Freud and Augustine in Dialogue: Psychoanalysis, Mysticism, and the Culture of Modern Spirituality

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Several people and institutions were instrumental in the production of this book. Foremost among them is the Institute for Advanced Studies at Hebrew University, where I was a resident Fellow during the 2008–9 academic year. To my closest conversation partners—Philip Wexler and Jonathan Garb (who invited me), Yoram Bilu, Elliot Wolfson, Boaz Huss, and David Loy (my housemate)—heartfelt thanks. The assembled scholars at IAS were absolutely instrumental in helping me work through the intricacies of my various arguments. I also wish to thank my chair, Jeffrey Kripal, and my dean, Nicolas Shumway, for their unconditional enthusiasm and financial support. I am grateful to the anonymous external readers and the series editors, John D. Barbour and Gary L. Ebersole, who substantially enriched the manuscript through their many insightful responses and suggestions. The process of writing and publishing is often a long one, and I am grateful to my editor, Cathie Brettschneider, whose steadfast hand, support, and advice throughout the vetting process sustained me, and Peter C. Reynolds, whose editorial skills vastly improved my grammar and prose. His alternative formulations made the narrative more compelling. Elliot Berger, my graduate research assistant, went through the entire manuscript with the sharpest of razors. And to the many other students who took my courses on mysticism I can only say this: while it may not be immediately apparent, your feedback can be found infused throughout the text. I work for you, and I can only hope that some of these ideas are of service, if even in the smallest of ways. In all things Augustine I viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS like to keep in mind Bernard McGinn, who introduced me to Augustine the mystic when I was a graduate student and who has continued to offer me support and constructive criticism, and my friend and colleague Diane Jonte-Pace, for her insightful feedback and nurturance. I also wish to acknowledge the following presses, who have kindly granted permission to develop passages and ideas from some of my previous publications: Oxford University Press for The Enigma of the Oceanic Feeling: Revisioning the Psychoanalytic Theory of Mysticism (1999); Rowman Littlefield/Lexington Books for “On Seeing the Light: Assessing Psychoanalytic Interpretations of Vision in Augustine’s Confessions,” in Sandra Lee Dixon, John Doody, and Kim Paffenroth, eds., Augustine and Psychology (2012); Springer Science+Business Media B.V. for “Psychoanalysis Meets Buddhism: The Development of a Dialogue,” in Jacob A. Belzen, ed., Changing the Scientific Study of Religion: Beyond Freud? (2009); Rodopi Press for “Psychoanalysis and Mysticism: The Case of St. Augustine,” in Jacob A. Belzen and Antoon Geels, eds., Mysticism: A Variety of Psychological Perspectives, (2003); and Peter Lang for “Freud’s Last Theory of Mysticism: The Return of the (Phylogenetic) Repressed,” in Philip Wexler and Jonathan Garb, eds., After Spirituality: Studies in Mystical Traditions (2012). F R E U D A N D A U G U S T I N E in DIALOGUE ...