Here is a book that shows, in fresh detail, how what Harold Bloom has called 'the American religion' has been emptying our politics and our private lives of meaning, in favor of tired fantasies of vacuous well-being. Of course this 'new age spirituality' will not prove unique to the United States, but Catherine Tumber helps us see why it is ... Read morebeing pioneered here, fungus like, out of our uncontrolled capitalism. Tumber's mentor, Christopher Lasch, would be proud. The rest of us can be warned.
Donald Meyer, Wesleyan University In a clear and accessible voice, Tuber credits gnosticism's radical turn away from the world not only with facilitating women's discovery of their higher moral and spiritual selves but also with bequeathing them crucial theological resources that ironically enabled them to transform the very world they were attempting to escape.
Journal of American History
An important addition to the literature, engaging, and scholarly.
Utopian Studies
Catherine Tumber’s lucidly written and forcefully argued book rescues New Thought from its genteel backwater and places it at the center of a depressing story of a feminist contribution to the decline of public life. In the tradition of Christopher Lasch, historical analysis becomes cultural criticism. This is a provoking book.
James Turner, University of Notre Dame Show Less