"The Seven Storey Mountain" is said to have resonated within a society longing for renewed personal meaning and direction in the aftermath of a long and bloody war (World War II), at a time when global annihilation was increasingly imaginable due to the development of atomic bombs and even more powerful thermonuclear weapons. The book has served as a powerful recruitment tool for the priestly life in general, and for the monastic orders in particular. In the 1950s, Gethsemani Abbey and the other Trappist monasteries experienced a surge in young men presenting themselves for the cenobitic life. It is a well-known bit of Catholic lore that, after the book's publication, many priests entered monasteries or seminaries with a copy in their suitcase.