Men, religion, and melancholia : James, Otto, Jung, and Erikson

Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-225) and index.

Religious melancholy and the lost object. "That shape am I": the bearing of melancholy on The Varieties of Religious Experience. "A thrill of fear": the melancholic sources of The Idea of the Holy. "A little sun in his own heart": the melancholic vision in Answer to Job. Melanchkoloy and motherhate: the parabolic fault line in Young Man Luther

'Using Freud's "Mourning and melancholia" and "The uncanny" as interpretive keys, the author explores James's The varieties of religious experience, Otto's The idea of the holy, Jung's Answer to Job, and Erikson's Young man Luther. All four texts address in significant ways the role of melancholy in religion, says Capps, and he emphasizes that melancholy is central to the authors' ways of understanding religion. Each developed an unconventional or idiosyncratic religious vision in the search for a means to address his psychological loss and to reverse or transcend its effects....'

Hardcover