God’s Path to Sanity: Lessons from Ancient Holy Counselors on How to Have a Sound Mind

This book brings the reader together with holy physicians of the soul in ancient Christian Traditions, offering superbly clear examples of the patristic method of diagnosing and healing many disorders of the soul that are now being widely treated with brain-crippling drugs. Addresses violent mood swings, uncontrollable willfulness, anger, depression, suicidal urges, ambivalence in decision-making, built-in self-defeating programs, ignorance of oneself, inability to control thoughts, being ＂possessed＂ by passions, compulsive physical appetites, social isolation, inability to love and feel loved, demonstrating just what the Fathers say about recovering sanity in the love of Christ. The author, a Stanford graduate and a veteran editor and author, worked at Harvard with Fr. Georges Florovsky. Early reviewers have dubbed this book a ＂must read＂ for spiritual health and sanity.

Dee Pennock was converted to Christianity in her twenties by two volumes of the ＂Philokalia＂ that landed on her desk at The Macmillan Company in New York City, where she was working after her graduation from Stanford University.

Later study of the Bible and early church fathers alerted her to the Adam Complex--the patristic description of human souls and their ＂passions,＂ based on the scriptural Adam and Eve account.

She found that ancient patristic theology analyzed the make-up of all human nature in terms of the behavioral patterns of Adam and Eve. It described symptoms of the three major passions of the soul that characterize the Adam Complex. The patristic physicians of the soul gave detailed instructions on how to overcome these inborn passions, and how to restore a soul to spiritual and mental health.

Dee Pennock worked as an editor in three publishing houses and was the manuscript editor for the faculty of Harvard Divinity School. She has authored medical and theological articles, as well as textbooks and pamphlets for young adults. In ＂God’s Path to Sanity,＂ she presents a report on the patristic analyses of and remedies for what are referred to today as psychological disorders. Her book introduces readers, in eloquent detail, to the spiritual counseling and healing practiced by mainstream physicians of the soul from apostolic times through subsequent centuries.