Il potere di Dante: Un cammino di illuminazione per una vita piena e felice

by Richard Schaub, Bonney Gulino Schaub

Dante's Path: A Practical Approach to Achieving Inner Wisdom is primarily a self-help book. However, it is a self-help book with a difference. Authors Bonney Gulino Schaub and Richard Schaub use their perceptive, though simple reading of Dante's Divine Comedy to guide their readers through a process that allows them to access their internal wisdom, or "wisdom mind," to achieve liberation from their fears and to realize their deeper potential. Psychotherapists for over 30 years, the Schaubs practice psychosynthesis, a holistic method developed by Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli, that recognizes "the importance of integrating spirituality into the paradigm for seeking mental and emotional health." The book provides practical techniques, based on the world's meditative traditions, to assist readers to free themselves from their fear-based patterns and to move closer to their "higher" selves.

Taking the lead from their mentor Assagioli, the authors recognize that the spiritual path traveled by the poet in Dante's masterpiece provides the perfect road map for achieving internal wisdom and peace. Like Dante's poet, the readers are urged to move through their "hellish" impulses (such as envy, addiction, and rage) by "Learning to Witness" and to proceed to self-transformation (Purgatory) by becoming "Lord of Yourself" and ultimately to achieve enlightenment (Paradise) by "developing a relationship with your wisdom mind." In addition to their primary focus on The Divine Comedy as a metaphor for the psychoanalytic process, the authors explore connections to other spiritual world traditions. Thus, they reveal the broader implications of self-healing and discovery. They tell us if we can learn how to deal with our fears and reduce the negative actions that are generated by them, we could increase the amount of peace in our lives and subsequently, the amount of peace in the world. --Silvana Tropea

245 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 15, 2003

Reviews

[Tom LA · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the worst books about Dante that I’ve ever read. The authors treat Dante as if his faith was “surpassed” and in need of a modern interpretation of his ancient and medieval framework (where “medieval” is used by the authors with a negative connotation. Oh, the crass arrogance of posterity!). This couldn’t be farther from the truth. If one understands christian doctrine, there is extremely little in the Comedy that is surpassed. Maybe a meager 2%. The rest is still fully relevant today, maybe even more, whether you are christian or not.

For example, this book says that it’s “surpassed” to think of pride as only bad and humility as only good. In line with the teachings of an Italian jungian psychiatrist, whom the authors idolize, worship and keep quoting, the book wants to correct this “ancient” statement with “there is good and bad everywhere”.

A bit like in the song “Ebony and Ivory”!

I’m sorry to say it, because the authors’ passion is evident, but this book is missing the entire point of the Divine Comedy.

Dante is catholic in his bone marrow. His poem has the power to rekindle the fire of faith in the attentive reader’s heart. His poem is about the action of Christ on the world, and our possibility to be saved through our free will (which he located at the literal center of his work, Pur. 16).

Do not try to repackage profound truths only because they are old. You risk coming up with wishy-washy versions of the truth like they did in this book.

Psychoanalysis and new age spirituality have very little to do with the Divine Comedy.

But more importantly, everything that REALLY matters about the human being has already been said many centuries ago. Just make the effort to go and find it. Don’t look for it in these “modern” books because it will inevitably be diluted and slanted — in this specific case, the slant is anti-christian.

[Fabiano Parmesan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scritto da due psicoterapeuti amanti di Dante
Ricco di esercizi pratici da svolgere, aiuta il lettore a trasformarsi e realizzarsi spiritualmente.
. L'inferno è un fardello che ci portiamo ineluttabilmente dentro. Dobbiamo imparare a gestirlo. La divina commedia come metafora esistenziale ci insegna a leggere e percorrere e strade della vita

[Paola Marotta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sinceramente non mi è proprio piaciuto, da classicista e appassionata dei classici della letteratura italiana in particolare della Divina Commedia trovo che ne parli in maniera quasi superficiale, troppo modernizzata la figura di Dante, l’unica cosa che ho trovato corretta e veritiera è il titolo.

[Michele]

Church book club. Can't remember how well I liked it. Lead to good discussion.