In a detailed engagement with the psychoanalytic theories of dreams, conscience, empathy, and creativity, Dan Merkur argues that the superego is an unconscious reasoning process, dedicated to the representation of the loved object. The superego's access to the repressed and devotion of time to single topics make it both more knowledgeable and more intelligent than the conscious ego. This is the final installment in Merkur's three-volume exploration of the psychoanalysis of religious experiences—volumes one and two are The Ecstatic Imagination: Psychedelic Experiences and the Psychoanalysis of Self-Actualization and Mystical Moments and Unitive Thinking, also published by SUNY Press.
- ISBN10 0791449475
- ISBN13 9780791449479
- Publish Date 12 April 2001 (first published 5 April 2001)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint State University of New York Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 185
- Language English