Histories of the modern self traditionally locate its origins in the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the “Enlightenment.” Moshe Sluhovsky, however, turns to early modern Catholic spiritual practices to uncover programs of self-formation that strove for personal discovery, self-awareness, and an enhanced sense of self––all Western ideals of the modern individual.

In Becoming a New Self: Practices of Belief in Early Modern Catholicism, Sluhovsky examines transformative techniques of introspection performed by early modern Catholics, including general confession, a personal relationship with a spiritual adviser, and self-examination. He ties these practices to the “project of self-formation as a subject” (1). Mining Catholic spiritual and penitential practices, most specifically Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises, Sluhovsky draws from philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and history to locate agency and the creation of selfhood among early modern Catholics. Challenging the standard model of Protestant individual modernity, he traces the dramatic changes of Catholic techniques of introspection and “modern” self-formation throughout the early modern period. In so doing, he convincingly counters Foucault's treatment of these spiritual practices as mechanisms of governmentality, showing them instead to be a collaborative project that empowered practitioners to read their own souls. Throughout, Sluhovsky engages with the work of a vast field of scholars––from Maurice Merleau-Ponty to Saba Mahmood––and contributes to studies of early modern Catholic spirituality, notions of selfhood and agency, and to new narratives of “modernity.”

Early modern Catholic spiritual exercises fostered introspection and agency in practitioners as they formed new selfhoods. Through sixteenth and seventeenth-century Franciscan, Jesuit, and Carmelite efforts, spiritual leaders such Teresa de Ávila and Ignatius of Loyola extended these practices to the laity, and devout male and female Catholics studied with spiritual advisers to gain the tools needed for self-correction and a generation of new self-awareness. In his Spiritual Exercises, Loyola “created a nexus and a trajectory that combined pre-existing devotional practices into a new and coherent system of psychagogy,” or guidance of the soul (97). Key to this introspective practice was general confession directed by an experienced confessor who led practitioners to a transformative experience, imbuing them with the ability to create spiritual paths for their futures. General confession––as practitioners revealed their internal sinful nature to their director of conscience––was intended to liberate them from their evil inclinations. But the goal was not “unidirectional subjugation to authority,” as claimed by Foucault, but rather a dialogue between director and practitioner intended to mature into a “dialogue of the self with itself” (83). Adding to general confession, Ignatius, Teresa de Ávila, and Madame de Chantal advocated a daily routine of self-scrutiny. This introspective practice included self-reflection multiple times throughout the day, which had the goal of incessant examination aimed at helping practitioners interiorize self-scrutinizing techniques. These practices of introspection sought to awaken the awareness of one's sinfulness and to train the self to overcome immoral inclinations. Thus, Ignatian techniques of introspection and subjectivation imbued early modern Catholic selves with the capacity to govern their own humanity and shape their own lives. It is this agency that Sluhovsky convincingly argues is worthy of consideration as an “enduring contribution of Catholic practices of belief to modern notions of selfhood” (146).

These penitential, spiritual practices of self-formation transcended cloistered walls and gendered boundaries. Commendably, Sluhovsky draws from the works of female authors such as Teresa de Ávila, Madame de Chantal, and Margaret Mary Alacoque, though his focus remains on Loyola's Spiritual Exercises. While he attends to women's voices, he draws exclusively from a small pool of early modern elites. This narrow range of sources leaves the reader wishing to hear from lay men and women, or at the very least encounter a more intimate understanding of how non-elite early modern Catholics perceived these penitential practices and their self-reformations. While his sources do not make it possible to understand the reach of these practices in modern self-formation beyond spiritual elites, his scant sources are understandable given the dialogical nature of the spiritual exercises, a factor he acknowledges inhibits our access to their textual remains.

Despite the limits of his sources, Sluhovsky's meticulous research successfully argues these meditative regimes of self-formation contributed to Western pursuits of a new, independent, even “modern” self. This book will be of great interest for scholars interested in theoretical approaches to spiritual formations, penitential practices, and Ignatian Spiritual Exercises of early modern Catholic practice. Not only does this monograph convincingly counter Foucault's treatments of these spiritual practices as duties rather than voluntary practices, it liberates the narrative of the modern self from a “teleological trajectory and breaks up the monopoly of the Protestant-male-self-process model” (27). Becoming Self probes the very essence of practice in relation to belief, the formation of self, and the role such meditative techniques played in the evolution of modern identities.