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Conversions: A Philosophic Memoir
A. L. Rosenthal
Temple University Press,
Philadelphia, PA, 1994, 278 pages.
Reviewed by
Frank MacHovec, Ph.D.
This sparsely
referenced, unindexed volume of 18 chapters in three parts is, as its title
specifies, the subjective account of the author’s search for truth and meaning.
Part 1 describes the “collision of values” the author experienced while a
Fulbright scholar in Paris. Part 2 explores her “ethnic cultural search” in the
“Jewish historical vocation of seeking justice and mercy immanently in the
cultural and historical contexts of our real lives” (p. 263). This includes
gender, role issues, and romantic love. Part 3 is an account of her cultlike
involvement with an African-American woman “who wanted to see culture and
history treated as unreal” (p. 264).
With respect to
cults and cultlike involvement there is nothing in the book that has not been
said before and in greater detail, with references and more than one case. This
book is one person’s search for identity and meaning and that is its major
contribution. The author traces Freud’s theory of the unconscious to
Schopenhauer, Darwin, Nietzsche, and von Hartmann. The central theme of the book
is philosophical search. “One has to live,” she observes, where “two realms,
empirical reality and transcendental ideality coincide.” The “real question,”
she writes, “is, can one accept one’s historical existence? Jews must do so.
There is no other interesting thing for them to do or to be” (p. 264).
Chapters 12
through 18 (which make up Part 3) are most relevant to the psychological and
emotional changes involved in cult participation. These chapters describe her
involvement with a woman in an extremist Christian cult. Her account lacks
detail and focuses mostly on her own thoughts and feelings. No cult member other
than the leader is described. There are many other books with more detail on the
cult process and restorative therapy.
In the epilogue
the author asks the rhetorical question: “Did I find God?” Her answer: “Well,
yes. So far, yes. I have found the struggle and the finding to be one and the
same. So, yes.” This book is of value for its account of one person’s search for
truth and meaning. That search is in a philosophical and not a psychological
context. As such, it is of limited use to those interested in studying cult and
cultlike behavior in great depth.
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