P.W. Martin:Â Science, Psychology and Religion
Individuation, wholeness, hoinw in fear and trembling a man may come to work out his own salvation, has always been the central theme of religion. Psychology is widely looked upon as the enemy of religion. To some extent this is true. In certain of the various versions of psychology at present current, the human psyche is in the main dismissed as nothing more than biological by-product. In the experiment in depth the psyche is not thus dismissed, but accepted as a legitimate object of experience in its own right.
The question naturally arises, what is the relationship between psychology, so understood, and religion; meaning by religion no one particular cult or creed but the age-old, world-wide effort of man to make contact with a creative possibility beyond himself.
Jung’s experience on this score has been widely quoted:
‘Among all my patients in the second half of life—that is to say, over thirty-five—there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.’
Eliot, referring specifically to Christianity, sees psychology as an ‘indispensable handmaid’:
‘Psychology has very great utility in two ways. It can revive, and has already to some extent revived, truths long since known to Christianity, but mostly forgotten and ignored, and it can put them in a form and a language understandable by modern people to whom the language of Christianity is not only dead but undecipherable. . . . But I must add that I think psychology can do more than this, in discovering more about the human soul still; for I do not pretend that there is nothing more to know; the possibilities of knowledge are practically endless. Psychology is an indispensable handmaid to theology; but I think a very poor housekeeper.’
Toynbee, from the standpoint of universal history, likewise sees religion as primal: often mistaken, often twisted to meet man’s desires, inevitably adapted to the exigencies of the age, but in itself the vision of ‘a Kingdom of God which is not in Time at all but is in a different spiritual dimension, and which, just by virtue of this difference of dimension, is able to penetrate our mundane life and to transfigure it.’
From these widely different angles of approach substantially the same conclusion emerges. Religion, rightly understood, has nothing to fear from psychology. On the contrary, psychology, properly so called, is in a position to serve religion.
The manner in which this service may be rendered has already to some extent appeared. The constructive technique makes possible an experiential approach to the ‘different spiritual dimension’. By enabling men and women, active and knowledgeable in the outer world, to develop their latent psycho-perceptive faculties—the inward eye, the inward ear, the inward understanding—it provides the means of rediscovering at first hand the reality behind religion; and not merely as a form of belief but as the meaning and purpose and mainspring of life.
To appreciate what this may mean, it is necessary, as far as possible, to stand back mentally from the present world situation and see it in broad perspective. There are at present in existence some ten or twelve major religions, variously sub-divided into some hundreds of io cifferent cults and sects. These creeds normally date back anything  from fifteen hundred to three thousand years; have been hande down for the most part in quasi-legendary form; are expressed in terms of beliefs, practices, symbols appropriate to times immeasurably removed from the present; and, by the accretion of the ages, have become so glossed, interpreted, overlaid with extraneous matter that often the original meaning has virtually disappeared.
As a consequence, in all those countries where science and ‘modern technology have made their characteristic impact (and they are now coming to the whole world) the great majority of active and intelligent men and women have in fact renounced religion as a way f life. They may pay it lip service. Deep down, they may still be fundamentally religious. But the living God is no longer the be-all and end-all of everything they do and are.
Meanwhile, there has entered upon the scene the new dogmatic creed of totalitarianism: deliberately using psychological techniques to mobilize the archetypal forces; inspiring by this means a devotion such as few, if any, of the earlier faiths can now match; moulding science in its own image; specifically adapted to the technological way of life; promising immediate fulfilment; infiltrating into people after people; seeking to proselytize the whole world.
Numerically, totalitarianism may now claim to be the foremost faith in existence. Politically, it is the greatest force mankind has ever known. That from time to time it may suffer set-backs—such, for instance, as the defeat of Hitlerism—and at other times disguise its motives and go underground, is in the nature of things. But the fact itself remains.
Especially in time of trouble, men need the inspiration of a dynamic faith in which they feel they can put their trust. In one or other of its various forms, totalitarianism proffers what appears to be such a faith. It may or may not prove lasting. But it lasts long enough for power to be seized.
Such, in broad outline, is the religious situation in our present day and age. The reality behind religion is to a great extent obscured, for many people completely blotted out, by ancient forms which for them have become more or less meaningless. Simultaneously, psychological techniques are being expertly used as a means of grasping and extending absolute power.
Against these ills the experiment in depth provides no panacea. But three things it can do. It can, as Eliot suggests, revive truths now mostly forgotten and ignored, and put them in a language understandable by modern man. It can, at the same time, sharpen the “discernment of spirits’, make clear the distinction between true religion and its demonic counterpart now active in the world.
Most vital of all, from the point of view of long-period and world-wide effect, the experiment in depth makes possible an empirical, scientific approach to the reality behind religion.
Christianity and the individuation process Christianity, more than any other faith perhaps, shows how great religious truths, now largely lost or traduced, may be recovered by direct experience of the other side of consciousness. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus of Nazareth sets out in unmistakable terms the salient features of the individuation process; describing in detail both the dangers encountered and the means by which men and societies may become whole. The discoveries of analytical psychology do little else than repeat, in modern phraseology, and with detailed empirical backing, the principal injunctions of the Christian way.
A few only of the more obvious correspondences can be touched upon here; but they are sufficiently striking. One absolute requirement of the teaching of Jesus, repeatedly emphasized, is separation from the persona. Those, such as the Scribes and Pharisees, who did everything for the sake of the external appearance, made clean the outside but paid no attention to the inside, are utterly condemned.
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. … Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?’
Jesus likewise lays down, with no less emphasis, the need for separation from the participation mystique, particularly of the family and of the ancestors generally.“And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.’ Still more trenchantly:
‘If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.’ In a gospel of love, ‘hate’ is a strong word to use of the family. As in the condemnation of the Pharisaical persona, there is here no sentimental softness but stern and unequivocal warning against deadly peril. Where a man is caught in the participation mystique, there can be no wholeness. ~P.W. Martin, Experiment in Depth, Page 188-191
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