Unlike most books on psychoanalysis and religion, where psychoanalysis is regarded as a superior mode of understanding, this work explains how psychoanalysis could be enhanced if it opened up to transcendence, a move that would make the theory and therapy more relevant to and in sync with the spiritual zeitgeist in America and elsewhere.

This volume presents a rationale for a spiritually animated psychoanalysis. Classic world religious literature is analyzed in depth showing how Ecclesiastes, St. Augustine's Confessions, The Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, and others can enhance psychoanalysis. Marcus argues that psychoanalysis is a theory and profession in crisis, partly due to its alienation from the spiritual and moral philosophies contained in ancient religious wisdom. This volume presents the spiritual as a core dimension of the psyche, and the quest for self-transcendence—meeting the glory of the Infinite—as a quest inherent in the human condition. Of special interest to those studying psychoanalysis, psychology, and religious studies, this volume may also intrigue those studying the philosophy of religion.