revisioning the psychoanalytic theory of mysticism /
William B. Parsons.
New York :
Oxford University Press,
1999.
1 online resource (ix, 252 pages)
Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-237) and index.
1. Across all boundaries : the atheistic Jew and the apostle of love -- 2. The enigma of the oceanic feeling -- 3. Rolland and the emerging psychology and religion movement -- 4. The debate continued -- 5. A congregation of one -- 6. Mysticism east and west -- 7. The oceanic feeling interpreted -- Appendix : the letters of Sigmund Freud and Romain Rolland.
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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 reductive, ego-adaptive, and transformational (which allows for a transcendent dimension to mysticism). Then, reconstructing Rolland's personal mysticism (the "oceanic feeling") through texts and leaf.