Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus and Modern Psychology Essays -- Doct

Christopher Marlowes Dr. Faustus and Modern PsychologyDue to the fact that I recently finished reading Spirit and depart by Gerald May, I find my perception of Christopher Marlowes Dr. Faustus filtered through that book. May, a psychiatrist from the Shalem form for Spiritual Formation in Washington, D.C., makes a rather courageous approach path on a sacred cow, modern psychology. He asserts that Psychology is fundamentally objective, secular, and willful whereas the core identity of righteousness is mysterious, spiritual, and willing (10). He criticizes religion for having sold out to psychology in its attempt to remain relevant. kindred Dr. Faustus, we have pursued knowledge with a passion in purchase order to master ourselves and our environment. Psychology represents just one of those areas of knowledge. Through a conspiracy of drugs, behavioral conditioning and psychotherapy we have become relatively palmy in altering behavior or even basic emotions and states of consciou sness--so a lot so that religion seems only to a fault happy to borrow mental techniques to fill the pews of churches or to satisfy the hearts of its worshipers. May targets three capital attitudes in psychology the coping, satisfaction and growth mentalities (11-21). It is true that psychology tail end help us to cope with stress, to achieve a measure of happiness and to transform our difficulties into opportunities for personal growth and increased creativity. But valuable as this may appear, it cannot provide us with an ultimate reason for living. In the retiring(a) we believed that religion could solve all our problems (physical, mental or spiritual) if we turned up the piety level another notch now we have swung too far in the other direction. As human beings we h... ...f Vanholt who longs for a steady of ripe grapes in the dead time of winter (854). California spares us from selling our souls to the devil for such a cheap trick. Too former(a) Faustus realizes that the devil drives a hard bargain. The supernatural thrills lose their attraction, eventually saving despair and then more hopeless revelry. No matter how dramatic the advances of humankind (and we have perhaps only glimpsed the beginning of technological miracles), a world unwilling to submit to God only succeeds in determination new ways to lose itself in boredom or destruction. industrial plant CitedAbrams, M. H., ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol I. Fifth ed. New York W. W. Norton, 1986. Chesterton, G.K. Tremendous Trifles. New York Dodd, Mead and Company, 1909. May, Gerald. Spirit and Will A Contemplative Psychology. New York Harper & Row, 1982.