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The Holy Longing: The Hidden Power of Spiritual Yearning
Many of our feelings of desire and disappointment can be traced back to our yearning to know God. This longing can be a powerful positive force. We need to understand our desire and begin to listen to it to turn it into an opportunity for greater spiritual development.
238 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
110 people are currently reading
491 people want to read
About the author
Connie Zweig
14 books115 followersI'm co-author Meeting the Shadow, Romancing the Shadow. My award-winning book, THE INNER WORK OF AGE: SHIFTING FROM ROLE TO SOUL, extends shadow-work into midlife and beyond and explores aging as a spiritual practice.
It won three book awards!
MEETING THE SHADOW ON THE SPIRITUAL PATH: The Dance of Darkness and Light in our Journey to Awakening is available now. If you experienced religious abuse or spiritual disillusionment, you can find guidance here and rekindle your inspiration.
Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path:
https://www.amazon.com/Meeting-Shadow...
Inner Work of Age is available here:
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...
BarnesandNoble.com: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-...
indibound.org: https://www.indiebound.org/book/97816... (if you prefer independent bookstores)
I'm blogging excerpts at http://medium.com/@conniezweig
If you want to read either book in an online group,
email me at conniezweig@gmail.com
It won three book awards!
MEETING THE SHADOW ON THE SPIRITUAL PATH: The Dance of Darkness and Light in our Journey to Awakening is available now. If you experienced religious abuse or spiritual disillusionment, you can find guidance here and rekindle your inspiration.
Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path:
https://www.amazon.com/Meeting-Shadow...
Inner Work of Age is available here:
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...
BarnesandNoble.com: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-...
indibound.org: https://www.indiebound.org/book/97816... (if you prefer independent bookstores)
I'm blogging excerpts at http://medium.com/@conniezweig
If you want to read either book in an online group,
email me at conniezweig@gmail.com
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
February 17, 2021
The world would be a better place if more spiritual leaders and followers read this book.
Seems like a bold statement, but if we work with our own shadows more often, perhaps we could move towards a deeper peace in humanity. A peace not created by the wars created in the name of “a god,” not by the power of converting others to “our right way of thinking.” Perhaps we’d allow ourselves to see our own power, respecting the various images of whatever higher power we hold (or don’t hold).
Perhaps we’d understand our longing for something inside of ourselves. Perhaps we wouldn’t give our power to humans no better than ourselves, though they own fancy robes and adorn the image of something greater than ourselves.
To all who’ve been abandoned by one or more religions, you’ll find peace in these pages. Let the search become clear again and honor the questions we’ve held for so long.
Ironically, you’ll see how this book parallels our current political climate, and how politics and politicians have become our new religion and religious leaders, respectively. Welcome to the new cult mentality of the 2020 decade—you’ll understand more about human nature and how this is happening within the pages of this book.
Seems like a bold statement, but if we work with our own shadows more often, perhaps we could move towards a deeper peace in humanity. A peace not created by the wars created in the name of “a god,” not by the power of converting others to “our right way of thinking.” Perhaps we’d allow ourselves to see our own power, respecting the various images of whatever higher power we hold (or don’t hold).
Perhaps we’d understand our longing for something inside of ourselves. Perhaps we wouldn’t give our power to humans no better than ourselves, though they own fancy robes and adorn the image of something greater than ourselves.
To all who’ve been abandoned by one or more religions, you’ll find peace in these pages. Let the search become clear again and honor the questions we’ve held for so long.
Ironically, you’ll see how this book parallels our current political climate, and how politics and politicians have become our new religion and religious leaders, respectively. Welcome to the new cult mentality of the 2020 decade—you’ll understand more about human nature and how this is happening within the pages of this book.
February 9, 2017
One of the toughest books on spiritually that I have ever read. Connie Zweig's writing style is brutally honest and doesn't beat around the bush. She is also eager to present all possible aspects of spiritual journey, from the grossest level up to the most sublime.
For anyone who wants to have a down-to-earth guide in their spiritual journey, this book is a gem.
For anyone who wants to have a down-to-earth guide in their spiritual journey, this book is a gem.
September 26, 2017
Connie Zweig is a Jungian-oriented therapist and non-denominational minister. She shares her journey of spiritual yearning. That journey goes through her own disillusionment and even abuse. She ends at a deeply satisfying ending, going beyond external teachers, and bringing the essential truths inside. This is an excellent book. She expresses herself poetically. I felt she was a companion on my own journey and that she expressed what I had found as well. I highly recommend this book.
February 5, 2024
Enjoyed beginning and conclusion, but the author spent too much tame elaborating on cases in my opinion.
December 16, 2022
been thinking a lot about god lately
January 6, 2025
Essential reading for every student and teacher in a contemplative , mystical or psychological practice.
September 4, 2025
MORE THAN 60 AUTHORS GIVE THEIR VIEWS ON THE JUNGIAN ‘SHADOW,’ AND MORE
Editors Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams wrote in the Introduction to this 1991 book, “The personal shadow develops naturally in every young child. As we identify with ideal personality characteristics such as politeness and generosity… we shape the [non-shadow] self. At the same time, we bury in the shadow those qualities that don’t fit our self-image, such as rudeness and selfishness… The shadow acts like a psychic immune system, defining what is self and what is not-self… All the feelings and capacities that are rejected by the ego and exiled into the shadow contribute to the hidden power of the dark side of human nature. However, not all of them are what we consider to be negative traits.” (Pg. xvi-xvii) They add, “The world has become a stage for the ‘collective shadow.’ The collective shadow---human evil---is staring back at us virtually everywhere.” (Pg. xx)
They explain, “In 1917, in his essay ‘On the psychology of the Unconscious,’ Jung explains, “By shadow I mean the ‘negative’ side of the personality, the sum of all those unpleasant qualities we like to hide, together with the insufficiently developed functions and the content of the personal unconscious.” (Pg. 3)
Robert Bly states, “I think we could say that most males in our culture put their feminine side or interior woman into the bag. When they begin… trying to get in touch with their feminine side again, she may be by then truly hostile to men. The same man may experience in the meantime much hostility from women in the outer world.” (Pg. 8)
Edward C. Whitmont suggests, “When we refuse to face the shadow or try to fight it with willpower alone, saying, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ we merely relegate this energy to the unconscious, and from there is exerts its power in a negative, compulsive, projected form.” (Pg. 17)
D. Patrick Miller explains, “What distinguishes Jungian psychology from practically all other psychologies is the idea that there are two centers of the personality. The ego is the center of consciousness; the Self is the center of the total personality, which includes consciousness, the unconscious, AND the ego.” (Pg. 24)
Kim Chernin says, “I am describing generations of women who suffer guilt: women who cannot mother their daughters because their legitimate dreams and ambitions have not been recognized; mothers who know they have failed and cannot forgive themselves for their failure; daughters who blame themselves for needing more than the mother was able to provide… who cannot let themselves feel rage at their mother.” (Pg. 57)
John C. Pierrakos states, “Evil, then, is a far deeper thing than the moral codes conceive of it. It is antilife. Life is dynamic, pulsating force; it is energy and consciousness, manifested in many ways; and there is no evil as such unless there is resistance to life. The resistance is the manifestation of what is called evil. Energy and consciousness in distortion create evil.” (Pg. 91)
Peter Bishop observes, “The web [of life] is an appropriate symbol for the shadow side of the much proclaimed ‘return of Mother Earth.’ The web is not only a holistic image to be contemplated in wonder but a labyrinth down which humanity stumbles after a sense of its own identity and security.” (Pg. 122)
David Steindl-Rast points out, “Jesus stresses the fact that God obviously allows the interplay of shadow and light. God approves of it. If God’s perfection allows for tensions to work themselves out, who are we to insist on a perfection in which all tensions are suppressed?” (Pg. 131-132)
Katy Butler reports, “This crisis of leadership was hardly the only disaster to befall an American Buddhist sangha. In 13 years of practicing Buddhist meditation, I have seen venerated, black-robed Japanese roshis and their American dharma heirs … exposed for having secret affairs. Other Buddhist teachers---Tibetan, Japanese, and American---have misused money, become alcoholic or indulged in eccentric behavior.” (Pg. 139)
W. Brugh Joy says of a talk she gave to the Findhorn community, “I talked about the consequences of feeling ‘special’ and how doing battle against the ‘evils of the world’ not only creates the ‘enemy, but is actually a projection of the darker aspects of the community onto the world screen. Needless to say, the talk was not popular and I was fast falling into the ‘unwelcome guest’ category. I would soon be seen as whatever was unresolved in the community at the unconscious level. In other words, I would be viewed as carrying the shadow side of the community, and I knew it!” (Pg. 151)
John Babbs explains, “I went last night…. To one of those wondrous New Age gatherings. And I don’t think I can take it anymore… underlying all of this beauty lurks a darkness, only thinly veiled by beatific platitudes of sweetness. I call this beast New Age Fundamentalism, a belief that I am right and everyone else is wrong, stupid or evil; a belief that I represent the forces of light and goodness, while everyone else is duped by the forces of evil.” (Pg. 160)
Rollo May points out, “To admit frankly, our capacity for evil hinges on our breaking through our pseudoinnocence. So long as we preserve our one-dimensional thinking, we can cover up our deeds by pleading innocent. This antediluvian escape from conscience is no longer possible. We are responsible for the effect of our actions, and we are also responsible for becoming as aware as we can of these effects. It is especially hard for the person in psychotherapy to accept his or her increased potentiality for evil which goes along with the capacity for good. (Pg. 175)
M. Scott Peck states, “Evil, then, is most often committed in order to scapegoat, and the people I label as evil are chronic scapegoaters… they attack others instead of facing their own failures. Spiritual growth requires the acknowledgement of one’s need to grow. If we cannot make that acknowledgement, we have no option except to attempt to eradicate the evidence of our imperfection.” (Pg. 178)
Susan Griffin argues, “Over and over again the chauvinist draws a portrait of the other which reminds us of that part of his own mind he would deny and which he has made dark in himself. The other has appetite and instinct. The other has a body. The other has an emotional life which is uncontrolled. And in the wake of this denied self, the chauvinist constructs a false self with which he himself identifies.” (Pg. 209)
Audre Lorde asserts, “As white women ignore their built-in privilege of whiteness and define ‘woman’ in terms of their own experience alone, then women of Color become ‘other,’ the outsider whose experience and tradition is too ‘alien’ to comprehend… I believe one of the reasons white women have such difficulty reading Black women’s work is because of their reluctance to see Black women as women and different from themselves.” (Pg. 213)
Robert Jay Lifton says of Nazi doctors, “Was the doubling of Nazi doctors an antisocial ‘character disorder’? Not in the classical sense, in that the process tended to be more a form of adaptation than a lifelong pattern. But doubling can include elements considered characteristic of ‘sociopathic’ character impairment: these include a disorder of feeling… pathological avoidance of a sense of guilt, and resort to violence to overcome ‘masked depression’… and maintain a sense of vitality.” (Pg.. 222)
James Hillman says, “The description Freud gave of the dark world which he found did not do enough to the psyche. The description was too rational. He did not grasp enough the paradoxical symbolic language in which the psyche speaks. He did not see fully that each image and each experience has a prospective aspect as well as a reductive aspect, a positive as well as a negative side.” (Pg. 243)
Joseph Campbell states, “The idea that the passage of the magical threshold into a sphere of rebirth is symbolized in the worldwide womb image of the belly of the whale. The hero, instead of conquering… would appear to have died.” (Pg. 248)
Ken Wilber notes, “The undoing of a projection represents a move or a shift ‘down’ the spectrum of consciousness (from the Shadow to the Ego level), for we are enlarging our area of identification by re-owning aspects of ourselves that we had previously alienated.” (Pg. 275)
John Bradshaw says, “Part of the work of self-acceptance involves the integration of our shame-bound feelings, needs and wants. Most shame-based people feel ashamed when they need help, when they feel angry, sad, fearful, or joyous; and when they are sexual or assertive.” (Pg. 290)
This collection includes a very WIDE variety of authors, and will be of keen interest to anyone exploring this topic.
Editors Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams wrote in the Introduction to this 1991 book, “The personal shadow develops naturally in every young child. As we identify with ideal personality characteristics such as politeness and generosity… we shape the [non-shadow] self. At the same time, we bury in the shadow those qualities that don’t fit our self-image, such as rudeness and selfishness… The shadow acts like a psychic immune system, defining what is self and what is not-self… All the feelings and capacities that are rejected by the ego and exiled into the shadow contribute to the hidden power of the dark side of human nature. However, not all of them are what we consider to be negative traits.” (Pg. xvi-xvii) They add, “The world has become a stage for the ‘collective shadow.’ The collective shadow---human evil---is staring back at us virtually everywhere.” (Pg. xx)
They explain, “In 1917, in his essay ‘On the psychology of the Unconscious,’ Jung explains, “By shadow I mean the ‘negative’ side of the personality, the sum of all those unpleasant qualities we like to hide, together with the insufficiently developed functions and the content of the personal unconscious.” (Pg. 3)
Robert Bly states, “I think we could say that most males in our culture put their feminine side or interior woman into the bag. When they begin… trying to get in touch with their feminine side again, she may be by then truly hostile to men. The same man may experience in the meantime much hostility from women in the outer world.” (Pg. 8)
Edward C. Whitmont suggests, “When we refuse to face the shadow or try to fight it with willpower alone, saying, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ we merely relegate this energy to the unconscious, and from there is exerts its power in a negative, compulsive, projected form.” (Pg. 17)
D. Patrick Miller explains, “What distinguishes Jungian psychology from practically all other psychologies is the idea that there are two centers of the personality. The ego is the center of consciousness; the Self is the center of the total personality, which includes consciousness, the unconscious, AND the ego.” (Pg. 24)
Kim Chernin says, “I am describing generations of women who suffer guilt: women who cannot mother their daughters because their legitimate dreams and ambitions have not been recognized; mothers who know they have failed and cannot forgive themselves for their failure; daughters who blame themselves for needing more than the mother was able to provide… who cannot let themselves feel rage at their mother.” (Pg. 57)
John C. Pierrakos states, “Evil, then, is a far deeper thing than the moral codes conceive of it. It is antilife. Life is dynamic, pulsating force; it is energy and consciousness, manifested in many ways; and there is no evil as such unless there is resistance to life. The resistance is the manifestation of what is called evil. Energy and consciousness in distortion create evil.” (Pg. 91)
Peter Bishop observes, “The web [of life] is an appropriate symbol for the shadow side of the much proclaimed ‘return of Mother Earth.’ The web is not only a holistic image to be contemplated in wonder but a labyrinth down which humanity stumbles after a sense of its own identity and security.” (Pg. 122)
David Steindl-Rast points out, “Jesus stresses the fact that God obviously allows the interplay of shadow and light. God approves of it. If God’s perfection allows for tensions to work themselves out, who are we to insist on a perfection in which all tensions are suppressed?” (Pg. 131-132)
Katy Butler reports, “This crisis of leadership was hardly the only disaster to befall an American Buddhist sangha. In 13 years of practicing Buddhist meditation, I have seen venerated, black-robed Japanese roshis and their American dharma heirs … exposed for having secret affairs. Other Buddhist teachers---Tibetan, Japanese, and American---have misused money, become alcoholic or indulged in eccentric behavior.” (Pg. 139)
W. Brugh Joy says of a talk she gave to the Findhorn community, “I talked about the consequences of feeling ‘special’ and how doing battle against the ‘evils of the world’ not only creates the ‘enemy, but is actually a projection of the darker aspects of the community onto the world screen. Needless to say, the talk was not popular and I was fast falling into the ‘unwelcome guest’ category. I would soon be seen as whatever was unresolved in the community at the unconscious level. In other words, I would be viewed as carrying the shadow side of the community, and I knew it!” (Pg. 151)
John Babbs explains, “I went last night…. To one of those wondrous New Age gatherings. And I don’t think I can take it anymore… underlying all of this beauty lurks a darkness, only thinly veiled by beatific platitudes of sweetness. I call this beast New Age Fundamentalism, a belief that I am right and everyone else is wrong, stupid or evil; a belief that I represent the forces of light and goodness, while everyone else is duped by the forces of evil.” (Pg. 160)
Rollo May points out, “To admit frankly, our capacity for evil hinges on our breaking through our pseudoinnocence. So long as we preserve our one-dimensional thinking, we can cover up our deeds by pleading innocent. This antediluvian escape from conscience is no longer possible. We are responsible for the effect of our actions, and we are also responsible for becoming as aware as we can of these effects. It is especially hard for the person in psychotherapy to accept his or her increased potentiality for evil which goes along with the capacity for good. (Pg. 175)
M. Scott Peck states, “Evil, then, is most often committed in order to scapegoat, and the people I label as evil are chronic scapegoaters… they attack others instead of facing their own failures. Spiritual growth requires the acknowledgement of one’s need to grow. If we cannot make that acknowledgement, we have no option except to attempt to eradicate the evidence of our imperfection.” (Pg. 178)
Susan Griffin argues, “Over and over again the chauvinist draws a portrait of the other which reminds us of that part of his own mind he would deny and which he has made dark in himself. The other has appetite and instinct. The other has a body. The other has an emotional life which is uncontrolled. And in the wake of this denied self, the chauvinist constructs a false self with which he himself identifies.” (Pg. 209)
Audre Lorde asserts, “As white women ignore their built-in privilege of whiteness and define ‘woman’ in terms of their own experience alone, then women of Color become ‘other,’ the outsider whose experience and tradition is too ‘alien’ to comprehend… I believe one of the reasons white women have such difficulty reading Black women’s work is because of their reluctance to see Black women as women and different from themselves.” (Pg. 213)
Robert Jay Lifton says of Nazi doctors, “Was the doubling of Nazi doctors an antisocial ‘character disorder’? Not in the classical sense, in that the process tended to be more a form of adaptation than a lifelong pattern. But doubling can include elements considered characteristic of ‘sociopathic’ character impairment: these include a disorder of feeling… pathological avoidance of a sense of guilt, and resort to violence to overcome ‘masked depression’… and maintain a sense of vitality.” (Pg.. 222)
James Hillman says, “The description Freud gave of the dark world which he found did not do enough to the psyche. The description was too rational. He did not grasp enough the paradoxical symbolic language in which the psyche speaks. He did not see fully that each image and each experience has a prospective aspect as well as a reductive aspect, a positive as well as a negative side.” (Pg. 243)
Joseph Campbell states, “The idea that the passage of the magical threshold into a sphere of rebirth is symbolized in the worldwide womb image of the belly of the whale. The hero, instead of conquering… would appear to have died.” (Pg. 248)
Ken Wilber notes, “The undoing of a projection represents a move or a shift ‘down’ the spectrum of consciousness (from the Shadow to the Ego level), for we are enlarging our area of identification by re-owning aspects of ourselves that we had previously alienated.” (Pg. 275)
John Bradshaw says, “Part of the work of self-acceptance involves the integration of our shame-bound feelings, needs and wants. Most shame-based people feel ashamed when they need help, when they feel angry, sad, fearful, or joyous; and when they are sexual or assertive.” (Pg. 290)
This collection includes a very WIDE variety of authors, and will be of keen interest to anyone exploring this topic.
November 5, 2025
my review might be a bit unjust because I thought this was going to be a story based on how to personally recognize & grow to overcome your shadow self, it was not. It was mainly a book comprised of little stories of people in leadership or positions of power giving in to their shadow side and using their followers for sexual needs or other needs. Not my type of book but there was little nuggets of wisdom in some parts
July 23, 2023
This is a helpful guide with practical examples of identifying shadow in oneself, others, and communities. It offers a good overview of shadow from a Jungian standpoint, but one doesn’t need to be an Jungian analyst or very familiar with Jung to access the material. I would recommend it to anyone who considers themself a spiritual leader or seeker. The great power projected onto roles like priest, swami, rabbi, and imam requires a certain stewardship of power, the failure of which has resulted in great trauma and dissolution in spiritual communities and broader society. This stewardship of power requires great humility, self examination, and raising awareness of psychological dynamics like projection, inflation, and transference. Many leaders are not doing this necessary work, often because they lack necessary resources, knowledge, and accountability. I think this book can be a great help.
April 14, 2024
Important lessons to carry with oneself on ones own spiritual journey. Spiritual enlightenment does not necessarily mean that someone is emotionally and morally developed. Beware of spiritual leaders who has not done inner work and shadow work so that you do not fall under their shadow possession. That being said, the author definitely spends too much time on various examples of spiritual and personal abuse. I understand that it is a sensitive and important topic and that light needs to be shed on those incidents, but the book could have been almost half as long by editing out a lot of the cases where the point already had been made several pages ago.
January 5, 2020
I recall buying this book in January 2019 letting it sit in my Anti Library as I kept getting distracted by other books.
I am happy to complete this as the first book of 2020. A very interesting take on the Spirituality business, Connie Zweig butchers many holy cows. Her message is simple: At some time, if you want to grow, you need to question everything.
The simplest parable I can think of to illustrate is the Zen Koan "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."
I am happy to complete this as the first book of 2020. A very interesting take on the Spirituality business, Connie Zweig butchers many holy cows. Her message is simple: At some time, if you want to grow, you need to question everything.
The simplest parable I can think of to illustrate is the Zen Koan "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."
July 14, 2020
Really good one 😉
October 9, 2023
Title is misleading but there were several “gem” passages that made it worth the read. Suggested to me by my Jungian therapist
August 31, 2023
I highly recommend this book for all spiritual practitioners. Inquiring how it is possible for people to "wake up" spiritually without "growing up" emotionally and psychologically, Zweig suggests that transient spiritual states of enlightenment or insight can tempt us "upwards," towards the "light," leading us to suppose there is no further shadow work to be done. Some chapters are a bit redundant and I may have hoped for a little more description of what such shadow work can look like in practice (this gap may be because it's written more for people who have experienced spiritual and religious abuse than for spiritual and religious leaders/practitioners themselves), but it's an elegantly argued and beautifully written book.
December 1, 2025
I don't feel the title describes the content well. I wanted more shadow and spiritual content, than the large amount of religious shadow content the book seems to focus on. It seems this book is just a continuation of the author's previous book that focused on that topic.
December 9, 2024
I feel the scope is perhaps different from what I was expecting; this book focuses on the wrongs of purported spiritual leaders rather than shadow work. Nevertheless very effective.
August 25, 2023
I really enjoyed the nuisance in this book. Zweig uses perspective and story to convey the depths of psychological yearning towards spiritual awakening. She illustrates the pratfalls of our shadow in awakening, and how dispositions of the psyche potentially hinder our spiritual rebirth, or consequently allow for it without yielding to our emotional, cognitive, or physical awareness. We can become lost or stagnated or even revert, if our quest does not witness and include our shadow selves, because gravity requires the up (spiritual) and the down (material) self and surroundings. Ultimately the pure acquisition of enlightenment must coincide with a higher ethical assent through shadow work by cultivating our physical, cognitive, emotional, and spiritual awareness simultaneously.
December 6, 2012
Excellent.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews