Thomas Moore

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Soul Mates: Honoring the Mysteries of Love and Relationship
The Soul of Sex

Summary: Thomas Moore is a warm, reassuring, and common-sense author who is "working on the right problems" and conveys his message in a way that is attractive and inspiring to believers and other in his target audience. But to those who are not in that target audience, he can come across as dull, uninspiring, unoriginal, and vague.

Thomas Moore is a former Catholic monk of twelve years with degrees in theology, musicology and philosophy, a former professor of religion and psychology, and bestselling author and lecturer who now lives in New England with his wife and two children. So as far as credentials go, he's pretty strong.

There is much to admire about the work of Thomas Moore. He speaks about important topics in a clear way that reaches people - his books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and apparently, at times, touch them deeply. As one of his readers writes:

"Only rarely can I claim to have been touched by a tale, a text, a book, even words so hauntingly beautiful and enduring as those of Thomas Moore as expressed in Soul Mates. Moore's writing ensnares you almost as unpredictably as love itself with a literary insight and philosophical exhilaration that is the ultimate journey with an author . . . Moore turns everything you wondered, dreamt and felt about the real experience of human relationships into something as clear and precious as air itself. Gently, yet perceptively, he guides you back to the core and the unique and individual thoughts of your very existence. Moore's Soul Mates may even be the closest you can get to the simple truth of taking a single moment in this life for confronting and embracing yourself and everyone around you. Certainly, this is a book that is the perfect expression of the deep, spiritual force working in and out of our lives, making anything at all-even self-love still possible-again and again."

This is obviously no faint praise, and undoubtedly, Moore addresses very important questions in a way that we resonate deeply with. After all, in a time of stifling rationality and scientism, when we are used to living in a rushed and relentlessly materialistic society of empty hype and blustering stupidity where we rarely take the time to stop, think, and savor the strangeness and beauty of things . . . how can we live with a real sense of profundity, depth, wonder, and meaning?

Moore speaks "with a soft, yet strong, reassuring voice" to these issues in a clear, "no-frills" way that has obviously touched a great deal of people. In our opinion, his message is so successful not because it is revolutionary or even unusually insightful, but because - somewhat like Dr. Phil - he speaks a great deal of common sense in an area that is all too often devoid of it.

- but only for the right audience.

The audience that most seems to appreciate Moore's work is the group of thoughtful, traditional, devout believers who resonate with authors who reflect their deeply-held traditional values . . . and are not looking for any revolutionary texts. For others - the more skeptical, the more practical-minded, the less traditionally devout - the message can have much less of an impact.

Moore is a neo-Jungian somewhat in the tradition of Rollo May who tackles huge subjects (such as "the soul" and "sex") and is therefore forced to speak generally - like paint with a huge building with a garden hose - and must cover a great deal of ground in a short amount of time. The result is - again, inspiring for some, but sleep-provoking to others. Do we need a deeper view of sex? Sure. Do we need to stop and appreciate life's mystery? Of course. Do we need to be more conscious of the sacred in our daily lives and our own souls? Sure, sure, sure - the points are hardly debatable, and again, are best read as eloquent words of reassurance, not as radically new insights into undiscovered territories

So for those outside of Moore's "target audience" of believers, the reviews can be downright corrosive: from "bottom-of-the-barrel mythology" to "intellectually worthless" to "a salve for the weak minded" to "spirituality for white men." Ouch.

It's true - Moore's books are more like inspirational poetry - with a dash of preachy, stuffy pedanticism (does anybody ever "stop and appreciate life's mystery" because they're told to in a book?) where the payoff is in the experience of reading itself - as opposed to, say, a step-by-step, nuts-and-bolts "how-to" book on how to make relationships work (such as Weiner-Davis).

Moore's lofty sentiments thrive best in quiet and comfortable surroundings - such as, for example, upper-class homes of New England.

And the fantasy intellectual grudge-match that your LiveReal Editors would love to see . . . is Moore's loftiness combined with the gritty, coarse, street-level practicality and jaded wisdom of Tom Leykis.

And of course, some folks appreciate a book on love and relationship that doesn't pretend to have all the answers, and don't pretend to be an exhaustive history of the various subjects. Many don't want a book that beats the reader over the head with step-by-step programs or offering pat answers to the mysteries of relationships. Again, if you are in this audience, and this is what you are looking for, these books are for you, and if not, then you'll probably be disappointed.

Another aspect of Moore's work that invites challenge is the intellectual thoroughness. Although he admittedly is taking on huge topics (sex, the soul, etc) - he makes few reference to other seminal thinkers who have done a great deal of work in these areas before him, such as Plato, Aristotle, the Upanishads, Homer, Sophocles, Lao Tzu, Plotinus, Buddha, Shakespeare, Milton, Rousseau, Kant, Nietzsche, or Heidegger, Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, Meister Eckhart, and so on. Aside from the occasional reference to Plato and Homer and a scarce reference or two to the controversial sixteenth century physician Paracelsus, Moore sides primarily with other like-minded fans of Carl Jung such as thinkers (some would argue "hacks" who get no respect outside of their own tiny circles) like James Hillman and Robert Sardello.

In short, Moore is mainstream enough to be nonthreatening and reassuring, and just barely "on the edge" enough for most believers to be interesting, and therefore, very worth checking out.

Some final notes on The Soul of Sex:

This is a work where Moore takes on the topic of - no shocker here - sexuality and spirituality. All that was said above still applies here, with his poetic and commonsense calls for thoughtfulness and soulfulness . . . but still, from this angle, Moore just doesn't go deep enough. It's great to utter lofty sentiments, but sooner or later, one has to put the book down and venture out into the jungle of real life.

He does do a service of attempting to open a discussion about taboo and forbidden subjects, but still prefers to stay in shallow water. Catholicism, especially, desperately needs someone who can argue their positions on sexuality in the open market without relying exclusively on the argument-by-unquestionable-authority premise.

Another fantasy of the LiveReal Editors would be a "town-hall" meeting where Moore is asked open-ended questions by an audience of teenagers who ask him tough questions they actually face in real life: Should I have premarital sex? If not, why? If sex outside of marriage is wrong, why? If teenagers aren't supposed to have sex until marriage, and we don't get married until our mid-to-late twenties, what are we supposed to do with ourselves during out teenage years? And what about divorce? Is divorce wrong? Is oral sex really sex? What should I do to help set the stage for a successful marriage? What is celibacy all about? - and so on.

If this fantasy would ever actually happen, perhaps this would not only get Moore's feet on the ground, but it might also bring his best qualities out in the open.

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