Sign in with Facebook
Jennie's Reviews > The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth
The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth
by
by
I read this book to make my mom happy. Her church book group was reading it, and she got all stoked about it after reading the first section. It was a fairly bland combination of basic common sense (self-discipline is good, laziness is bad), pseudo-spiritual psychobabble (your unconscious mind is God!), and the occasional moral zinger (open marriage is the only real form of marriage). Overall, I was unimpressed, but I wasn't begging the Lord for the 6 hours of my life back, either. I never even asked my mom what she thought of the book after the first part. I suppose that would be a good thing to do. I love my mom.
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read
The Road Less Traveled.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
Started Reading
January 1, 2008
–
Finished Reading
January 10, 2008
– Shelved
April 25, 2016
– Shelved as:
philosophy-religion
Comments Showing 1-7 of 7 (7 new)
date
newest »
newest »
le Leisenring "When the student is ready, the Master will appear" Sometimes the Master comes early. As long as ego and intellect are the sole driving forces of ones life, then no true Master will appear. Until selfless prayer and meditation are realized daily, nothing on the inside changes.(less)
Ah, the internet. A magical place full of people whom I just don't understand!
i'll admit that part was strange (about would have sex if it would help), but giving him the latitude of a awesome, spirit-expanding book, i trusted him enough not get hung up on that part. this book changed my life.
it is obvious you read it for the wrong reasons and thus built a resentment.
It should be noted that the becoming a God part was one of Jung's most important ideas. Jung dissected religion into its most vital aspects and found that it is more about becoming the ideal human being than anything else. When Jung and Peck talk about becoming a "human god" they are not talking literally. It is much deeper than that.
Regardless of the precise definition of "open marriage" (I would posit that it currently means something far more complex than "swinging"), I still remember the part of the book where Peck claims he would have sex with a patient if he thought it would benefit that patient. He went on to admit that he couldn't conceive of a situation in which such sex would be beneficial to a patient, but that part still rubbed me the wrong way. It seemed very self-righteous (Look at me! I'm so selfless! I am willing to heal my patients with my magical penis! You are not yet so selfless, but you should be!) and poseur-y (Oh, extramarital sex is so trendy, you uptight prudes! Not that I've ever actually had any!). It also seemed to disregard a lot of the complexities of sexual situations--What if it was good for the patient but not for his wife? Not for him? Not for his other patients, who might feel unsafe knowing there was potential for a sexual relationship with their therapist? What if the best thing for his patient was a sex act that he really wasn't comfortable with? What if certain aspects of a sexual encounter would benefit the patient, and others wouldn't? Who defines "benefit?" The whole conversation just seemed to rub our noses in the fact that we weren't cool enough if a situation like this made us uncomfortable. I certainly agree that spouses shouldn't be too codependent, but clearly that was not the message that stuck with me from this book.