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Paulus: Tillich as Spiritual Teacher (The Mind age series) by Rollo May
Hardcover edition, Collins, St James, London, 1974, 113 pages ++. PAULUS - A Personal Portrait of Paul Tillich by Rollo May
Unknown Binding
First published April 1, 1973
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About the author
Rollo May
75 books849 followersRollo May (April 21, 1909 – October 22, 1994) was an American existential psychologist. He authored the influential book Love and Will during 1969.
Although he is often associated with humanistic psychology, his philosophy was influenced strongly by existentialist philosophy. May was a close friend of the theologian Paul Tillich. His works include Love and Will and The Courage to Create, the latter title honoring Tillich's The Courage to Be.
Biography
May was born in Ada, Ohio in 1909. He experienced a difficult childhood, with his parents divorcing and his sister becoming schizophrenic. His educational career took him to Michigan State College majoring in English and Oberlin College for a bachelor's degree, teaching for a time in Greece, to Union Theological Seminary for a BD during 1938, and finally to Teachers College, Columbia University for a PhD in clinical psychology during 1949. May was a founder and faculty member of Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center in San Francisco.[1]
He spent the final years of his life in Tiburon on San Francisco Bay, where he died in October 1994.
Accomplishments
May was influenced by American humanism, and interested in reconciling existential psychology with other philosophies, especially Freud's.
May considered Otto Rank (1884-1939) to be the most important precursor of existential therapy. Shortly before his death, May wrote the foreword to Robert Kramer's edited collection of Rank’s American lectures. “I have long considered Otto Rank to be the great unacknowledged genius in Freud’s circle,” wrote May (Rank, 1996, p. xi).
May used some traditional existential terms in a slightly different fashion than others, and he invented new words for traditional existentialist concepts. Destiny, for example, could be "thrownness" combined with "fallenness" — the part of our lives that is determined for us, for the purpose of creating our lives. He also used the word "courage" to signify resisting anxiety.
He defined certain "stages" of development:
Innocence – the pre-egoic, pre-self-conscious stage of the infant.
An innocent is only doing what he or she must do. However, an innocent does have a degree of will in the sense of a drive to fulfill needs.
Rebellion – the rebellious person wants freedom, but does not yet have a good understanding of the responsibility that goes with it.
Decision – The person is in a transition stage in their life such that they need to be more independent from their parents and settle into the "ordinary stage". In this stage they must decide what to do with their life, and fulfilling rebellious needs from the rebellious stage.
Ordinary – the normal adult ego learned responsibility, but finds it too demanding, and so seeks refuge in conformity and traditional values.
Creative – the authentic adult, the existential stage, self-actualizing and transcending simple egocentrism.
These are not "stages" in the traditional sense. A child may certainly be innocent, ordinary or creative at times; an adult may be rebellious. The only association with certain ages is in terms of importance: rebelliousness is more important for a two year old or a teenager.
May perceived the sexual mores of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as commercialization of sex and pornography, as having influenced society such that people believed that love and sex are no longer associated directly. According to May, emotion has become separated from reason, making it acceptable socially to seek sexual relationships and avoid the natural drive to relate to another person and create new life. May believed that sexual freedom can cause modern society to neglect more important psychological developments. May suggests that the only way to remedy the cynical ideas that characterize our times is to rediscover the importance of caring for another, which May describes as the opposite of apathy.
His first book, The Meaning of Anxiety, was based on his d
Although he is often associated with humanistic psychology, his philosophy was influenced strongly by existentialist philosophy. May was a close friend of the theologian Paul Tillich. His works include Love and Will and The Courage to Create, the latter title honoring Tillich's The Courage to Be.
Biography
May was born in Ada, Ohio in 1909. He experienced a difficult childhood, with his parents divorcing and his sister becoming schizophrenic. His educational career took him to Michigan State College majoring in English and Oberlin College for a bachelor's degree, teaching for a time in Greece, to Union Theological Seminary for a BD during 1938, and finally to Teachers College, Columbia University for a PhD in clinical psychology during 1949. May was a founder and faculty member of Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center in San Francisco.[1]
He spent the final years of his life in Tiburon on San Francisco Bay, where he died in October 1994.
Accomplishments
May was influenced by American humanism, and interested in reconciling existential psychology with other philosophies, especially Freud's.
May considered Otto Rank (1884-1939) to be the most important precursor of existential therapy. Shortly before his death, May wrote the foreword to Robert Kramer's edited collection of Rank’s American lectures. “I have long considered Otto Rank to be the great unacknowledged genius in Freud’s circle,” wrote May (Rank, 1996, p. xi).
May used some traditional existential terms in a slightly different fashion than others, and he invented new words for traditional existentialist concepts. Destiny, for example, could be "thrownness" combined with "fallenness" — the part of our lives that is determined for us, for the purpose of creating our lives. He also used the word "courage" to signify resisting anxiety.
He defined certain "stages" of development:
Innocence – the pre-egoic, pre-self-conscious stage of the infant.
An innocent is only doing what he or she must do. However, an innocent does have a degree of will in the sense of a drive to fulfill needs.
Rebellion – the rebellious person wants freedom, but does not yet have a good understanding of the responsibility that goes with it.
Decision – The person is in a transition stage in their life such that they need to be more independent from their parents and settle into the "ordinary stage". In this stage they must decide what to do with their life, and fulfilling rebellious needs from the rebellious stage.
Ordinary – the normal adult ego learned responsibility, but finds it too demanding, and so seeks refuge in conformity and traditional values.
Creative – the authentic adult, the existential stage, self-actualizing and transcending simple egocentrism.
These are not "stages" in the traditional sense. A child may certainly be innocent, ordinary or creative at times; an adult may be rebellious. The only association with certain ages is in terms of importance: rebelliousness is more important for a two year old or a teenager.
May perceived the sexual mores of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as commercialization of sex and pornography, as having influenced society such that people believed that love and sex are no longer associated directly. According to May, emotion has become separated from reason, making it acceptable socially to seek sexual relationships and avoid the natural drive to relate to another person and create new life. May believed that sexual freedom can cause modern society to neglect more important psychological developments. May suggests that the only way to remedy the cynical ideas that characterize our times is to rediscover the importance of caring for another, which May describes as the opposite of apathy.
His first book, The Meaning of Anxiety, was based on his d
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 30, 2012
Paul Tillich was the most important twentieth century émigré theologian in America. Rollo May pioneered “existential psychology” influenced largely by Tillich. This short “portrait” of May’s teacher and friend isn’t up to its subject. Tillich was supposedly an excellent teacher who inspired a few decades worth of students at Union, Harvard and UChicago. Besides that his English was shaky, and that no one understood his Big Abstract Ideas, I’m not sure why—May doesn’t give us a clue. There are very few stories—and fewer insights—in this text padded as it is with May’s own Freudian rambling thoughts. Eros, Logos, Abyss: these are ideas so abstract (or perhaps empty) you can run a truck through them. Tillich was also a compulsive womanizer, and May does his best to paint Tillich as a child-like babe magnet—not a lothario—who left his conquests better than when he found them, ew! He accounts for Tillich’s libido by some sort of longing for his lost mother who died when he was 17; whatever.
January 5, 2026
This is American psychologist Rollo May's (1909-1994) memoir and sketch of his friend and mentor, German and American theologian Paul Tillich (1886-1965). As such, it is a great complement rather than a substitute for the Wikipedia articles on each. It makes no real effort to explicate Tillich's theology, but rather to convey his particular charisma, a sense of what it was like to be in his presence or in conversation with him, and to analyze the crucial experiences that shaped his personality.
What comes through: Tillich was deeply wounded by the loss of his strong mother to melanoma when he was 17; he was brave in vocally opposing the Nazis, and moved from Germany to America to escape them with his wife Hannah; he was gifted at drawing insights from and inspiring new levels of creativity in his interlocutors; he was strikingly popular with both men and women, and romantically involved with many women. He was a night owl, doing his best work from 10 pm to 1 am. One of his chief insights, inspired - May argues- by his wrenching losses and fundamental loneliness - is that the Divine's essence is existence, without which the universe would not be.
What also comes through: Rollo May's ego, which he keeps a leash on most of the time. But at the beginning and end of this slim book, May positions Tillich as Socrates - and himself, implicitly, as Plato (who is, after all, the one whose works survive). May shares several anecdotes that reveal charming or poignant aspects of Tillich's character, but also, in passing, spotlight May's own virtues. At one point May describes himself playing John the Baptist for Tillich, which is hard to take seriously: Tillich was a generation older and ahead in time; the reader's mind tends to immediately reverse the roles.
It's now 50+ years since May published this memoir, and it's perhaps best assessed as a historical document. There's a basic sexism baked into the discussion of women - they can be smart, and are enormously valuable as friends, lovers, and family, but their essential role is as an audience that sharpens the intellectual work of men. I doubt May believed that consciously, but the attitude shows up anyway. And May's whole discussion of Tillich's relationships with women, presented with compassion and keen psychological perception, nonetheless makes it sound like Tillich's career would have melted down in the Me Too era.
The book concludes with bizarre epilogue that repeats anecdotes from earlier in the text and adds in a tangential discussion about Tillich's impact on higher education. I assume that, rather than being a true epilogue, this section was originally intended as an abridged version of the book for publication as a magazine article - but there's no indication it was ever published that way.
What comes through: Tillich was deeply wounded by the loss of his strong mother to melanoma when he was 17; he was brave in vocally opposing the Nazis, and moved from Germany to America to escape them with his wife Hannah; he was gifted at drawing insights from and inspiring new levels of creativity in his interlocutors; he was strikingly popular with both men and women, and romantically involved with many women. He was a night owl, doing his best work from 10 pm to 1 am. One of his chief insights, inspired - May argues- by his wrenching losses and fundamental loneliness - is that the Divine's essence is existence, without which the universe would not be.
What also comes through: Rollo May's ego, which he keeps a leash on most of the time. But at the beginning and end of this slim book, May positions Tillich as Socrates - and himself, implicitly, as Plato (who is, after all, the one whose works survive). May shares several anecdotes that reveal charming or poignant aspects of Tillich's character, but also, in passing, spotlight May's own virtues. At one point May describes himself playing John the Baptist for Tillich, which is hard to take seriously: Tillich was a generation older and ahead in time; the reader's mind tends to immediately reverse the roles.
It's now 50+ years since May published this memoir, and it's perhaps best assessed as a historical document. There's a basic sexism baked into the discussion of women - they can be smart, and are enormously valuable as friends, lovers, and family, but their essential role is as an audience that sharpens the intellectual work of men. I doubt May believed that consciously, but the attitude shows up anyway. And May's whole discussion of Tillich's relationships with women, presented with compassion and keen psychological perception, nonetheless makes it sound like Tillich's career would have melted down in the Me Too era.
The book concludes with bizarre epilogue that repeats anecdotes from earlier in the text and adds in a tangential discussion about Tillich's impact on higher education. I assume that, rather than being a true epilogue, this section was originally intended as an abridged version of the book for publication as a magazine article - but there's no indication it was ever published that way.
December 31, 2022
Описание жизни известного философа и теолога Пауля Тиллиха.
Название на русском «Пауль Тиллих. Воспоминания о дружбе»
О ЧЕМ КНИГА:
Ролло Мэй - один из главных философов экзистенциализма 20 века. Несмотря на разницу в 23 года между ним и Паулем Тиллихом сложилась крепкая дружба после переезда последнего в США в 1933 г. В книге не только описание жизни Тиллиха и его встреч с Ролло Мейем, но и много интересных философских мыслей.
ГЛАВНАЯ МЫСЛЬ КНИГИ:
- Жизнь слишком коротка, чтобы увиливать от поиска ответов на главные вопросы.
ЗАЧЕМ ЧИТАТЬ ЭТУ КНИГУ?
Эта книга, как разговор сразу с двумя известными людьми на очень важные темы. Я нашел для себя новые и интересные мысли о жизни.
МЫСЛИ И ВЫВОДЫ ИЗ КНИГИ:
- При обдумывании важных вопросов у меня должно быть ощущение радости и серьезности.
- «Все истины жизненно важны для меня» - Ницше
- Если в человеке что-то заложено от рождения, то он всё равно найдёт в своей жизни тех людей, которые помогут ему реализовать его жизненную программу.
- Находясь в Европе, ты ощущаешь весь трагизм жизни. Следы прошлого вокруг давят на тебя и подают сигналы. Такого нет в США.
- Лучший способ понять исторический период - это изучить искусство того времени, так как художники выражают бессознательные устремления общества и его настрой.
- «Насколько распространяется созерцание, настолько и счастье» - Аристотель
- Если знать какую-то тему досконально, то она становится своего рода центром(как магнит для металлических опилок) для последующих знаний.
ЧТО Я БУДУ ПРИМЕНЯТЬ:
При обдумывании действительно важных вопросов у меня должно быть ощущение радости и серьезности. Буду ловить себя в такие моменты.
ЕЩЕ НА ЭТУ ТЕМУ:
Ирвин Ялом «Как я стал собой. Воспоминания»
Название на русском «Пауль Тиллих. Воспоминания о дружбе»
О ЧЕМ КНИГА:
Ролло Мэй - один из главных философов экзистенциализма 20 века. Несмотря на разницу в 23 года между ним и Паулем Тиллихом сложилась крепкая дружба после переезда последнего в США в 1933 г. В книге не только описание жизни Тиллиха и его встреч с Ролло Мейем, но и много интересных философских мыслей.
ГЛАВНАЯ МЫСЛЬ КНИГИ:
- Жизнь слишком коротка, чтобы увиливать от поиска ответов на главные вопросы.
ЗАЧЕМ ЧИТАТЬ ЭТУ КНИГУ?
Эта книга, как разговор сразу с двумя известными людьми на очень важные темы. Я нашел для себя новые и интересные мысли о жизни.
МЫСЛИ И ВЫВОДЫ ИЗ КНИГИ:
- При обдумывании важных вопросов у меня должно быть ощущение радости и серьезности.
- «Все истины жизненно важны для меня» - Ницше
- Если в человеке что-то заложено от рождения, то он всё равно найдёт в своей жизни тех людей, которые помогут ему реализовать его жизненную программу.
- Находясь в Европе, ты ощущаешь весь трагизм жизни. Следы прошлого вокруг давят на тебя и подают сигналы. Такого нет в США.
- Лучший способ понять исторический период - это изучить искусство того времени, так как художники выражают бессознательные устремления общества и его настрой.
- «Насколько распространяется созерцание, настолько и счастье» - Аристотель
- Если знать какую-то тему досконально, то она становится своего рода центром(как магнит для металлических опилок) для последующих знаний.
ЧТО Я БУДУ ПРИМЕНЯТЬ:
При обдумывании действительно важных вопросов у меня должно быть ощущение радости и серьезности. Буду ловить себя в такие моменты.
ЕЩЕ НА ЭТУ ТЕМУ:
Ирвин Ялом «Как я стал собой. Воспоминания»
December 16, 2020
Oh what a wonderful little volume, as much a psychological memoir of an eminently influential theologian as it is revealing of it psychoanalyst author. These chapters both remind us of why Paul Tillich's contribution to Western thought and theology was so groundbreaking and also gives us some very intimate moments of this very human individual. My own copy was an original Harper and Row jacketed hardcover. On its endpapers is a stamp of the Library of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, then also a stamp of the Gordon-Conwell College Jacksonville and Charlotte campuses. I suppose folks at each institution couldn't keep any room for such a gem of a book. This book is a delight to read, and I hope others can rediscover it. It includes Rollo May's eulogy of Tillich as his ashes were reinterred in New Harmony, Indiana, in 1965.
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August 6, 2023"At the conclusion of every lecture, Paulus was ready to entertain any question, no matter how farfetched it seemed to be. He knew that doubting was the symbol of the growing process, and may lead one into the the most interesting and even thrilling phenomena. To doubt constuctively requires that one be well fortified with knowledge; the person who knows very little cannot take the risk that doubting requires. When Paulus said that his mission was to bring doubt to the faithful, he meant that these faithful are soundly based and an stand and even need to stand looking into the abyss of doubt." p. 121
February 12, 2018
While it contains some useful summaries of Tillich's thought and some insights into his personal life, this is largely a work of hagiography. You're better off just reading Tillich and maybe using this as a sort of summary work. You'll have to wade through a lot of fawning to find anything useful.
February 26, 2011
This is a great little book. Rollo May, who is considered the father of American existential psychology wrote this about his mentor, Paul Tillich. It is quite fitting the May's mentor is not a psychologist. He was known to have commented that if you really wanted to understand what it means to be human the psychology department is not the place to go. Although May was more likely to direct people to literature and the arts instead of Tillich's department (i.e., theology), this still represents the broad approach May took to understanding the human condition. I think May would state that we need to approach the human condition brouhaha multiple ways of knowing, with each helping to reveal aspects of the human condition hidden to other ways of knowing.
This book is a wonderful nook about the great theologian and philosopher Paul Tillich, but I is also much more. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in theology, psychology, and the human condition.
This book is a wonderful nook about the great theologian and philosopher Paul Tillich, but I is also much more. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in theology, psychology, and the human condition.
May 30, 2015
I wanted to know more about Paul Tillich. I guess I do but I certainly don't understand much of his thought from this book. And what I read about his life I do not like.
A lack of clarity does not go with profundity but May seems to think so. May is convinced of an Oedipal complex affecting Tillich's life. Maybe but not to the extent he presents.
A lack of clarity does not go with profundity but May seems to think so. May is convinced of an Oedipal complex affecting Tillich's life. Maybe but not to the extent he presents.
February 19, 2014
A few great stories about Tillich, but mostly May's ruminations on his own career.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews