Contemporary Authors

• The Still Good Hand of God: The Magic and Mystery of the Unconscious Mind Nicolas-Hays (York Beach, ME), 1991
• The Fate of America: An Inquiry into National Character Brassey's (Washington, DC), 2001
• The Divine Mind: Exploring the Psychological History of God's Inner Journey Prometheus Books (Amherst, MA), 2018

1. The divine mind : exploring the psychological history of God's inner journey LCCN 2017014367 Type of material Book Personal name Gellert, Michael, author. Main title The divine mind : exploring the psychological history of God's inner journey / Michael Gellert. Published/Produced Amherst, : Prometheus Books, [2018] Description 286 pages ; 24 cm ISBN 9781633883178 (hardcover) CALL NUMBER BL473 .G435 2018 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms 2. The fate of America : an inquiry into national character LCCN 2001025545 Type of material Book Personal name Gellert, Michael. Main title The fate of America : an inquiry into national character / Michael Gellert. Edition 1st ed. Published/Created Washington, D.C. : Brassey's, c2001. Description xv, 366 p. ; 24 cm. ISBN 1574883569 (alk. paper) Shelf Location FLM2014 090550 CALL NUMBER E169.1 .G4514 2001 OVERFLOWA5S Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM1) Shelf Location FLM2014 090551 CALL NUMBER E169.1 .G4514 2001 OVERFLOWA5S Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM1) 3. The still good hand of God : the magic and mystery of the unconscious mind LCCN 91008024 Type of material Book Personal name Gellert, Michael. Main title The still good hand of God : the magic and mystery of the unconscious mind / Michael Gellert. Published/Created York Beach, Me. : Nicolas-Hays, 1991. Description xv, 219 p. : ill. ; 21 cm. ISBN 0892540206 : CALL NUMBER BL53 .G45 1991 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms

• Michael Gellert Website - http://www.michaelgellert.com/

  Welcome to my website. It is designed to be a harbor for my passionate interest in the mysterious workings of the psyche. How the unconscious affects our lives—both psychologically and spiritually, both as individuals and nations—is something very much on my mind these days. We live in times that increasingly demand us to awaken to our own inner forces, for these can have profound effects not only on our personal well-being, but on everyone and everything around us.

  Whether you are interested in my books or in possibly working with me as your therapist, there is hopefully ample material here to pique your curiosity and answer any questions you may have. If your questions are not answered, please don't hesitate to contact me. I would be happy to hear from you.

  Michael Gellert is a Jungian analyst practicing in Los Angeles and Pasadena, California. He treats individuals and couples and offers a Jungian Writing Workshop. He was formerly Director of Training at the C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles, where he is currently a research instructor. He has also been a humanities professor at Vanier College, Montreal, and a lecturer in religious studies at Hunter College of the City University of New York. Prior to living in Los Angeles he lived in New York City, where he managed District Council 37’s Personal Service Unit Outreach Program, an employee assistance program for the City of New York. Over the years he has served as a mental health consultant to various organizations, including the University of Southern California and Time magazine.

  Michael was born and raised in Montreal. He was educated in rabbinic Judaism, traveled overland from Europe to India at age 19, studied theology at Loyola College in Montreal, and trained with the renowned Zen master Koun Yamada in Japan for two years. He has master’s degrees in religious studies and social work, and studied with Marshall McLuhan at the University of Toronto. The author of Modern Mysticism, The Fate of America, The Way of the Small, and The Divine Mind, he lectures widely on psychology, religion, and contemporary culture.

  The Eruption of the Shadow in Nazi Germany
  This lecture was delivered in the Public Programs of the C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles in 1997 and is dedicated to the memory of Bobbie Yow. It was later published as an article in Psychological Perspectives: A Semiannual Journal of Jungian Thought (vol. 37, issue 1, 1998).
  Read the lecture (pdf)

  Zen and Death: Jung's Final Experience
  This lecture was delivered in the Public Programs of the C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles in 1996; at the Central Coast Jung Society, San Luis Obispo, California in 1998; the Graduate School of Education and Psychology, Pepperdine University, Los Angeles in 1999; and in the Analyst Training Program of the C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles in 2003. In the latter it was part of a series on mortificatio, the alchemical process of psychological or inner death inherent in such diminishing experiences as depression, illness, failure, aging, and dying.
  Read the lecture (pdf)
  Articles

  Celebrating the Right Details: A Key to Success
  This article on The Way of the Small was published in Personal Excellence in 2008.
  Read the article (pdf)

  America in the Third Millennium
  This article was published in Psychological Perspectives: A Quarterly Journal of Jungian Thought (vol. 55, issue 4, 2012)
  Read the article (pdf)
  Q&A
  The Way of the Small

  About The Way of the Small, the following is an exchange with an interviewer from the Center for Jungian Studies of South Florida (CJSSF), at which a talk on the book was presented in 2009:

  "The goal is to make the ego as strong and as small as possible."
  —Carl Jung

  "The experience of the self is always a defeat for the ego."
  —Carl Jung
  CJSSF: In your book The Way of the Small, you include a charming little box after each chapter with the title "Potent Quotes." They present, in a small font, the quotes that you have chosen to accompany the chapters. The two above quotes by Jung, although not inside the boxes, seem very powerful in regards to the content of your book. Could you explore them and share your thoughts with us?
  There is a tendency, particularly from the influence of Eastern religion and its occasional misinterpretation by Westerners, to believe that the ego needs to be transcended, that one should be beyond or without ego. That is not only erroneous, but dangerous. You need a strong ego to survive and find fulfillment in life. That is why so much of analysis is concerned with building a strong ego and ego skills. Without a strong ego, one cannot confront the unconscious; one will be overwhelmed by it. Merely, one should have a strong but small ego, meaning that the ego's ambitions, attachments, and inflation ("ego tripping") should be kept to a minimum so that the ego does not get in its own way and obstruct a healthy relationship with the unconscious and the world. That is the way of the small and addresses the first quote.

  The second quote speaks to how when the ego is made to feel small, often by some diminishing ordeal such as failure, depression, a health crisis, or loss of a loved one, it gets out of its own way so as to have an encounter with the unconscious that leads to some new insight or deepening awareness. The Self—that higher intelligence within the psyche that sends us our most illuminating dreams and guides us to realize our hidden capacities—can then emerge unobstructed. And reversely, when the Self emerges, it is itself a diminishing experience for the ego. The ego recognizes that it doesn't really run the show, that its deepest wisdom is not its own, that it is all too human and frail. Religious experience, which comes from the Self, liberates the ego by defeating it through a realization that it is not the center of the universe, but, like the earth, just a small planet revolving around a much greater source of energy and light (namely, the Self). The realization of the Self always defeats our ego-centricity. Embracing this realization with its defeat is also the way of the small.

  CJSSF: You mention and quote musicians, among them, Bob Dylan: "I make a song as small or as narrow as possible rather than make it a big, broad, grand thing. By keeping it so narrow, emotion plays a great part." One classic of the Japanese literature is The Narrow Road to the Interior, by Matsua Basho, the story of a man pursuing simple life. Also, in Matthew 7:13 we read: "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it." What would be your comments about how the way of the "narrow" is connected to the way of the "small"?
  The way of the narrow is the way of the small. They're synonymous. "Narrow" alludes to what this path or way looks like when you're facing or traveling it; "small" alludes to the attitude and behavior on one's part when facing and traveling it.

  CJSSF: Would you recommend any additional reading material to those interested in the topics that your book approaches?
  There is a comprehensive list of books in the Notes at the back of The Way of the Small. Mystics such as Meister Eckhart and the Zen masters all trumpet the way of the small, as do American masters such as Henry David Thoreau and Abraham Lincoln. One book that nicely "says it all" is the Tao Te Ching; Stephen Mitchell's recent translation is very inspiring.

  Private Practice

  Michael Gellert has a private practice in Jungian analysis, working with individuals and couples. He also offers a Jungian Writing Workshop. He has offices in West Los Angeles and Pasadena. For an appointment, please contact him by telephone or e-mail:

  Telephone: (310) 313-3063
  Email: mgellert@michaelgellert.com

  BOOKS
  The Divine Mind
  Exploring the Psychological History of God's Inner Journey
  "This remarkable book is so full of intelligence, insight, and startling
  humor that I wanted to read every other page out loud to someone else."
  —Barbara Brown Taylor
  The Divine Mind tells the story of the Abrahamic God from the viewpoint of his own experiences, thoughts, and feelings as depicted in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Who he originally was—a God tormented and divided against himself and humanity—and who he became reflects a journey from trauma to redemption, from affliction to enlightenment. This journey begins in the Hebrew Bible, further unfolds in the Talmud, New Testament, Qur'an, and Gnostic literature, and culminates in the profound writings of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic mystics. The book explains many of the Hebrew Bible's darker moments yet concludes on the same joyful note as God's journey, namely, on a celebration of his deep, mystical nature.
  THE DIVINE MIND
  • follows God's footsteps in the dramatic and inspiring adventure of his character development as conveyed in the sacred and mystical texts of Abrahamic religion
  • provides a mystical framework for understanding the problem of evil, in particular, atrocities like the Holocaust
  • illustrates how God's inner journey parallels the evolution of human consciousness, thus offering us a metaphor for our own journey and possibilities
  Contents
  Introduction
  Part I: In the Beginning . . .
  1. The Irrational Nature of God
  2. Divine Wrath
  3. Divine Genocide
  4. God's Apocalyptic Fever
  5. God's Wake-up Call
  6. The Return of Wisdom
  7. God's PTSD and Other Afflictions
  8. From Trauma to Redemption

  Part II: In the Middle . . .
  1. The Flowering of Wisdom
  2. The Kingdom of God Within
  3. The Face That Is Everywhere
  4. The Rock of the Self

  Part III: And In the Endlessness . . .
  1. The Splendor of Absolute Nothingness
  2. The Incarnation That Is Always Happening
  3. The Beloved
  4. Reframing the Problem of Evil

  Conclusion: God's Journey as a Metaphor for Our Own
  Appendix I. God in the Hebrew Bible vs. the Old Testament
  Appendix II. Why Was Nothingness First Discovered in the East?
  Acknowledgments

  =====
  The Way of the Small
  Why Less Is Truly More
  "A bold, persuasive book has come to teach us how we can
  all be winners, with no losers, at the game of life."
  —Rabbi Harold Kushner
  The Way of the Small explores the principles of a sound, wholesome existence for both the individual and society. A practical and spiritual guide to fulfillment, it reframes the search for happiness, meaning, and success by giving us new perspectives derived from old wisdom. It illustrates that happiness is found in "the small"—in celebrating the precious small gifts of ordinary life and in experiencing the sacred in all aspects of life. Reminding us that "less is more, simpler is better," Michael Gellert <>
  THE WAY OF THE SMALL
  • identifies essential skills to navigate life in our complicated world
  • provides simple principles to discover true happiness
  • draws upon major religions, spiritual teachings, and the experiences of famous people to show how you, too, can become a master of the small
  Contents
  Foreword by Thomas Moore
  Introduction

  Part One: WHAT IS THE WAY OF THE SMALL?
  1. A Small Tale
  2. We Are the Way of the Small
  The Significance of Our Insignificance • Potent Quotes
  3. God's Small Secret
  A Slice of Smallness • The Absolutely Small • Judaism • Christianity • Islam • Taoism • Confucianism • Hinduism • Buddhism • Potent Quotes

  Part Two: ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES FOR LIVING SMALL
  1. Building a Foundation for Success
  A Slice of Smallness • Less Is More, Simpler Is Better • Being Ordinary But Exceptional • Knowing How to Persevere and When to Quit • The Great Begins With the Small • Celebrating the Right Details • Being Small-and-Smart • Potent Quotes
  2. Finding Happiness
  A Slice of Smallness • Penetrating What Is • Knowing When to Go With the Flow and When Against • Seizing Small Moments • <> of Perfection • Learning to Love Vulnerably • Facing Adversity With Humor • Potent Quotes
  3. Embracing Diminishment
  A Slice of Smallness • Surrendering to the Inner Desert • Sacrificing Yourself to the Jaws of Defeat • Loving Your Fate • Living a Life of Few Hopes and Expectations • Anticipating Death's Small Portal • Potent Quotes
  4. Practicing the Way of the Small in the World
  A Slice of Smallness • Humility is the Highest Form of Greatness • Approaching Diversity and Complexity by Way of the Small • The World Scorns the Small • Dealing With Your Own Shadow • Learning to Listen to Silence • Potent Quotes

  =====
  The Fate of America
  An Inquiry into National Character
  "A large-scale analysis of this country on a par
  with Tocqueville . . . an important book."
  —Howard Zinn
  The Fate of America is an in-depth historical and cultural study of what Jung called America's "heroic ideal," the driving force of its national character. In shaping the American experience, this ideal is very much the source of both America's greatness and its problems. Michael Gellert argues that this ideal cannot adequately meet the complex challenges of the modern world, yet America remains fixated upon it. Although the nation's original heroic ideal as articulated by its founders had a powerful redeeming and guiding vision, Americans are at a loss as to what this means in a contemporary context. The author explores what the nation must focus on in its public discourse and in the education of its citizens in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
  THE FATE OF AMERICA
  • profiles the development of the American heroic ideal from the Founding Fathers and legendary frontiersmen and cowboys to astronauts, athletes, and other contemporary heroes
  • discusses America's crisis of heroism and the threat it poses to democracy
  • addresses what would be involved in redefining this heroic ideal—particularly in a spiritual context—as we enter a new era of history
  ________________________________________
  Contents
  Introduction
  Part I: America's Heroic Ideal
  Prelude: The Aspiration Toward Greatness
  1. Two Souls Within the Human Beast
  The Spirits of Youth and Authority
  One Plus One Equals Three
  America's Alternating Current
  America's Bias
  The Fallout from Fallout Out of Balance
  A Big Bang
  The American Heroic Ideal, Yesterday and Today
  2. The Revolutionary
  A Distant Galaxy
  The Recognition of Necessity
  The Cultivation of Character
  3. The Frontiersman
  The Backwoods Boasters
  The Quitessential American Hero
  The Mysterious Indianization of the American People
  4. Contemporary Heroic Idealism
  The Continuing Saga of the Cowboy
  A Simple Problem
  The Heroism of Sports
  The Divided Hero
  The Divided Society
  The Diffusion of the Heroic Ideal

  Part II: The High Life
  Prelude: The Metaphor of Height
  1. The Commercialism of America's Heroic Ideal
  The Cult of Prosperity
  The Fantasy of Unlimited Possibilities
  The Culture and Economics of Excess
  A Healthy Ability to Say "No": A Gift of Depression
  2. Heroic Mania
  The Cult of Motion and Speed
  The Dangers of Motion and Speed
  3. The Imitation of Heroism
  The Cult of Celebrity
  4. Heroic Tunnel Vision
  The Cults of Fundamentalism
  The Trappings of Fundamentalism
  Religious Mediocrity
  5. The Escape from Heroism
  Getting High: The Cult of Passion
  The Meaning of the Drug Epidemic
  6. The Metaphor of Depth
  The Heart of the Matter

  Part III: The Underside of Innocence
  Prelude: The Style of Innocence
  1. The Historical Roots of American Innocence
  The American Vision
  The American Vision as a Paradigm of Innocence
  The Innocence of Humanism
  2. Jefferson's Bastards
  The Diffusion of the American Vision
  The Cult of Novelty
  The Cult of Freedom
  The Cult of Happiness
  The Idolization of an Ephemeral Self
  3. The Land of the Overrated Child
  The Cult of Childhood
  The Madness of Child Abuse
  Divorce and the Long Reach of Childhood
  The Pro-Life Movement and the Cult of Childhood
  The Cry for Initiation
  The Puerile Society
  4. The Metaphor of the Eternally Young Hero
  The Language of Images and the Imagination
  The Myth of JFK and the Conspiracy Theory
  Why Elvis Presley Won't Die
  Rock 'n' Roll and the Dionysian Death
  Death-Heroes and the Wish for Transformation
  5. The Explosion of Innocence
  War and Imperialism, American Style
  America's Messianic Complex
  Violence as the Fist of Innocence
  6. The Metaphor of America's Darkness
  The Roots of American Racism
  The Infantilization of the African-American
  The Rage of the Disesteemed
  The Infatuation with the African-American
  The Meaning of Integration
  7. The Implosion of Innocence
  The Ossification of Authority
  The Cult of Cynicism
  8. The Sacrifice of Innocence
  The Journey of the Hero and Beyond

  Part IV: The Fate of America
  Prelude: The Unpredictable Nature of History
  1. America in the Third Millennium
  Oppurtunity Repeats, History Knocks
  The American Vision as a Paradigm of Integrity
  The Canvas of History
  Conclusion
  ________________________________________
  Praise
  "Our nation leads the world in the race for ever-increasing technological capacity and excellence. Why is it we are not equally dominant in the race for spiritual excellence? This fascinating, insightful, psychological profile of the American psyche offers answers that both enlighten and stimulate."
  —Governor Mario Cuomo
  "A large-scale analysis of this country on a par with Tocqueville . . . an important book. It raises serious questions about our country, makes perceptive observations about our culture, and provokes us to look inside ourselves in a critical, yet constructive, way."
  —Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States
  "This is a book of profound and timely importance. Michael Gellert delineates the dilemma facing contemporary America with the insight of a scholar and the heart of a sage. His philosophic understanding of American character as played out in our national history is both unique and deeply engaging. In drawing on the fantasies, cults and motifs that have shaped our heroic sense of mission, our belief in unlimited possibilities and our quest for salvation in material wealth, he shows how we have drifted from the vision laid down by our founding fathers.... The serious reader of history and philosophy will find thought-provoking information and ideas in this eloquently written book by Michael Gellert."
  =====
  Modern Mysticism
  Jung, Zen and the Still Good Hand of God
  "This thought-provoking book stimulates the imagination
  and offers a new dimension to therapy."
  —Peggy Papp
  Modern Mysticism explores the spiritual nature of the unconscious mind, revealing its role in artistic and scientific creativity, paranormal occurrences, visionary dreams, and mystical illumination. It shows how the unconscious—a vast, largely untapped region of the psyche—is unrestricted by laws of causality and connected not only to the physical world but to the transcendent. Approaching religious experience as a natural phenomenon of the mind, Michael Gellert makes it more comprehensible. By cultivating an openness to the unconscious, all of us—not just mystics, saints, and spiritual masters—can have a religious experience.
  Note: The first edition was published under the title of The Still Good Hand of God: The Magic and Mystery of the Unconsious Mind
  MODERN MYSTICISM
  • recounts intriguing true stories to illustrate creative inspiration, precognition and other paranormal experiences, and altered states of consciousness
  • integrates theories from physics and psychology to provide insight into the magical and mysterious workings of the unconscious mind
  • explains how inner transformation occurs in experiences like the dark night of the soul and in the practice of meditation, prayer, and sports
  Contents
  Acknowledgments
  Foreword
  Part I: FLOWERS OF PARADISE
  1. Intimations of the Divine
  2. The Genius Factor
  3. Untapped Possibilities
  Part II: MYSTERIUM TREMENDUM
  1. The Belly of the Whale
  2. Lila: The Sport of God
  3. The Twilight Zone
  4. Trick or Treat?
  Epilogue
  Appendix: The Dream Journal
  Suggested Reading
  About the Author
  ________________________________________
  Praise
  "A psychotherapist writes that rarest of works—a look at the wondrous and mysterious worlds of the unconscious mind, moving from the paranormal to the highest spiritual experience."
  —Sophy Burnham, author of A Book of Angels
  "Modern Mysticism is engaging, profound, and lucid. The author weaves the complex questions of the existence of a higher intelligence, precognitive experiences, discoveries in modern physics, and UFO sightings into a fabric of luminous beauty and utility. The reader will be fascinated by Gellert's original insights into the workings of the human unconscious."
  —Selwyn Mills, Ph.D., Gestalt therapist and author of The Odd Couple Syndrome
  "Michael Gellert's book is a revealing portrait of the relationship between the unconscious mind and religious experience. . . . Reading this book is a refreshing experience that should appeal to our need to contemplate the unknown, the unconscious. And so, like the unconscious itself, this book is a manifestation of 'the still good hand of God': It, too, extends an invitation to the magic and mystery within all of us."
  —Malcolm Spicer, Quadrant: The Journal of Contemporary Jungian Thought
  "In his chapter on his visit to Calcutta, Gellert takes you with him, into the whale's belly and out! An extraordinary experience—not to be wished for and not to be missed!"
  —Diane Wolkstein, author of The First Love Stories: From Isis and Osirus to Tristan and Iseult
  "An innovative and important approach to psychic phenomena. Challenges the present-day psychological conception of projections in a refreshing and thought-provoking manner."
  —Nathan Schwartz-Salant, Ph.D., author of The Borderline Personality: Vision and Healing and Narcissism and Character Transformation
  "This thought-provoking book stimulates the imagination and offers a new dimension to therapy."
  —Peggy Papp, Senior Supervisor, Ackerman Institute for Family Therapy
  "This book is wonderful, as it is both challenging and comforting. I highly recommend it to anyone who is serious about spirituality."
  —Rabbi Arthur Gross-Schaefer, Associate Professor of Law and Ethics, Loyola Marymount University
  "A treasure chest of testimony from leading writers, artists, scientists, statesmen, athletes and other leading figures—we are invited into a world of fascinating personal encounters with the unconscious. The unconscious mind is seen as a contributor to the creative process, problem-solving, early warning and phenomenal athletic feats."
  —Paul Caubet, Brain/Mind Bulletin
  "The central premise of Mr. Gellert's highly readable book is that the unconscious mind is the seat of religious experience and that all people have the capacity for religious experience, not only 'great souls.'"
  —The Beacon
  "Gellert shows us that what the psychologists call the unconscious can be viewed as a kind of matrix within each human being by and through which higher powers enter into and guide our lives. What was previously called divine providence is still very much a living reality, if only we can learn to be open and sensitive to it. . . . By drawing upon a number of experiences reported by individuals from all walks of life, Gellert illustrates and illuminates the fascinating manifestations of this deeper level of the mind. Such experiences, coming via dreams, visions, inspiration and coincidence, bring intimations of a power more deeply interfused, a higher intelligence that often guides our destiny. Altogether an illuminating and highly readable book."
  —Prediction Magazine
  "The real value of this book is not in Michael Gellert's quiet, lucid prose, nor is it in the thoughtfulness of his interpretation—no, the value lies in the power of the many personal stories herein. They are the undeniable facts of experience with which psychology and religion must deal; they move us and let us know that the Soul is active still."

  =====

• Penguin Random House - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/556313/the-divine-mind-by-michael-gellert/9781633883178/

  Michael Gellert is a Jungian analyst practicing in Los Angeles and Pasadena, California. He was formerly Director of Training at the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles and a humanities professor at Vanier College, Montreal. He also supervised a mental health… More about Michael Gellert [not there]

• Center for Jungian Studies of South Florida - http://www.jungfl.org/media-center/interviews/

  CJSSF: In your book The Way of the Small, you include a charming little box after each chapter with the title “Potent Quotes.” They present, in a small font, the quotes that you have chosen to accompany the chapters. These two quotes by Jung, above, although not in the boxes, seem very powerful in regards to the content of your book. Could you explore them and share your thoughts with us?

  MG: There is a tendency, particularly from the influence of Eastern religion and its occasional misinterpretation by Westerners, to believe that the ego needs to be transcended, that one should be beyond or without ego. That is not only erroneous, but dangerous. You need a strong ego to survive and find fulfillment in life. That is why so much of analysis is concerned with building a strong ego and ego skills. <> Merely, one should have a strong but small ego, meaning that the ego’s ambitions, attachments, and inflation (“ego tripping”) should be kept to a minimum so that the ego <> and obstruct a healthy relationship with the unconscious and the world. That is the way of the small and addresses the first quote.
  The second quote speaks to how when the ego is made to feel small, often by some diminishing ordeal such as failure, depression, a health crisis, or loss of a loved one, it gets out of its own way so as to have an encounter with the unconscious that leads to some new insight or deepening awareness. The Self—that higher intelligence within the psyche that sends us our most illuminating dreams and guides us to realize our hidden capacities—can then emerge unobstructed. And reversely, when the Self emerges, it is itself a diminishing experience for the ego. The ego recognizes that it doesn’t really run the show, that its deepest wisdom is not its own, that it is all too human and frail. Religious experience, which comes from the Self, liberates the ego by defeating it through a realization that it is not the center of the universe, but, like the earth, just a small planet revolving around a much greater source of energy and light (namely, the Self). The realization of the Self always defeats our ego-centricity. Embracing this realization with its defeat is also the way of the small.

  CJSSF: You mention and quote musicians, among them, Bob Dylan: “I make a song as small or as narrow as possible rather than make it a big, broad, grand thing. By keeping it so narrow, emotion plays a great part.” One classic of the Japanese literature is The Narrow Road to the Interior, by Matsua Basho, the story of a man pursuing simple life. Also, in Matthew 7:13 we read: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.” What would be your comments about the way of the “narrow” connected to the way of the “small”?

  MG: The way of the narrow is the way of the small. They’re synonymous. “Narrow” alludes to what this path or way looks like when you’re facing or traveling it; “small” alludes to the attitude and behavior on one’s part when facing and traveling it.

  CJSSF: Would you recommend any additional reading material to those attending the lecture on February 13th and interested in the topics that your book approaches?

  MG: There is a comprehensive list of books in the Notes at the back of The Way of the Small. Mystics such as Meister Eckhart and the Zen masters all trumpet the way of the small, as do American masters such as Henry David Thoreau and Abraham Lincoln. One book that nicely “says it all” is the Tao Te Ching; Stephen Mitchell’s recent translation is very inspiring.

  CJSSF Interview conducted by Lucia Leao, Board Member.

• C.G. Jung Club of Orange County, California - http://www.junginoc.org/2018-01-21.htm

  Michael Gellert, MA, LCSW, is former Director of Training of the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles, where he currently serves as research instructor. A Jungian analyst practicing in Los Angeles and Pasadena, he sees individuals and couples and offers a Jungian Writing Workshop. He was educated in rabbinic Judaism, hitchhiked from Europe to India at age 19, studied theology at Loyola College in Montreal and media theory with Marshall McLuhan at the University of Toronto, and trained with the renowned Zen master Koun Yamada in Japan for two years. The author of Modern Mysticism, The Fate of America, The Way of the Small, and The Divine Mind, he lectures widely on psychology, religion, and contemporary culture.

• The Divine Mind - book introduction

  The Divine Mind: Excerpt from Introduction

  When I was a child, I was taught to worship the God of the Hebrew Bible. In Jewish
  school, I learned of his extraordinary feats in a three-volume set of books called
  Children’s History of Israel. With chapter titles such as “Israel Conquers!,” “Saul to the
  Rescue!,” “The Wonderful Prince,” “The Romance of Ruth,” “The Bravest Boy in
  Israel,” “The Battle with the Giant,” “Hunted!,” and “Treachery!,” I was rapt in awe.
  History was alive, and God was its powerful mover and shaker. He was a flawless, heroic superbeing who ended the sufferings of his enslaved people and championed them through arid years in the desert and against formidable enemies in the Promised Land of Canaan.

  In later years, I discovered that this God wasn’t so one-sidedly wonderful. I saw the other side of something that glitters. Learning of my father’s experiences in the
  concentration camps of Hungary shook up my views not only of the world but of its
  maker. The so-called Holocaust theologians whom I then read raised the burning
  question: where was God when six million were gassed, executed in mass shootings, and killed in other horrific ways? The Bible itself confirmed God’s dark side through a
  multitude of condemning episodes. He meted out fatal punishments for trivial violations
  of his Law. His ferocious temper would erupt when his chosen people threatened his
  sovereignty over them by worshipping other gods. He was, by his own admission, a
  jealous God. To help them win the land he promised them, he literally went into battle
  with them as their commander-in-chief. He was, the Book of Exodus tells us, a “man of
  war.” He would spearhead military campaigns that would result in what today could only be described as wholesale genocides, and his inclination toward ethnic cleansing, one gathers, served the purpose of eliminating not only Israel’s enemies but the foreign gods he was in competition with. As the people continued to fall prey to idolatry and to violate his Law, he eventually resorted to apocalyptic measures, and not for the first time in his history, as Noah’s flood confirms. He inspired the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires to invade Israel, resulting in the Babylonian exile that deprived the land of its most prominent people. He was relentless in his ambition to get his way, whatever the cost. He was, at least in the early phase of his development, a primitive and psychologically young God, and not the omniscient, always loving, equanimous being many today look to in their faith.

  However, I also discovered that he did not stay young forever. Centuries later, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic mystics, all sharing the same Abrahamic God, would encounter him in a very different way and yet identically to each other. They would experience him very intimately but not as a kind of “superperson” the way scripture usually portrays him, with anthropomorphic features including a masculine gender (which incidentally is how we shall refer to “him,” since we will be dealing largely with scripture and tradition). Rather, they would understand him as a phenomenon that is infinite and not limited by form, present in all things, and ultimately changeless even though those things change. God would be revealed to them in his original condition before creation, before time and the universe existed. Their eyes would see through his eyes, and they would grasp his eternity as their own. They’d perceive him as a state of pure awareness identical to theirs, as beyond good and evil and all the other opposites
  that riddle human life, and as consisting of essentially nothing. To the mystics, this latter quality would imply a pregnant nothingness much like the emptiness or Void of the Buddhists, and not the static, nihilistic nothingness of existentialists like Sartre. One wonders, did God mature or did we—or both?

  My discovery of the mystics went hand in hand with a few personal experiences,
  including one that occurred in 1973 and that I wrote about in a previous book, Modern
  Mysticism, an investigation of the role of the unconscious mind in religious experience.
  Another and more enveloping experience in 1982 deserves a few words here, since it had some role in the genesis of this book. Like the first episode, it also took place in the midst of difficult circumstances. I was suffering from a nasty intestinal condition that my doctors suspected might have been caused by an undetected parasite acquired from my travels through Asia and the Middle East; I was enrolled in a doctorate program in psychology that I found uninspiring and deadening; I was sharing an apartment with someone I did not get along with; and I could neither improve nor yet had the clarity to find my way out of an unsatisfying, painful relationship with a girlfriend. Nothing in my life seemed to be going well, and a heavy and pervasive sadness had crept up on me and swallowed me. In short, I was miserable, and at that point had been so for over a year. All I could do was work my suffering as if it were a meditation exercise—watching it gently without judging it as something “bad,” without taking it personally, as if God had specially selected me for it, and without getting bent out of shape by it. But I wasn’t cognizant of this until much later. It occurred subliminally and without conscious intent.

  One afternoon, for no reason that I could put my finger on at the time, I was swept into an unusual state of mind. I was crossing a street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where I lived, and the view of the cityscape and busy traffic for many blocks ahead somehow caught my eye in a penetrating, fresh way. Suddenly it became evident to me, on a crisp, perceptual level, that my depression was essentially sheer nothingness—as light as a feather if existent at all—and yet filled with a quiet, indescribable divine presence of a nonanthropomorphic sort. I also immediately realized that I had been in this state of mind throughout the entire duration of the depression but hadn’t been aware of it, if such a thing makes sense. As with the meditative attitude, and possibly in connection with it, this had been there subliminally all along, going on perhaps in the way that cosmologists speak about the ever-present background radiation of the universe. And Boom! One day, in a single moment while crossing 81st Street on First Avenue, the shell of my suffering cracked and the nothingness within broke out. My mind became like an open sky as I effortlessly grasped the perennial teaching of the mystics and sages of all the world’s major religions, that where there is nothing, there is everything. A heightened awareness and an almost crazy-making ecstasy coupled with a sober peacefulness and appreciation of divine grace emerged. My sadness instantly evaporated. As this state lasted several days, and its embers weeks longer, each of my problems were addressed and, if not altogether resolved, managed with an attitude of lightness.
  In the years since then, I developed a passionate interest in the implications of this
  experience—so resonant with that of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic mystics—for an understanding of the Abrahamic God. I studied the three Abrahamic traditions to see what I could learn about how this God unfolded from the one presented in scripture to the one the mystics proclaimed. Eventually it became evident that he was on a journey—a journey of consciousness, or what in mythology is described as the hero’s journey. This wasn’t, however, a typical hero’s journey, because the Abrahamic God is not human, even though he exhibited human characteristics up until the mystics. Nevertheless, his evolving consciousness as presented in our Abrahamic traditions shows him in a process of transformation through heroic trial and ordeal.

  It is no accident that experiences like mine, and like that of the mystics, were also fruits of trial and ordeal. This book is about God’s journey from the Hebrew Bible (or what many call the Old Testament) to the mystics of the Middle Ages and onward to modern times. Following the tracks of God forward from his first encounters with humankind, it aims to show where he came from and where he went, as this journey is one thing that
  distinguishes him from other gods: he was going somewhere; he was on a mission. Of
  what value is it for us to retrace his steps? To begin, his journey is interesting. It is a historical, psychological, and spiritual adventure. By recounting it, we will be invited to
  peek into his inner transformation process. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, this process may be very similar to our own, and possibly God can teach us a few things by virtue of his own story. The exploration of matters of ultimate truth, in any case, deepens and prepares us for the challenges of our own journey. We may discover what is humanly possible. Finally, we currently live in a world where one of the three Abrahamic traditions—Islam—is undergoing, for lack of a better term, an identity crisis that is affecting all of us. It may be helpful to learn about the core identity of both Islam’s tradition and its God, who happens to also be the God of Judaism and Christianity. This may empower us to deal more authentically with our confusing, troubled times by giving us a larger religious or spiritual context to view them in.

  Our approach to God’s journey will revolve around the principle that the statements humans make about him reflect their experience of him, experience that, history reveals, changes over the course of time and tends to become psychologically more sophisticated. In telling his tale, I wish to preserve the magical way the biblical authors experienced him—namely, as an omnipotent, miraculous being, albeit one plagued with anxiety and dark moods that he acts out on. At the same time, I want to convey the gravitas of God as he evolves in the other Abrahamic scriptures and sacred writings that followed the Hebrew Bible. The profound intellect and wise heart of the
  mystics in particular give the impression that they pierced into his true nature. However, all statements about God must in the end be treated as expressions only of the human experience of him, since this is all we can truly know about him. As Jung was repeatedly compelled to say, the experience of God is a psychological fact regardless of whether or not he exists. Neither scripture nor mysticism provides irrefutable proof of the existence or nature of God; they only prove our experience of something we call “God.” Our inquiry will thus be concerned only with what we can verify about him, and that indeed is only our experiences.
  God mirrors the psyche that experiences him, another psychological fact worth mentioning. For example, both the biblical God and the ancient Israelites were tribal in
  their thinking and values, and not particularly philosophical. Both were fierce, brutal, and barbaric. This raises the question, who was created in the image of whom? It is apparent that Yahweh—God’s name in ancient Hebrew, meaning “I Am Who I Am” and
  sometimes mispronounced as “Jehovah”—was pictured with anthropomorphic imagery. (This was not only in the visual sense of sometimes having a human form but with respect to his other human traits too.) This is to be expected given the common view that the only way we can begin to comprehend the unknown is by proceeding from the known (and the Hebrew Bible marks the beginning of the Abrahamic quest to know the unknown, and hence is God presented in a way that is knowable). The psychological term for this, of course, is projection.

  By contrast, the mystics advocate that God can be perceived only by altogether jumping off the cliff of the known and free-falling into the divine abyss of the unknown.
  Our images and ideas of God must more or less be sacrificed—our projections withdrawn—until nothing remains, and our self-image as other than God must also be
  extinguished. Only then can divine nothingness be grasped. However, this is not to say
  that the mystics had no religious imagination at all. The religious imagination is not to be equated with “fiction,” “illusion,” or “make-believe.” It is the human faculty that
  attempts to make the unknown knowable through images, ideas, myths, stories, and other forms of symbolic thought. As a psychic realm full of magical and mystical possibilities, it is also the source of many varieties of religious experience. The mystics employed the religious imagination to explain the metaphysics of creation and the psychology of the mind. But with regard to God, they were expressly interested in liberating him from the limitations of any kind of imagination or imaginal qualities. They wanted to taste, as Kant would say, the thing-in-itself.

  This psychological factor of the religious imagination offers us a lens to view not only the God of scripture but the wider statements the Abrahamic religions make. Some still insist on a literal approach to questions like “Were the Israelites really slaves in Egypt?” or “Did Moses really receive the Ten Commandments and other Mosaic laws
  directly from God?” In fact, there is very little historical evidence for the events of the
  Exodus (and the ancient Egyptians were excellent record-keepers). As for the Mosaic
  Code, we know that it was predated by the Code of Hammurabi—the Amorite, Semitic
  king of Sumer who ruled the first Babylonian Empire in the eighteenth century BCE—
  and that the content, terminology, and even arrangement of the two codes bear a striking resemblance to each other. The Bible itself informs us that, around that time, Abraham, the patriarch upon whose covenant with God all the Abrahamic religions are founded, came to Canaan from Ur of the Chaldeans, which was in Babylonia. Is this the historical origin of the Mosaic Code, or at least an influence upon it?

  What is important for our inquiry is not the factual history of the Abrahamic religions, but rather what they say is their history. One can approach the events they describe—whether the Exodus, the Resurrection of Jesus, or the angel Gabriel’s revelations to Muhammad—as history or myth or a blend of the two. For our purposes, the issue of whether they actually occurred or were instead dramatic inventions of the religious imagination is an unnecessary dichotomy. From a psychological viewpoint, even if they happened only in the religious imagination, they nonetheless happened. Whether literally or symbolically, they tell the story of the human experience of God. By the same token, this book is both a history of God’s inner development and our history of
  his development, not necessarily his. After all, who can truly fathom the mystery of God’s inner workings, thoughts, and feelings?

  In another matter that speaks to the anomalies of the Hebrew Bible, we can observe toward its end the occurrence of something unique in the history of religion: Yahweh participates in his own transformation to become a more viable God, if not yet a mystical one. He is subtly portrayed, again in the spirit of the hero’s journey, as seeking greater consciousness. It would be one thing if the primitive biblical God just died off as he evolved into a more sophisticated God, but instead he suffers his own inner conflict with himself in service to his evolution. He demonstrates an urge toward self-realization. I know of no other god who does this. Perhaps here he again mirrors the psychic disposition of the Israelites. The historical moment at which he displays this is around the same time the Israelites become known as the Jews, the time of the Babylonian exile and the return from exile. They go through a tremendous paradigm shift, as does he.

  God’s journey has three stages that correspond to the history of the Abrahamic
  experience of him, and with this we may turn to how we will proceed. These three stages also correspond to the book’s three parts. We will begin with (1) the Hebrew Bible (all or almost all of which is accepted by all three Abrahamic religions). We will then progress to (2) the Talmud, New Testament, Qur’an, and Gnostic literature. Finally, we will conclude with (3) the writings of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic mystics. We may note here how God’s journey parallels the evolution of our consciousness. At first, we pictured him as he is presented in the Hebrew Bible, as a tribal war god. Much later, we encountered him no longer as a projected external image but as our own innermost essence. God’s journey from the imaginal to the mystical is really our own. The three stages are thus both historical and psychological.

  The first stage, the period of the Hebrew Bible, spans approximately from 2000 to 200 BCE. (Of course, other stages of religious development in the ancient Near East preceded this, but the Israelite religion, adopting the Canaanite sky god El as Yahweh,
  begins in this period.) God here is something utterly other than ourselves, and yet he has a personality, as if he were a human. Our treatment of him in this stage, while
  acknowledging his otherness, will therefore be as a personality who feels, thinks, and
  behaves in human ways, for this was how the Israelites experienced him. The second, intermediate stage produced the Talmud, the New Testament, the Qur’an, and the Gnostic literature. It spans from around 200 BCE to 1200 CE. In this period, God is still, with some exceptions, conceived as external to us. However, he here begins to develop, beyond his humanlikeness in the Hebrew Bible, a humanitarian orientation that exercises his inner, spiritual character. He becomes less a personality and more humane. One can observe in this middle phase a chipping away of the original
  image of the Abrahamic God (Yahweh), each tradition in its own manner.

  Lastly, the culminating stage, spanning from about 1200 to 1800, saw a complete
  transformation of this original image. During this period, the Jewish, Christian, and
  Islamic mystics discovered that the true God is not in any image but in absolute nothingness. By detaching themselves from traditional, anthropomorphic notions of God, they found<< the limitless, formless, changeless, omnipresent Godhead>>—the source of all gods—who always was, always is, and always will be. They believed that we can all at least glimpse this Godhead because, even though it is transcendent, it <> In perhaps the greatest revolution in the history of human consciousness, God and humanity became one and the same.

  But this culmination is not the end, at least not for us who, living some five centuries later than the more pivotal of these mystics, would witness atrocities that would raise questions striking at the heart of any discussion about God: How could an ethical and now mystically evolved God allow something like the Holocaust to happen? Does his
  silence mean that he has turned his back not only on his so-called chosen people but the millions of others who also perished? Has he, in his mystical loftiness, simply lost
  interest in humanity? In order to be complete, our journey must confront the dimension
  of evil and embrace the gritty details of human suffering, and so, in the final pages of this book, we will explore how our mystics and sages could help us with these questions. Their penetrating words and deeds offer something more substantial than the pat answers we are often given, such as, “God works in mysterious ways.” Indeed, we need teachings that acknowledge the powerful force and reality of evil without succumbing, on the one hand, to fundamentalism’s oversimplifications and, on the other, to modernity’s disillusionment and loss of moral values—what Nietzsche was really referring to when he declared that “God is dead.” If in the mystics’ experience God reached the pinnacle of his development, then it is up to us to extract from their experience the insights that would for us furnish a more complete understanding of how there could exist a God of love and higher truth in a world as dark as ours. To make their truths relevant to us, we must wrestle with the mystics and sages of our traditions the way Jacob wrestled with God. We must earn the benefits of their insights for ourselves.

Print Marked Items
The Fate of America: An Inquiry into
National Character. (Political Science)
Jack Forman
Library Journal.
126.18 (Nov. 1, 2001): p120.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No
redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text: 
Gellert, Michael. The Fate of America: An Inquiry into National Character. Brassey's. 2001. c.400p. index.
ISBN 1-57488-356-9. $27.50. POLITICS
For Jungian analyst Gellert (Modern Mysticism: Jung, Zen and the Still Good Hand of God), America is at a
fateful crossroads: will it allow the vision of its Founding Fathers "to be diffused through the cults of
novelty, freedom, happiness or prosperity," or will it reconnect to its spiritual roots--"moral integrity and
integrity of good, balanced living"? Gellert contrasts the overlapping and competing visions of Adams and
Jefferson by portraying Jefferson's philosophy of freedom as the absence of restrictions by the church and
state and Adams's as a reflection of "interior integrity" based on one's character and ethics. Using this
analysis as a backdrop, Gellert identifies and examines a host of contemporary U.S. problems emanating
from the individualistic Jeffersonian philosophy, including an "addiction to innocence" (things are the way
they appear) and an "addiction to height" (a need to express heroic visions through materialistic reaches
toward the heavens--e.g., skyscrapers and space programs). In separate chapters, he also discusses the
embrace of what he terms "cults," which results in simplistic beliefs in celebrity, religious fundamentalism
along with religious mediocrity, and the valuing of individual passion ("getting high"). <>--the "vision thing." A broad-ranging, cogently argued, and
provocative critique that has taken on a whole new dimension since September 11. For most academic
libraries and larger public libraries.--Jack Forman, San Diego Mesa Coll., Lib., CA
Forman, Jack
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
Forman, Jack. "The Fate of America: An Inquiry into National Character. (Political Science)." Library
Journal, 1 Nov. 2001, p. 120. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A80606888/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=fda7198e. Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A80606888
The Fate of America: An Inquiry into
National Character
Mary Carroll
Booklist.
98.2 (Sept. 15, 2001): p183.
COPYRIGHT 2001 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text: 
Gellert, Michael. The Fate of America: An Inquiry into National Character. Sept. 2001. 400p. index.
Brassey's, $27.50 (1-57488-356-9). 973.
What's wrong with the U.S.? Jungian analyst and professor Gellert maintains that we're suffering a crisis of
heroism: our "heroic ideal" is too simplistic and immature for the nation and the times; in fact, it poses a
serious threat to our democracy. Gellert traces the history of the American heroic ideal (the revolutionary,
the frontiersman, the cowboy). More significantly, he examines the consequences of this youth-obsessed
vision: addiction to "height" (making cults of prosperity, speed, celebrity, fundamentalism, drugs) and
innocence (making cults of novelty, freedom, and happiness and refusing to deal with evidence of our own
capacity for evil in, for example, racism, war, and imperialism). It is the implosion of this innocence, Gellert
argues, that produces the "ossification of authority" and the cult of cynicism that govern current political and
social discourse. Like the mythic heroes, he suggests, <>
Carroll, Mary
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
Carroll, Mary. "The Fate of America: An Inquiry into National Character." Booklist, 15 Sept. 2001, p. 183.
General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A79226608/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d8c06eef. Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A79226608

Forman, Jack. "The Fate of America: An Inquiry into National Character. (Political Science)." Library Journal, 1 Nov. 2001, p. 120. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A80606888/ITOF? u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 5 Mar. 2018. Carroll, Mary. "The Fate of America: An Inquiry into National Character." Booklist, 15 Sept. 2001, p. 183. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A79226608/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.

• Amazon.com
  
  Word count: 577

  Description

  A Jungian psychoanalyst with a background in Judaism and Zen Buddhism explores the history of God concepts in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions.

  This book is about the Abrahamic God’s inner journey, an epic that begins in the Hebrew Bible—the common source of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This God emerges as a living, textured personality as tormented as a Shakespearean character and as divided against humanity as the devil who personifies his dark side. Yet in heroic fashion, he embarks on a journey to greater consciousness, stretching into himself in the Talmud, New Testament, Qur’an, and Gnostic writings. Then finally, with and through the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic mystics, he discovers his true self as the absolute Godhead. He takes up residence in their psyches as their own Divine Mind or true self. The book suggests that what God learned from his journey might be something that we in turn could learn from and that could help us at the dawn of the twenty-first century. In this way, God’s inner journey becomes a metaphor for our own.

  Michael Gellert, a Jungian psychoanalyst, treats this story and the sacred writings that convey it as psychological facts—as expressions of the human psyche—regardless of whether or not God actually exists. He shows how the Hebrew Bible presents God as a primitive, barbaric tribal war god while centuries later the mystics portray him as their innermost essence and emptied of all projected, external, anthropomorphic images. Thus, God’s inner journey and the evolution of human consciousness—his story and ours—parallel each other and are integrally related.

  Rich in historical detail and psychological insights, this is a book that will be welcomed by seekers of every background and orientation.

  The Way of the Small:

  Editorial Reviews
  From Publishers Weekly

  Psychoanalyst Gellerts (The Fate of America) gives readers a chance to feel big in small ways with this guide to cultivating a "less is more, simpler is better" life. <>-an "organic way of living" rather than a "theory, formula, or fixed belief system"-Gellert locates and celebrates the small in individual experience (including his own and those of his patients), all the major world religions and the Big Bang, among other settings. Eloquent consideration of ideas like "celebrating the right details" and "embracing diminishment" follows, as well as more practical strategy like "facing adversity with humor," "letting go of perfection" and the "mystical idea of amor fat, or loving your fate." Covering a decidedly large range of issues-love, death, warfare, morality, humankind and the cosmos-Gellert applies his "small" principle confidently but perhaps too broadly; still, Gellert's graceful text will definitely boost readers' capacity for accepting one's predicament and finding satisfaction in the slight.
  Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
  About the Author

  Michael Gellert is a faculty member of the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles and a certified Jungian analyst in private practice. He has been a college professor and a mental health consultant to the University of Southern California and Time Magazine. He is the author of Modern Mysticism: Jung, Zen, and the Still Good Hand of God and The Fate of America: An Inquiry into National Character.

• Open Letters Review
  https://openlettersreview.com/open-letters-review/the-divine-mind-by-michael-gellert
  Word count: 751

  Steve Donoghue
  The Divine Mind Exploring the Psychological History of God's Inner Journey by Michael Gellert.jpg
  The Divine Mind:
  Exploring the Psychological History of God's Inner Journey
  by Michael Gellert
  Prometheus Books, 2018

  Jungian analyst Michael Gellert, in his new book The Divine Mind: Exploring the Psychological History of God's Inner Journey, sifts through the Old Testament, the Talmud, the New Testament, the Koran, and the Hadith in order to trace the mental and moral growth of the central character, the God of the three Abrahamic religions. The goal of The Divine Mind is to make some sense out of the figure Richard Dawkins refers to as “the most unpleasant character in all fiction”; in these pages, Gellert is asking the same question Scriptural scholars have asked all the way back to Saint Augustine and that believers have been asking in one phrasing or another since Adam and Eve were bustled out of the Garden of Eden: “What is it with this Guy?”

  “The Bible itself confirmed God's dark side through a multitude of condemning episodes,” Gellert points out early on. “He meted out fatal punishments for trivial violations of his Law. His ferocious temper would erupt when his chosen people threatened his sovereignty over them by worshiping other gods. He was, by his own admission, a jealous God.” He lies, He grandstands, He contradicts Himself, and those are on good days. He revels in His own cruelty and brags about it; He's vain and buffoonish, bloodthirsty both to His favorites and their mortal enemies in almost equal measure; He, as Gellert puts it, “took pleasure in his wrath.”

  Gellert relates that theologian Raymund Schwager counted roughly one thousand instances in the Hebrew Bible when Yahweh is savagely violent … more times, in fact, than the humans in the same text. The Divine Mind follows Him from atrocity to atrocity, always seeking to detect some pattern of insight or learning, some indication of what, in human terms, might be called psychological growth. Readers will be familiar with a recent virtuoso similar performance by Jack Miles in his God: A Biography and Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God; Gellert's book ranges far more widely, seeking evidence of God's growth in all of the Abrahamic Scriptures. Like many scholars before him, he notices that a certain spring seems to go out of God's step once He becomes a father; God never upstages the more or less mundane activities of Jesus in the New Testament, and He's entirely a product of hearsay in the Koran. As James Kugel examined in his wonderful 2017 book The Great Shift, a fundamental change takes place at some point in the Abrahamic tradition as <>

  “Yahweh's dark side is presented as larger than ours since the image of God is, as one would expect, larger than life,” Gellert writes. “His dark side reflects his character – that is, his character as the biblical authors implicitly saw it – more than our own.” To which most readers will say, “You're bloody right it does.” No human characters in the Old Testament are even remotely as psychopathic as God is; in fact, humans in the Hebrew Bible are often surprised and baffled by the seemingly gratuitous murderous excesses of their patron God.

  Jungian analysis is a mere fly-speck against such a monstrous portrait, of course, and Gellert surely knows that. Where his book really shines instead is in its off-the-clock exegesis; <>, and virtually every page features a gem of phrasing like: “Revelation is early Christianity's salute to the overpowering return of Yahweh's Sturm und Drang onto the stage of history. Jesus's humanity is all but consumed by it.”

  Gellert, who studied with a Zen master in Japan, concludes his book with a broad-brush spiritual urging. “Only when we know [the Divine Mind] firsthand as the wellspring from which all waters flow, and back into which all waters flow, will we be truly relieved of our existential worries and inner conflicts.” But readers who are white-faced and trembling after having force-marched their way through the gallery of Heavenly gore and lies and terror might come away with a much stronger imperative: Stay the hell away from this particular God.

• Amazon.com
  
  Word count: 741

  The Way of the Small

  A practical and spiritual guide to making everyday living sacred. The Way of the Small: Why Less is Truly More explores the principals of a sound, wholesome exisistence for both the individual and society. Addressing the search for finding true happiness, meaning and success, The Way of the Small gives us new perspectives based on old wisdom on what makes for a truly lived life. A practical and spiritual guide to fulfillment, it illustrates that happiness is found in "the small"-in ways to celebrate the precious small gifts of ordinary life and experiencing the sacred in all aspects of life. We are reminded that "Less Is More, Simpler Is Better." The Way of the Small teaches ways to embrace even life's more difficult passages such as aging, failure, illness, or the loss of a loved one, making even our pain a path to the sacred that helps us find meaning in life as it happens. * Offers 22 key principles to activate the way of the small--simplify and discover true happiness. * Especially relevant for mid-lifers, helping the process of sifting through life experience and finding what is of true essence, personally, spiritually and worldly. * Relates the how "smallness" is part of established major religions and spiritual teachings. * A practical and spiritual guide to help us navigate a way of living in our complex times that leads to a happier and more meaningful and balanced life.
  .....
  Let me say that this is the first time I have been moved to write a review on Amazon but have always found helpful and benefited by others that have taken the time to do so.

  The author treats us with an alternative look at our material society that bombards us with "more is better". We in the west live in an age whereby keeping up with the Jones's has been replaced with "surpass the Jones's at any cost". Difficult to not get caught up in the jetstream of advertising.
  It addresses all stages of life so that nearly anyone can pick it up and find relevance to their particular circumstance. I could see this benefiting young teens as well as those at the end of life looking for ways to find peace. I highly recommend this book as a "life guide".
  If you have ever bought a book to tried to figure out how to be happy or looked for ways to be more tranquil, then your collection could be more complete with this book which begs to be a classic.
  Michael synthesizes centuries of wisdom with his pilgramage to find truth and further refines it with stories from his therapy practice so that ancient wisdom comes alive in a modern day context. Bottom line is that there is so much useful information that can be applied easily to daily life.
  I find myself referring back to it. It is a book you will read and reread at different stages of your life and get something new each time you read it.
  I work for a Fortune 500 comany and we are in the process of contacting this author to arrange for seminars for our employees. Not only could this bring them more happiness but make them more productive.
  .....

  This book just didn't work for me. Much of it seems 'too big'. For instance, in the chapter "Building a foundation for success" he discusses how Washington and Gandhi epitomized smallness in their struggles against the British empire. There are similar stories on Lincoln, Truman and others. It is hard to relate these examples to everyday issues, like coping with too many emails.

  Mr. Gellert draws heavily on Judeo-Christian traditions and Jungian psychology in his explorations of smallness. Others might find this approach more appealing than I did.

  I expected the chapter "practicing the way of the small in the world" to have some concrete tips and recommendations for applying these ideas in our every day lives. Instead there are discussions on the longevity of great empires, the lack of humility among Hollywood stars, and other grandiose topics.

  If you are looking for a book on how to bring simplicity and smallness into your daily life, keep looking. If you are looking to improve society or make the world a better place, through `smallness', this might be the book for you.

• Publishers Weekly Online
  https://www.publishersweekly.com
  Word count: 240

  Jungian analyst Gellert (Modern Mysticism) crafts a psychobiography of the Abrahamic God across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in this perceptive study. For the first half of the work, he offers close readings of stories in the Hebrew Bible to show how Yahweh’s rages, extreme punishments, and jealousies all point to a flawed, broken psyche. His treatment of the Talmud, New Testament, and Quran as middle stages where God has retreated from direct contact feel slightly rushed, but they pave the way for his real interest in mystics. A careful selection of thinkers shows how all three traditions leave room for the mystic paradox that God is both nothing and everywhere. Gellert’s inconsistent views of the Islamic perceptions of God—connecting the Qur'an more directly with the earlier Hebrew Bible but also lauding the early Muslims mystics—strains his overly simplistic chronological linear model. But his final chapter on how mystic understandings of God can explain massive evils like the Holocaust highlights the utility of his diffuse interpretation of the nature of God for contemporary believers. Though some traditionalists will bristle at Gellert’s view of an evolving, passionate God, his work<< offers a bridge between the present-yet-harsh God found in the Bible and the seemingly-absent-but-ever-loving God>> <> worship. Agency: Kimberley Cameron & Associates. (Jan.)

  Correction: An earlier version of this review included a misrepresentation of the author's view of the Qur'an.

Word Count