The Therapist
by Andrew Richards

"Doctor," she said, "I'm terribly sad, my marriage is broken you see,
We married too young, I'm sure you'd agree, my feelings are all in a stew.
I know I need more, I've told him before, I know I just want to be free.
I called you today, then came over here, I knew you'd know just what to do.

Calmly he said, with a smile on his face, "I know, please tell me some more."
Well Doctor, she said, I can't stand my kids, they're driving me crazy, too,
And his mother's the pits, always spoiling her son, her own life's a terrible bore,
He spends all his time away from the house, I just don't know what I should do.

Calmly he said, with a smile on his face, "I know, please tell me some more,"
Well doctor, she said, I cry all the night, wanting to run away,
I tried talking to him, with the game on TV, but swearing he near missed a score,
I'm seeking the answers, Oh, Doctor please help, I need you to tell me today.

Calmly he said with a smile on his face, "I know please tell me some more."
"Oh doctor," she said, "now it's answers I need, without them I've no more to say,"
The Doctor did ponder, the Doctor did muse, he straightened the tie that he wore,
Then, smiling he said, "Sorry, time's up, will I see you next week Mrs. Gray?"

End

"In spite of the researches of Murisier, Janet, Ribot, and other psychologists, and their persevering attempts to find a pathological explanation which will fit all mystic facts, this and other marked physical peculiarities which accompany the mystical temperament belong as yet to the unsolved problems of humanity. They need to be removed both from the sphere of marvel and from that of disease--into which enthusiastic friends and foes force them by turn-"(Evelyn Underhill)

"Psychiatrists have not increased the credibility of their speciality in the first three-quarters of the twentieth century by posing as the universal experts on the experience of life and how it should be led. Expert knowledge of the abnormal does not preclude ignorance of the normal and the psychiatrist can never generalise from the sample of people selectively referred to him to the whole of mankind." (Symptoms in the Mind, by Andrew Sims (Balliere-Tindall, ref. "Psychiatry and Religion, Dr. Pravin Thevathasan, Psychiatrist)

"There are far too many analysts, therapists and counsellors who've got far too much to do, because we don't do what we should do by turning to the Perfect Psychiatrist. The Perfect Psychiatrist not only shows people the truth about themselves, but fills them with love too, to help them become what they are meant to be. He made the most perfect man what he was, and is now, and promises that he will do the same for us too if we'll only allow him.(David Torkington, "Lectio Divina and Cognitive Therapy")

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Before discussing psychology and mysticism, or contemplation, it is necessary to make a few comments about the state of psychological practice today. For, unfortunately for most Christians, we all have a tendency to believe anything someone teaches under the banner of "science." In order to get a long queue of followers, one has only to claim that he has done a scientific study and then to "write a book." If its science, and its in a book, then it has to be right, right? Wrong!

Now in the study of mysticism, when one allows psychological science to put God in a test-tube, and subject Religion and Supernatural Reality to an analysis of the mental phenomena connected with human perception and internal states of consciousness, one is implicitly giving Psychology rights and powers over Religion and the Supernatural to which it has no claim. And one should not be surprised if in this process, one's Faith has been undermined in one's own eyes, as the god of mind-science, i.e., Psychology, displaces Moses, and speaks for him from the mountain. And one should not be dismayed that the data found from this natural analysis gives no evidence of the supernatural, and are no different from any other natural psychological data, normal or abnormal. For God is not a mental state, intense feelings, or an artifact of consciousness. And nothing is more absurd than the men in the white coats who repeatedly publish "scientific" papers showing that the mental phenomena they observed in religious and mystics are no different from natural phenomena produced by drugs, meditation techniques, physical disabilities, or insanity. In other words, it all seems to be purely natural. How could it be anything else?

Like the blind leading the blind, they never seem to get it. Natural phenomena is all that "natural man" will ever observe or reason to by observing and studying human beings and their consciousness. For the Supernatural, true religion, and mysticism, have nothing to do with observed mental phenomena, feelings, and mental states, normal or abnormal. For true religion is about Charity! It's about Love, spelled with a capital "L." It's about Supernatural tranformation of one's "will" into the "Will" of God. It's about "fruits" and "works," not about mental states!

Mysticism is about the power of holiness in the life of a St Paul, St Francis, St Dominic, St Teresa, St Ignatius of Loyola, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta! It's about an overcoming and triumphant will capable of changing the world, forever. And although it may fill the conscious mind with the Presence of God, you can't see it, or measure it. And there's no road to it from here, from the laboratory, or from anywhere else in the "natural" world. For it's on a Wayless Highway reserved for those with a Journey to make. It's for the humble man who understands the limits of the human intellect. And no fools will ever stumble therein! "For a highway shall be there, and a Way, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those, the wayfaring men...and fools shall not err therein" (Isaiah 35:8)

So you can go to the ends of the Universe, or to the center of consciousness, and you'll never find God there, even if you take Freud and Einstein along with you. God exists in another dimension! If He doesn't come to you from that dimension, even if you have your white lab coat on, have read Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams," and just had dinner with the President of Harvard, you'll never know Him! He doesn't subject Himself to the arrogance of man's intellect, even when accompanied with advanced degrees, and post-graduate studies of neurons and psycho-tropic drugs. So those most deserving of disapprobation, are not the men in white coats, they don't know any better. They think the human mind is omnipotent, and all there is; even though they havn't a clue as to what it is. The ones really to blame are the religious leaders and believers who really prefer Freud and Jung to Moses, and who secretly keep white coats in their closet at home.

Now William James, in his "Varieties of Religious Experience," decided to use the natural techniques of "science," to analyze the value of supernatural "Mysticism." And we know his conclusions were sound because after he had done his "random?" experimental study, he "wrote a book" about it! Now James, a humble Harvard scientist and empirical philosopher suffered the characteristic trait of most disbelievers, "depression in his personal life." But how, you say, do I know that most disbelievers suffer depression in their personal lives. Where is my representative sample and scientific support? Well, it's over there in the same cabinet that holds James' scientific data sample. Besides, now that I've written my conclusion down, I'm sure I can find many individual cases that support it. Why I bet if I went to a psychiatric hospital I could find many depressed patients who don't believe in God! I, therefore, rest my case.

Now philosopher, scientist James, who had a world-class reputation, didn't believe man had a soul. Having rejected the Christianity of his father, James was a complete man of science, i.e., a pragmatist and an empiricist. He thought the consciousness of man and the enduring subject that abides through all the changes of experience was nothing but "a bunch of little neurons" in the nervous system. From this vantage point, when I say I love my spouse and children, "there's nobody home!" It's just neurons doing their loving thing. So with this relevant background, as well as his interest in seances and spiritism, James, was the logical one, with a spiritual life much like King Saul, to undertake a humble, "scientific" study of sanctity, holiness, spirituality, and mysticism. The following is one typical quote of his from "Varieties of Religious Experience," Neurology and Religion.

"Even more perhaps than other kinds of genius, religious leaders have been subject to abnormal psychical visitations. Invariably they have been creatures of exalted emotional sensibility. Often they have led a discordant inner life, and had melancholy during a part of their career. They have known no measure, been liable to obsessions and fixed ideas; and frequently they have fallen into trances, heard voices, seen visions, and presented all sorts of peculiarities which are ordinarily classed as pathological. Often, moreover, these pathological features in their career have helped to give them their religious authority and influence."

Now how did James, a careful scientist, know that religious leaders, more than other kinds of genius, "have been subject to abnormal psychical visitations?" How did this humble scientist learn that "invariably they have been creatures of exalted emotional sensibility.?" And how did he know that they led "discordant inner lives, and had melancholy during part of their career?" Where is the scientific data supporting it? Had James done a random sample covering "all" the thousands of religious leaders who ever lived? Or perhaps he interviewed all of them to learn that "invariably" they had exalted emotional sensibility? Had he data and reliable information concerning the lives of these folks, down through history, the ones for whom there is no historical record, to know that they led "discordant inner lives, and suffered from melancholy, like he did? And how did he know these untold thousands often fell into obsessions, trances, and presented all sorts of peculiarities which are ordinarily considered pathological? And how did he know that they were psychically more abnormal than geniuses in other fields? Whom did he interview? Did he figure this out because he personally was known to suffer from depression, and figured they must have too? Did he get interviews with the thousands of dead ones through the seances he like to attend? And how did he figure out that the pathological features in their career had helped to give them authority and influence? Was that how he got his? Did he personally sample or contact the millions of religious individuals who were under the influence of these religious leaders because of their pathological personalities, and ask them why they followed them?

Any scientific study, today, which reached certain conclusions on the methodology and anecdotal evidence used by James in this study would not be considered valid or reliable. His conclusions are pure speculation, based on his own bias, notwithstanding his reputation in the fields of psychology and philosophy. Taking non-random samples from the bits of writings in the historical record, and from the periods of suffering connnected with the purification of saints and deeply religious souls, James made incomprehensible generalizations and reached ultimate conclusions on all mystical spirituality, that was neither valid, nor reliable, and really had nothing whatever to do with scientific studies using representative data.

And like Freud and Jung, and so many of the leaders and practitioners of psychology, who "speak from the mountain," with no data, and no capacity, whatsoever, to understand supernatural subjects, James became the world expert due to credentials and established reputation rather than to the validity and reliability of his study. And he still holds that august office today. And when mysticism is discussed among the intellectuals, at the current time, someone will say, "William James!" and everyone will smile, and nod affirmatively at the mention of the genius and his wonderful, exhaustive, scientific study of the subject. For after all, James was a Harvard man of great philosophical prominence... and a man of science...and was interested in spiritism and seances.. so who better to speak on holiness, sanctity, and the Transforming Love of Almighty God!

And now that James is the psychological expert on Mysticism, he is frequently used as a reference for other psychologists when they are doing their own studies. One such study quoted James to show that one "essential" feature of mysticism and the experience of mystics is a sense of "unity," which can be characterized as "ego loss." James is quoted:

"In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of that oneness."

Well this ambiguous language is very interesting, and makes for "profound" scientific study. The only problem with it is that true mystical states are intuitive and ineffable. That means that you must draw your conclusions as to their meaning when you return from the passive, intuitive state to the active, non-intuitive state where rationalization is possible. Not being a mystic himself, James wouldn't know that. James conclusion, in terms of the ontological inferences it puts forward, is totally false in relation to the experience of "duality" and "relationship" which are part of the mystical experience of the billion strong group of believers called Christians. It fits in well, however, with one who is prejudiced in the direction of Eastern religion, where the individual ego is absorbed into the Divine Whole. But such precision is not important in psychological studies. They don't require precise language. That way they can prove anything and everything, when psychologists choose to give us the benefit of their philosophical penetration of the mysteries of the Universe.

For in truth one doesn't suffer ego loss, or lose one's ontological ego in mystic states in order to be a "unity with the Absolute." On the contrary, one's ego is strengthened, and that strength shows itself through increase in all the virtues, like fortitude, perseverance, and charity. And one's ego gains power and control over the flesh through ongoing "detachment," and from the Power of the Holy Spirit which transforms the soul, giving supernatural levels of growth in sanctifying grace through the experience of these "mystic states." How else do we think the saints like St Joan of Arc, or St Catherine of Siena, or St Francis of Assisi changed their world. Or how else do we think a lone woman, like Mother Teresa, changed the world of our time by doing in Calcutta, and for the poorest of the poor throughout the world, what no one had ever done before! But not to worry. Psychologists learn very early that, once you hang out a shingle, no one ever takes their evidence seriously enough to read it carefully, or to challenge their so-called scientific studies, particulary when they are supported by common prejudices against the reality of "the soul," and the Western tendency to doubt everything Western, and to believe that "Ultimate Reality" can, somehow, be found only through the romance of the mysterious East.

Believers should look very carefully at the hodgepodge of amateur philosophical theories that magically arise to the trancendent level from many of the biased practitioners in the field of psychology, mental health, social work, and natural mind science today. To be kind about it, it's basically a "Tower of Babel." You can find any theory you want to support any point of view. And they frequently contradict each other, as well as logic and common sense, even with world-class credentials. And many come from a philosophical position of scientific materialism. Some of them, like the psychiatrists working for the party in the Communist Hospitals in Russia and China, are only too happy to give you drugs since they believe that all man's mental functions can be reduced to problems of physiology in the body. They want to bring you in line with their "materialistic" outlook, so that you can be "happy" like they are! Besides they don't know how to treat you any other way since they reject the idea that there is a "mind" separate from the physiology of the body that might benefit from proper non-medical, psychotherapeutic treatment. So before you turn your religion and your soul over to such as these, "take a second look!"

On the other hand, another expert of a different kind, who had personal experience with the transcendent, mysticism, and the Fire of God's Love, published a study that shed light on the true nature and value of mysticism. When Evelyn Underhill undertook a comprehensive study of the lives of the the many saints whose inner life was a closed book to the unscientific, jaundiced eye of "scientist" James, she came to startlingly different conclusions:

"When we look at the lives of the great... mystics, the true initiates of Eternity--inarticulate as these mystics often are--we find ourselves in the presence of an amazing, a superabundant vitality: of a "triumphing force" over which circumstance has no power. The incessant production of good works seems indeed to be the object of that Spirit, by Whose presence their interior castle is now filled." And then Underhill proceeded to catalogue the historical record, and the litany of activities in the lives of these same saints that James had read about. The difference was that she made use of the data pointing to the power of unusual mental health and fully integrated personalities capable of overcoming all manner of worldly obstacles through the "triumphing force" within them.

Using the data on the lives of the saints, available to William James, she found powerful evidence he overlooked, concerning the Transcendent Power of the Holy Spirit transforming the world through these human beings like St Francis of Assisi, St Teresa of Avila, and St Francis de Sales, St Ignatius of Loyola, St Catherine of Siena, etc. For the whole world has recognized the unusual strength of character of these individuals, manifested in the sophisticated organization skills, and the relentless accomplishment of impossible tasks through persistent goal-directed behavior. But scientific types like James are unable to appreciate evidence that doesn't support their pre-conceived materialistic biases. And unfortunately the field of psychology has been, and is still today, overrun by pseudo-scientists who, like Freud, Jung, and many New Agers, worship the orgasm, and who retain bias against anything that might suggest that self-control is better than self-indulgence, or that man is something more than a rat, and more than just a material organism in the food-chain.

Now the science of psychology includes the study of many forms of human behavior, including the mind and mental activity. And as science, it is limited to a "natural" analysis of data, typically using statistical techniques. As science, it has nothing to say about the truth or falsity of that which exceeds natural powers of knowing, i.e., tanscendental truth and the gift of faith. Some psychologists are believers, and many are not. And in regard to their understanding of human behavior, most practicing clinical psychologists agree that behavior falls into categories, or behavioral ranges such as "normal," neurotic, and "psychotic." And religious people are no different than other people, they come in all three categories.

So those psychiatrists and psychotherapists who specialize in psychotic behavior, find that psychotic individuals are often religious like any group in society, and that their religion may express itself in aberrant behaviour as might any of the rest of their personality. For some of these persons hear voices, see visions, and go into ecstatic trances. However, from these pathological samples, truly scientific observers, unlike William James, do not extrapolate to the general population and say that all people who have heard voices, or have had visions, or who have suffered ecstatic trances, like Moses, Jesus, St Paul, St Francis of Assisi, St Ignatius of Loyola, Mother Teresa, or St Teresa of Avila, are manifesting pathological behavior. On the other hand, the non-scientific observers, and professional psychology is full of them, speak from their own atheism and prejudice, and pass judgment on the general population of religious believers based on the biased data coming from pathological behavior. And everyone believes them because they do not realize that professional therapists are just amateurs when it comes to philosophical and theological questions regarding transcendent truth, faith and ultimate issues. Moreover, we know from thousands of years of faith history that supernatural love and faith cannot enter a heart hardened by prejudice and a proud sense of superiority based on knowledge of the behavior of rats, experimental techniques, and statistics.

Now there are all types of psychiatrists, psychologists, and clinicians specializing in many, many fields of study. And these individuals have their own belief systems regarding the transcendental and religion. Some are devout believers like Karl Stern, the Psychiatrist who became a Catholic and wrote "Pillars of Fire." There are many devout clinical therapists in Family Counseling and Social Work. Many are regular Church goers. Many practice regular prayer.

However, a great portion of professional psychologists are not believers. They live and practice in a world of scientific materialism ruled by random chance and the meaningless of life in a "survival of the fittest" universe. For them, "rats are people too," and man is just the highest evolutionary animal of the food chain. And, a large portion of these persons allow their personal lack of faith to influence their relationships with clients and the philosophy underlying their psychology. Claiming to be "scientific," they are really exponents of humanistic, or atheistic belief systems, including such pioneers as Freud, Jung, Rogers, and many of the founders of "human potential" and "encounter group" movements. And unsuspecting believers go to individuals trained in these humanistic schools of psychology for help with personal problems, or in order to "grow" psychologically. And to their surprise, they find that their "faith," or their "marriage" is destroyed as a result of the reductionistic influence of these humanistic psychologists.

For many of these clinicians, whether they be psychiatrists, psychologists, family therapists, or social workers, are personally atheists, and live private lives that fall outside the limits of morality held by believers. And many of them, particularly as they grow older, suffer in their personal lives from their naturalistic, "survivalist" mentality and the "lack of meaning" they find in the world. And so they, like the rest of the unbelieving children of Adam, turn to money, drugs, sex, or alocohol hoping to assuage their suffering. For they have bought into a worldview that has no hope.

And they are very adroit at hiding this from the client, and at subtlely bringing the client to the same state of naturalistic, survivalist mentality and immorality in which they live their private lives. So they delve into the clients sexual feeling purportedly to get the client "in touch" with their real feelings. And in some cases they even have sex with their clients to help them get over their "repressions." And they ask why the client stays in their marriage when they seem so unhappy. And they ask the same question of consecrated religious who are "under vows" to remain faithful. Why do they stay in the religious life where they are not in contact with "their true feelings?" And they never mention how they personally dislike the Church because it falls outside their naturalistic, ape-man worldview, and makes them feel guilty about the supportive attitudes they convey for immoral behavior on the part of their clients.

So whether we want to admit it or not, for anyone who bothers to look, there is a huge body of evidence indicating that "modern psychology," as taught by the large group of unbelievers who practice professional psychology, has infiltrated Christianity and helped to bring it to its current state of "crisis" in the post-modern world. And it has been "invited in" by many of the worldly leaders in religion, desiring to get ahead in the Church by being known as "scientific" types, rather than religious. For psychology, following Freud, taught priests and laity that it was not good to be "repressed" and to deny oneself expression of all one's "feelings." Repressed sexuality must be consciously expressed and experienced, or one may suffer bodily ills or a libido deprived personality. Celibacy and chastity must be thrown out because they are impossible for natural man. Obviously, what these spiritually challenged psychic wonder workers don't believe in, nor understand, is the role of grace and the power of God in supernaturally energizing such gifts as chastity and celibacy. For the natural man, alone, these things are, as the critics maintain, impossible.

So the unbelieving therapists teach that if one is unhappy following orders or directions from the Church or superiors, then one must "rebel" and express one's true feelings. If one is unhappy with the Ten Commandments, one should not repress it, rather one should only obey the ones that "feel good." And, of course, all of this pscho-babble undermining religious belief, would never be admitted openly by the "therapist," rather it would all be subtlely implied by a variety of techniques involved in changing behaviour, ranging from group humiliation and intimidation to "transference " and changes in client behavior resulting from the influence of the therapeutic relationship.

For such therapists believe that religious faith is inimical to personality health, and that they are doing their patients a favor when they relieve them of pious, religious "superstions." For above all else, man must be "reality oriented." This means he must give up pious desires for pie-in-the sky and live in the real world of the good, the bad, and the ugly. This is the world of Darwin and the competitive rat race, where each man must strive against his neighbor for his piece of the action and his place in the sun. It's about our rights! Lawyers and judges love it here. It's all about peace of mind through "winning," instead of losing all the time, and looking out for me, number one. Those preaching self-giving love and "turn the other cheek," are obviously pathological enemies of the mental health of the people!

So when these anti-religious, therapeutic types come to absolute power, as in Communist countries, they lock up all the Christians in psychiatric hospitals and give them "reality injections" until they become "normal" like all the happy, realistic, card carrying party members. The anti-religious mental health professionals, in Nazi Germany, and in Communist countries today, become agents of state terrorism against believers of all type. Hey, it's good for their mental health. If this seems like an exaggeration, perhaps you should spend some time looking this subject up in Marxist, Communist Cuba, Stalinist Russia, or the Marxist China of Mao. In case you've forgotten what life without God looks like, or what state-sponsored terroristic atheism looks like, see what it's like under the great "liberators" from the God-superstition, who are head-over-heels in love with the working man proletariat. See what it is like in their Gulag with twenty four hour evil in your face! See what it's like in Cambodia where millions of people are driven from their homes, their lives, and their professions, in order to learn proletarian humility, love for the working man, and mental health realism, by working eighteen hours a day in the rice fields seven days a week until... they all died by the millions from pain and exhaustion. See what evil is really like, close up, when man takes it upon himself to murder God!

Of course, the Marxists remaining in the world today, have adopted cutsie working titles, and take no responsibility for the horror unleashed on the world by their brother Marxists in the name of worship of the working man, hatred of the rich man, and a realism oriented, Godless, mental health. These self-righteous, fanatical, Godless revolutionaries are no different today, then they were when they released "the Terror" during the French Revolution, they have just adopted innocent sounding names for their organizations. And historically, many of the Godless professionals in the mental health fields have managed to march right along side of them.

And many of the leaders of the Church, religious seminaries, and pastors colluded with the latter group of professional unbelievers by bringing them into the seminaries, religious orders, and priestly formation seminars to teach, pontificate, and treat the "souls" of consecrated religious. And through group pressure techniques, such as "encounter groups," religious believers were pressured into publicly exploring their sexuality and into "getting in touch with their sexual feelings." And sexual morality, said these professional psychologists, while supposedly understandable as a throwback to the "uptight" Church coming out of the dark ages, could not be countenanced in the Church of today.

For according to them, rules regarding artificial contraception, masturbation, priestly celibacy, and sex outside of marriage, were shown by modern psychology to be just forms of the Institutional Church which kept members in bondage to unreality, and infantile behavior patterns resulting in failure to "grow" in their "human potential." And the same held true for vows of obedience. And sisters and priests started leaving their vows in droves so they could "get in touch with their feelings."

And these same psychological experts started teaching that "divorce" was the logical option when the marriage got in trouble and didn't "feel good" any more. For many of them, family therapists, were divorced and living with "partners," of one sex or another. For they preferred their "rights," to self-sacrifice. They preferred looking out for number one rather than practicing self-giving love. And, sad to say, the leaders of the Church just looked on, quietly, while the modern gurus of "psycho-babble" destroyed sexual morality, obedience, and the spiritual strength of the Church from within. And many are still at it today within the Church and the seminaries, preferring to teach their own moral bias toward atheism, under the guise of scientifically acceptable "psychology," rather than moral restraint based on Church doctrine and the "transcendental truths" of God's Revelation, which surpass the limits of man's proud intellect. Wherefore Isaias said: "Si non credideritis, non intelligetis." That is: If ye believe not, ye shall not understand(St John of the Cross, Bk II, Ch.III, Ascent of Mt Carmel)

So maybe its time for believers to re-establish God and His Church to their proper place of primacy in their lives. And while the sciences are undoubtedly useful, they are the "servants," and not the masters of religion. We have powerful historical examples of the milllions of people who have been tortured and murdered in those countries that have removed God from the altar, and replaced him with "the Science God" of Marx. So maybe one should be a little less willing to undermine the gift of faith, and to open one's soul to the psychic invasion of another human being, whose personal life may be a disaster, however wonderful the degrees on the wall. Maybe one should spend as much time checking out a therapist as one does "buying a car."

And if someone tells you that it doesn't matter what the therapist believes, or how he lives, since its all science,don't believe him. Just remember the lessons of history referred to above. In our lifetime, science has been used by the state to justify all manner of evil. For we can all admit the legitimate role of psychiatry and psychology in studying disordered human behavior, developing treatment programs, and treating appropriately with drugs or therapy. This is not the issue here.

For example, one should be aware that one's thought patterns may be ineffective, or erroneous as the result of childhood attempts to deal with problems of living. These erroneous thought patterns, e.g., "I am unloveable," or "I am a loser," can cause depression in the here and now, and failure to respond appropriately to current situations. As mentioned by David Torkington above, it is worth while to study the short, proven-to-be-effective programs in "cognitive therapy" to see how one can learn to replace the old negative record with a new, healthy thought pattern (as found in the mind of Christ). For God doesn't make junk! He loves you very much just as you are. And He's calling you to the perfect peace to be found in completely following His Will in imitation of His Son, Jesus Christ.

In many cases it's possible to solve problems, such as "depression," through psychotherapy, and without drugs. However, that does not mean we allow therapeutic practitioners to arrogantly subsume everthing in life, including the spiritual life, in terms of biology, neurons, and natural pyschological processes in a world ruled by chance, statistics, and the "survival of the fittest." For if we do, don't be surprised that after talking to your "friendly therapist" that you no longer really need your "marriage" or your "spiritual life" or your "religion" anymore. For while psychology may help the natural man, just like a medical doctor, we must always remember that our goal is not to adjust our behavior to the standards of the world in the name of "peace at any price." We were created for something far greater than such lukewarm, "well-adjusted," natural mediocrity. We were created for self-giving love at an heroic, supernatural level that requires giving-up many of the self-nongiving boundaries psychology sets up in the name of natural mental health. When someone asks you to go with him "a mile," you go "two;" you don't "tell him off" because he's violating your mental health or ego boundries.

At the same time, lest we forget, we should remember the thousands of persons in a variety of fields connected with professional psychology, including a large number of psychiatrists and psychologists, some of whom are priests and religious, who have, themselves, spent many years in meditation and contemplation, and who, unlike the secular materialists, understand the problems connected with the dark nights and spiritual transformation, and who are fully supportive of the methods and aims of mysticism, contemplative prayer, and the spiritual life.

Many psychiatrists find that religious faith strengthens mental health and one's ability to cope with depression, ageing, and the problems of everyday life. The following article is one of many:

International Conference on "Toward a Catholic Psychology"

VATICAN: IPS's First International Conference was held in Rome on January 5th 2001. The conference focused on the interrelation of Faith and Science. A telegram from the Holy Father was received the day before the conference imparting an Apostolic blessing to the Conference participants and with words of support for the mission of the Institute. It read:

"The Holy Father was pleased to learn of the First International Conference, "Toward a Catholic Psychology: What Faith Brings to Psychology", being held in Rome, on January 5th, 2001, under the auspices of the Institute for the Psychological Sciences. In the love of Christ our Saviour, he greets the participants and assures them of his closeness in prayer. His Holiness has praised the contributions of sound psychology based on the Christian view "that men and women are always called to direct their steps towards a truth which transcends them" (Fides et Ratio, 5). That truth concerns the human person, made in the image of God, and it is the fullness of this truth which psychology is called to serve. His Holiness prays that the conference will lead the participants to a deeper sense of the harmony between psychology and Christian anthropology, so that they may still more richly serve the Church and society in the knowledge that "faith and reason are like two wings upon which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth" (ibid.,1). Invoking upon the Conference a fresh outpouring of the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Father gladly imparts to the participants his Apostolic Blessing. (Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State.)

Evelyn Underhill looks at Psychology and Mysticism:

"Modern psychology, in its doctrine of the unconscious or subliminal personality, has acknowledged this fact of a range of psychic life lying below and beyond the conscious field. Indeed, it has so dwelt upon and defined this shadowy region--which is really less a "region" than a useful name--that it sometimes seems to know more about the unconscious than about the conscious life of man. There it finds, side by side, the sources of his most animal instincts, his least explicable powers, his most spiritual intuitions: the "ape and tiger," and the "soul." Genius and prophecy, insomnia and infatuation, clairvoyance, hypnotism, hysteria, and "Christian" science--all are explained by the "unconscious mind."

"In his destructive moods the psychologist has little apparent difficulty in reducing the chief phenomena of religious and mystical experience to activities of the "unconscious," seeking an oblique satisfaction of repressed desires. Where he undertakes the more dangerous duties of apologetic, he explains the same phenomena by saying that "God speaks to man in the subconsciousness,"[74] by which he can only mean that our apprehensions of the eternal have the character of intuition rather than of thought. Yet the "unconscious" after all is merely a convenient name for the aggregate of those powers, parts, or qualities of the whole self which at any given moment are not conscious, or that the Ego is not conscious of.

"Included in the unconscious region of an average healthy man are all those automatic activities by which the life of the body is carried on: all those "uncivilized" instincts and vices, those remains of the ancestral savage, which education has forced out of the stream of consciousness and which now only send their messages to the surface in a carefully disguised form. There too work in the hiddenness those longings for which the busy life of the world leaves no place; and there lies that deep pool, that heart of personality, from which in moments of lucidity a message may reach the conscious field. Hence in normal men the best and worst, most savage and most spiritual parts of character, are bottled up "below the threshold." Often the partisans of the "unconscious" forget to mention this.

"It follows, then, that whilst we may find it convenient and indeed necessary to avail ourselves of the symbols and diagrams of psychology in tracking out the mystic way, we must not forget the large and vague significance which attaches to these symbols, and the hypothetical character of many of the entities they represent. Nor must we allow ourselves to use the "unconscious" as the equivalent of man's transcendental sense. Here the mystics have surely displayed a more scientific spirit, a more delicate power of analysis, than the psychologists.

"They, too, were aware that in normal men the spiritual sense lies below the threshold of consciousness. Though they had not at their command the spatial metaphors of the modern school, and could not describe man's ascent toward God in those picturesque terms of levels and uprushes, margins and fields, projection, repression, and sublimation, which now come so naturally to investigators of the spiritual life, they leave us in no doubt as to their view of the facts. Further, man's spiritual history primarily meant for them, as it means for us, the emergence of this transcendental sense; its capture of the field of consciousness, and the opening up of those paths which permit the inflow of a larger spiritual life, the perception of a higher reality. This, in so far as it was an isolated act, was "contemplation."

"When it was part of the general life process, and had permanent results, they called it the New Birth, which "maketh alive." The faculty or personality concerned in the "New Birth"--the "spiritual man," capable of the spiritual vision and life, which was dissociated from the "earthly man" adapted only to the natural life--was always sharply distinguished by them from the total personality, conscious or unconscious. It was something definite; a bit or spot of man which, belonging not to Time but to Eternity, was different in kind from the rest of his human nature, framed in all respects to meet the demands of the merely natural world.[75] The business of the mystic in the eyes of these old specialists was to remake, transmute, his total personality in the interest of his spiritual self; to bring it out of the hiddenness, and unify himself about it as a centre, thus "putting on divine humanity."

"It need hardly be said that rationalistic writers, ignoring the parallels offered by the artistic and philosophic temperaments, have seized eagerly upon the evidence afforded by such instances of apparent mono-ideism and self-hypnotization in the lives of the mystics, and by the physical disturbances which accompany the ecstatic trance, and sought by its application to attribute all the abnormal perceptions of contemplative genius to hysteria or other disease. They have not hesitated to call St. Paul an epileptic. St. Teresa the "patron saint of hysterics"; and have found room for most of their spiritual kindred in various departments of the pathological museum.

"They have been helped in this grateful task by the acknowledged fact that the great contemplatives, though almost always persons of robust intelligence and marked practical or intellectual ability--Plotinus, St. Bernard, the two Ss. Catherine, St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross, and the Sufi poets Jàmi and Jalalu `ddin are cases in point--have often suffered from bad physical health. More, their mystical activities have generally reacted upon their bodies in a definite and special way; producing in several cases a particular kind of illness and of physical disability, accompanied by pains and functional disturbances for which no organic cause could be discovered, unless that cause were the immense strain which exalted spirit puts upon a body which is adapted to a very different form of life.

"It is certain that the abnormal and highly sensitized type of mind which we call mystical does frequently, but not always, produce or accompany strange and inexplicable modifications of the physical organism with which it is linked. The supernatural is not here in question, except in so far as we are inclined to give that name to natural phenomena which we do not understand. Such instances of psycho-physical parallelism as the stigmatizations of the saints--and indeed of other suggestible subjects hardly to be ranked as saints--will occur to anyone.[85] I here offer to the reader another less discussed and more extraordinary example of the modifying influence of the spirit on the supposed "laws" of bodily life.

"We know, as a historical fact, unusually well attested by contemporary evidence and quite outside the sphere of hagiographic romance, that both St. Catherine of Siena and her namesake St. Catherine of Genoa--active women as well as ecstatics, the first a philanthropist, reformer, and politician, the second an original theologian and for many years the highly efficient matron of a large hospital--lived, in the first case for years, in the second for constantly repeated periods of many weeks, without other food than the consecrated Host which they received at Holy Communion. They did this, not by way of difficult obedience to a pious vow, but because they could not live in any other way. Whilst fasting, they were well and active, capable of dealing with the innumerable responsibilities which filled their lives. But the attempt to eat even a few mouthfuls--and this attempt was constantly repeated, for, like all true saints, they detested eccentricity[86]--at once made them ill and had to be abandoned as useless.[87]

"In spite of the researches of Murisier,[88] Janet,[89] Ribot,[90] and other psychologists, and their persevering attempts to find a pathological explanation which will fit all mystic facts, this and other marked physical peculiarities which accompany the mystical temperament belong as yet to the unsolved problems of humanity. They need to be removed both from the sphere of marvel and from that of disease--into which enthusiastic friends and foes force them by turn--to the sphere of pure psychology; and there studied dispassionately with the attention which we so willingly bestow on the less interesting eccentricities of degeneracy and vice. Their existence no more discredits the sanity of mysticism or the validity of its results than the unstable nervous condition usually noticed in artists--who share to some extent the mystic's apprehension of the Real--discredits art. "In such cases as Kant and Beethoven," says Von Hügel justly, "a classifier of humanity according to its psycho-physical phenomena alone would put these great discoverers and creators, without hesitation, amongst hopeless and useless hypochondriacs."[91]

In the case of the mystics the disease of hysteria, with its astounding variety of mental symptoms, its strange power of disintegrating, rearranging and enhancing the elements of consciousness, its tendencies to automatism and ecstasy, has been most often invoked to provide an explanation of the observed phenomena. This is as if one sought the source of the genius of Taglioni in the symptoms of St. Vitus's dance. Both the art and the disease have to do with bodily movements. So too both mysticism and hysteria have to do with the domination of consciousness by one fixed and intense idea or intuition, which rules the life and is able to produce amazing physical and psychical results. In the hysteric patient this idea is often trivial or morbid[92] but has become--thanks to the self's unstable mental condition--an obsession. In the mystic the dominant idea is a great one: so great in fact, that when it is received in its completeness by the human consciousness, almost of necessity it ousts all else. It is nothing less than the idea or perception of the transcendent reality and presence of God. Hence the mono-ideism of the mystic is rational, whilst that of the hysteric patient is invariably irrational.

"On the whole then, whilst psycho-physical relations remain so little understood, it would seem more prudent, and certainly more scientific, to withhold our judgment on the meaning of the psychophysical phenomena which accompany the mystic life; instead of basing destructive criticism on facts which are avowedly mysterious and at least capable of more than one interpretation. To deduce the nature of a compound from the character of its byproducts is notoriously unsafe.

"Our bodies are animal things, made for animal activities. When a spirit of unusual ardour insists on using its nerve-cells for other activities, they kick against the pricks; and inflict, as the mystics themselves acknowledge, the penalty of "mystical ill-health." "Believe me, children," says Tauler, "one who would know much about these high matters would often have to keep his bed, for his bodily frame could not support it."[93] "I cause thee extreme pain of body," says the voice of Love to Mechthild of Magdeburg. "If I gave myself to thee as often as thou wouldst have me, I should deprive myself of the sweet shelter I have of thee in this world, for a thousand bodies could not protect a loving soul from her desire. Therefore the higher the love the greater the pain."[94]

"On the other hand the exalted personality of the mystic--his self-discipline, his heroic acceptance of labour and suffering, and his inflexible will--raises to a higher term that normal power of mind over body which all possess. Also the contemplative state--like the hypnotic state in a healthy person--seems to enhance life by throwing open deeper levels of personality. The self then drinks at a fountain which is fed by the Universal Life. True ecstasy is notoriously life-enhancing. In it a bracing contact with Reality seems to take place, and as a result the subject is himself more real. Often, says St. Teresa, even the sick come forth from ecstasy healthy and with new strength; for something great is then given to the soul.[95] Contact has been set up with levels of being which the daily routine of existence leaves untouched. Hence the extraordinary powers of endurance, and independence of external conditions, which the great ecstatics so often display.(Evelyn Underhill, "Mysticism and Psychology")