Thomas Merton in Search of His Soul: A Jungian Perspective

By Robert G. Waldron

Book Overview

For thousands of people throughout the world Thomas Merton has become a spiritual master whose personal journey serves as a touchstone for their own. Carl Jung, whose psychology is so attuned to the interior growth, has likewise served as a mentor for our times. Robert Waldron has taken a look at Merton through Jungian eyes and has found that Merton's interior journey is a classic example of Jung's path to wholeness called individuation.Waldron employs Jung's psychology to shed new light on Merton's search for meaning. He looks at Merton's life chronologically, beginning with his adolescence, continuing through his early adulthood, onto his years as a young monk, and concluding with his maturity. Drawing on Merton's autobiography, his journals, and his poems, he highlights key passages at each stage of Merton's life to show how Merton typified Jung's pattern of growth.This is not a biography but a highly focused commentary on Merton's journey to wholeness, his quest for the true self, his search for his soul. Readers will not only gain a deeper appreciation of Merton's life and work, but will discover how his journey can provide a deeper understanding of their own.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0877935246
• ISBN13: 9780877935247
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Ave Maria Press
• Length: 157 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Pregnant With Contemplative Fodder

This is an interesting little volume pregnant with contemplative fodder. In this book Robert Waldron superimposes Carl Jung's psychology of individuation over Thomas Merton's growth in emotional maturity. The two match up amazingly well. Due to the subject matter this book is not for everyone. But is it for you? If you are a student of Carl Jung you will like this book. It offers a living example of his views fleshed out. **** If you are a fan of Thomas Merton you might like this book. However, enough books have been published examining the life of Merton that you may just skim through the book and add it to your collection. *** If you are going through a dark time of personal crisis this might be a good book for you to read. It might just offer you a chance for meaning in the middle of meaninglessness. ***** If you are a contemplative this will add one more voice to the many that call you to a deeper path of self reflection. Merton wrote, "My brother, perhaps in my solitude I have become as it were an explorer for you, a searcher in realms which you were not able to visit - except perhaps in the company of your psychiatrist." ****