Psyche and the Sacred:
Spirituality beyond Religion
Lionel Corbett, M.D.
New Orleans, LA, Spring Journal Books, 2007, 299 pp.

Lionel Corbett, M.D., a teacher of depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara, California, states that psychology is, in fact, the basis of our spirituality and sets out to provide incontrovertible proof. He points to our spiritual future:

                “The next stage in our spiritual evolution is emerging…and requires
                  the development of a personal connection with the sacred,
                  unencumbered by doctrine, dogma, or preconceived ideas about the divine.
                  It also involves approaching problems such as the existence of evil and suffering
                  with all the new insights that developments in depth psychology can bring
                   to bear on this and other human predicaments.” (p.6)

In Part 1 “Meeting the Mystery: Developing a Personal Spirituality, Corbett calls for a return to a personal approach to spirituality involving embodied experience and powerful emotions rather than doctrinal formulas. He points out that when religious ideas are divorced from natural psychology there are serious ruptures. If someone believed in Christianity, for example,

             “such a person would not be found committing atrocities or war crimes, and the
                  Sermon on the Mount would not be ignored when it was politically convenient to do so.
                  The teachings of Jesus would fit naturally and instinctively into his or her behavior
                  they would not need to be reinforced by threats of eternal damnation and
                  they require no hierarchy.” (p.33)

In Part 11, Through Psyche’s Lens: A Depth Psychological Approach to Spiritual Questions, Corbett counsels we integrate our shadow material into conscious awareness instead of leaning on religions “that offer repentance, confession and the grace of God as antidotes to the shadow.” (p.173) 

In a riveting chapter, A Depth Psychology of Evil, Corbett describes Jung’s understanding of the message of Jesus: Instead of subordinating oneself to Christ, we should, instead, seek to be similarly free-spirited, questioning of authority, confrontational and willing to suffer the consequences. Corbett rails against the laundering of religious personalities:

                  “In Jung’s mythology, the divine penetrates the human psyche with darkness
                    as well as light and our task is to struggle with the tension produced by
                    aspects of the Self pulling in opposite directions. Rather than take on such
                    a painful and difficult task, many people choose one of the traditional
                    solutions to evil: let God take care of it in his own time. (p.173) 

Corbett traces the devastation of unnatural, forced religious doctrines and provided me with some insight about the resolute resistance of some angry children to melt, even a little, with warm affection and consistent care:

A persecuted child “will organize the chaos to give him something to hold onto.” (p.154) Hatred, bitter anger and vicious destructiveness, then, become the primary embedded structure of the self. He can rely on this reality to continue. Now the child knows he exists. With early identification needs discharged in this tragic way, a helpless, traumatized child wards off “formless dread, like falling into the darkness of a bottomless pit.” (p.153)  The child feels alive.

In his riveting examination of the dynamic of evil, Corbett further explains that “cruelty allows a perverse form of connection with others in a way that ensures that we are not in any danger of being hurt again.” (pg.153)  Cruelty does qualify as a relationship involving connection with others, however hurtful. For some, that is the best ‘reaching out’ they can do. 

Our spirituality is at base archetypal. These archetypes, expressed in our behavior, may be terror-based and while trauma can be mitigated by one single loving exchange, it must be revisited if healing is to happen. Powerful, positive healing archetypes must dub the old terror tapes. While these archetypes may no long dominate one’s behavior, they are never erased. Corbett suggests that it is good to keep our shadow aspects in mind and it is time to stop sanitizing and otherwise splitting God in two in our effort to hide these unsettling aspects of ourselves behind a depersonalizing mask.

Corbett contends that living under the protective umbrella of an inherited religion - one which may instill the very sense of unworthiness for which it dispenses the pricey balm -alienates self from Self.  Spiritual insight, he insists, happens spontaneously. Orchestrated performances of highly ritualized prayer may in fact be more numbing than awakening.

In the chapter entitled The Numinosum: Direct Experience of the Sacred, Corbett points out that Freud’s God was a “jealous God who would brook no other.” (pg.xi)
By contrast, he celebrates the astounding contribution Jung made to the world:
 “He relocated the ground of religious experience and spirituality to every day life.”                       (pg.xi)

In The Dark Side of the Self and the Trials of Job Corbett examines the parable of Job who demanded to understand his terrible sufferings. Job did not agree with his friends that he’d somehow earned terrible punishment. He said that to submit to this childish notion would be to lose his integrity. He refused.

Corbett points out that Job’s insistence that he understand why he is suffering is in keeping with the idea of psychologists like Jung and Frankl, who believed strongly that unbearable suffering can be made bearable if it is meaningful. “Thus, a depression could also be viewed as a spiritual crisis, a ‘dark night of the soul’…The divine does not only speak to those of us who are emotionally and physically robust.” (pg.30)

Job’s suffering led to his demand that God deal directly with him – perhaps auguring a readiness for more mutual, mature and responsible spiritual relationships.

The daily, hourly struggle with our shadow material is profound spirituality, claims Corbett.

In the final chapter, A Sense of the Sacred, Corbett sets out a banquet of illuminating reflections that makes this book one I shall refer to regularly, especially after a rough day. I shall be reminded that living well in a complex world probably means I’m on my solid spiritual path.

Eleanor Cowan