He Wrote the Book on American Religions

After all, Melton is the author of the Encyclopedia of American Religions, the Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology and the Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena.

Then, for fun, there's "The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead."

"It's my little niche," Melton said.

Actually, it's a big niche.

Erudite and eternally curious, Melton, 64, is one of the nation's foremost authorities on religion (and vampires too, but more on that later). The research specialist with the department of religious studies at UC Santa Barbara has written 30 books and co-written or edited 17 more, all of which are expansive and eclectic, and weave a colorful and diverse history of the currents of spiritual worship and tensions around the world.

Sauntering through the aisles of his collection of 40,000 volumes, now housed at UC Santa Barbara, he tried to explain his need to classify religions, the myriad ways people recognize a higher power.

"In 1900 there were 330 different religious groups," he said. "Now, there are over 2,000, and I find every one of them incredibly interesting."

Melton speaks sparingly about his personal life, but his rigorously documented books reflect a mind never at rest.

Ask him about, say, the West African evangelical missionary leader Panya Baba, or the satanic imagery in gothic rocker Marilyn Manson's songs, or how Christadelphian revivalists depart from the Protestant mainstream, and he talks a blue streak.

On the Elim Pentecostal Church, Melton enthused: "It's a group that grew out of an independent Pentecostal Bible school in New York. Basically, it started out by training leaders and organizers who went on to pioneer churches from scratch."

His encyclopedias brim with thousands of entries written in a clean, crisp and deceptively simple style. Their prices underline the stature they command as essential reference works in universities, seminary libraries and theological schools.

His 1,250-page, 7-pound Encyclopedia of American Religions sells new for $320.

Browsing through Melton's works leads a reader from one unexpected fact to another:

* With nearly 2 million members, the anti-Catholic Iglesia ni Cristo is one of the largest and most controversial churches in the Philippines. It was founded by Felix Manalo Isugan (1886-1963), who is venerated as the angel from the seventh chapter of the Book of Revelations.