The Quest For Wholeness

This book describes contemporary woman's search for wholeness in a society in which she has been defined according to masculine values. Drawing upon cultural myths and fairy tales, ancient symbols and goddesses, and the dreams of contemporary women, Murdock illustrates the need for—and the reality of—feminine values in Western culture today.

Here is a unique analysis of Carl Jung’s thought from the perspective of the history of religions. Using a religious and historical approach, the author identifies the religious goal or ultimate concern of Jung’s psychological system, and traces the evolution of that goal throughout his Collected Works. This book focuses on the historical development of a key component of Jung’s thought—the quest for wholeness—and shows how it functions as the ultimate concern of his psychotherapeutic system. The relationships among many of Jung’s important concepts, such as his “complex” theory, the individuation process, archetypal symbolism, therapeutic concerns, alchemy, and Eastern religions, are given a new sense of order and significance when viewed in this historical light. Rather than presenting a haphazard array of seemingly endless topics, this work emphasizes the continuity underlying Jung’s early and later writings. The evolution of Jung’s work is divided into three distinct phases: developmental, formative, and elaborative. Whereas the developmental period consists of the time prior to the creation of Jung’s ultimate concern, it was during the formative phase that Jung began to consolidate the contours of his newly emerging system. During the elaborative phase, Jung expanded and clarified his ultimate concern and pattern of ultimacy. This book shows that the evolution of Jung’s thought moved from a concern with psychic fragmentation, to individual wholeness, and then to cosmic unity.

Betty Jean Lifton, whose Lost and Found has become a bible to adoptees and to those who would understand the adoption experience, explores further the inner world of the adopted person. She breaks new ground as she traces the adopted child's lifelong struggle to form an authentic sense of self. And she shows how both the symbolic and the literal search for roots becomes a crucial part of the journey toward wholeness.

Gayl Jones is dedicated to the art of "verbal authenticity," stemming from her identification with her African American heritage. Amid widespread critical praise as well as pointed attacks for her controversial first two novels, Jones has shown a constantly evolving cultural consciousness. This first single-author study of Gayl Jones recovers the work of an under-examined yet immensely skillful contemporary writer. It offers a thorough examination of her technical innovations as well as her willingness to explore controversial subject matter. The book addresses such crucial themes as Afrocentrism, diasporas, mythopoesis, post-colonialism and globalization, and offers close readings of the aesthetic and political interchanges within Jones's fiction, drama, poetry, and criticism. Two interviews with Gayl Jones are included.

Who we most deeply are is mirrored in our artistic work. Our need for mirroring simultaneously attracts us to and repels us from our creative callings and relationships. It is one of life's great dilemmas. Artist's block and lover's block flow from the same pool. Often, we fear deeply the very thing needed to create original art, to experience intimate relationships and to live authentic lives: we are frightened by the impulse to be fully revealed to ourselves, and to others, as this most often entails exposing the unacceptable shadowy aspects of our humanity and risking rejection. Mirrors in all their manifold guises permit us to safely see and experience ourselves in reflection and become better acquainted with the rejected, ostracized aspects of our personalities. Creative work is one of the few places where we can truly express and witness lost aspects of our authentic selves. Within us a treasure beckons. This is what we spend our lives pursuing. What slows and distracts us is not the object we long for, but where we search. To find this precious gem, we must eventually return to our own creative spirits.

"This book has been written for the artist, for the theologian, and for the philosopher, each of whom must be concerned with the question, "What does it mean to be human?" But at a deeper level, it is written for any reader who knows what it means to be fragmented, and who is willing to undertake a quest for wholeness in experiential and reflective terms." — from the Preface The Quest for Wholeness is a philosophic odyssey into humankind's feelings of fragmentation, and the search for unity born of those feelings. It blends the concreteness of art and religion with the discipline of philosophy to illuminate those places in experience and reflection where fragmentation is encountered and the meaning of wholeness is first discovered. Carl Vaught discusses the problems of fragmentation and unity, beginning with the aesthetic concreteness represented by the quest in Herman Melville's Moby Dick; moving through the religious dimension represented by the biblical stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses; passing on to the reflective discourse in Plato's Euthyphro; and ending in a confrontation with Hegel that unites the concrete particularity of religious and communal life with the dialectic of Socrates' normative reasoning. This book is written with the conviction that the professional philosopher should not address a merely professional audience, but the larger world as well, and that in the end he must come to terms with himself and with the most pressing questions that confront the human spirit.