Hermits down through the ages have been called recluses, monks, misanthropes, ascetics, anchorites, and swamis. "I have become a solitary," wrote the eighteenth-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "because to me the most desolate solitude seems preferable to the society of wicked men which is nourished only in betrayals and hatred."

Other hermits have left the social world as a protest against war, environmental destruction, crime, or consumerism. Pilgrims -- by far the largest group – have withdrawn from communities in order to devote themselves completely to God and the spiritual practices of faith, love, and devotion.

In The Stranger in the Woods, Michael Finkel reports on the extraordinary journey of Christopher Knight who in 1986 at age 20 disappeared into the woods of Maine and did not have a conversation with another human being for 27 years until he was arrested for stealing food. None of the reasons for becoming a hermit applied to this young man: "I can't explain my actions. I had no plans when I left. I wasn't thinking of anything. I just left."

Knight's main forms of entertainment were listening to the radio and reading. He especially identified with poet Emily Dickinson who kept to herself and once wrote" Saying nothing sometimes says the most."

Finkel observes that many people in the area did not care much for Knight's hermit lifestyle. The American Trappist monk Thomas Merton addressed this problem when he wrote, "The solitary is necessarily a man who does what he wants to do. In fact, he has nothing else to do. That is why his vocation is both dangerous and despised."