Lives In Spirit: Precursors And Dilemmas Of A Secular Western Mysticism (suny Series In Transpersonal And Huamnistic Psychology) (suny Series In Transpersonal And Humanistic Psychology)

Lives In Spirit Explores The Dynamic Conflicts That Both Energized And Distorted The Spiritual Development Of Key Precursor Figures Of A Contemporary Secular Or This-worldly Mysticism. With Its Historical Roots In The Early Gnostics And Plotinus, This Characteristically Western Spirituality Re-emerges With The Secularization And Loss Of Traditional Religious Belief Of Modernity. The Lives, Works, And Direct Experiences Of Nietzsche, Emerson, Thoreau, Jung, Heidegger, Gurdjieff, Crowley, And Contemporary Feminist Mysticism Are Considered In Terms Of Transpersonal Psychology (almaas), The Sociology Of Mysticism (weber And Troeltsch), And Contemporary Psychoanalysis (winnicott, Bion, Kohut). Spiritual Or Essential Experience Is Seen As An Inherent Form Of Human Intelligence, Which While Potentially And Even Increasingly Impacted By Personal Dynamics And Social Crisis, Is Not Reducible To Them.--jacket. Pt. I. Psychological And Cultural Bases Of Inner-worldly Mysticism In Modern Western Society -- Ch. 1. Phenomenology And Psychodynamics Of Transpersonal Experience -- Ch. 2. A.h. Almaas And The Synthesis Of Spiritual Development And Psychoanalytic Object-relations Theory -- Ch. 3. The Sociology Of Inner-worldly Mysticism In Max Weber And Ernst Troeltsch -- Pt. Ii. The Historical Roots Of Inner-worldly Mysticism: Prototypes Of Crisis And Resolution In Plotinus, Epictetus, And Gnosticism -- Ch. 4. Plotinus And Hellenistic Inner-worldly Mysticism -- Ch. 5. Gnosticism: Mystical Dualism And The Metaphysics Of Hate -- Pt. Iii. Transpersonal Anticipations And Conflicts In Nineteenth-century Precursors To A Naturalistic Inner-worldly Mysticism -- Ch. 6. Nietzsche -- Ch. 7. Emerson, Thoreau, And Hiram Marble: New England Transcendentalism And A Brief Look At Spiritualism -- Pt. Iv. Some Political Ambiguities In The Development Of Presence: Inner-worldly Mysticism, Metapathology, And National Socialism -- Ch. 8. Jung, Visionary Racial Occultism, And Hitler -- Ch. 9. Triumph Of The Will: Heidegger's Nazism As Spiritual Pathology -- Pt. V. Roots Of A Contemporary This-worldly Spirituality -- Ch. 10. George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff: A Near Eastern Inner-worldly Mysticism In The Modern West -- Ch. 11. Aleister Crowley, Sexual Magick, And Drugs: Some Ambiguities Of Sex, Will, And Power In Inner-worldly Mysticism -- Ch. 12. Feminist Spirituality: The Return Of Sophia -- Pt. Vi. Transpersonal Psychology, New Age Spirituality, And The Human Sciences -- Ch. 13. Concluding Reflections. Harry T. Hunt. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 327-352) And Index.