An Unknown Destiny: Terror

by Foreword Michael Gruber

Overview

"I have never been particularly fond of Nietzsche, probably because I saw many of my fellow students, years ago, taken, fascinated, even entranced, with his passion, but with no way to let that passion open into something creative. At last, that view changes here. A central effect of Gruber's creative approach to Nietzsche, is to demonstrate, not simply talk about, the fact that it is necessary to throw oneself across the threshold into initiatory realms, into the completely unknown. Initiatory experience cannot be planned; one cannot, in advance, know where one is going or what will happen. Even more, this chopping off of one's purposive, calculating head must be done with the greatest enthusiasm possible. Still, why choose Nietzsche to exemplify this necessity? Part of the answer lies in suggesting that Nietzsche's program for abandoning our mental structures is exactly what is needed to enter the unknown and to develop the capacity of letting life unfold from the unknown, unknowingly, and with the fullest attention." -- Robert Sardello (from the foreword)

Beginning with a consideration of Nietzsche's inflammatory and critical insight that the modern world is framed by the death of God, Michael Gruber confronts contemporary disenchantment and its necessary offspring, the "universalization of terror." By making truth relative, negating the value of beauty, and rendering questions about the good dubious if not obsolete, terror permeates all aspects of our psychosocial existence with the threat of dehumanization. In response to this terror, which is the fundamental mood of our time, Gruber advocates re-imagining our destiny as a path of initiation.

Describing an inner awakening to the spiritual world, whose earthly manifestation of its inherent divinity invites and necessitates our conscious participation, Gruber offers readings and practices that promote the incarnation of "noble souls." Referring to the work of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Steiner, An Unknown Destiny describes how psychotherapy can move beyond healing the ego to transcending the ego. Gruber shows how opening the soul to meditative or intuitive forms of thinking can contribute to the development of new soul faculties of perception and to the experience of moral freedom. Most important, he shows how the incomplete and continuously evolving Mystery of Golgotha can inspire the emergence and presence of modern human beings infused with Christ consciousness--reverence, wisdom, peace, and love.

"The challenge of this book is to radicalize therapy, to see that all of psychology to this point has been nothing more than a preparatory and transitional discipline, a training of consciousness for modern initiation, which now takes place with others, rather than through one's solitary meditative practices. I hope that at least a few therapists will feel the truth of what Michael Gruber has written and take up the magnificent work that he proposes." -- Robert Sardello (from the foreword)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781621510987
Publisher:	SteinerBooks
Publication date:	10/01/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	593 KB

About the Author

Michael Gruber is an existential analyst in private practice in New York City. His work focuses on the dynamics of the therapeutic relationship and cultivates attention to how language, dreaming, and not knowing create possibilities for transformations in consciousness. He is a longtime student of mystical philosophy and Anthroposophy.
Robert Sardello, PhD, is cofounder (with Cheryl Sanders-Sardello, PhD, in 1992) of the School of Spiritual Psychology. At the University of Dallas, he served as chair of the Department of Psychology, head of the Institute of Philosophic Studies, and graduate dean. He is also cofounder and a faculty member of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, as well as author of more than 200 articles in scholarly journals and cultural publications, and is a former faculty member of the Chalice of Repose Project in Missoula, Montana. Having developed spiritual psychology based in archetypal psychology, phenomenology, and the spiritual science of Rudolf Steiner from more than thirty-five years of research in this discipline, as well as holding positions in two universities, Dr. Sardello is now an independent teacher and scholar, teaching throughout the US, Canada, and the UK, as well as the Czech Republic, Philippines, and Australia. He is a consultant to many educational and cultural institutions and a dissertation adviser at numerous academic institutions. He is author of several books, including Facing the World with Soul (2003) and Love and the World (2001).

Table of Contents

C O N T E N T S:

Foreword by Robert Sardello, PhD
Introduction

1. "From Ornithology to a Love Supreme: Overcoming the Forces of Gravity, and the Teaching of Amor Fati"
   
2. "Zarathustra's Convalescence: Cognitive Expansions and Inner Wisdom"
   
3. "With Nietzsche on the Road from Revenge to Redemption"
   
4. "Traumatic Pain: Psychotherapeutic Conversation between Mediumship and Soul Wisdom"
   
5. "Psychotherapy as a Vocation: Giving Voice to Soul"
   
6. "Intuitive and Inceptual Thinking: The Meditative Paths of Steiner and Heidegger"
   
7. "While My Conscience Explodes . . ."
   

Bibliography
Index