Dreams, inner work, spirituality

Another fantastic post by Jean Raffa.  It's called Ruling the Inner Chamber, and she deals with dreams, inner work, and the spiritual journey.  I especially love this:

Contrary to popular belief, authentic spirituality is not just a function of how many souls we save or how well we know scriptures or how hard we pray or how many rules we keep or what we believe or how often we attend our place of worship or how much money we donate to the poor. Likewise, spiritual maturity is not limited to a particular religion or set of beliefs. Rather, it is a function of our willingness to further the unfolding of our capacity for full living, endless loving, and authentic being.


We’re supposed to discover our true selves and connect with the sacred Mystery within. We’re supposed to learn how to accept and love ourselves because that’s how we learn to accept and love others. Every religion has spawned mature spirit persons whose mystical experiences and intuitions taught them that God indwells the soul. This means that our spiritual growth is not just a function of searching for God outside ourselves but also of honoring the “kingdom” within.

Thanks Jean for continuing to be a friend on the journey!

Psychotherapy as Spiritual Practice, Purgation, Self, etc.

Okay, so I've been a little slack with postings on Answer to Job, I apologize.  So many other interesting readings have been also getting my attention lately, so this post is about one of them.

I have been reading over the past few months a book, by psychoanalyst and professor of religion and spirituality at Pacifica Graduate Institute Lionel Corbett, called "The Sacred Cauldron: Psychotherapy as a Spiritual Practice".  This morning, I came across the section below, where Corbett is talking about the psychological aspects of spiritual growth.  When he mentions the Self, he is referring to what Jungians refer to as the center of the total personality, which includes consciousness, the unconscious, and the ego. The Self is both the whole and the center.  It is through the Self, I believe, that we interpenetrate with, and find, God.  Some Jungians believe that Self=God (or the God archetype), or in other words, Self is all there is.  Others, like me, believe that Self is where we make contact with that which is totally Other, or God.  So, when he speaks below of the call of Self, I would offer that this call is the call of God through the organizing totally of our psyche, which is the Self.

This passage below really resonates with me, as I have been trying to find words for the journey I've been experiencing over that past 5 years or so.  I would say that I'm still in the period of purgation that he describes below.  Here is the passage, from pages 118-119:

Spiritual development may begin as a person gradually develops a spiritual longing; we realize there is something more within us, something more that we need besides our usual lives, a deeper source of meaning even when life seems to be proceeding well on the surface...We cannot produce this longing; it comes upon us autonomously.  Sometimes such an awakening seems to happen for no apparent reason, or it may be triggered by a numinous experience that makes us aware of spiritual reality...These experiences may be seen as a call from the transpersonal Self...[to answer the call] We have to give up our existing image of ourselves and face some hard truths. A sacrifice of time, money, and energy may be necessary.  It may be difficult to accept that the hegemony of the ego is over.  It may be difficult to let go if one suffers from fragmentation anxiety or if status and success have been used to buttress a fragile sense of self.  It is difficult to be responsive to the promptings of the Self if one is preoccupied with survival.

If one accepts the call, one has to develop a relationship with it.  There follows what was traditionally referred to (in mystic writers) as "purgation", meaning the necessity to face the shadow or problematic personality traits such as self-importance, possessiveness, greed, fear, and envy...Painful feelings are not obstacles to spiritual development but signposts that indicate...the doorways into the soul's deeper places.  After the awakening, the period of purgation is often experienced as a period of darkness; at times one does not have the strength to go on. This stage may last for years, during which the person may be in therapy.  At these periods, one reevaluates one's values and beliefs and may either recommit to a religious tradition or leave it entirely.

I would also offer, one can recommit to a religious tradition, but with a different lens and perspective on the richness and symbolic nature of their religious tradition, which is where my leanings are right now.

Encouragement on the Journey

It is always encouraging to find fellow travelers on the journey of life.  Anyone who knows me knows that I do not like comparing people's experiences.  It can tend to universalize an experience, and exclude those who do not share them.  There is nothing wrong with learning from others though, as long as we maintain the intersubjectivity between us and respect the experiences of the other.  Jean Raffa has an excellent blog post that resonates with me.  My experience is similar to her's that she describes in the first few paragraphs.  Take a read:

Gated Religions - Jean Raffa

I especially love this, as I could have written it myself if I could find the words:

For many years, literal belief in the doctrines of my religion (Christianity) was enough to satisfy my spiritual hunger. But the strain of containing my beliefs in a tightly enclosed, left-brained compartment labeled “Religion” while repeatedly coming up against a Mystery that encompasses the entire universe eventually wore me down. At the age of 37 my ego waved a white flag and surrendered its need to feel safe and in control. In leaving the gated community of my religion, I entered a Dark Night of the Soul that lasted nine years.


I returned from the desert with a new way of seeing and living.

For me, I am still learning what that new way of seeing and living could look like.  I know what I'm letting go of (inherited God images, etc), but I only have a glimpse of a new way at this point.  Depth psychology and the mystic tradition are helping to paint the picture of the future, but I'm still, daily, filling in that picture on the path of individuation.

Answer to Job - 1

Jung prefaces the book with a section called Lectori Benevolo.  He starts this section with this, which lays the groundwork for the rest of the book:

…For, in what follows, I shall speak of the venerable objects of religious belief.  Whoever talks of such matters inevitably runs the risk of being torn to pieces by the two parties who are in moral conflict about those very things.  This conflict is due to the strange supposition that a thing is true only if it presents itself as a physical fact…”Physical” is not the only criterion: there are also psychic truths which can neither be explained nor proved nor contested in any physical way. (LB, 553)

It is interesting to me that we still see this battle between two camps: literalists who claim that we can’t have faith UNLESS it is backed up by physical facts; and atheists who claim that we can’t have faith BECAUSE it cannot be backed up by physical facts.  I would not presume to think these are the two camps Jung had in mind, but it is something I see today.   Jung continues to describe the psychic nature as autonomous of the physical, and thus of religious experience and language arising out of transpersonal, unconscious processes.  These resultant religious statements…

are filtered through the medium of human consciousness…That is why whenever we speak of religious contents we move in a world of images that point to something ineffable.  We do not know how clear or unclear these images, metaphors, and concepts are in respect of their transcendental object.  If, for instance, we say “God”, we give expression to an image or verbal concept which has undergone many changes in the course of time.  We are, however, unable to say with any degree of certainty…whether these changes affect only the images and concepts, or the Unspeakable itself…There is no doubt that there is something behind these images that transcends consciousness…(LB, 555).

Jung is drawing the distinction between the conscious expressions of unconscious God images, and the ineffable God that these images point to.  He concludes this section by clarifying that he is addressing these images, these metaphors that we see in Job, and doing so not as an objective intellectual, but as an emotionally involved subject.  He concludes with an important statement for my theologically minded friends: “I do not write as a biblical scholar, but as a layman and physician who has been privileged to see deeply into psychic life of many people”.

Answer to Job – Intro

So as my first foray back into blogging after some time, I decided to go easy on myself and blog through C.G. Jung’s Answer to Job.  Actually, this will be quite a challenge (both in the material and in the blogging), and I am going to really work at being consistent in my writing of new posts.  

A little about Answer to Job from the back cover:

Considered one of Jung's most controversial works, Answer to Job also stands as Jung's most extensive commentary on a biblical text. Here, he confronts the story of the man who challenged God, the man who experienced hell on earth and still did not reject his faith. Job's journey parallels Jung's own experience--as reported in The Red Book: Liber Novus--of descending into the depths of his own unconscious, confronting and reconciling the rejected aspects of his soul.

Some preparatory comments on style and language are in order.  The book is broken up by section (I, II, III, etc) and by paragraph number (557,567, etc.).  When I quote the book, I will use the following designation: (VII,643).  Also, Jung, as a product of his culture, uses exclusively masculine pronouns.  When quoting, I will use Jung’s words, with the caveat that I personally avoid the use of such pronouns in my own writing.  He also refers to God with masculine references.   Same caveat applies for me in this case as well. 

Worth the Read

Grab some friends, open some wine, and read and discuss this. I think you might find it interesting.

http://thomstark.net/copan/stark_copan-review.pdf

It will take some time to read through, but it's worth it.

Great Perspective

I enjoy reading the HBO website for In Treatment, where 3 psychotherapists discuss each episode. In discussing Frances' final episode, Rachel Seidel, MD has this perspective, which really resonates with me:

...if we are to live our limited-run lives well, we have little choice but to accept uncertainty and loss, and in the face of that, to find and create ethical and meaningful love where and when we can, so that we can live our lives as fully and as humanly as possible.