Spirituality & Psychology
“We must develop into, like, Jesus. When we're at the finish line, we're probably like him..."
Religion and mental health have been researched, thought about and thought about a great deal. Sigmund Freud was early on. He had a negative attitude towards people's religiosity, seeing this in general as an escape from responsibility and adulthood. Over time, the picture has become more complex. Modern research (mainly done in the USA) usually points out that people who are active in a congregation feel better than average.
On contemporary spirituality or "neo-spirituality", and mental health, there has also been time to research, think and think a lot. Above all the organized type: "cults". Here, the general opinion is more negative. Peer pressure, mind control, manipulative leadership, etc. Relatively easy to get into, hard to get out of.
Personally, I have been most interested in the unorganized new spirituality, so-called "holistic" new spirituality, "new age" and the like. It is spirituality that one engages in to a greater degree on one's own. Sometimes it is compared to "a smorgasbord" from which an individual mix is put together, but I think that is an exaggeration. There are certain core beliefs.
But for that reason, the world of imagination need not be so different from the one that exists within the more organized neo-spirituality. My degree project to become a complete psychologist was about this world of thought. (The entire essay + some extra material can be found here on the website.)
I have continued to be fascinated by and ponder the psychological aspects of such disorganized spirituality in particular. What can it "do with one", so to speak? Holistic neo-spirituality contains a lot that is worth pondering.
Incidentally, quite a lot goes back to how many people seem to think about themselves and life today, the "zeitgeist". For example, 20-25% of people in the West are sympathetic to the notion of reincarnation. The historian of religion Olav Hammer writes that "[in just forty years, reincarnation has gone from being an idea spread among the members of some theosophical and occultist circles to becoming one of the most widely embraced religious beliefs of our time" (1). Sociologist Eva Kärfve writes, referring to her colleagues' interest in things like postmodernism, that "while social science has turned its gaze towards airier and 'finer' levels of culture, a significant part of the Swedish people have changed religion" (2). The quote is now a few years old, but there is not much to suggest that the development has changed direction.
It can be argued that Freud's criticism of religion could apply to this modern spirituality to an even greater degree. But – importantly – this has nothing to do with whether the neo-spiritual make-believe world is true or not. Maybe it's even true? All the more interesting in that case.
- Hammer, O. (2004). In search of the whole. Wahlström & Widstrand.
- Kärfve, E. (1998). The new self-adoration. From Res Publica; New Age/Gnostic Renaissance, No. 2/98.