Quest for Silence

What ever happened to silence? Actually nothing, and Harry Wilmer takes great pains to show how we have submerged it under a toxic barrage of noise. Using both clinical examples of the power of silence from his case histories, and cultural values of silence, he uncovers a astonishing theme in the Japanese idea of MA as silence. Wilmer points out how silence gives meaning to words, dreams, thought, action and music. From his long experience as a Jungian analyst, he weaves his ideas into an eminently practical treatise on the phenomenology of silence. With many references to literature as well as his personal life experiences and crises, he offers a readable and important new story of the universal and spiritual significance of silence in a world of jackhammer noise.

Harry Wilmer is founder, emeritus director and president of the Institute for the Humanities at Salado, Texas.

Preface	p. 9
A Letter from the Publisher	p. 11
Foreword	p. 13
A Gap-Filling Society	p. 19
A Case in Point	p. 22
Silent Gaps	p. 27
Tell Me About Silence	p. 28
Noise Treatment	p. 30
When Silence Needs a Noisy Companion	p. 31
Silent Treatment of Nations	p. 32
The Nature of Silence	p. 34
Philosophers and Poets	p. 38
Pandemonium and Silence	p. 45
A Patient Seeks Sanctuary in Silence	p. 49
The Off-and-On Phenomena	p. 50
My Most Daunting Experience	p. 58
Listening	p. 65
On Doing Nothing	p. 73
Let Us Not Forget Pooh Bear	p. 74
Prophesy at the Threshold	p. 77
Threat of Death	p. 80
War	p. 88
A Noiseless Blast	p. 90
The Sky Gaps	p. 92
The Mountain Gaps	p. 92
Synchronicity?	p. 95
Max Cleland: Vietnam Triple Amputee	p. 96
It Is So, But the Prophesy Is Not Fulfilled	p. 99
On Not Being Able to Talk	p. 104
The Seventh Seal is Silence	p. 107
Home of the Brave	p. 108
Savages Attack: Who is Possessed by Demons?	p. 110
Wartime Secret	p. 116
MA	p. 118
The Japanese Word MA	p. 119
MA in America - Not	p. 120
MA Is Sometimes Ma	p. 123
Crafted MA	p. 124
The Significance of MA in Japanese Culture	p. 125
The Tao	p. 128
Spirit and Death: The Ultimate Ordeal	p. 137
Dream One	p. 138
Dream Two	p. 138
Dream Three	p. 139
Synchronicity	p. 143
My Death	p. 145
The Unfillable Gaps: Death and the Black Hole	p. 146
The Black Hole and the Death of the Sun	p. 147
Avoiding Another Dark Age	p. 148
Patience	p. 151
The Great MAW	p. 153
Patience and Waiting	p. 156
The I-Thou/I-It Cycle	p. 159
Meditation, Contemplation, and No-Mind	p. 161
A Word on the Temper of Our Times	p. 162
Meditation and Yoga	p. 163
The Monastery	p. 164
Entering the Contemplative Monastic Life	p. 167
Solitude	p. 168
Seeking Another and Sex	p. 171
Kathleen Norris	p. 174
In patientia vestra habetis animam vestram: An Alchemical Exhortation	p. 176
And What Can We Do About Silence and Noise?	p. 180
The Quest for Silence	p. 181
Bibliography	p. 183
Index	p. 190
About the Author	p. 195
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

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