It was precisely here that I was surprised by a flood of books originally belonging to Professor Thomas F. O’Dea, a scholar of sociology of religions at the Institute of Religious Studies at the University of Santa Barbara in California, where Raimundo had also taught. O’Dea and Panikkar knew each other, but their association lasted only a short time because, Thomas, suffering from Hodgkins lymphoma, died in November of 1974.
