Preface: Here area few comments from a Psychology FB group from a psychiatrist and others about my article about "Materialism" :
1. "I'm a practicing psychotherapist and I find that the majority of my clients use my therapy to affirm their spiritual experiences. My clients tell me how other therapists shamed and pathologized their mystical capacities. This article is so accurate!"
2.. A second point is hostility in academia to Jungian ideas. I have certainly found that exists. My college has managed to connect one of the few universities that has a transpersonal psychology chapter in the UK. There are even a few academics I know who are involved in transpersonal psychology, and I have heard one saying that there is a hostility in academia to Jung. This would seem to be confirmed in other places, not least a lecture by Jordan Peterson mentioning this.
3. I've also looked for classes here in VA and couldn’t find any. To me they're all just dancing to the same basic ass tune. Jung is a different kind of enlightenment compared to the psychology courses currently available; they don't want us enlightened... the less we know the easier we are to coarse (some more than others ofc)... that's just my opinion tho.
Specific problems with the Science of Psychology, especially the 'Psychology of Religion'
1. There is an academic taboo against instincts and it is not possible to understand ideology and especially inter-group conflict which frequently triggers the powerful emotions related to group related instincts.
2, An academic taboo against collective consciousness or even social consciousness ever since Allport in 1924 trashed McDougall's group mind, social psychologists have failed to come to grips.
3. Directly related to that Materialist psychologists adamantly argue that consciousness is confined entirely to the "firing of neurons in an individual's brain." I run into that constantly. Existential research into meaning reveals as most psychologists agree now that 'meaning is socially derived' and in one way we get meaning through or from others (whether in approval, rejection, status, and so on - and especially it is known people get 'identity generally through group membership (national, ethnic, political, etc). So, the "consciousness confined to the firing of neurons of an individual's brain is completely absurd.
4. 'Psychology of Religion' failed to follow scientific method as defined by Aristotle 2,000 years ago: 1. gather the facts 2. categorize 3. analyze 4. draw conclusions. The results is that 'Psychology of Religion' failed to identify several important categories of spirituality!
a) Religion, religious beliefs and spiritual beliefs from even a precursory over-view of the history have been prevalent and pervasive in history and religions have been a major if not dominating force and influence in history. It would seem an inescapable conclusion that a powerful and fundamental drive must be either connected or associated with unconscious spiritual processes. I have not run across a powerful drive connected with spirituality in any of my research. I asked an award winning author and retired psychology professor who taught psychology of religion courses, and he said that he hadn't heard of one either.
b) As Durkheim pointed out religions clearly played a role in creating norms, laws, morality, as well as social structure in general. That would be especially true of spiritual-social ideals such as compassion, truth, justice, equality, charity, and so on. Compassion is clearly a vital principle and doctrine of every major religion - including Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam - and thus must be connected or associated with spiritual processes.
Missing the category of idealism-spirituality is another major flaw in the 'Psychology of Religion.' In fact, I would mention the 'psychology of Religion' books I reviewed did not properly address the issue of the "Teachings of Religion." In one 'comprehensive' 'Psychology of Religion' book, there were actually more references to Freud than compassion. None of the books had a single reference to "Truth" - which is another pivotal concept and principle in every major religion.
c) Alongside that would be the spirituality of civic activists such as Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Tolstoy, and so on (not to mention Moses). It is clear from their personal histories that they all suffered serious persecution and therefor must have had a very strong drive connected to their spiritual convictions connected with idealism.
d) Then there is the fact that the 'Psychology of Religion' failed to connect Jung's statement, now buttressed by similar statements of psychologists, that without Any emotional attachment to something or somebody nothing would happen - that emotions are the primary motivation for people. Connecting that concept with the early spiritual beliefs in animal spirits. In retrospect it would seem readily apparent that the belief in animal spirits was an evolutionary adaptive trait that helped humans move through the hunter-gatherer stage.
e)The 'Psychology of Religion' also failed to identify "Spirit as Life-Force" which clearly is the most ancient and primal "archetype of spirit and was, as other authors have noted widespread throughout the world in almost every early or 'primitive' tribal societies throughout the world. As the physicist Josephson observed scientists have tended to obsess over the "transcendental Spirit or Supernatural God" - which has clearly distorted scientists view of religion and spirituality.
f) then there are numerous other categories of spirituality: astrology, spiritually inspired art which dates back at least twenty or thirty thousand years ago; music; dance, and so on. One could probably spend an entire lifetime categorizing spirituality.
g) another failure was the failure to identify "unconscious spiritual processes, which is very important especially in light of genetic research. A recent review of research into spiritual experiences by Park and Paloutzian showed that somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of people have spiritual experiences and there is a "normalcy" (I am OK! You are OK! to these experiences). What makes that important is the fact that the religious scholar Fraser Watts observed that in one study of those whop reported positively about spiritual experiences, 24% were atheists. The unconscious aspect of "spirit" is something Jung noted back in the 1930's.
If you look closely at the "Science of Psychology" and ask questions which Einstein argued one should never stop doing, you will find all sorts of issues and problems.
I don't think many psychologists are even aware of the extent and pervasiveness of materialism. A comprehensive Handbook of Self And Identity over 700 pages long does not have even one single reference to spirit or spirituality. Do they think that all of a sudden, after tens of thousands of years of spiritual and religious beliefs, all spiritual ideas, symbolism, archetypes and unconscious processes are suddenly going to disappear - "Poof! Magic!" It is all prejudice and opinion! there is nothing scientific, objective rational or even reasonable about contemporary psychology! Can you explain why a self and identity handbook does not have even one single reference to spirit or spirituality?