Customer Reviews

Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life's Ordeals

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Thomas Moore never disapoints. His previous works, including CARE OF THE SOUL, somehow manage to transcend pop culture, yet remain accessible and practical to the general reader with a yearning to grow. If only everyone could take the time to read his work, or listen to his tapes, we'd all be better people.

DARK NIGHTS OF THE SOUL is especially needed in these times of quick-fix therapy and entertainment as anti-depressant. We need to accept the fact that tough times and dark episodes in our lives must be dealt with and honored, not medicated or pushed under the rug. Dark nights offer potential for growth, for soul expansion, and Thomas Moore is the one to lead us on this important journey.

If you enjoyed his earlier work, you will appreciate his latest effort, and no doubt, will notice that he too is growing as a writer and giving us more to think about. Don't overlook this one.

"Every human life is made up of the light and the dark, the happy and the sad, the vital and the deadening. How you think about this rhythm of moods makes all the difference. Are you going to hide out in self-delusion and distracting entertainments? Are you going to become cynical or depressed? Or are you going to open your heart to a mystery that is as natural as the sun and the moon, day and night, and summer and winter?"

The above quotation is the crucial question in Thomas Moore's sequel to his best-selling and ultimately helpful "Care of the Soul." Read in his soothing, contemplative voice it is a challenge to all for everyone of us experiences times of grief, suffering, disappointment, and failure. Rather than reject these experiences, try to avoid them or get through them as quickly as possible, Moore, a former Catholic monk who became a therapist, suggests that we see them as opportunities for personal and spiritual growth.

Not an easy task you say. I quite agree. Yet, as Moore speaks from his personal life, cites case studies, and presents stories from art, literature, and mythology, listeners may find both encouragement and strength.

- Gail Cooke

There should be a section in the book stores called intelligent and thoughtful reflection. You can find books like these but they are scattered in the hundreds of awful releases in "Self Help", "New Age" or "Philosophy".

Moore is intelligent, thoughtful and has spent years in reflection. He's also a good writer who doesn't offer easy answers. I've loved all his books. This is no exception.

This is an excellent book on dark period in a person's life that is so often pathologized in our culture. It presents a compassionate view of the existential dilemmas of life and the cyclic nature of consolation and desolation that occur in introspective people.

Thomas Moore writes in a very lyrical way and his analogies and examples are very poignant. He talks about the function of dark periods as putting us in touch with soul. This is a great message for a culture that often sweeps pain under the rug or is so busy that there is no value seen in taking time to listening to what pain has to say about life.

This book is a comfort to anyone suffering from any kind of psychological pain from existential crisis to difficult life transitions. It reframes pain in a positive light and offers hope to the reader.

In this day and age most people do not want to read about their Dark Nights of the Soul. We have a medical industry that does not want you to read this book. We have politicans who want to keep you in a constant state of fear who do not want you to read this book. And we have an entertainment and media industry which does not want you to read this book. For to read it is to know that the fear that they generate, the messages they try to stick us with, and the palliatives that they offer to assuage it don't work. Desperately wanting us to believe that life falls into their three act framework they do what they can to have us accept this souless narrative as our map to happiness, health and good fortune. But a few abberations slip through. Dark Nights of the Soul is one.

This is a significant work. A primer for life and dealing with its natural ebb and flow. If you don't acknowledge the foundation of the book then you can't understand that the dark nights that we think are there to tear us down are really there to transform us.

This book will change how to think and how you embrace life. It will challenge your ideas about disease, anger, aging, and even happiness. It makes connections between your body, mind and soul that you previously might have believed only lightly touch each other. It will or should help you to understand that a textured life is not about constantly walking around with an insipid smile on your face and saying 'feeling great' when someone asks.

If there is a fault with the book it is that it is too honest and refuses to sugar coat its message. And in that alone it will be missed by a significant majority that absolutely needs to read this.

Dark Nights should be on everyones list. Read it.

I've known and followed Tom Moore and his work for years now, and I find this work to be of the best books he has written. Dark Night is clear, literate, focused, and immediately useful, identifying the gnarly issues of post-modern adult life and shining beautiful bright light on the path at the places where it narrows. Moore is at the height of his powers, incorporating what he has touched on previously, evolving it, deepening it, while making his piercing perception very accesible. I highly recommend this book, without reservation. And, bonus, it is a good read to boot.

I attempted to write a review a few minutes ago but I could not collect my thoughts. I'm listening to the audio version of this book as I drive each day. Anyway, I closed out without submitting anything.

I had to go downstairs to my basement hideaway for something and I saw the hundreds and hundreds of books all over the place and was reminded of my searching and aimlessness in life. It's all confusion and clutter to some, but every book tells a story. Not just the author's but the person who picks it up. Their interests and reason for touching it in the first place.

I have many versions and interpretations of The Dark Night of The Soul. Thomas Merton and Finley were mentioned in other reviews. I have their books and so many, many others. . New Age and Old Age.

What the heck am I looking for? When will this long "Night" end?

I don't know. My soul and spirit seem to clash against my self and ego.

Nevertheless, the audio version, read by the author, speaks to me. He attempts to make sense of the senseless. He speaks peace to me and encourages me to continue when I want to just give up.

I'm saying that in the best way I know how is he is helping me admidst the clutter of my mind and soul to realize that it is not in vain. that there is a reason for this gloominess and isolation and withdrawal.

I'm still going through the audio. I bought the book and tore into that. lotta notes. I like the audio because I can relate to him better.

I wish all of you out there encouragement and pray you find peace and contentment in life.

I am someone who has had depression off and on for many years.
As a spiritually oriented person, I tend to regard my depression in terms of one of my crosses to bear in life and to work with it,rather than fight it. But, sometimes I get upset with my tendency to be depressive and try to fix it and be done with it. I don't give the depression a voice or honor it. I just live with it most of the time.

I believe in getting help in any way you can whether it be naturally or with medication or therapy.For some medication is a must.But I also believe that our culture is one that values, all things bright, youthful, and energetic and happy and one that fears darkness, aging, death and depression. We are addicted to feeling up, happy and achieving. Nothing wrong with achievment or being happy and young. But you cannot deny that our culture is overly identified with those things. Being over identification with one way of being can bring us many problems.

I love how Thomas makes room for the dark and the depressive, not to promote it to stay but just to give it a voice, space and time, so that it does not have to destroy us to get our attention. Jesus himself loved the people who were considered the dark ones, the sinners. Why not love and honor our own darkness?

Thomas is a brilliant man and what he says may be scary for some to hear or even confusing. I feel afraid in a to do this work but in that scariness I feel more alive and more ready to deepen myself by doing it. It challenges me and my normal ways of being. It asks me to go inside and explore, rather than run away to feel better.I know deep in my bones what he is saying is right for me.This work may not be for everyone.

There are many paths.But it cannot hurt to give oneself some compassion and some time to entertain the dark spaces in the ways he suggests. Being as conscious as one can be while doing it.Not just succumbing numbly to depression. I love his work and I am inspired to use what I learn from him to help others in my work as a counselor.

It gives you a better appreciation of your tough times and how to accept them and not deny them.
I would like to make a note here. I find the comment of "Teri M. Oneal" pretty disturbing when she/he says "It's no wonder his publisher released him as he states in one of his chapters". If the author shares his experiences with us, or anyone for that matter, it is our duty as a mature adult person not to use it against him or her. If one does not appreciate another one's opinion, one can come up with reasoning. Moking or taking advantage of one's trust is the least mature action one can do.

I picked up this book on the advice of my therapist/teacher/spiritual director. If you're going through a hard time and have been for a long time, and you feel like it's just not shaking loose, pick up this book. I felt that it gave voice to what I was feeling and experiencing without the new-age-law-of-attraction advice of "just think good thoughts." Because that wasn't working for me. This book validates that there are periods in life that are dark and depressing and just as valuable as those periods of great external success, happiness, money, etc. I feel like those of us who choose to experience these periods of our lives with grace live in small, quiet, lonely corners of life. People rarely talk about these phases. That doesn't mean they aren't real or valuable or simply part of life. This book gives voice to this phase. It's a companion along that journey. Highly recommend. Wish it were available on Kindle.