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

"It is arguably the case," writes William Parsons, "that no two figures have had more influence on the course of Western introspective thought than Freud and Augustine." Yet it is commonly assumed that Freud and Augustine would have nothing to say to each other with regard to spirituality or mysticism, given the former's alleged antipathy to religion and the latter's not usually being considered a mystic.

Adopting an interdisciplinary, dialogical, and transformational framework for interpret...