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More spiritual self-help from the author of the bestselling Care of the Soul (1992 - not reviewed), this time focusing on relationships among spouses, family, and friends. Moore occupies a middle ground in the thriving subgenre of pop-psych/religion books: less jargon-infested than John Bradford but sometimes as platitudinous (urging the importance of being individuals and proclaiming that every relationship calls for a unique response ); less anecdotal and less penetrating than the master of the form, M. Scott Peck. Perhaps his most notable achievement has been to turn soul into a buzzword, never defined but apparently synonymous with psyche. Here, Moore tackles soul-to-soul relations, drawing from mythology, theology, literature (from Plato to Emily Dickinson), his own life, experiences of patients in psychotherapy, and the writings of Marsillo Ficino, a 15th-century Florentine thinker. Predictably, Moore counsels people to court imagination and feelings and to beware of excessive rationality. The shoptalk is neo-Jungian, as filtered through James Hillman and other modern depth psychologists. The practical advice - write letters to, and strike up conversations with, Mends; tell your spouse your dreams; forgive your parents; guide your children, and so on - is innocuous and may well be helpful. But by far the most invigorating momenta come when Moore swims against the tide of current opinion by declaring marriage a sacred symbolic act, rather than a financial or social convenience, and by upholding the ancient virtues of chastity and obedience. Underneath the pop-psych sheen lies a devout traditionalist, which may explain Moore's great success. There's no mystery about where this one is heading: fight on to the bestseller lists. (Kirkus Reviews)

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