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THF. HOLY LONGING: A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE RELIGIOUS IMPULSE
A dissertation submitted by Connie Zweig
PACIFICA GRADUATE INSTITUTE in partial fulfillment cf the requirement for the degree o f
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
This dissertation has been accepted for the faculty or
Chair
Claire Douglas Advisor
Aaron R. Lipnis,'Pr External Reader
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DMI Number: LD03227
Copyright 1995 by Zweig, Connie All rights reserved.
UMI Microfora LD03227 Copyright 1995, by UMI Coapany. All rights reserved. This aicrofora edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
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THE HOLY LONGING: A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE RELIGIOUS IMPULSE by Connie Zweig Pacifica Graduate Institute,
1995
This study examined attitudes toward the religious impulse in the schools of depth psychology— Freudian, object relations, Jungian, and archetypal--and in transpersonal psychology. The religious impulse is defined as an individual's innate desire to commune with something greater than the individual self; it is the longing to transcend the ego, to return to the archetypal realm, or to experience union with God, depending on one's language and frame of reference. Thus this study situated theorists with divergent attitudes, who rarely appear together in the literature,
in a kind of dialogue
with one another, not to reconcile them but to allow them to challenge and extend each other. It was not the aim of this work to reduce the holy longing to a psychological complex or to a singular archetype. Rather, first of all,
it aimed,
to acknowledge the pervasiveness and worthiness of
authentic religious desire, which has been overlooked by many professionals in the psychological community and which could be of value to both individual seekers and their mental health care practitioners. Second,
it aimed to point out some of the inherent
psychological dangers of the holy longing, which have been overlooked
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by many religious believers and spiritual or transpersonal practitioners. Thus this study was an attempt to present both the light side and the dark side of the holy longing. Finally,
this study suggested that there is an archetypal basis
for the spiritual impulse in human beings, which can lead either to ecstatic, numinous experience, communion, and compassion or to spiritual abuse,
trauma, splitting, and despair. Thus the holy
longing is a two-faced archetype, with a light side and a dark side. A deeper understanding of its dual nature will assist spiritual seekers, as well as those seeking to treat them.
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April,
Copyright by Connie Zweig 1995
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1995
To the Beloved whose face can be seen in everything
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Acknowledgments
Writing a dissertation is essentially a solitary task. But I wish to honor my psychological theory ancestors, whose work fills these pages, especially Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, James Hillman, and Ken Wilber. And I wish to thank the friends and family who supported me through rugged 12-hour days and/or served as readers: Jonathan Rocklin,
Steve Wolf, Gary Pearle, Roy Carlisle, Tom Rautenberg,
Demaris Wehr,
Pami Osaki, Marsha de la 0, Maia, Barbara Lipscomb,
the
Giggle Group, and my loving parents. To MMY, who lit the fire 25 years ago and to all my teachers since, who have helped to keep it burning. To the community of faculty and classmates at Pacifica Graduate Institute, where my pothos found a home. And gratitude especially to my committee: Dr. Dianne Skafte, Dr. Claire Douglas, and Dr. Aaron Kipnis, who cherished the work. To Marilyn Ferguson and Deena Metzger for the craft. Special thanks to Linda Weidlinger at the Los Angeles Jung Institute and Mark Kelly at Pacifica Graduate Institute -- librarians extraordinaires.
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An author's note: Recognizing that our shared language creates as well as reflects our culture's unspoken attitudes,
I acknowledge that the
exclusive use of the masculine form man, he, his, or him, which appears in quoted material in this document, perpetuates an archaic view of gender inequality.
I cannot change copyrighted material,
I apologize for reproducing it.
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but
Contents
Preface
......................................................
xiii
Chapter 1. Overview Introduction ..............................................
2
Defining the Religious Impulse
asHoly Longing .........
4
Statement of the Problem .................................
8
Brief Review of the Literature... ........................
9
The Method of
the Study....... ...........................
18
The Limits of
the Study....... ...........................
24
Summary ..................................................
25
Chapter 2. The Religious Impulse in Psychoanalytic Psychology Introduction ...............................................
23
The Origins of
Religious Belief in FatherLonging ........
31
The Origins of
Mystical Feeling in Mother-Longing .......
37
A Developmental Perspective: The Religious Impulse as Regression or Transcendence
........................................
45
Sexual Desire as Holy Longing ............................
52
God as a Transitional Object
54
.............................
Critique and Implications .................................
58
Addendum: Countertransference to Chapter 2: In Search of the Female Oedipus Complex
.................. 60
Chapter 3. The Religious Impulse in Classical Jungian Psychology Introduction ...............................................
66
The Religious Attitude ....................................
69
The Opposites of Spirit and Instinct ..................... 72
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The Longing for the Archetype ............................
78
The Projection of the Self ................................ 83 The Archetypal Transference ..............................
86
A Case History of Holy Longing ...........................
89
The Affective Field of the Transcendent Function ........ 94 Critique and Implications
................................. 97
Addendum: Countertransference to Chapter 3: A Critique of Jung's Critique of Holy Longing ..........
100
Jung's Cautions to Westerners
118
...........................
Chapter 4. The Religious Impulse in Archetypal Psychology Introduction ..............................................
112
Etymological Studies
.....................................
115
..........................................
119
Puer Aeternus: The Archetype of the Spirit .............
125
The Marriage of Soul to Spirit ..........................
134
Critique and Implications ................................
136
soul vs. Spirit
Addendum: Countertransference to Chapter 4: A Personal Meditation on Down .......................... Chapter 5. Imaao Amore:
137
Images of the Soul Longing for the Beloved
Introduction ..............................................
143
The Beloved as Parental Imago ...........................
146
The Beloved as Imago Amore ............................... 157 The Beloved as the Long-Lost Home ....................... Critique and Implications
168
................................ 174
Addendum: Countertransference to Chapter 5: The Beloved as Spiritual Teacher .......................
177
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Chapter 6. The Religious Impulse in Transpersonal Psychology Introduction ..............................................
184
The Historical Roots of Transpersonal Psychology ....... 187 Kundalini Yoga and the Pull of the Higher Chakras
.....
194
Freud, Jung, and the Pre-Trans Fallacy .................
197
Critique and Implications ................................ 205 Addendum: Countertransference to Chapter 6: The Way Up is the Way Down ............................... 209 Chapter 7. Sufi Poet Jalal-ud-Din Rumi: A Case Study from the Literature Introduction .............................................
212
Rumi's Life Story
..........................
217
The Meeting with the Beloved ...........................
220
The Loss of the Beloved .................................
221
Psychological commentary on Rumi's Longing ............
225
Addendum: Countertransference to Chapter 7 .................
229
(1207-1273)
Chapter 8. A Post-modern Commentary on the Religious Impulse..................................................
231
Chapter 9. Conclusion: The Two Faces of Religious Longing .. 245 Areas for Futher Study .................................. References
....................................................
250 290
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Preface As a long-term practitioner of a meditation practice rooted in the Vedic philosophy of ancient India,
I am a long-term container of
holy longing. For many years I have tried to understand why I was so receptive to Eastern philosophy and adopted it so wholeheartedly. In 19 68, at age 19, I turned toward the East. I did not begin to turn back until 12 years later. Today, more than 25 years later,
I
am still struggling to make the turn. I was a student at UC Berkeley at the time, highly intellectual, politically active, and enjoying an experimental lifestyle. I learned to meditate for no holy reason or higher motivation;
I simply wanted to date a man who would not get involved
unless I learned the practice. I had no idea how this seemingly light-hearted decision would radically alter the course of my life. After about a year of sitting twice a day, eyes closed and legs crossed,
I noticed several internal changes. My chatterbox mind,
usually highly active and alert, was quieting down. When I went to sleep at night,
it was not full of obsessive or random thoughts that
kept me awake. My breathing,
too, was quieter, softer, and gentler,
so that my body felt calm rather than agitated much of the time. Emotionally I felt more stable inside. Friends commented that I seemed less angry. As my emotional turmoil subsided,
I grew less engaged
politically with “the enemy* out there and more engaged with the battleground within. I also grew less interested in saving the world
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through social activism and more interested in saving myself through the development of consciousness. I felt increasingly drawn to the meditative state of consciousness,
to the ocean of silence that pulled me away from
complicated relations with friends and family, and to the simple goal of making that silence permanent: enlightenment. I began to long for God. I signed up for a month-long retreat that involved many hours of meditation each day and listening to long lectures by the guru. After several weeks,
I felt I was home. I had found a community of
like-minded seekers, a wise and loving teacher, and most of all a practice that emptied my mind of trivial thoughts and filled my heart with compassion. Almost without noticing it, I also adopted wholesale a philosophy that ran counter to everything I had been taught: What we know as the the real world is an illusion. The only reality is consciousness.
Pure consciousness can be reached only through
meditation--this kind of meditation. Enlightenment or liberation from suffering is a result of the regular experience of pure consciousness. I began to believe that the way I led my life was the source of my pain. My attachment to people and things caused my suffering. The high stimulation of my lifestyle produced the stress in my nervous system, which agitated my mind, which triggered more desires, which made me seek more stimulation— in an endless cycle of frustration and de s i r e .
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Like keys fitting a lock, the new teachings fit neatly into some unknown part of me, and a hole closed seamlessly around them. As this new message held a growing numinosity, the rest of life held less shine. The satisfaction of desires through personal love or creative work seemed futile. I worked only to save money to go to more retreats.
I socialized only with people who shared my worldview and
my goal of enlightenment. the holy longing.
I cared for my bcdy only as a vehicle for
I burned for God.
Very quickly,
the spiritual group became my new family,
harmonious and aligned, unlike my family of origin. My parents, this new perspective,
from
seemed lost to the world of materialism; my old
friends seemed lost to the illusions of politics and romance. I read voraciously in Eastern philosophy, assimilating its ideas until they were a part of me, life's purpose and,
flesh of my flesh. I had found my
like an arrow heading for the target,
I went off
to a teacher-training course in Europe. With 2,000 other people,
I
meditated for long daylight hours and listened to the guru at night in a huge blue tent on a white sandy beach. After 2 months of a rigorous routine,
I cast aside any
remaining doubts and chose to become a member of a long lineage of Hindu teachers dating back thousands of years. As I bowed before a deco-style painting of the guru, of my childhood:
I heard a whisper from the corridors
“Thou shalt have no other gods before you." I turned
a deaf ear to the warning.
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I couldn't believe my great fortune. Like many before
(and
after), I felt chosen. I was certain that I would be enlightened within 10 years,
if only I meditated enough.
I taught meditation full-time for about 8 years in small university towns and large metropolitan centers. I awoke each day with an extraordinary feeling of fullness and a great gift to offer the world. I watched people transcend for the first time and listened to their stories of longing. I began to believe we were riding a wave that would sweep across the world with the inevitability of a tsunami. washing away suffering and pain in its wake. I was no longer saving myself;
I was part of a greater plan that was saving the
world. In 1976 I traveled with several hundred American women to Switzerland, where for 6 months we stayed in a hotel in the Alps for an advanced course under the guidance of a teacher. During that time, I practiced yoga, meditated, and ate simple meals. I did not see a man;
I did not get distracted by other stimuli. For all intents and
purposes,
I led a monastic life.
Near the end of that period, consciousness: open,
I was in an altered state of
I was deeply rested and hyperawake inside. I felt
loving, expansive. I did not need to sleep or dream, that is,
to go under into unconsciousness. Instead, the inner wakefulness simply continued, whether I was lying down or walking around. However,
something else had changed as well. When I had joined
this spiritual army, there were no signs of regimentation, authoritarianism, hierarchy, or even rigid adherence to dogma.
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Perhaps because I knew nothing of the dark side, I couldn’t see it. But I believe even today that in its early years this meditation movement was fairly tolerant and open-ended. All that changed dramatically in the mid-to-late 1970s when the teacher began to offer a new set of practices and people clamored for instruction. Then, guidelines set in: You had to have such and such meditative experience to receive the next initiation. People lied. You had to give up body work, chiropractic, psychotherapy, any other methodology that could interfere with meditation. People lied. I began to grow uncomfortable with what I saw on that final retreat--spiritual pride, competition, and hypocrisy in the name of god.
I began to talk about it. But no one wanted to hear. I began to
feel alienated from those I loved deeply and to question the teachings to which I had devoted my life. The more I questioned,
the
more pain I felt. Just as upon my discovery of Eastern philosophy the world had become unreal and dreamlike (ma y a ), so now my alternative world began to seem like a bad dream. At the end of the training,
I knew I had a choice to make: to
continue my cloistered life with its sole focus on raising consciousness or to return to the daily world. Even then, the choice seemed to mean taking one of two directions: up to the life of spirit, down to the world of matter
(See Addenda to Chapters 6 and 4,
respectively). I boarded the next plane home. I never took official action, but everyone knew that I had stepped out of the circle. I had expected my closest friends to understand; they did not. More than
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that, they would speak to me no more.
I returned to Los Angeles an
apostate, without a friend, without a job, without faith in life. During the next 3 years,
I suffered a deep disillusionment with
the meditation community, returned to psychotherapy, and began the search that led, eventually,
to this study--the search for the
psychological roots of holy longing.
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Chapter 1 Overview
As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, 0 God. --Psalms
(42:1)
Could the longing for a god be a passion welling up from our darkest,
instinctual nature, a passion unswayed by any outside
influences, deeper and stronger perhaps than the love for a human person? --Jung
(1935/1977b)
When the Guest is being searched for, it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work. Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity. --Kabir (14XX/1971)
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Introduction I burn for my topic, which is the burning for God. Like the proverbial moth moving inexorably toward the flame,
I seek to be
extinguished in the light. I seek to be consumed in the burning, cooked,
turned to ash.
In every mystical tradition,
seekers and saints speak
eloquently of the soul's search for the beloved, gods,
its yearning for the
its longing for communion. In most of depth psychology,this
religious or spiritual impulse has been viewed pathologically, as a flight from reality and as a desire to return to the mother's womb, that is, as a regressive drive. But in transpersonal psychology and the esoteric branches of the world's religions--Sufism, Hasidism, Gnosticism, spiritually,
Hinduism’s bhakti yoga--this yearning is viewed as a desire to transcend the ego and develop higher
consciousness,
that is, as a progressive drive.
As I write these words,
I wonder why the metaphor of burning
recurs again and again in the words of mystics, saints, and devotional poets.
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Goethe
(cited in Bly,
1980) speaks to me when he writes:
Tell a v/ise person, or else keep silent, because the massman will mock it right away. I praise what is truly alive, what longs to be burned to death.
In the calm waters of the love-nights, where you were begotten, where you have begotten, a strange feeling comes over you when you see the silent candle burning. Mow you are no longer caught in the obsession with darkness, and a desire for higher love-making sweeps you upward.
Distance does not make you falter, now, arriving in magic, and,
finally,
flying,
insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow, you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth,
(p. 70)
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I believe that it is because of this "holy longing" for something Other,
this yearning for something beyond ourselves,
that
human beings from time immemorial sit still, cross-legged, eyes closed for hours, months, or years, as the splendors of spring pass them by. it is because of this longing that we wish to lose ourselves in one another in ecstatic embrace,
like Shiva and Shakti weaving
creation. It is because of this longing that we build Sistine Chapels,
sculpt the David, or compose the Messiah.
And it is because of this holy longing that gaunt monks and anorexic nuns wall off the demands of bodily life and bury their emotional wisdom like a hidden treasure. It is because of this longing that aspiring meditators in the West refuse to see what lies before their eyes as spiritual abuse, sexual or emotional exploitation in the name of God. And it is because of this longing that saints and poets alike fall into the valley of despair, becoming mute like unsung hymns or opening their veins like rivers of blood.
Defining the religious impulse as holy longing This text, by focusing primarily on the experience of longing within the broader religious attitude, explores an affective function, not a cognitive one. It examines a deeply felt desire for union with the beloved, not a deeply held belief or even a religious faith. According to Rose Woo
(1993), who was responding to the
traditional psychoanalytic critique of religion as an escape,
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religion aa a feeling is more about a quest for truth than a denial of reality:
When certain aesthetic or apocalyptic experiences are allowed to speak for themselves and be the catalyst for 'catastropic change'
(in Wilfred Bion's terms), religion can no longer be
considered just a regressive fantasy. It begins to share characteristics with the psychoanalytic quest for truth, such as the transformation of the self
In the late 19th century,
(pp. 3-4).
two important Protestant theologians
wrote of the centrality of religious feeling, as distinct from K a n t ’s more formal rationalism and Spinoza's amor dei intellectualis (Pruyser,
1968,
140-142) . In 1799 Friedrich Schleiermacher wrote a
famous treatise that defined religion as a "sense and taste for the infinite," dependency"
"a feeling of the eternal," and "a feeling of absolute (cited in Pruyser, p. 140).
Schleiermacher pointed to the feelings of longing and yearning as especially numinous or emotionally potent.
(He also included
reverence and piety, compassion and mercy, humbleness and meekness, gratefulness and thankfulness, contrition and remorse, and hankering and zeal.) According to Pruyser (1968), Schleiermacher suggested that the strength of these feelings determines the degree of religiosity. Similarly, Jonathan Edwards wrote in 1746 of the universality of religious affections, such as desire and longing, love, joy, and more
fear, hope,
(cited in Pruyser, p. 142). 5
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Paul Pruyser intellectual,
(1968), whose work encompasses perceptual,
linguistic, motor, relational, and emotional processes
in religion, pointed out that, while religion is most often defined in terms of thinking, mind"
“the heart of religion is the heart, not the
(pp. 139-140). William James
(1902/1958)
seemed to agree when he wrote that
religion is "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude,
so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in
relation to whatever they may consider the divine"
(p. 42). He
further specified religious feelings and their naturalness in this way:
Religious rapture, moral enthusiasm, ontological wonder, cosmic emotion, all are unifying states of mind,
in which the sand and
grit of the selfhood incline to disappear, and tenderness to rule. The best thing is to describe the condition integrally as a characteristic affection to which our nature is liable, a region in which we find ourselves at home, a sea in which we swim.
(p. 221)
Theologies and philosophies grow out of these felt experiences, James said. James
(1902/1958) also wrote that as an individual grows in
self-awareness, he or she may begin to be influenced by another dimension through a longing or desire for it: "There is an unseen order and our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves
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thereto. This belief and this adjustment are the religious attitude in the soul"
(p. 58).
I see my experience of holy longing as my source, my course, and my g o a l . I see my awakening to this longing in my soul as my av/akening to a conscious life, a second birth. I see this longing behind my other deepest longings.
I see it behind my images; I hear
it behind my words. I see this longing before me, before I was, and before I become. For some seekers, there is only a nagging awareness of a lack, or a fleeting sense of a vague “something more." For still others, the object of longing appears at once, as in Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus, and it takes over the emotional life of the seeker like a possession. For some, the holy longing is felt with hope and ideals; others, Flanagan
for
it is suffered with excruciating pain. But, as Donna Marie (1994) pointed out, either way,
contentment.
longing precludes
“It compels searching with an expectation that what is
sought will be recognized, that is, known again* (p. 11).
This dissertation reviews early and current attitudes toward this religious impulse in the schools of depth psychology, reexamines them in light of current understandings of transference and projection of the Self, and reimagines them in the context of archetypal psychology'. It also places these attitudes, or frameworks, which rarely appear together in the literature,
in a kind of dialogue
with one another, not to reconcile them but to allow them to 7
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challenge and extend each other. Thus the depth perspective on soul and the transpersonal perspective on spirit contrast with one another, as do the Jungian perspective on archetypal universals and the postmodern perspective on cultural constructs. It is not my aim to reduce spiritual longing to a psychological complex
(i.e., regression to the mother or the oedipal complex),
to a
singular archetype
(i.e., the puer). Rather, it is, first
all,
my aim to acknowledge the worth of authentic spiritual
or
of
experience, which could provide validation to those seekers and their psychotherapists who remain solely within a psychological framework; and,
secondly,
to point out its inherent psychological dangers, which
may be overlooked by those with solely a spiritual framework. I agree with Carl Jung:
The fullness of life requires more than just an ego; it needs spirit,
that is, an independent overvaluing complex,
for
it
seems that this alone is capable of giving vital expression to those psychic potentials that lie beyond the reach of egoconsciousness
(Jung, 1926/1981g, p. 337).
Statement of the Problem This study addresses the following problem: What is the religious impulse and how can depth psychology contribute to our understanding it more fully? Specific research questions within this problem are as follows: 1. What is the religious impulse or spiritual longing? 8
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2. How have proponents of Freudian and object relations psychology viewed it? 3. How have proponents of classical Jungian psychology viewed it? 4. How have proponents of archetypal psychology viewed it? 5. How have proponents of transpersonal psychology viewed it? 6. How does the understanding of transference, a fundamental pattern of human interaction and meaning-making, alter these views of the religious impulse? 7. What are the Imagos Amores--the images of soul longing for the Beloved? 3. what is a postmodern, poststructuralist critique of spiritual longing? 9. What is the psychological value and the shadow side of the religious impulse?
Brief Review of the Literature Clinical psychology and religion today, in general, the religious or spiritual dimensions of human life are not widely addressed by clinical psychology or psychiatry today (with the exception of the small field of transpersonal psychology). The field known as the psychology of religion remains cloistered in the ivory tower of academe. In a study of articles published in four psychiatric journals during a recent 5-year period, only 2.4%
(59 of 2,348)
included
religious variables, and these only addressed pathological uses of 9
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religion by patients
(Larson, Pattison, Blazer, Omram, & Kaplan,
1986, pp. 329-334) . In addition,
studies show that mental health professionals
place far less personal importance on religious belief or experience than the general public or the patient population. A study of psychologists found that only 43% of the sample stated a belief in a transcendent deity
(Ragan, Maloney, & Beit-Hallami, 1980).
These two £indings--a lack of available information in professional journals, and a lack of interest among the professionals themselves--could have important clinical implications, such as potential negative counter-transference in the therapists. In addition, despite the importance that religious belief and practice play in most patients'
lives, clinicians typically are not
trained to help patients in this area. In a survey of members of the American Psychological Association, 83% reported that discussions of religion in training occurred rarely or never
(Shafranske & Maloney,
1990). Only one-third felt competent to address these concerns in therapy. One researcher in the area (Barnhouse,
1986) proposed that a
religious history be taken as part of a standard evaluation. She pointed out that a knowledge of the patient's belief systems may be needed in diagnosis, particularly to determine the presence of a delusion or hallucination. Psychoanalytic psychology and religious longing. Some of the neglect or devaluation of religious issues by professionals in psychology no doubt stems from earlier attitudes among the founders
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of the field. An heir of the Enlightenment, which sought to vanquish religion with science, Freud believed that atheism was normative and religious feeling was not. He diagnosed religion as an obsessional neurosis, an attempt to ward off guilt due to the Oedipal desire of the son to kill the father. As a result of this wish, the believer replaces the father with a father-god,
for whom he longs
(Freud,
1913/1975c) . In another work
(1927/1975g), Freud said that religion is an
illusion that serves to reduce the fear of nature and the fear of death. Psychoanalysis, by providing an "education to reality," would render religion unnecessary. The early object relations school, which emphasized relationships with others over internal drives, also saw the yearning for religious union as a symbiotic regression, much like the child's wish to merge with the mother
(Freud, 1929-1930/1975f; Smith,
1977) .
Others conceived of God as a transitional object who, like all such objects, reality
is constantly being transformed as fantasy merges with (Rizutto,
1979; McDargh,
1983; Meissner,
1984).
Clearly, Freud and his followers had a reductive view because they believed only in a patient's personal history, only in the individual ego. Thus a person's longing for an “other" could have as its referent only a parent; an archetypal other did not exist for these theorists. In an effort to test the psychoanalytic view of religious experience as regression to earlier ego states, Ralph W. Hood, Jr. (1974), measured correlations between ego strength and religious 11
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experience
(pp. 65-71). His findings did not corroborate Freud's
view. He concluded:
As the mystical experience is one of an absorption of a sense of self into a larger whole,
infantile states cannot be
mystical states per se since the infant has no sense of self to lose or to be absorbed into a larger whole.
. . . much of the
apparent similarity between mystical states and infantile ego states is eliminated,
thus making it difficult to conceptualize
the mystical experience as regressive.
. . . Only a strong ego
can be relinquished nonpathologically. (p. 69) Some post-Freudian ego psychologists,
such as William Meissner,
have suggested that, rather than provide a mere escape, religion may contribute to the tasks of ego development and thus be considered adaptive
(1984) .
Ana-Marie Rizzuto studied the possible origins of the individual's private representation of God (1979) in terms of object relations and considered it adaptive. She believed that the child internalizes his or her interactions in terms of object representations, which occur in ever more complex sets. The child needs the idea of God to developmentally set representations into a coherent world and to mirror the self's processes, placing the two representations in dialectical interaction. Jungian psychology and religious longing. Jung addressed religious longing directly when he asked:
"Could the longing for a
god be a passion welling up from our darkest,
instinctual nature, a
12
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passion unswayed by any outside influences, deeper and stronger perhaps than the love for a human person?" For Jung, development,
(1935/1977b, p. 133) .
the spiritual impulse is a natural part of human
rather than a childhood stage to outgrow; it's an
inherent move in the psyche toward wholeness, not a regressive one. Jung saw the religious attitude as resulting from the ego's experience of the numinous
(1940/1989f, p.7). This kind of
experience, he believed, generates new purpose and direction. Therefore, Jungian analysis aims at facilitating numinous experiences and,
in this way,
is distinct from most other therapies.
Jung referred to the Self, the organizing principle of the psyche, as the "God within us"
(1935/1977a, p. 238). He said:
"The
beginnings of our whole psychic life seem to be inextricably rooted in this point, and all our highest and ultimate purposes seem to be strivings toward it" context,
(p. 238 ). Thus religious longing, seen in this
becomes a striving to constellate the Self, to open the
personal realm to the archetypal and transpersonal realms. In addition, Jung posited archetypal transference, which contained more than parental imagos and could hold clues to the religious impulse and the imago dei
(Heisig, 1979).
Archetypal psychology. This chapter opens with an etymological exploration of longing,
in accord with the archetypal method of
amplifying word images through their historical roots
(Flanagan,
1994, pp. 17-24) . This post-Jungian school has addressed spiritual longing primarily in two contexts: as the upward move of spirit in contrast 13
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to the downward move of soul
(Hillman,
1975b, 1979a) and in the
embodied archetype of the puer aeternus. or eternal youth 1926/1981g; Hillman, Leonard,
1979a; Satinover,
1987; von Franz,
(Jung,
1981;
1982) . This section includes discussion of both the value
and shadow sides of this archetypal pattern by classical Jungians and archetypal psychologists.
Imago Amore: Images of the soul longing for the beloved. The embodied experience of longing gives rise to various images of the object of longing: the parental image, the god image, and the long lost Home. This chapter explores these images as they develop m
the
psyches of spiritual seekers. Early experiences shape the child's image of god in the clothes of his or her parents
(Freud, 1977i; Rizzutto,
1979; Meissner,
1984).
This god-image and the self-image are reciprocally shaped throughout life
(Rizzutto,
1979). In addition, the internalized parental image
evokes the archetypal image in both healthy and unhealthy ways (Harding, Otto
1965) . (1928) suggested that the image of god or of the Beloved
is characterized by its otherness and its mystery (Otto, 1928) . Psychodynamically the image of the Beloved may serve the function of an all-accepting, containing object
(Black, 1993).
For Jung, the formation of this image is a developmental step beyond concreteness, not a regression but a progression. This idea is explored at length in Edward Edinger's work on the transformation of the God-image
(1992). Heisig (1979) also studied the ongoing
development of the imago dei in the complete works of Jung. 14
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Rather than taking on the form of a person, the Beloved may appear as a safe refuge, a long lost home. Heinberg (1989) explored the individual and collective longing for paradise as a longing for a mystical state of union. Hillman pointed out that one aspect of eros is pothos. "the spiritual component of love or the erotic component of spirit" (1975a). Pothos refers to “nostalgia for the archetype"
(p. 54),
which could account for indescribable longings for something Other, something beyond the bounds of ordinary life. Transpersonal psychology and religious longing. Advocates of the transpersonal school of psychology have tried to expand the field of study from the individual ego to include higher states of consciousness beyond (trans) the personal or ego state. These altered or higher states, which are attained primarily through spiritual practices,
are viewed as natural stages beyond healthy ego
development. Abraham Maslow (1968) proposed a positive correspondence between healthy psychological development and ecstatic or peak experiences. Unlike psychoanalytic investigators, he argued that mystical states are correlated with strong ego development and psychological well-being. In a recent review of the literature supporting this hypothesis, Kathleen D. Noble
(1987) reported that transcendence
subsumes a vast array of phenomena and typically is characterized by ineffability, transiency, passivity, unity, positive affect, and a noetic quality (pp. 601-602) . 15
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Noble argued that many people experience transcendence not as a result of psychological problems or a life crisis but as the outcome of psychological preparation (1987, p. 605}. One study cited by Noble found chat those who had peak experiences or “peakers" be more assertive,
imaginative,
relaxed than " nonpeakers*
self-sufficient,
appeared to
intelligent, and
(p. 606) . Another found that mystics
appeared to be more optimistic and less authoritarian or racist than nonmystics
(p. 606).
Noble added that a transcendent experience often has farreaching effects on an individual’s life, including renewed purpose and altered values
(1987, p. 602) . However,
it may be disorienting
and alarming, and many who feel this way may not be able to find appropriate clinical help Ken Wilber
(p. 608).
(1993a), one of the main theorists of transpersonal
psychology, has suggested that the full "spectrum of consciousness" includes the complete range of psychological development— ego, persona, shadow, body, environment— and the complete range of spiritual development-including what he called psychic, archetypal, and causal levels. Wilber also offered a framework in which to view Freud's and Jung's understandings of the religious impulse, as well as a way to detect whether a given spiritual experience is regressive personal) or transcendent
(transpersonal)
(pre
(1980b)). His theory
includes a much wider context than that of the psychoanalysts or ego psychologists; however,
it remains squarely within the developmental
or evolutionary paradigm. As a psychology of transcendence,
it is
16
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fueled by the holy longing and views this impulse as an evolutionary drive.
Postmodern constructivism and religious longing. Unlike advocates of modernity, who view the ego as a psychic structure or complex with some autonomy, proponents of a postmodern perspective view the ego as a sociolinguistic construct
(Rappoport,
1993). Thus
they also view the longing to transcend the ego or constellate the Self as a socially constructed desire.
“The very act of giving
meaning in this way actually creates a sense of self that, when circularly reinforced by a popular or dominant discursive context, comes to seem 'authentic' or 'archetypal'" Charles Ponce
(Elter, 1994).
(1990) also described this acculturation process,
in which phenomena are introjected and come to be subjectively experienced as & priori or archetypal
(p. 38).
This postmodern commentary presents a cultural and epistemological critique,
rather than a psychological one. As such,
it stands in contradistinction to the chapters that have come before and offers a broad critique of all of them.
This study is not an attempt to build a unified psychological theory of religion; rather,
it is an attempt to present diverse
points of view that reveal both the light and dark sides of the holy longing. Thus the literature that was considered for this study includes both thinkers who see the religious impulse as regressive and those who see it as evolutionary, those who see it as archetypal and those who see it as socially constructed. 17
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For that reason,
this study contains contradictory views of the
holy longing.
It does not aim to
ally
over another,
or to meld various
approaches into a single consistent
viewpoint.
Instead,
with one group of theorists
it holds the creative tension of opposites that
Jung referred
to as the source of the
The Method of
the Study
transcendent function.
This theoretical study draws on the literature of psychology to amplify the topic of spiritual longing. It uses a hermeneutic method to survey the literature, making new connections between various perspectives on the topic. In particular, this dissertation uses a thematic hermeneutics,
in which the theme is imagined as the hub of a
wheel and the various perspectives on the theme are imagined as the spokes
(personal communication, R. Romanyshyn, August 18, 1994) . As a
method of interpretation, hermeneutics provides an environment or field in which these perspectives can be compared and contrasted,
or
in which they can embrace each other. Hermeneutics is,
first of all, a method for interpreting the
meaning of human experience.
Peter Reason and John Rowan (1981)
pointed out that "all understanding is hermeneutical, taking place, and to a very large extent, determined by, our finite existence in time, history, and culture"
(p. 132).
In outlining the limits of the traditional scientific method, which insistently separates the observer from the observed in the name of objectivity, Reason and Rowan (1981) argued for a new paradigm of research that is "an approach to inquiry which is a 18
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systematic,
rigorous search for truth, but which does not kill off
all it touches.
. . a way of inquiry which can be loosely called
objectively subjective"
(p. x i ii).
Robert Romanyshyn (1971) had imagined this kind of approach,
in
which the methodology is not viewed as independent of the subject matter, a decade earlier:
“In conjunction with its root meaning,
method becomes a way of attaining knowledge of a problem,
rather than
remaining the discipline which deals with the principles and techniques of scientific inquiry" Paul Ricoeur hermeneutics:
(p. 107).
(1981) proposed a working definition of
"Hermeneutics is the theory of the operations of
understanding in their relation to the interpretation of texts. So the key idea will be the realization of discourse as a text"
(p. 43).
By text he means any meaningful human action, such as a dream, a work of art, or a poetic refrain. Hermeneutically, the religious impulse may be read as a text throughout human history. James Barrel1, Chris Aanstoos, Anne C. Richards, and Mike Arons (1987) described the purpose of the hermeneutic method as understanding a theme from different perspectives,
including the
contexts affecting interpretations or meanings. Users of this method seek the multi-dimensional significance of the topic in a wide array of contexts; they then differentiate these meanings, differences and similarities; and,
looking for
finally, they attempt intuitively
to grasp the topic as a whole, given the network of meanings. Barrell, et a l ., (1987) described this research process as a hermeneutic circle of continuing interpretation of emerging images 19
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and information,
in which there is continuing reciprocity between the
interpreter and the interpreted, that is, the text. In other words, hermeneutic interpretation is self-reflective; the interpreter is part of the discourse. Barrell et al.
To clarify,
(1987) explained it this way:
the hermeneutic circle refers to that process that
proceeds through multidimensional significance, differentiation, dialectics, and intuitive understanding in order
to arrive at
views
the original starting point from a new and larger
perspective.
a position whereby one “returns'’ and now
. . . the process allows for new understandings
that create new questions
(pp. 436-437) .
Or, to put it differently, the act of interpreting the text transforms it, which then transforms the author, who then reinterprets the text
(personal communication, R. Romanyshyn, August
18, 1994). Romanyshyn stated this poetically when he said,
"The text
wants to be seen through us and apart from us. We dive in, fall through the text, go deeper, and it hooks us. It gives us back to ourselves transformed." This description of the hermeneutic method evokes its namesake, Hermes, guardian of the threshold. With this method, meaning is found not
in the text, but in the threshold between the subject and the
object,
the
interpreter and the text (personal communication, R.
Romanyshyn, August 18, 1994).
20
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In this way, the hermeneutic method acknowledges the involvement of the author's subjectivity with the text.
It views
research as transferential, that is, as involving preconscious complexes, which are both personal and collective. The personal transference was originally conceptualized in a framework that opposed the inner subjective world to the outer objective world and privileged the latter as more real or valid. Within that paradigm, this anonymous aphorism makes sense:
“The truth
waits for eyes unclouded with longing.” But today, sciences,
in both the physical sciences and the social
the inner/outer split no longer holds. The truth that is
freed from the constraints of subjectivity has become a legend,
ever
mere remote. And human longing, that ineffable yearning for the Other, may be seen to clear our eyes, rather than blind them. Thus I am free to make my bias known: I hold an imaginative sympathy for spiritual experience. I hold an open, yet critical attitude toward the theorizers included here. I wish to honor them for their respective contributions, yet I wish to shine a small light on their blind spots. I am accepting, even enthusiastic; yet I am questioning,
even skeptical. In the end,
I do not offer answers, but
more questions. My own search, which has taken many shapes,
informs
these questions. While Chapters 2 through 6 and 8 draw on the literature using a hermeneutic method, several other styles appear throughout. The Addenda for Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 explore my countertransference to the respective chapter topics. Thus they use a 21
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more subjective narrative style, exploring my personal experience of the ideas in question; however, theorists presented.
they return to dialogue with the
In this way,
I am in conversation with each of
the theorists, as they are in conversation with each other. The Chapter 5 Addendum uses a more imaginal style to amplify an image as "primary data"
(Hillman,
1977). Amplification is a method of
exploration in which each image of experience or psychic life acquires a style and character of its own. During the process of amplification, a phenomenon gains a wider cultural context as the researcher draws on myth, Mary Watkins
literature, religion, and science.
(1976) described the method of amplification:
Entering into the context of an image is easier, the more developed the image has been allowed to become. Recurring dreams and images with the same theme, or encompassing the same figure or emotion, can be compiled. By watching the development of and the elaborations on this part of the imaginal, by listening to the multiple ways it describes itself, the things it includes and touches, we can more easily enter its mood and landscape,
imagining ourselves
(in one form or another) amongst
it all. Psychological facts and experiences psyche) can be more clearly seen . . . .
(those of the
We give the
imagination a chance to reveal to our consciousness the arrangement in the depth of its interior space,
(pp. 141-142).
22
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Thus, with amplification, an image gains depth and particularity. This method may be viewed as a hermetic process, which Hillman (1977) described this way:
As we go through this chant,
this singing the verses of an
image as if it were a round or
fugue (or writcen by James Joyce
or Gertrude Stein), a deeper significance begins
toresonate.
. . Psyche emerges, but not in
straight messages given by
interpretive meanings. Rather,
psyche emerges as we merge with
or get lost in the labyrinth of the image(pp. 74-75) .
Chapter 7 changes format to
shed light on the topic from
a
different angle, by presenting a case study from the literature of the Sufi poet Jalal-ud-din Rumi. This story embodies the best and worst of the holy longing in the life of a highly creative human being, who gives up everything material for his love of God--and gains his own genius. The Chapter 7 Addendum is an original poem.
23
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.
The Limits of the Study Although this study ranges widely in psychology,
it does not
include the large body of knowledge that contains the most eloquently articulated lived experience of the holy longing— the literature of mysticism. Because this is a dissertation in psychology, the religious literature is largely omitted. Only one case study from the literature and scattered brief quotations are cited. This work does not include many schools of psychology, the American school,
Self psychology, ego-psychology,
Transcendentalism, and Asian psychologies shamanism. The focus, perspective,
such as
instead,
(except kundalini yoga) or
is on literature reflecting the depth
that is, Freudian, object relations, classical Jungian,
and archetypal psychology. The one exception is transpersonal psychology, which is included because it most directly and explicitly explores the holy longing as ego transcendence,
in contradistinction
to the depth psychology schools. Cultural diversity, as it affects spiritual longing, addressed here. However,
is not
I would suggest that Western psychology has
tended to pathologize the religious impulse precisely because of a cultural bias toward the ego and rationality and against altered states. Furthermore,
it might be hypothesized that problems of ego
transcendence would occur differently or be seen differently in cultures that are not built around the heroic, autonomous ego structure and that do not pathologize the dependency that typically occurs with holy longing.
In Hindu, Buddhist, and shamanic cultures, 24
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for example, devotional ecstasies, trance states, even out-of-body experiences are not seen as pathological; they are seen as gifts from the g o d s . Gender differences, as they affect spiritual longing, also are not included here.
In analyzing patriarchal traditions,
religious structures,
including
some feminist psychologists have offered a
model of ego structure that is distinct from the autonomous male model: the self-in-relation.
It could be hypothesized that this kind
of self would hold distinct spiritual needs, such as a more immanent or earth-centered spirituality which, by definition, would not be based on a longing to transcend. The literature in feminine spirituality, also not included here, addresses a more goddess oriented, bodily-centered relationship to the divine.
In one sense, this appears to be a more horizontal
approach to unity with a greater whole than the vertical, transcendental approach; on the other hand, the models may be different ways of conceiving of the same or similar experiences of reconciliation with a larger Self.
Summary There is an archetypal basis for the spiritual impulse in human beings,
for the soul's yearning for union, perhaps with a beloved who
cannot be attained, perhaps for a home in the archetypal realm. This natural longing can lead to ecstatic, numinous experience, communion, and wisdom, or it can lead to a kind of archetypal possession, emotional trauma, psychic splitting, and despair. The holy longing is 25
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a two-faced archetype, with a light side and a dark. side. A deeper understanding of its dual nature might assist spiritual seekers, as well as those seeking to treat them.
26
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Chapter 2 The Religious Impulse in Psychoanalytic Psychology
Man's helplessness remains and along with it his longing for his father and the gods. -- Freud,
Religious ideas.
1975g, p. 7
. . are not the residue of experience or the
final result of reflection; they are illusions,
fulfilments of
the oldest, strongest, and most insistent wishes of mankind. The secret of their strength lies in the strength of those wi s h e s . —
Freud,
1975g, p. 52
Psychoanalysis has made us familiar with the intimate connection between the father-complex and belief in God;
it has
shown us that a personal God is, psychologically, nothing other than an exalted father.
. . . the roots of the need for
religion are in the parental complex. —
Freud,
1975b, p. 123
27
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Introduction Historically,
the dialogue between psychoanalysis and religion
has been full of antagonism. According to Meissner
(1984),
psychoanalysis has viewed religious experience in reductive or psychopathological terms,
focusing on the irrational aspects of
religious behavior. And religious theory has ignored human drives and unconscious needs,
focusing instead on the life of the spirit as
abstracted from bodily instincts and desires
(p. v i i ) .
Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, was a complex personality whose work reflects this larger antagonism. His student and biographer Ernest Jones wrote
(1953-1957)
that although he was
familiar with Jewish customs as a boy, Freud "grew up devoid of any belief in a God or Immortality, and does not appear to have felt the need of it"
(vol. 1, p. 22). Hans Kung
(1979) suggested that the
rituals of his Catholic nanny and the humiliations of anti-Semitism may have had anti-religious effects on Freud as a young boy, shaping his future attitude (pp. 10-11). Ultimately,
Freud found a different kind of religious fervor in
the rising promise of the natural sciences to ease human suffering. He sought to do away with what he viewed as the illusions of religious belief and the obsessive quality of religious practices, and to replace them with what he viewed as the more advanced rationality of science and “our god logos"
(Freud,
1975g, p. 54) .
We believe that it is possible for scientific work to gain some knowledge about the reality of the world, by means of which we
28
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can increase our power and in accordance with which we can arrange our life. If this belief is an illusion,
then we are in
the same position as you [religious believers]. But science has given us evidence by its numerous and important successes that it is no illusion (p. 55).
In his first work on the topic, Freud (1975a) compared religious rituals to obsessional neuroses: both are brought on by guilt due to omission of an act; both involve conscientiousness to detail; both intend to prevent fear of punishment. As a result, wrote:
Freud
"In view of these similarities and analogies one might venture
to regard obsessional neurosis as a pathological counterpart of the formation of religion, and to describe that neurosis as an individual religiosity and religion as a universal neurosis" Paul Ricoeur
(pp. 126-127).
(1970, p. 232) commented that as a result of this
analogy, human beings are seen as neurotic insofar as they are homo religiosus and religious insofar as they are neurotic. However, despite his vehemently negative view of the topic, Freud returned again and again to the study of religion, even during the last 5 years of his life when he wrote Moses and Monotheism, in addition, he flirted secretly with the occult, even suggesting that dreamwork and psychoanalysis "assist occultism"
(1975, p. 47). when
asked about this attitude, Freud responded that he was unable to reject thought-transference and telepathy
(p. 54).
Furthermore, to his biographer he once said:
"If I had my life
to live over again I should devote myself to psychical research 29
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rather than to psychoanalysis"
(cited in E. Jones,
1953-1957, Vol. 2,
p. 392) . In the end,
it was Freud's denial of his own mystical yearnings
that led to his split with Carl Jung, his chosen successor
(Roazen,
1971, p. 241). Jung dissociated himself from Freud's atheism by saying that the latter‘s viewpoint “is based on the rationalistic materialism of the scientific views current in the late nineteenth century'1 (Jung,
1989c, p. 3 49) .
Jung suggested that "the spirit forced itself through me and it forced itself through Freud. Freud refused it--but it came to him. He is a great prophet. Of course, all his followers just use his theories to shut the door even tighter than before on the spirit" (Jung,
1926) . While Jung fully acknowledged the "religious function in the
unconscious"
(19S9f, p. 6) and the phenomenology of spirit in life
(1981g), Freud insisted that religious feeling was merely a retreat to earlier developmental stages, which protected infancy"
"a regressive revival of the forces
(1975b, p. 123). So, for Freud, the image of
the holy longing is a backward move, a regression into instinct, complex,
into
into the womb.
Chapter overview. The text will now explore the psychoanalytic view of the larger topic more extensively,
first by examining the
origins of religious belief in father-longing, which Freud viewed as its primary source, and then by discussing the origins of mystical feeling in mother-longing, a secondary view. The text then offers a larger developmental perspective that helps to differentiate whether 30
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Che religious impulse involves regression or transcendence. Next,
it
presents a reading of Freud's biological model which situates the holy longing in sexual desire. Finally,
it explores
a post-Freudian,
object relations view of God as a transitional object.
The origins of religious belief in father-longing Freud pointed out
(1975g) that the libido follows the paths of
narcissistic needs and attaches itself to the objects that ensure satisfaction.
In this way, the mother, who satisfies hunger,
becomes
the first love-object and the first protector against danger. However,
Freud continued,
the mother is soon replaced by the stronger father.
. . . But
the relation to the father is affected by a peculiar ambivalence. He was himself a danger, perhaps just because of that earlier relation to the mother; so he is feared no less than he is longed for and admired. The indications of this ambivalence are deeply imprinted in all religions. . . .
When
the child grows up and finds that he is destined to remain a child forever, and that he can never do without protection against unknown and mighty powers, he invests these with the traits of the father-figure; he creates for himself the gods, of whom he is afraid, whom he seeks to propitiate, and to whom he nevertheless entrusts the task of protecting him. Thus the 31
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longing-for-the-father explanation [of religion] with the other
is identical
[explanation], the need for protection against
the consequences of human weakness
(1975g, p. 24).
Freud's self-analysis, undertaken systematically from 1897, played a key role in his discoveries. During the same period, he uncovered in himself an early childhood passion for his mother and jealousy of his father, which he concluded were universally present in all people. He believed these tendencies to be illustrated in the myth of King Oedipus, who unknowingly had killed his father and married his mother
(Kung, 1979, p. 25).
Thus Freud (1975c) elaborated on the earlier idea that religion was an obsessional neurosis, an attempt to ward off guilt by repetition. The guilt stemmed, he said,
from the unconscious desire
ofthe son to kill the father. Freud saw this desire acted out
on the
stage of history when men killed their tribal leaders and then idealized them as gods. He summed up this view in his autobiography:
The father of the primal horde, since he was an unlimited despot, had seized all the women for himself; his sons being dangerous to him as rivals, had been killed or driven away. One day, however,
the sons came together and united to overwhelm,
kill, and devour their father, who had been their enemy but also their ideal. After the deed they were unable to take over their heritage since they stood in one another's way. Under the influence of failure and remorse they learned to come to an agreement among themselves; they banded themselves into a clan 32
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of brothers by the help of the ordinances of totemism, which aimed at preventing a repetition of such a deed, and they jointly undertook, to forgo the possession of the women on whose account they had killed their father. They were then driven to finding strange women, and this was the origin of the exogamy which is so closely bound up with totemism. The totem meal was the festival commemorating the fearful deed from which sprang man's sense of guilt
(or "original sin") and which was the
beginning at once of social organization, of religion and of ethical restrictions
Thus,
(1975e, p. 68).
for Freud, the formation of religion, which coincided
with the formation of the incest taboo and the murder taboo, was built upon the deep ambivalence surrounding the father complex:
After the totem animal had ceased to serve as a substitute for him,
the primal father, at once feared and hated,
revered and
envied, became the prototype of God himself. The son's rebelliousness and his affection for his father struggled against each other through a constant succession of compromises, which sought on the one hand to atone for the act of parricide and on the other to consolidate the advantage it had brought. This view of religion throws a particularly clear light upon the psychological basis of Christianity,
in which,
as we know, the ceremony of the totem meal still survives, with but little distortion,
in the form of communion
(1975e, p. 68) .
33
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Kung pointed out that, unlike Judaism, Christianity admits parricide into religion.
"According to Freud,
Paul reached the
conclusion that we are unhappy because we have killed God the Father. We were released from this sin only when Jesus Christ as Son sacrificed his life. The Son even takes the place of the Father" (1979, p. 40) As Freud put it, "Christianity, having arisen out of a fatherreligion, became a son-religion. It has not escaped the fate of having to get rid of the father"
(1975j, p. 136).
In this way Freud viewed the origin of religion as lying in the Oedipal struggle of every boy who wishes to replace his father to be with his mother. This wish leads to a terrible guilt, which is appeased by repetitive rituals performed for a father god, who becomes the imaao a m o r e . Freud invoked this theory to explain the experience of a doctor who had lost faith in God and then had a religious experience after seeing a dead woman's corpse,
leading to a renewed faith. Freud
assumed that the dead woman reminded the man of his own mother:
It roused in him a longing for his mother which sprang from his Oedipus complex, and this was immediately completed by a feeling of indignation against his father. His ideas of "father" and
"God* had not yet become widely separated; so
that his desire to destroy his father could become conscious as doubt in the existence of God and could seek to justify itself 34
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in the eyes of reason as indignation about the ill-treatment of a mother-object. It is of course typical for a child to regard what his father does to his mother in sexual intercourse as ill-treatment. The new impulse, which was displaced into the sphere of religion, was only a repetition of the Oedipus situation,
. . . there is no mention of arguments in
justification of God, nor are we told what the infallible signs were by which God proved his existence to the doubter. The conflict seems to have been unfolded in the form of a hallucinatory psychosis:
inner voices were heard which uttered
warnings against resistance to God. But the outcome of the struggle was displayed once again in the sphere of religion and it was of a kind predetermined by the fate of the Oedipus complex: complete submission to the will of God the Father. The young man became a believer and accepted everything he had been taught since his childhood about God and Jesus Christ. He had had a religious experience and had undergone a conversion