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In the field of interdisciplinary effort represented by the dialogue between psychoanalysis and religious thought, collaborative endeavours engaging distinguished scholars from both sides of the discussion are both welcome and valuable. Mortimer Ostow, Sandrow Visiting Professor Emeritus of Pastoral Psychology at the Jewish Theological Seminary and a practising analyst, well known for his contributions to apocalyptic thinking, has gathered the contributions of a group of distinguished scholars from both psychoanalysis and biblical and talmudic exegesis to examine some of the psychoanalytic implications of Hebrew mysticism. The contributors, in addition to Ostow himself, are scholarly contributors to the study of Hebrew mystical traditions and texts and a complementary group of psychoanalysts who comment on the various essays. The aggregate makes a very meaningful and useful contribution to an aspect of Jewish religious experience that is much neglected by analytic students of religion.
The volume is divided into six sections, three of which are contributed by Ostow. In the opening section, Ostow provides a somewhat sketchy overview of mystical experience, followed by a presentation of his view of the apocalyptic complex. In a subsequent section on merkavah and hekhalot mysticism, he offers an interpretation of the tale, drawn from the Babylonic Talmud, of the four who entered the garden. This is followed by a discussion of the psychodynamics of merkavah mysticism. The first and last of these provide new material; the others have appeared previously. The basic interpretive paradigm centres on the apocalyptic complex that embraces fantasies relevant to themes of death and rebirth and which find their expression in dreams, illusions, beliefs, and in other social phenomena such as messianism, millenianism, and fundamentalism.
Other contributions include David Halperin's lengthy chapter on Ezekiel's vision of the elders of Judah, focusing on chapters 8-11 of Ezekiel. Halpe