SAN FRANCISCO – One of the most significant problems our culture faces today is the loss of transcendence and its four negative consequences:

• It causes us to underestimate and depreciate our nature, dignity, destiny and meaning in life;
• It takes away an important source of healing and consolation for those who are suffering and sick;
• It causes alienation from reality, others and ourselves, negatively impacting suicide rates, family relations, substance abuse and sense of fulfillment and hope;
• It leads to a decline in ethical motivation within individuals and ethical conduct within culture.

Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D., uses physics, cosmology, psychology, neuroscience, NDE studies and contemporary philosophy to reveal the truth of our spiritual nature in his new book, THE SOUL’S UPWARD YEARNING: Clues to Our Transcendent Nature From Experience and Reason.

Since the early 20th century, scientific materialism has so undermined our belief in the human capacity for transcendence that many people find it difficult to believe in God and the human soul. The materialist perspective has not only cast its spell on the natural sciences, psychology, philosophy and literature, it also has enthralled popular culture, which offers very little to encourage the “soul’s upward yearning.”

Ironically, the evidence for transcendence is greater today than in any other period in history. In THE SOUL’S UPWARD YEARNING, Spitzer shows that we are transcendent beings with souls capable of surviving bodily death; that we are self-reflective beings aware of and able to strive toward perfect truth, love, goodness and beauty; and that we have the dignity of being created in the very image of God. If we underestimate these truths, we undervalue one another, underlive our lives and underachieve our destiny.

Dean Koontz, a No. 1 New York Times bestselling author, has provided glowing praise of THE SOUL’S UPWARD YEARNING: “An intellectual triumph. Those who think faith is a matter of emotion and self-delusion could not intelligently defend that position if they read this book with an open mind and comprehended its arguments. Magnificent.”

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For more information, to request a review copy or to schedule an interview with Fr. Robert Spitzer: