Soul Friend:

...Likewise Baron von Hugel is important as a spiritual director in his Letters to a Niece, and the history of modern spirituality is incomplete without reference to The Mystical Element in Religion...

...No mention is made of the very difficult problem of transference in close relationships...

...First of all he sketches the present day spiritual climate and the need and desire of many young and old for direction on the spiritual journey...

...We have to decide whether we're a great nation or just a bigger version of Uruguay," he declared, And what of those directly hurt by the Proposition 13 cuts, whose welfare checks were not keeping pace with inflation, whose children could not go to summer school, what would they say to this set of priorities...

...This integration is one of the central purposes of religion...

...Leech provides an excellent summary of the apophatic, im-ageless way of mysticism, the way which stresses the negative way towards God, the dark night of the soul and the darkness in which God is found...

...Little emphasis is given to the importance of In a remarkable interview shortly after his conversion to Proposition 13, Brown Insisted that he was not categorically anti-government...

...In spite of all this, I have seen no better book on the need for spiritual directors and no finer, more adequate history of the subject...

...He does not make the suggestion which seems obvious that adequate spiritual direction needs both the skills of traditional spiritual direction and the skills of pastoral counseling...

...Teresa of Avila continually complained that her directors had little knowledge of these things and that the actual darkness of union was a The area of sexuality is crucial to the entire discussion...

...The author does not seem to be aware of the dangers of the imageless way of spirituality which was questioned by the Seventh Ecumenical Council (the last in which the whole church participated...

...He seems to be unaware of the dangers of getting lost in the darkness and depth of the unconscious which is common among practitioners of Zen in Japan...

...The author makes extended reference to Frank Lake's Clinical Theology which is, unfortunately, little known in this country...

...Kenneth Leech addresses this concern with skill and learning in Soul Friend...

...The recent development of the hearing ministry within the church is examined, but none of the in-depth and historical studies of the subject are mentioned...

...Brown replied, deadpan...

...He presents a superficial understanding of Jung, who once told me that his psychotherapeutic method was closer to the classical spiritual direction in 19th century France than to any other school of psychotherapy...

...He rightly criticizes Bishop Robinson's attitude towards prayer and spiritual direction, but he offers no alternative to Robinson's attempt to make Christianity relevant to the person with a rationalistic and materialistic bias...

...Jung rediscovered it in his practice of active imagination...

...There is an excellent discussion of the relationship of sexuality and spirituality...

...The best book on the spiritual significance of the drug culture, Andrew Weil's The Natural Mind, is not mentioned...

...Because man is a sexual being, it involves the acceptance of one's sexuality, and the integration of sexuality with the rest of life...

...The author then traces the history of spiritual direction within the Christian tradition, and he does so with skill and erudition...

...At times he launches into sermonizing and rhetoric instead of offering concrete suggestions and detailed sets of directions...

...This book is a good beginning, but not the final word on the subject.final word on the subject...

...Robert Kuttner Revolt of the Haves Dante, and Charles Williams's studies of Dante are not mentioned...

...This is the tradition of much of Eastern Orthodoxy, medieval monasticism, classical Ignatian spirituality...

...What would they have said to Queen Isabella...

...The spiritual director is concerned with union with God, and this process of union demands a profound degree of self-knowledge and maturity...

...Morten Kelsey MANY of those who listen to contemporary Christians attest to the fact that there is no greater need in the church today than the development of competent spiritual directors...

...This council concluded that those who deny the value of the image also deny the value and reality of the incarnation...

...As I have shown in God, Dreams and Revolution, most of the church fathers used dreams in their spiritual direction...

...Kenneth Leech Soul Friend ery small part of the mystical life...

...There is no attempt to provide a world view to help these people who stand at the periphery of our churches today and need direction and help...

...There are some areas that should be increased,'7 he said, "like space," and he went on to speak rapturously of space exploration as the last frontier...

...Soul Friend is worth owning for these two chapters alone...

...The author deserves the gratitude of those interested in spiritual formation for this excellent introduction to the subject...

...He also examines the pastoral counseling movement in the United States and shows how it fails to offer spiritual direction...

...The task of spiritual direction at the present time is a very complex one involving knowledge of many aspects of Christian tradition, an inside knowledge of depth psychology and personal experience in prayer, contemplation, and meditation under the direction of some other person...

...Whatever else the dream provides, it reveals the unfaced depths of ourselves...

...He presents a very convincing case for the centrality of spiritual direction in Christian ministry...

...There is little or no mention of the whole problem of evil within the spiritual journey...

...The most serious deficiency of this study of spiritual direction is its onesided view of spirituality...

...The author fails to present this complexity adequately...

...It is difficult for me to understand how the spiritual director can listen to the depth of the human soul without understanding something of the symbolism of dreams...

...Soul Friend betrays a lack of depth in many areas...

...One long chapter is devoted to describing the difference between spiritual direction, counseling, and therapy...

...The author has ventured to deal with many topics of which he did not have sufficient in-depth knowledge...

...If spiritual directors are to help men and women upon the spiritual journey, they need to know these dangers...

...The basic thrust of Soul Friend is towards leading church people further upon the spiritual journey, and so there is no attempt to deal with the intelligent agnostic who has been imprisoned by the materialism of our age and is seeking something more...

...The author makes no reference to this whole subject or its place in spiritual direction...

...They also need to be well-versed in the subject of psychic phenomena and the meaning of symbols...

...However, nothing is said about how the spiritual director trains him/herself to understand and deal with the subject of sexual pathology which touches nearly every human being...

...Even in these fine chapters there are some important omissions...

...He makes no mention of the other and probably more widespread mystical tradition within Christianity which finds God through the vision, the image, and the dream...

...Leech recognizes that these fields overlap, but fails to show how closely related they are...

...Hence the insistence in the spiritual tradition that the guide should be a man experienced in the passions...