John Tyerman Williams (1920–2016)

At first I was not at all impressed by this book, but as I read it I appreciated it for two reasons.

Firstly it taught me about the roots of a good selection of mystery religions and the connections between them. It did this in the best way, with humour.

Secondly it illustrated very clearly the way in which meaning can be read into texts when it is not there. For somebody who, as a Christian minister, spends a fair amount of time aiming to discern the meaning in texts and applying them to life, this was a salutary caution.… (more)

Psychotherapy was a surprisingly good choice of topic for a Pooh spin-off book. Pooh's friends (and Pooh himself, too) are all distinct charicatures, and their traits can be seen as mental disorders. The Pooh stories are also very educational, and the learned lessons are like therapy sessions.

The book is very much like Williams' previous ones. The presented bits of psychology are scattered and they're chosen just to nitpick on some minuscule detail in the Pooh books. You can't get any sort of overview on the field by reading this. Some of the cases (especially Owl's) are boring to read, it's as if Williams had run out of material. And of course the mantra of Pooh's superiority is repeated again and again and "we are stunned by the blindness of previous 'ursinologists'".… (more)

Upon reading the Pooh books, I did observe the philosophical and thouhtful touch of the writing, so I find this kind of an homage very appropriate. But this shouldn't be taken too seriously, since with enough effort, one can find any hidden meanings in just about anything. Also, the original thoughts of the chosen philosophers aren't made that clear, so some background in the history of philosophy is needed to fully appreciate this.

The most interesting parts to me were Wittgenstein's and Heidegger's thoughts on language. On the other hand, I don't understand any of Hegel's work, so I couldn't enjoy his part here either.… (more)