Burnt Offerings to Prometheus

Abstract

SUMMARY The unconscious need to idealize another is vividly portrayed in the historical meeting between the famous Catholic writer, Thomas Merton, and Gregory Zilboorg, an important historical figure in American psychiatry. The meetings in 1956 grew out of Merton's personal crisis with his monastic vocation and Zilboorg's presumption to resolve it. In the context of consultation with religious communities, the meetings richly illustrate the ease with which we can distort the greatness of another, thereby betraying our own inner truth.