Works by
Ernest Kurtz
(Writer)

Books

• The Collected Ernie Kurtz (2008)
  Ernest Kurtz has been the outstanding thinker of the AA tradition's second generation, the one who played a constant leadership role in pushing the movement towards the highest professional standards of history writing and supplied some of its most influential interpretive concepts. His ideas are vitally important for anyone who wishes to understand A.A. history during the period following Bill Wilson's death in 1971.

  As a Ph.D. student at Harvard University in the 1970's, he was the first researcher to be granted full access to the archives of Alcoholics Anonymous. The book that resulted, Not God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous (1979), is still the classic work on early A.A. history. His book on the spiritual life-Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection (1992)-is equally well known, and has also been an enduring best seller through the years since it appeared. His work on Shame & Guilt (orig. pub. 1981, rev. ed. 2007) has given a whole new depth to the discussion of those two vital recovery issues.

  This present book, containing twelve key articles written by Kurtz between 1982 and 1996, gives us a fourth volume from his hand, displaying the impressive range and breadth of his thought on alcoholism, addiction, and spirituality.

• Shame & Guilt (2007)
  Shame & Guilt explores the differences between these two painful but inevitable experiences. Both guilt and shame involve feeling “bad”—feeling bad about one’s actions (or omissions) in the case of guilt; feeling bad about one’s self in shame. The deep meaning of the word bad is “unable to fit”: unable to fit into some external context in the case of guilt, unable to fit into one’s own being in the case of shame.
  
  Human experience offers two different ways of discovering that one does not “fit,” of feeling “bad.” Each has to do with the boundaries of the human condition. But there are two kinds of boundaries, and it is important to recognize their difference, the difference between rules and goals. For though the human condition is bounded, recognizing that reality can be either a choking, tightening experience or it can lead to the discovery of a new freedom.
  
  True, shame’s negative side points up failure and falling short, but shame also entails something positive: insight into the reality of the human condition. The experience of shame lays bare the essential paradox that inheres in being human: to be human is to be caught in a contradictory tension between the pull to the unlimited, the more-than-human, and the drag of the merely limited, the less-than-human.
  
  Shame’s healing is to be found in the discovery of how that paradox can be lived creatively in ways that find other human beings to be not the problem in shame, but its solution.

• The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning (1992) by Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham
  I Am Not Perfect is a simple statement of profound truth, the first step toward understanding the human condition, for to deny your essential imperfection is to deny yourself and your own humanity. The spirituality of imperfection, steeped in the rich traditions of the Hebrew prophets and Greek thinkers, Buddhist sages and Christian disciples, is a message as timeless as it is timely. This insightful work draws on the wisdom stories of the ages to provide an extraordinary wellspring of hope and inspiration to anyone thirsting for spiritual growth and guidance in these troubled times.
  
  Who are we? Why so we so often fall short of our goals for ourselves and others? By seeking to understand our limitations and accept the inevitably of failure and pain, we being to ease the hurt and move toward a greater sense of serenity and self-awareness. The Spirituality Of Imperfection brings together stories from many spiritual and philosophical paths, weaving past traditions into a spirituality and a new way of thinking and living that works today. It speaks so anyone who yearns to find meaning within suffering. Beyond theory and technique, inside this remarkable book you will find a new way of thinking, a way of living that enables a truly human existence.

• Not God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous (1991)
  The most complete history of A.A. ever written. Not-God contains anecdotes and excerpts from the diaries, correspondence, and occasional memoirs of A.A.'s early figures. A fascinating, fast-moving, and authoritative account of the discovery and development of the program and fellowship that we know today as Alcoholics Anonymous.

• A.A.: The Story. (1988)

• Boston Area Resources for the Study of American Religious Histories (1971)

Other

• Dr. Bob's Library (1992) by Dick B with  Ernest Kurtz, Designer

• Mindfield: A Quarterly Source Journal for Consciousness (Vol. 1, No. 3) Fall 1992 (1992), James Mosher, ed.
  Articles by Chogyam Trungpa, Ernie Kurtz, Katherine Ketcham, Larry Dossey, Roger S. Jones, and Theodore Roszak

See also:

• A Biography of Clarence Snyder: How It Worked in Early AA (2001) by K. Mitchell
  Includes intro by Ernie Kurtz