that of later Christians of avoiding
hell fire after death? Is not such
Angst
a disease, an emotion pro–
duced by Protestant theology after
faith in that theology has disap–
peared? And what is this self that
feels the
Angst
and leaps heroically
for salvation into the Unknown?
If
it were the transcendental Self,
or Brahman, it could feel no anxie–
ty
because it can be only transcen–
dental, on
this
side of the foot–
lights; it may have interrupted ex–
periences, but it cannot die in the
sense of not being capable of hav–
ing more; and more of them can
hurt it if it is purely transcenden–
tal, like the comfortable rich man
in the stalls watching a tragedy
and then a comedy.
If,
on the con–
trary, this self is the concrete hu–
man psyche or person we know
perfectly what its circumstances
are and what it needs to be anx–
ious about. There may be wise or
foolish decisions made by it, but
no leap into the unknown. The
whole thing, from this point of
view, seems confused and gratui–
tous.
There is another approach to
Existentialism, from Husserl, that
interests me more. Husserl, in the
earlier form of his Pure Phenome–
nology, carne upon what I call es–
sences; and the counterpart or
these, considered as given phenom–
ena (which they need not be)
would be the pure transcendental
SpIrIt, or Brahman, mentioned
above, which is all that I can get
satisfactorily out of Kant. But Hus-
the-important new
European movement in
Psychiatry and Psychology
H
ere is the first compre–
hensive statement for Amer–
ican readers of the concepts
and practice of Existential
Analysis - presenting the
writings of Binswanger,
Kuhn, von Gebsattel, Min–
kowski and Straus, the lead–
ing exponents of
this
new
approach to psychotherapy.
Compelling case histories
and the editors' cogent com–
ments on the historical, phi–
losophical and clinical back–
grounds of Existential Analy–
sis round out
this
important
new work.
"
.sa
iloilo Ernest
Henri F.
635
MAY ANGEL ELLENBERGEIl .editon
EXISTENCE
A.
New' Dimension In .psychlatry
and
Psychology
BASIC BOOKS, Publishers
59 Fourth Av enue, N e w York 3, N Y
