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Title: The Cult of the Virgin Mary by Michael P. Carroll ISBN: 0-691-02867-2 Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 2 (3 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Mixing Freud and Religion
Comment: This book will be a hard read for the Catholic Marian faithful, and I wouldn't be surprised if it gets Mr. Carroll on quite a few lists of books to avoid. However, I would like to speak in his defense. First of all this is a book written by a social scientist for social science. It is full of terms that are well understood in the disciplines but that are negatively loaded (One might even say explosive) when read from the standpoint of Catholic Devotional literature. For instance Mr. Carroll describes St. Bernadette Soubirous' Marian aparition, as a halucination. Within the context of his analysis, this is an appropriate psychological term, as nobody else could see the aparition. However to the religious this term invalidates the experience, it makes it unreal.This was clearly not the intention of Mr. Carroll. His research is well documented and his theories well supported. His analysis and arguments are complete. They are thoroughly presented, almost to the point of redundancy. And the fact of the matter is that it works. When we are through with the book we have a deeper understanding of the forces that shape Catholic worship and Marian devotion. I like this book. I have passed it along to friends and family and it has stimulated hours of discussion, debate and even red-faced argument. This book should be read by serious Marian scholars.
Rating: 1
Summary: Can we put negative signs in front of the stars?
Comment: This book was really really amusing... if you like reading psychobabble. If we could put negative signs in front of the stars, this baby would have -5 stars.
Rating: 1
Summary: Not worth it
Comment: This book attempts to analyze Catholic Marian devotion using Freudian psychology, and many of its strange conclusions arise from this approach. For instance, the author argues that Mary appeals to Catholic men because they have an "oedipal" need for a mother, while she appears to Catholic women because she fulfills their (alleged) "subconscious desire" to have a child by their fathers (since Catholics believe that Mary bore the Son of God the Father). While his conclusion about men may have some validity (we all need a spiritual Mother) his conclusion about women is absurd (Freud was never right about women anyway). I am a Catholic mother, and I have spoken to many Catholic mothers like myself, and the reason why we love Mary - besides the fact that she is our Mother in heaven - is because we can relate to her as a mother and feel that she knows what we are going through, since she too had a family. This guy just doesn't have a clue!
His analysis of Marian apparitions is similarly awful; the author simply ignores any historical details of the apparitions which do not fit his pat theories. The treatment of Guadalupe is perhaps the worst; he claims that the apparitions to Juan Diego are a myth, and that they were never recorded until long after the event! The fact is, there *are* contemporaneous documents which mention the apparition; a little research would have confirmed that. And Juan Diego *is* a historical personage; in fact he was recently beatified by the Catholic Church. The pope does not beatify mythological characters!
Don't even bother reading this book; there are much better treatments of the subject.
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