Psychology – Thomas Cotterill

Down-to-Earth Spirituality

In a world driven to conflict by political correctness, wokeism, critical race theory, and cancel culture we need to find peace in our own important ideas.

Once upon a time, the term “spirituality” unequivocally meant something religious. In the West, a spiritual person was a good Christian or a pious Jew; someone who attended church or synagogue regularly and who made an effort to live up to what was preached from the pulpit. They were uplifted by the minister’s or rabbi’s praise, chastened by his criticisms. They also read one or another version of the bible and found useful guidance and comforting sustenance there. They said their prayers and believed that God was not only listening, but might also answer in some way. The Lord worked (in the world) in mysterious ways. Across society at large, there was a consensus of opinion as to what constituted behaviour and values that acceptably matched the Judeo-Christian tradition. This mattered. The latter notion occasionally rears its ancient head to this very day.

In a world of punitive political correctness, aggressive wokeism, divisive critical race theory, and destructive cancel culture it has never been harder to be true to yourself.

The near-total collapse of Christianity in Western Europe, and its sharp decline in North America spilled vast numbers of people into a world where spirituality supposedly did not matter. Scientism, materialism, relativism, or rational positivism were the way to go and there was no reason to look back upon archaic notions of a “spiritual life.” Who needs the providence of God when we have big government and the social safety net? Who needs the moral and ethical guidance of a religious faith when we have the “scientific” psychologists and psychiatrists to tell us who is behaving badly (sociopaths, psychopaths) and who is behaving properly (the well-adjusted) and why each group is bad or good.

After many decades spent viewing the world in this way, it has become evident that something is seriously lacking. I believe that what has gone missing is all sense of spirituality of a practical useful kind. As so often happens where objective evidence is scanty, we have thrown the baby out with the bath-water. The mistake has arisen from a fundamental misunderstanding of what spirituality really is. The old idea of tying spirituality to God and religious faith masked the reality that spiritual matters actually have to do with our own inner selves. The Judeo-Christian tradition caught some aspect of this with the notion of the soul and its damnation or salvation, but dropped the ball when it went on to ascribe the source of values and the outline of appropriate behaviour to an external God. This way of looking at the human condition constitutes an externalization or projection of what should be seen as coming from inside one’s own self.

Psychologist Carl Jung lays this out clearly in his book, Answer to Job where he suggests that the dictates of the Bible look more like the unconscious contents of the persons who wrote it than the pronouncements of a spirit God. A dim but growing awareness of the true situation may, in fact, be responsible for the substantial demise of organized religion. Too many people experienced a discrepancy between church teachings and some of their own thinking or intuitions. That same vague understanding may also explain today’s widespread interest in the various schools of psychological thought.

So, if spirituality is not really tied to religion, yet it is something we all seem to need, where may it be found? A case can be made that the answer lies in a three-fold process. The first two are entirely psychological: a relatively straight-forward but honest attention to self-discovery and the much more difficult exercise of possibly humbling self-acceptance. The third item, self-realization, is actually an activity–a life-long wilful activity–the wielding, actualization, and fulfilment of one’s found and accepted self in the world. (Note that this self-triad is my elaboration of the Jungian idea of individuation, which is only obliquely addressed in current psychological practices.) Self-realization means literally living out, to the fullest extent possible, who we truly are and what we can achieve–again–in the world. The process is not about self-absorbed naval gazing or egotistical posturing or empty virtue signalling. The critical thing to remember is that what we should be doing with our lives is not something determined by others; it is something important to we ourselves.

Recognizing that we are already the unconscious bearers of a well-developed set of values and a particular world-view is to set ones feet on a gratifying journey to a genuinely spiritual life. The objective here is not to become trendy or politically-correct or “woke”. Conformity of any kind must be rejected (scary stuff, yes?) if one is to uncover and adopt ones own true morality and authentic way of seeing the world. These vital aspects of being human cannot be arbitrarily chosen by us as individuals (being trendy), nor can they be imposed from without by others (being indoctrinated); they must be discovered within ourselves in the unconscious portion of the psyche where they were developed when we were growing up. Following the path into one’s own Self and then living by and for that Self is the very essence of living a spiritual life. After all, we are talking about our own spirits.

Many posts in this blog deal with the various aspects of the process sketchily outlined in the previous paragraphs. You will find them in categories (bottom of the post) such as Jungian Psychology, Mind, Spirituality, and just plain Psychology. Other categories attempt to integrate the core ideas with Creativity, Writing, and Philosophy. If you are feeling confused or threatened by powerful social ideas such as punitive political correctness, aggressive wokeism, divisive critical race theory, and destructive cancel culture–or have been robbed of your peace of mind by actually buying into these contentious notions–you may find balm and solace in what I have written about the things that really matter: will, the self, and the stabilizing spiritual effect of finding and living by your own emotionally important ideas. Rise above being drearily politically correct or “woke” to someone else’s vision; awaken to who you truly are.

Experiencing Ideas as Authority or Terror

Charles Williams was a British polymath combining considerable skills as a poet, novelist, theologian, and literary critic. He was also a valued member of the famed Inklings writing circle and a powerful influence on Narnia creator, C. S. Lewis. Williams’ most famous biographer is Alice Mary Hadfield who, during widely spaced periods in her life, wrote two perceptive critical biographies filled with useful insights concerning his life and work. One of her most revealing penetrations has a bearing on existentialism.

Sceptre, Orb, and Imperial Crown of Austria

You must regard your own emotionally important ideas with the respect due to proper authority. To be authentic, you must live by these defining and guiding ideas. (Photo: public domain)

Chasing Happiness Cannot Replace Personal Growth

Is it enough to chase happiness in life? Numerous philosophers have argued that, for a deeply satisfying experience of life, something more is required, something founded on substantial personal growth, rather than a preference for a particular ephemeral feeling that manifests in a constant effort to spend a lot of time in the desired emotional state. Is it possible that the “pursuit of happiness,” so central to American, and indeed, much of contemporary Western values, may actually get in the way of attaining life’s greater riches?

A. N. Whitehead said learning is impossible without the desire to learn. This matters because all personal growth requires us to learn something. (Image: public domain)

I have already argued, in “Religious Conversion Can Block Self-Discovery,” that a desire for spiritual salvation in the religious sense can seriously impede a person’s growth process. Here I will make the case that thoughtlessly chasing happiness (in the materialistic sense of money, entertainment, possessions, and social status) has a similar hindering effect. It is worth noting that “the pursuit of happiness” in this mundane manner may be a crude version of the creative person’s sophisticated use of subtle moods or feeling tones to enhance both their creativity and their ability to remain productive.

Explaining Mysticism’s Dark Night of the Soul

In their book, Buddhism and Jungian Psychology, analysts J. Marvin Spiegelman and Mokusen Miyuki (who is also a Buddhist priest), mention the danger of “stagnation” following the integration of unconscious contents. This sounds a lot like the stage on the journey to enlightenment the mystics have famously called “the dark night of the soul.” It is the point where a seeker has seen the light, so to speak, but cannot quite believe it yet. This period of deeply troubling doubt and hesitation lasts for an indeterminate length of time until a sufficient level of acceptance has been reached to allow the final enlightenment to dawn, whereupon the ability to feel confident and to act is restored.

The dark night of the soul is a lengthy period of deeply troubling doubt and hesitation. It ends when a sufficient level of acceptance has been reached to allow the final enlightenment to dawn. (Image: public domain)

The Human Need for Heroism, Glory, and Renown

Many people suffer a lack of meaning in their lives, especially in the prosperous countries where the hardships of surviving on a day-by-day basis are not pressing. Decent incomes and the modern social safety net provide leisure time and security while removing the need for the incessant life-sustaining, highly significant activity demanded by dire necessity. For most people in the developed nations, only casual pastimes, meaningless entertainments, or sporadic volunteer work (which someone else could do) remain to fill the void. This situation is regarded as wonderful, yet in reality, it exposes the comfortably well-off to the serious risks of boredom and lack of purpose. It is no accident that suicide and depression rates are high in wealthy nations.

A perceived lack of meaning in life may indicate a desire for a more heroic and glorious way of living. (Image: public domain)

The Concept of Liberation in Psychology

I have been in psychotherapy for a very long time and have acquired a philosophical interest in some of the ideas behind the various psychological schools of thought. Inherent in them all is the concept of “liberating” the patient or client. I am sure no professional would ever put it this way, but psychologists are like the Allies storming ashore in Normandy to liberate Europe from the tyrant’s grip and restore democracy.

At Eternity's Gate by Vincent van Gogh (A grieving old man)

Psychotherapy seeks to liberate the sufferer from emotional pain thus restoring greater freedom of action. (Photo: Wikipedia)

No matter how one conceptualizes it, liberation implies some kind of oppressive situation from which the sufferer would like to be freed. Right away, we have a two-part scenario: the source of the oppression and the subject who suffers yet is not able (either from ignorance or incapacity) to do anything about the painful situation.

Some Personal Thoughts on the Life of Malcolm Lowry

Introduction

Finding out roughly what kind of person you truly are is the starting point of self-understanding. Many years ago, I discovered that troubled writers are the people who most resemble me – or whom I most resemble. I may also be like other kinds of disturbed people, but they remain largely invisible while published writers leave behind a readable and illuminating record of their emotional and psychological struggles. My discovery, and the fact that I too wrestle with writing books and stories, prompted over two decades of reading literary biographies.

A shirtless Malcolm Lowry stands beside his shack in 1940s Dollarton, British Columbia. He is holding an open book.

Lowry suffered from acute anxiety and had his most productive periods in a secluded squatters camp in Dollarton, British Columbia. (Photo: public domain)

A Day in the Life of a Hermit Writer

I suffer from manic-depressive illness. In the early nineties, I was newly diagnosed and recovering from a complete nervous breakdown. A few years earlier, realizing I had a terrible problem, but not knowing its true nature, I had taken refuge in a shack near a 10,000-acre tree farm that bordered the British Columbia wilderness. All told, I was to spend sixteen years there, many of them in combative cognitive-behaviour therapy.

Winter can be hard on hermit writers trying to live on the cheap. (Image: WPClipart)

Old ambitions of becoming a writer had resurfaced so, being essentially shipwrecked anyway, I decided to live off my savings and have a go at writing full-time. The 1990s proved chaotic and painful years for me, so much so that I was never able to finish anything, yet they “made” me as a writer. For years, I kept a diary of my struggles. Those of you who long to be a hermit – writers or otherwise – may romanticize such an existence, especially one lived in a beautiful semi-wilderness area teeming with wildlife, yet the lifestyle itself really is quite mundane. What matters is what you do with all the time. I invested mine in making Jung’s journey of individuation and learning how to write. These two immensely rewarding activities literally transformed my life.

Understanding Your Creativity

Being intensely creative can be an intoxicating experience. Consequently, there is a tendency among creative individuals to conceptualize the process in ways that are not realistic. These false theories usually fall into one of two categories. In either case, the error gets in the way of developing a true (and therefore more useful) understanding of the creative process.

Creative people do not always understand their own creative process.

Mystics, poets, and artists of all kinds can sometimes come to believe that their creativity (or inspiration) is not their own. That is, the creative process can seem so remarkable and astonishing that ideas and impulses seem to come from somewhere else or from someone other than the creators themselves. These individuals modestly assume that they could not possibly have come up with such impressive results on their own. For some, the source feels in some way divine and is presumed to lie with “the Muses” or with God. For others, the origin must lie in a mystically enhanced version of the unconscious mind. Both scenarios place the origin of creativity outside the conscious ego. The creator is just a channel.

The Unconscious Mind Is the Human Quintessence

The concept of “the quintessence” has more than one historical root. Here I will deal with the one that really does have roots, the one that involves sacred trees. It may seem strange that people once considered certain trees (and by extension, groves) sacred, yet there is a simple logic to the belief and – not surprisingly – a link to modern psychology.

Painting of a sacred grove with ceremony in progress

Trees are a source of the mysterious quintessence, which is an externalization of the unconscious mind. (Image: Wikipaintings)

Most of us associate the practice of worshipping trees, or worshipping among trees, with the Celtic peoples of Western Europe. Tacitus (writing about Celts in his book Germania) says, “The Grove is the centre of their whole religion. It is regarded as the cradle of the race and the dwelling-place of the supreme god to whom all things are subject and obedient.”