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The Ways and Power of Love

Types, Factors, and Techniques of Moral Transformation

Pitirim A. Sorokin

Stephen G. Post
The ways and power of love, book published by Templeton Press
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The ways and power of love, book published by Templeton Press
Look Inside
Price:
$24.95
ISBN 13:
978-1-890151-86-7
Size:
6 x 9
Page Count:
584
Date Published:
March 1, 2002
Price:
$15.99
ISBN 13:
978-1-59947-502-8
Cart Buy This Book Arrow 40% off when you buy from Templeton Press

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The Ways and Power of Love was originally published in 1954 when Pitirim Sorokin was in the twilight of his career and leading the Harvard Research Center in Creative Altruism. His elaborate scientific analysis of love with regard to its higher and lower forms, its causes and effects, its human and cosmic significance, and its core features constitutes the first study on this topic in world literature to date.

Sorokin was the one absolutely essential twentieth-century pioneer in the study of love at the interface of science and religion. Bringing The Ways and Power of Love back into print allows a new generation of readers to appreciate Sorokin’s genius and to move forward with his endeavor at a time when civilization itself continues to be threatened by a marked inability to live up to the ideal of love for all humankind. It is certainly right to hope, with Sorokin, that progress in knowledge about love can move humanity forward to a better future. Turning the sciences toward the study of love is no easy task, but it can and must be done.

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Preface   xi

Introduction by Stephen G. Post   xv

Part I – Love: Its Aspects, Dimensions, Production, Transformation, and Power

1. The Manifoldness of Love and Its Main Aspects   3

2. The Five-Dimensional Universe of Psychosocial Love   15

3. Tentative Considerations on Production, Accumulation, and Distribution of Love Energy   36

4. Power of Creative Love   47

Part II – Structure of Creative Personality

5. Mental Structure and Energies of Man   83

6. The Supraconscious in Man’s Mental Structure, Creativity, and Cognition   98

7. Forms and Ways of Personality Integration and Creativity   115

Part III – The Ways of Altruistic Growth

8. Supreme Love and Supraconsciousness   125

9. Three Types of Altruists and Three Courses of Altruistic Growth   144

10. Ideological and Behavioral Altruistic Self-Identification   175

11. Factors in the Early Integration of the Fortunate Altruists   184

12. Inner Conflicts and Precipitating Factors of the Late Altruists   206

13. Types of Altruistic Rearrangement of Group Affiliations and Environment   232

14. Trials and Pains of Reintegration of Behavior   255

15. Types of Controls of Biological Drives   273

Part IV – Techniques of Altruistic Transformation of Persons and Groups

16. The Ego-Centered and the Ego-Transcending Forms of Love and Techniques   287

17. The Techniques of Altruistic Transformation (continued)   309

18. The Techniques of Altruistic Transformation (concluded)   332

19. The Unified Techniques of Patanjali’s and Other Yogas   356

20. The Monastic System of Techniques   377

21. Monastic “Psychoanalysis”, Counseling, and Therapy   409

22. Techniques of Contemporary Free Brotherhoods   441

Part V – Tragedy and Transcendence of Tribal Altruism

23. From Tribal Egoism to Universal Altruism   459

Notes   491

Index of Names   537

Index of Subjects   547

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