scrutiny of the modern mind.

Although now a century old, Dr. Bucke's volume is timeless because its topic is: the human quest for the experience of The Divine.

Written, not by a theologian but by an experiencer of the Ultimate Mystical Experience, this book describes Bucke's own few seconds of illumination, then goes on to show commonalities among the experiences of the ancient (Lao Tse, Buddha, Christ, Paul, Muhammad, etc.), medieval-renaissance (Dante, Shakespeare, etc.), and modern (Ramakrishna, Whitman, etc). The intellectual credentials of this neurologist cause Bucke's work to stand head-and-shoulders above popular "New Age" mystic reports.

Be sure not to miss Bucke's description of his own experience (humbly buried in introductory notes), and don't get bored by reading his analytical sections on the nature of consciousness. Dive into the excerpts of how writers have struggled through the ages to express their inexpressible experiences of Divine Love, Brahmic Ecstasy, Rapture... variously named in different times and cultures.

Although women are under-represented (naturally, since for millenia they've largely been barred from authorship), some of the most movingly personal experiences are those near the end of the volume by three 19th Century women.

The power of this gem stems from its first-hand reports of enlightenment - with its unpredictable, highly personal expressions. You'll find God experienced here not as an anthropomorphic Jehovah, but as a living Presence; not sterilized by intellectual analysis, but revered in Its humanity-divinity. Most helpfully, Bucke shows the parallels between different saints/illuminati/authors in their experiences and in their ways of describing it.

I tell my students that if they were to be sentenced to live out the rest of their lives on a desert island with only five books: Make this one of the five!

Making a Diffence was a fresh perspective on behavioral intervention for children with autism. As a speech/language pathologist who spends six days each week working with this population, I found the material helpful and informative. It fills in many of the gaps that mosts texts leave out such feeding issues and incidental teaching. I appreciated the chapters on peer social skills and suggestions for programs to facilitate social interaction. Margery Rappaport's chapter 'Notes From the Speech Pathologist's Office' is a wonderful illustration of how the disciplines of speech/language pathology and ABA can work together to address the communication deficits of the children. I will refer to this book when working directly with the children, their parents and other professionals.

I bought this book after my 3 year old son was diagnosed with PDD and I was determined to do SOMETHING for him while we were awaiting his enrollment in school. Utilizing the information allowed me to face the diagnosis head on, rather than be afraid of the uncertainly I initially felt about raising an autistic child. Within a month of putting selected sections of the book into practice, friends who had not seen us during that time were amazed at the changes in my son and thought he must be receiving formal therapy. After a year in Special Ed, plus related therapeutic services, my son tested in the non-autistic range. I believe this book was the first stepping stone - allowing me to help my son "learn" how to learn. While ABA is not the only treatment for autism, those who wish to implement it will find this book an indispensible addition to their libraries.

Making a Difference is the latest in the very powerful series of books on the autistic-spectrum disorders spearheaded by Catherine Maurice. As before, this family of disorders is addressed straight-on. The need for empircally-validated treatments is explained and real-life instruction is provided. The chapter on speech is as good as I've seen.

I found it as a good book, altough I dont know anything in the matter, it is a short book that many people should read, it is informative and talks about Freud's more important works, as well as a little about his life and background.

Illustrations are good and keep you entertained.

Although this book does not give a full account of Freud's works and theories, it does give a credible attempt at looking at the life, works and influences of his works. Starting out with a biography of Dr. Frued, the family affair, the education, as well as his associates. Soon looking in to the psychological theories of his works. His relationship and hardship with Dr. Carl Jung, and so many of the followers Freud had, lost and kept in his battle of Judaism and Nazism. Well accounted, fun and easy to read which makes the learning fun and easy as well. Reccomended to anyone curious about Freud without beign bogged down with technical and scholarly works. This is a good companion to Jung and Adler for Beginners. One can't also neglect "A Primer for Freudian Psychology."

"Our dreams are a second life."-Gerard de Nerval
"Dream---a scintillating mirage surrounded by shadows---is essentially poetry."-Michel Leiris

Michel Leiris' "Nights as Day, Days as Night": In the introduction to Leiris' forty year collection of dreams, Maurice Blanchot asks, "Who dreams in dreams? Who is the "I" of dreams? Who is the person to whom this "I" is attributed, admitting that there is one? Between the person who is sleeping and the person who is the subject of dream events there is a fissure..." The dislocation which seems to be the source of who exactly we are in dreams may spring from the fact that in our dreams everything takes on an almost theatrical aspect, sometimes we are spectator & sometimes we are actor, other times we are a combination of the two. One of Leiris earliest poetic mentors was Max Jacob, & two of the dreams related in the book involve him. In fact the manner in which Leiris records some of his dreams are reminiscent of certain of Max Jacob's prose poems. The following one by Jacob, "Literary Standards" would not be out of place in Leiris' book: "A dealer in Havana sent me a cigar wrapped in gold which had been smoked a little. The poets sitting with me said he'd done it to mock me, but the old Chinese who was our host said it was the custom in Havana when one wished to show great honor. I brought out two magnificent poems a scholar friend had written down translations of for me because I admired them when I heard them read. The poets said they were well-known and worthless. The old Chinese said they couldn't have known the poems because they only existed in a single manuscript copy in Pehlvi, a language they didn't know. Then the poets started laughing loudly like children while the old Chinese gazed at us sadly." As Blanchot stated in the introduction, "These were once dreams; they are now signs of poetry."

The greatest of the recorded events to be found in Leiris' book are the pages dedicated to dream elements overflowing into his waking life, communicating vessels. In the page dated May 4, 1943 Leiris describes a middle-aged man lurking around who seems to be nightmarishly fake, "A real cop or a mere civilian? Or nobody in particular? I asked myself the question but could not resist considering this shady character to be some sort of specter or macabre merrymaker who, having donned a terrifyingly contemporary disguise, was waiting for some shadowy carnival to begin."

In a few of the recorded dreams he notes that he realized he was dreaming & tried to wake himself up, he tells us it is usually by falling. This is a common dream phenomenon, & it may appear to be simple. We are having a nightmare, realize it is a dream, & then struggle to wake up. The interesting thing though is that it is usually after the realization we are having a dream that things in our dream become even more concrete & real, it is not just about waking up, it is almost as though we are trying to cheat death. Leiris records something similar which Blanchot called a turning back upon himself, "A movement anologous to the one that often tends to elicit similar screams from me just as I am about to awake. But in this case the movement was considerably more frightening; instead of those interminable pangs one experiences when emerging with difficulty from a dream, I was in a sense being precipitated downward by my dream, plunged into a sleep from which I would never escape, and which would be my death."

This book, first published in 1961, is commonly considered to be a companion to Leiris' great autoethnographic work, _Manhood_. It is simply a collection of recorded dreams spanning a couple decades. Beyond the fact that Leiris' dreams are interesting, what adds value to the work is that is that it's historical and biographical context can be reconstructed through Leiris' other work. Highly recommended for those interested in Leiris, surrealism, or the social network surrounding Georges Bataille.

All those years in French class, and whodda thought rules are for fools? If yer gonna speak French, ya gotta get this book!