M. Scott Peck, who wrote the best-seller The Road Less Traveled, died Sept. 25 of cancer at his home in Warren, Conn. He was 69.

Peck was a nationally recognized authority on the relationship between religion and science, and the science of psychology. He became a Christian in 1980. Christian retailers have carried some of Peck's titles with The Road Less Traveled and People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (both from Simon & Schuster) being the most requested of his work over the years.

The Road Less Traveled was released in 1978. The book has sold more than 5 million copies in North America and has been translated into 20 languages. It spent years on The New York Times best-seller list, and a 25th anniversary edition was released in 2003.

Peck's last book, Glimpses of the Devil: A Psychiatrist's Personal Accounts of Possession, Exorcism, and Redemption (Simon & Schuster), released in January.

Born Morgan Scott Peck on May 22, 1936, in New York City, he became a Zen Buddhist at age 18, later explored Jewish and Muslim mysticism, and converted to Christianity in his 40s.

Peck received a bachelor's degree from Harvard College in 1958 and a doctorate from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 1963. He served in the U.S. Army between 1963 and 1972. He later was in the private practice of psychiatry.

He is survived by his wife, Kathleen Kline Yates Peck, two children and two grandchildren.

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