The Holy Longing: The Hidden Power of Spiritual Yearning - Hardcover

Zweig, Connie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1585422045 ISBN 13: 9781585422043

Publisher: TarcherPerigee, 2003

Synopsis

A study on the human quest for religious participation is drawn from the author's work with clients of all denominations and identifies the factors that motivate people to spiritual expression, citing the benefits and risks of participating in organized religion. 15,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author:

Connie Zweig, Ph.D., is a Jungian-oriented counselor and non-denominational minister in Los Angeles. She is the coauthor of the bestselling Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow. She has taught nationwide about human spirituality, religious abuse and disillusionment, and shadow-work.

Review:

The longing to know God is probably the most powerful innate force among humans, according to Zweig. The longing is our guide, she explains; in many it is our raison d'ếtre. The trick is to stop trying to satiate it, and instead listen to what it is trying to teach us. Zweig devotes her final chapter to specific ways readers can integrate this yearning into their spiritual development, such as using imagery, shadow work, and creative expression. She is a resourceful teacher who offers many tools for living with our ‘holy longing’. -- Publishers Weekly



In this substantive follow-up to Romancing the Shadow (cowritten with Steve Wolf), Connie Zweig takes a hard look at holy longing and the spiritual abuse that can occur when disciples project their highest hopes on leaders, teachers, or gurus. Zweig believes holy longing is ‘the drive toward self-transcendence that fuels evolution in the physical, mental and spiritual worlds.’ This book plumbs the depths of the widespread problem of spiritual abuse in a time when fundamentalism, which is prone to this kind of surrender of self to an authoritarian power, is on the rise in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
--Spirituality and Health Magazine




This book is a welcome guidepost for psychologists, scholars, and seekers concerned with a mature, honest, and penetrating spirituality. Rather than presenting a one-sided glimpse of the heights and the benefits of spirituality for psychological well-being, Zweig embraces the holy longing, riding it through the peaks and down into the dark underbelly of today’s spiritual realities.
--Perspectives, The Journal of the Association of Humanistic Psychology



How does the quest for spirit go awry? Is the spiritual drive in humans innate? How do we balance abuses of power by spiritual teachers and organized religion, and still nurture our soul? These are some of the questions addressed by Connie Zweig, therapist, minister and long-time seeker. Born of personal experience and balanced by study, research and practice can help anyone contemplating serious spiritual practice. For those who may be struggling, disillusioned, or apathetic because of past experience Zweig renews hope that one can find understanding, perspective and renewal.
-- Institute of Noetic Sciences Review

About this edition

• Publisher: TarcherPerigee
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1585422045
• ISBN 13: 9781585422043
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256