Product Description
Yoga classes and Zen meditation, New-Age seminars and holistic workshops, The Oprah Winfrey Show and books by Deepak Chopra—all are part of the ongoing religious experimentation that has surprisingly deep roots in American history. By tracing our unique spiritual heritage along its many colorful highways and eccentric byways, Restless Souls profiles a rich spirituality that is distinctively American. … More >>
Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality
Tags: age seminars, American, american spirituality, deep roots, Deepak Chopra, Description, holistic workshops, Making, meditation, New, Oprah Winfrey, oprah winfrey show, Product, Restless, restless souls, rich spirituality, Souls, spiritual heritage, Spirituality, Yoga, Zen, zen meditation
#1 by C. L. Vash on May 29, 2010 - 10:10 pm
This is what this book has done for me. I have attended Unitarian churches but never understood how “liberal” … a political term, it seemed to me … related to religion. Now I get it. If I were still teaching graduate psychology courses to health and rehabilitation practitioners, I’d include this book as required reading for a course designed to help them deal with the DEEP problems of people with illnesses and disabilities without getting into religious proselyting.
Rating: 5 / 5
#2 by G. Robertson on May 30, 2010 - 12:01 am
in a quick reading of ‘restless souls’ i find persons of courage and determination who look beyond echoes to provide voices that help move us beyond traditionally divisive conceptions of faith and value toward building inclusive community characterized by respect, justice, and mercy. i look forward to spending more time here. gr
Rating: 5 / 5
#3 by Paul Giurlanda on May 30, 2010 - 12:42 am
I’ve been using this book in a class I teach on contemporary spirituality, and students have responded well to it. Schmidt focuses on the New England axis, as it were, of American liberal religion, and leaves it to others to explore the later developments. I wanted to read, for example, about Esalen and the sixties, Ramtha, Seth, and Oprah, but I think Schmidt was wise to limit his focus. Perhaps we’ll see a volume two? I would certainly enjoy that. What’s excellent about the book is that it demonstrates that American metaphysical or liberal spirituality is not ONLY Robert Bellah’s “Sheilah-ism,” i.e., self-indulgent, narcissistic, etc. It is a genuine spiritual quest and, as such, provides a real alternative for contemporary culture that seems divided between right wing religious lunacy and (truly) self-indulgent materialism. Bravo to Leigh Schmidt, and please keep writing!
Rating: 5 / 5
#4 by Mark Gilbert on May 30, 2010 - 2:45 am
I excitiedly picked up this book when it came out but only recently found the time to sit down with it. The topic is one that I am fascinated by and have studied a bit. I walked away at the end overall disappointed. That is not to say the book does not have merit.
First the pluses…
The subject matter….as the cultural creatives or integral inclined individuals who are “spiritual but not religious” look to see the pattern or history in America that has been brewing on the cutting edge of religious/spiritual thought the last 150 years or so…the subject is a timely one that needs to be fully explored….thanks for taking it on.
Covering some of the essential forces…..Emerson and the transcendentalists are explored and cited.
A few engaging stories of lesser known influences…..I liked the stories of Ralph Waldo Trine (with whom I have read and was familiar) and Sarah Farmer (with whom I was not).
Now the minuses….
The format of chapters focusing on some topic (e.g., meditation) and how they impacted our growth….this seemed forced, there was too much overlap of the stories with the details of those brought out in other chapters and led to each chapter jumping around to bring too many short references to other influences that maybe related to the chapter’s “topic”.
The author’s writing style was not always engaging. Some of his stories engaged (as mentioned), but (and this may be a product of how he outlined his chapters into topics) there seemed to be too much jumping around. He could have benefited from using a bit more of a sequential fact telling to help his reader stay with the overall story….bottom line was that there were really engaging stories within chapters and they were strung together with other details that led to the overall direction of the chapter being somewhat lost.
The biggest complaint…..so many major influences upon the modern desire for spiritual experiences were either not in the book or only briefly mentioned in some passing reference (or were mentioned sporactically as he wanted to make a point about them in this themed chapters, hence losing the importance of them). For example, he mentions New Thought collectively but primarily points at Dresser as the entire subject. He does mention some of Quimby and a bit of Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science in reference to NT but most NT scholars quickly point out that Christian Science is not truly New Thought…readers of this book would think that it is. Major New Thought influences are not mentioned at all! Where is Emma Curtis Hopkins, Charles and Myrtle Fillmore (Unity), or Ernest Holmes (Science of Mind)? All had much more lasting influence than Dresser or Trine….and in the more popular culture, where is Dale Carnegie, Norman Vincent Peale, or Napoleon Hill? Where are other major Eastern influences such as Yogananda? I could go on….If this truly is the “making of American Spirituality” as the title implies, then this books greatest failure is one of omission of very real and vital influences upon that topic.
Finally, the payoff on current culture in the book seemed to be reduced to pitting traditional conservative Christians vs the “Church of Oprah”. Although Oprah certainly is an influence, she is more indicative of the maturing of Americans such that those few who were on the cutting edge of sprituality in the 19th century are now growing in numbers due to more and more people transcending old worldviews and moving into what has been labeled the cultural creatives (or the green and higher meme levels in Spiral Dynamics). This natural evolution of our culture is the end game story which the author overlooked.
I would have given this book 2 1/2 stars if possible….kudos for tackling the topic….kudos for some engaging stories of a few of the influences on American spirituality….however for someone looking for the “making of American spirituality”, please know that you are getting only certain interesting pieces of background presented to you without a full picture of what is truly unfolding in our current society.
Rating: 2 / 5
#5 by Fred Strohm on May 30, 2010 - 4:35 am
This book is a gem. It tells the history of what Schmidt calls the “liberal” religious tradition in America. It shows us the golden kernel at the heart of what today is often diluted. Kickboxing yoga enthusiasts no more invalidate Emerson and Whitman, than the Inquisition invalidates Jesus of Nazareth. The book is largely about some wonderful people little known today but influential in their time. These fine folks carried the torch from Emerson and Whitman to the mid-20th century. Schmidt tells their stories beautifully, and reading about them is a joy. I can’t think of a better use of our time than reading about great souls like Thomas Kelly, Max Ehrmann, and Sarah Farmer.
Rating: 5 / 5