Making Peace with the Universe: Personal Crisis and Spiritual Healing

Making Peace with the Universe by Michael Scott Alexander explores classic religious texts as therapeutic insights, showing how they can lead to psychological well-being through spiritual adventure. He recasts spiritual confessions as case histories of therapy, demonstrating their relevance in an age of scientific psychology.

\n Format: Paperback / softback
\n Length: 288 pages
\n Publication date: 03 November 2020
\n Publisher: Columbia University Press
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The profound religious and philosophical traditions of the world often bear poignant testimonies of spiritual turmoil and healing. After experiencing harrowing personal crises such as addictions, periods of anxiety and panic, and reminders of mortality, these accounts then describe pathways to consolation and resolution. In his book, Making Peace with the Universe, Michael Scott Alexander delves into diverse classic religious accounts as masterpieces of therapeutic insight. Accompanied by figures such as William James, Socrates, Muslim legal scholar turned mystic Hamid al-Ghazali, Chinggis Khan as described by the Daoist monk Qui Chuji, and jazz musician and Catholic convert Mary Lou Williams, Alexander explores the steps from existential crisis to psychological health. He reimagines spiritual confessions as case histories of therapy, showcasing how they remain radical and deeply meaningful even in an age of scientific psychology. These accounts record the therapeutic impact of spiritual experiences, testifying to the achievement of psychological well-being through the cultivation of an edifying spiritual mood.

Alexander blends scholarly learning with personal anecdotes from his own skeptical quest to demonstrate how these accounts of private terror and personal triumph offer a model of therapy through spiritual adventure. By examining the shared terrain of religion and psychology, Making Peace with the Universe offers an innovative perspective on what spiritual traditions can teach us about finding meaning in the modern world.

\n Weight: 338g\n
Dimension: 140 x 214 x 19 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9780231198592\n \n