Today we’ll look at the interplay of religion and psychology.  To some, mixing those two is as  productive as mixing water and oil… an especially powerful image in light of the ecological disaster currently happening in the Gulf of Mexico.  So, please hold the vision of a speedy and complete recovery from this experience.

In the meantime, here’s a the preamble to the discussion of “Fillmorean Psychology” and “Jungian Religion” that appear in “Inner Vision and Synchronicity: Dream Work as Taught by Charles Fillmore and Carl Jung.”

PSYCHOLOGY AND RELIGION

To Charles Fillmore, there was no separation between psychology and religion.  Writing in 1939 he said, “Then the carping critic cries, ‘Your religion is psychology instead of Christianity.’ Our answer is that the new Christianity includes an understanding of psychology but does not stop with an analysis of the mind.  It goes on to the highest phase of mind’s possibilities, unity with Spirit” (Fillmore, 1939, p. 143-144).  Moreover, in speaking directly about the relationship between religion and psychology, he said:

Thought control is imperative, and there is urgent need of

teachers on both the mental and spiritual plane of

consciousness if the race is to go forward in development.

To this end there needs to be more co-operation between

these two schools, because they complement each other.

Religion becomes practical and effective in everyday life

when it incorporates psychology in its litany.  Without

religion psychology is weak in its fundamentals, and without

psychology religion fails to give proper attention to the outlet

of its ideals.  The fact is that religion, comprehended in its

fullness, includes psychology.  Jesus was a profound psychologist (Fillmore, 1953, p. 75-76).

Jung shared a similar point of view as is illustrated in his essays “Psychoanalysis and the Cure of Souls” written in 1928 and “Psychotherapists or the Clergy” written in 1932.  He said, “It is high time for the clergyman and the psychotherapist to join forces to meet this great spiritual task” of leading individuals to reclaiming their religious outlook (CW 11:510).  Echoing the Fillmore quote noted above is this exhortation from Jung:

The Protestant minister, rightly seeing the cure of souls

the real purpose of his existence, naturally looks round

for a new way that will lead to the souls, and not merely

the ears, of his parishioners.  Analytical psychology seems

to him to provide the key, for the meaning and purpose

of his ministry are not fulfilled with the Sunday sermon,

which, though it reaches the ears, seldom penetrates to

the soul, the most hidden of all things hidden in man.

The cure of souls can only be practiced in the stillness

of a colloquy, carried on in the healthful atmosphere

of unreserved confidence.  Soul must work on soul,

and many doors be unlocked that bar the way to the

innermost sanctuary.  Psychoanalysis possesses the means

of opening doors otherwise tightly closed (CW 11:544).

If, as Fillmore and Jung both say, psychology and religion are complements, it is necessary to know how the theologian Fillmore understood psychology and the psychiatrist Jung understood religion.  From that point it will be appropriate to investigate the place of dreams in the teaching of each.