The Enigma of the Oceanic Feeling: Revisioning the Psychoanalytic Theory of Mysticism

About this book

This study examines the history of the psychoanalytic theory of mysticism starting with the seminal correspondence between Freud and Romain Rolland concerning the concept of "oceanic feeling." Providing a corrective to current views which frame psychoanalysis as pathologizing mysticism Parsons reveals the existence of three models entertained by Freud and Rolland: the classical reductive ego-adaptive and transformational (which allows for a transcendent dimension to mysticism). Then reconstructing Rollands personal mysticism (the "oceanic feeling") through texts and letters unavailable to Freud Parsons argues that Freud misinterpreted the oceanic feeling. In offering a fresh interpretation of Rollands mysticism Parsons constructs a new dialogical approach for psychoanalytic theory of mysticism which integrates culture studies developmental perspectives and the deep epistemological and transcendent claims of the mystics.