Adam Phillips
At at time when contemporary psychoanalysis asks us to choose, with
insufficient irony, between sexuality and relationships Michael Eigen,
in
this inspired book, adds the third term that might make the debate
intelligible again. It is mysticism - not exactly sexuality, not quite
aggression - that is the unacceptable in psychoanalysis; and it is the
mystic - as both external and internal object - that is the true critic
of
psychoanalysis. The Psychoanalytic Mystic is unusually illuminating.
Mark Epstein
Michael Eigen is a mystical psychoanalyst and in this numinous work he
makes us believe in the possibilities of both mysticism and
psychoanalysis. Heart-stopping in its beauty and poignancy, Eigen's
book,
in Winnicott's words, 'carries all the sense of the real'. The
Psychoanalytic Mystic is that rare combination, a treat for the senses
and
a feast for the mind.
Christopher Bollas
Winnicott did not need an other world mysticism. The real of this
world
was more than enough' writes Eigen; true also of this deeply creative
and
moving thinker in his new book, The Psychoanalytic Mystic. And like the
authors he admirers and uses as 'lenses' - Winnicott, Lacan, Bion,
Milner - Eigen has not only assimilated the works of his intellectual
tradition, they have travelled a dense journey into his unconscious and
returned in the form of spontaneous original thinking, as rare as the
authors he admirers. Do we know of any one who writes like an evocative
amalgam of William Blake, Mark Twain, Freud, and Raymond Chandler? His
voice is unique; his vision is singular yet embracing, his mysticism is
of
this earth yet transcendent, and each of his chapters is a wonderful
'spot
in time.
