Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry
Cover of the 2011 Barfield Press edition
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| Author | Owen Barfield |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Subject |
Consciousness Philosophy of science Philosophy of mind Religion and science |
| Publisher | Wesleyan, Barfield Press |
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Publication date
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1957 |
| Media type | Paperback, Hardcover |
| Pages | 191 (Wesleyan ed.) |
| ISBN | |
| 126 | |
| LC Class | BL240.2.B38 1988 |
| Preceded by | This Ever Diverse Pair (1950) |
| Followed by | Worlds Apart: A Dialogue of the 1960s (1963) |
Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry, a book by British philosopher Owen Barfield, is concerned with physics, the evolution of consciousness, pre-history, ancient Greece, ancient Israel, the medieval period, the scientific revolution, Christianity, Romanticism, and much else. The book was Barfield's favorite of those he authored, and the one that he most wanted to continue to be read.
It was first published in England in 1957, and it was first issued in paperback in the United States in 1965. According to Barfield, the book enjoyed a far greater reception by the public in North America—particularly in the United States, where Barfield often accepted invitations to lecture—than it did in England.
The book explores approximately three thousand years of history — particularly the history of human consciousness in relation to that which precedes or underlies the world of perception or phenomena. Given the vast field considered by the book, it is incredibly concise and brief, about two hundred pages.
Barfield describes the growth of human consciousness as an interaction with nature, leading the reader to a fresh understanding of man's history, circumstances, and destiny. Saving the Appearances has in common with some thoughts of Teilhard de Chardin the understanding of idols as appearances having nothing within. "[A] representation, which is collectively mistaken for an ultimate – ought not to be called a representation. It is an idol. Thus the phenomena themselves are idols, when they are imagined as enjoying that independence of human perception which can in fact only pertain to the unrepresented."
Saving the Appearances is regarded by Philip Zaleski as being among the 100 most prominent spiritual books of the twentieth century. Theologian Thomas J. J. Altizer said of the work, "I believe that this book is potentially one of the truly seminal works of our time." When the editors of The American Scholar asked noted classicist Norman O. Brown to identify the book published in the last decade which he found himself going back most often to, he responded, "I want to name Owen Barfield’s Saving the Appearances".C.S. Lewis referred to Barfield as "the wisest and best of my unofficial teachers."
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