In recent years, profound changes have affected the way people view the role of religion and spirituality in the life cycle. For many people, spirituality, always considered an essential part of religion, has become an interest no longer tied to organized religion. This book addresses the evolving relationship of spirituality to religion in our time, and the consequences of this change for understanding personality development. It also applies the concept of implicit religion to show how the least easily observed aspects of religion are at work in the growth of personality.

Apuleius' "Metamorphoses" is probably best known as the literary source for the myth of Eros and Psyche and as a primary source of information about mystery religions in the ancient world.

There is another realm of the "Metamorphoses" which has, until now, received relatively little attention -- namely, the many dreams found within it. "The Religious Dreamworld of Apuleius'" Metamorphoses offers an engaging portrait of the second-century dreamworld. Recognizing the centrality of the religious function and spiritual interpretation of dreams, this book illustrates their vital importance in the ancient world and the wide variety of meanings attributed to them.

James Gollnick draws deeply from historical and psychological studies and provides a historical background on the current interest in the role of dreams in psychological and spiritual transformation.

This study of Apuleius' "Metamorphoses" adds to an appreciation of Apuleius the dreamer and the second-century dreamworld in which he lived and wrote.

The Eros and Psyche myth has, over the course of the twentieth century, received nearly as much attention from depth psychologists as has the Oedipus story. In their attempt to better understand this popular story, scholars have proposed various interpretations, which have generally followed eithether Freudian or Jungian theories about the nature of the psyche and its development.

This elaborate work provides serious students of psychology, religion and mythology with a detailed account and analysis of what has been accomplished in the spychological interpretation of the Eros and Psyche myth to date. It emphasizes how psychological theory determines the direction of interpretation much more than does the literary context of the myth itself. It also examines the strengths and weaknesses of these psychological interpretations (five Freudian and six Jungian) of the Eros and Psyche myth in order to lay the groundwork for an interpretation which (1) avoids the rigidity of both Freudian and Jungian dogma and (2) restores the myth to its rightful literary and religious context -- something which has been ignored by most psychological interpretations.

Examining the religious and spiritual dimensions of dreams often leads directly to an awareness of the striking contrast between the reality of the dreamworld and the reality Western science describes. The mechanistic/materialistic model of the universe that underlies much of modern science, "common sense," and mainstream psychology views human beings as biological machines and reduces consciousness to a function of the brain. The religious and spiritual dreamworld can help to enlarge this model of the human being and the universe by showing that we function not only as biological machines, but, under certain condition such as dreaming, also as vast fields of consciousness transcending the human body.The dreamworld offers a remarkable "laboratory"in which we can directly experience aspects of our world that go against cultural expectations and defy current mainstream scientific conceptions. This book argues that certain transpersonal dream phenomena provide convincing experiential support for considering consciousness as a primary attribute of existence and not simply a product of the physiological processes of the brain.