Psychological Reports
August 1999
M A Thalbourne, E Keogh, S E Crawley
Manic-depressiveness is the name here given to a hypothesized personality continuum that has, at one extreme, manic-depressive psychosis. A Manic-Depressiveness Scale is described, which comprises three scales, Manic Experience, Depressive Experience, and the sum of the two, since they are correlated. 250 undergraduate psychology students at the University of Adelaide and at Goldsmiths'...
The Enigma of the Oceanic Feeling
June 17, 1999
William B. Parsons
Abstract On February 9, 1923, Freud wrote to Edouard Monod Hertzen, the son of Gabriel Monod, a friend and teacher of Romain Rolland, to relay to the latter a “word of respect from an unknown admirer.”1 Rolland responded with enthusiasm less than two weeks later, praising Freud’s person and work. Thus began a correspondence which lasted until Freud’s death in 1939, touching on topics ranging...
The Enigma of the Oceanic Feeling
June 17, 1999
William B. Parsons
Abstract Our efforts up to this point have aimed at elucidating the issues entertained and perspectives offered by Freud and Rolland during the course of their debate on mysticism. The result has been the deconstruction of the common understanding of Freud’s views on mysticism. Certainly the latter were more subtle, complex, and interesting than has been acknowledged. At the same time attention...
The Enigma of the Oceanic Feeling
June 17, 1999
William B. Parsons
Abstract In his landmark biography of Freud, Ernest Jones observed that no single topic in the Freudian corpus, excepting that of sexuality, had evoked more interest than that of religion. Although Freud’s views on religion are complex, Jones had in mind the definitive and pejorative conception of religion delineated in The Future of an Illusion. There Freud, defining religion in terms of “the...
The Enigma of the Oceanic Feeling
June 17, 1999
William B. Parsons
Abstract After Rolland sent Freud a copy of his biographies of the Hindu saints, each man now had the other’s views on the psychology of mysticism firmly in hand, a state of affairs that led to the debate carrying over into a new phase of their correspondence. The essential letters of the latter are but two in number: Freud’s letter of January 19, 1930, and Rolland’s of May 3, 1931. Although...
June 17, 1999
William B. Parsons
Abstract This study examines the history of the psychoanalytic theory of mysticism, starting with the seminal correspondence between Freud and Romain Rolland concerning the concept of “oceanic feeling.” Providing a corrective to current views which frame psychoanalysis as pathologizing mysticism, Parsons reveals the existence of three models entertained by Freud and Rolland: the classical...
The Enigma of the Oceanic Feeling
June 17, 1999
William B. Parsons
Abstract Drawing on the multiple resources unearthed in the last chapter, we are now in a position to offer a fresh interpretation of Rolland’s mysticism. The latter presents interesting peculiarities: Rolland was an unchurched Western mystic deracinated from traditional religious modes of expressing religious sentiments; a recipient of unchurched mystical experiences, and an advocate of the...
Reviews in Religion & Theology
May 1, 1999
Marcel Sarot
Book reviewed in this articleMark A. McIntosh Mystical Theology: The Integrity of Spirituality and Theology
Shofar
March 1, 1999
Richard G. Marks
2 citations
Jewish-Buddhist Meetings: Review Essay Jewish-Buddhist Meetings Review Essay Richard G. Marks Washington and Lee University 93 The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet's Rediscovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India, by Rodger Kamenetz. New York: HarperCollins, 1994. 304 pp. $12.00. That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist: On Being a Faithful Jew and a Passionate Buddhist, by Sylvia Boorstein. New York:...
Shofar
March 1, 1999
Cynthia Ann Humes
Topical Book Reviews III together with an index that runs to over a hundred. pages, makes it easy to locate particular topics and to use the book for one's own purposes. And that is perhaps the role that it will significantly play in future scholarship: no one who writes on the scriptural forms of Hinduism or Judaism, or on "scripture" as a genus of religious expression, or on the theory of...