Label: God

Waking up from the dream world of thoughts

Waking up from the dream world of thoughts

"We talk about the evolutionary function of attachment, what characterizes secure and insecure attachment, about organized and disorganized attachment, about avoidant and ambivalent attachment, about being able to move from insecure to secure attachment as an adult, about spirituality as the experience of standing in contact with something greater than oneself, about spirituality as something that one can, but does not have to, give religious interpretations, about that a spiritual awakening means waking up from the dream world of thoughts..."

#099 Life - The presence pod

A conversation with Anna Kåver, psychologist and author, current with the book Med lifet i behøl. About the freedom and losses of aging. We talk about the meaning of life, about the difference between understanding and measuring existence or experiencing it, that presence is a natural state, that aging goes on throughout life, feeling satisfied with life, about how I feel and how I take that, acceptance as a starting point for action, about dancing with reality where reality brings and I follow, to take advantage of each day, whether the world is getting better or worse, the value of curiosity and humor, that aging can mean freedom, vanity as a positive driving force , about how to relate to death and - about the journey between heaven and hell.
  1. #099 Life
  2. #098 Maturity
  3. #097 The reality
  4. #096 Human
  5. #095 Mistakes
A healthy faith?

A healthy faith?

Subtle topic, which maybe you shouldn't even bother with. A mystery you should leave alone? It so easily ends up in an emotional position war between for or against, too.

Yet! I wanted to try to gather my thoughts around the concept-phenomenon of God. The topic has also come up in a couple of posts recently. Personal, impersonal? Neither or both? A personal, living entity that you can have a relationship with? Or "Universe", raised above good and bad? A metaphysical operating system, a rounding mark out in the Cosmos, a connecting station for one's "karma" most? (In it interview study I did a few years ago, with people who had an alternative, neo-spiritual outlook on life - like I myself had for so long - it was this area which left me most puzzled, even sad.) I myself am mostly an agnostic. But a warm one. As I stated before. I am interested in functioning God relationships. Regardless of this most are animations of existence that people make themselves. Or if it's real.

And in practice, psychologically, maybe it doesn't matter so much?

(Image: “Cosmic Tailor”, by Rodrick Howard)

Does God exist?

Does God exist?

I keep it open that god is in fact just an "animation" we humans make of existence. There are many different types of this animation. With "the mature", if we are now to use the valued designation?, it is of a different kind, than with the majority. Then with "the last electric kick", call it Enlightenment, Cosmic Consciousness, etc., as some have testified about, does this "animation" just become even more solid, integrated in the person?

God is at earlier stages a need for security, comfort, to have a confidant, "someone on one's side". At higher levels, a kind of tenderness for existence, to be able to give "someone" the credit, someone to relate to, a kind of pretend friend. (But in depth as the "returning" son, not as those who stayed at home, to borrow an image from the Bible.)

Much like how you animate and name a boat, car, summer house you love... Or a country, think of the national anthem (is like many such anthems, I guess), you see your country as a living, delimited whole... "You shut up, you glorious…” how it goes now, o other such Swedish songs that sound like you are singing to a loved one… The image of God at higher levels is like “a universal patriotism”, which includes everything?

But then, that the difference is not so great, if it were objectively the case that existence is animated by a single overarching being, or not... The mature's love for existence is of such a complete kind that he/she already relates to existence as if it were animated.

I can imagine that for the advanced (speculation! : ) ) then individual survival and the world's good and bad have somehow merged. A perspective where whether you yourself will live on does not mean much. You are so immersed in the world that you don't care. Emotionally. Then if you have a certain self-experience or strong intuitions that you as an individual will live on, that is still secondary.

And, well, I can't say boo or boo, definitively, about the true nature of God. I don't have any personal experience of the "enlightenment" type. I can only trace it all as far as my mind goes. And I then extrapolate how the more mature - but still "unenlightened", i.e. who do not claim to have anything qualitative other than the common man to start from - might experience existence.

But, I keep it open that it is actually the individual himself who "warms up" the world. That the experience of existence as divinely benevolent and loving is something that comes from the individual himself, is mostly a reflection of a loving, altruistic, humble mind, so to speak...

(The above are some clips from a discussion about the nature of God.)

Is there god in the new spirituality?

Is there god in the new spirituality?

“In many esotericists one can sense an obvious difficulty in integrating God into their philosophical system, since there is practically no place for God in the universe of occultism. This applies to a great extent to theosophy and its offshoot anthroposophy and Martinus' cosmology."

Arlebrand, 1992

This is a rehash of an old discussion. About "God" in old and new spirituality. Much has been said, twisted and turned, already before. But since I think the topic touches on the most important thing, so here we go again... I'm cutting a bit from the old post, what I wrote there:

"A few years ago, I conducted an interview study on new spirituality from a psychological perspective. Many answers & reasoning were expected, I was familiar with the area before. Nor were the answers I received when my informants told me about their view of 'god' completely surprising.
But overall, that part of the study made a particularly deep, indeed disturbing, oh sad, impression on me. It became almost too clear how the 'new-spiritual god' can hardly fulfill the psychological function that the standard, for example, Christian deity could."

“[It was] a very strange god that I had described to me... A god that is both personal and impersonal. Both and and neither or. Neither evil nor good, but somehow still good, but hardly 'parental good'... You create your own destiny, the divine is more like a kind of rounding mark out in the cosmos for your own karma, it doesn't add up. You have your own misery prepared for, you have to go through that to learn. God more like a principle of justice, a kind of program according to which the universe operates. The absence of warmth and personal care was palpable.

That being said, I am not claiming that there is actually a god with one or the other set of attributes, or personality. But psychologically emotionally - for many of the followers of new age/new spirituality/western esotericism, etc - you still have to say the new spiritual god is a bargain."

Experiences of "Ultimate Reality" or "God" Confer Lasting Benefits to Mental Health

Experiences of "Ultimate Reality" or "God" Confer Lasting Benefits to Mental Health

"'Experiences that people describe as encounters with God or a representative of God have been reported for thousands of years, and they likely form the basis of many of the world's religions,' says lead researcher Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. 'And although modern Western medicine doesn't typically consider 'spiritual' or 'religious' experiences as one of the tools in the arsenal against sickness, our findings suggest that these encounters often lead to improvements in mental health.'"

Interesting text from the John Hopkins institution reporting on research recently done there.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/experiences-of-ultimate-reality-or-god-confer-lasting-benefits-to-mental-health

“Now I'm less sure. But also less afraid.”

“Now I'm less sure. But also less afraid.”

Our need for forgiveness

David Eklind Kloo writes reflectively and personally about his Christian faith (Dagens Arena, 25 December 2019). Many references to researchers and thinkers in the field of religious psychology. You can learn something about such things in this essay, or refresh yourself if you have heard about it before. But above all, his story is a reminder that Christian faith can also look so different, feel and be experienced so differently, by different individuals.

“There are religious movements that are based on manipulation, abuse of power and control. But there are also many of us who ourselves have erected the fences around our lives. Not because someone forced us, but because we thought it was the right thing to do.”

The text becomes a reminder that the spiritual realm is a continuum, an area with many overlaps and connections. The faith Eklind Kloo tells about undoubtedly has a lot in common with parts of the new spirituality, e.g. Christian faith is not one and the same, not even within the same congregation. And new spirituality is not always "new" in all parts.

In terms of religious studies, this is easier to divide. What beliefs and practices are characteristic of one or the other spiritual direction. What it is taken from, etc. “Family Tree.” Psychologically, it is much more difficult. For that, models or instruments that go crosswise are needed. Which can distinguish similarities and differences, regardless of what is written on the label. Regardless of what is expressed in words as well, or which books you read, etc. The connection research by the researcher Pehr Granqvist et al is such an attempt. James W Fowler, the psychologist and theologian, and models of similar stage theorists, are others.

Eklind Kloo writes nicely about "transition phenomena" based on the psychoanalyst and child psychiatrist DW Winnicott:

"The teddy bear fulfills a function only when the child fills it with mental content, actively ascribes the mother's characteristics to it. God fulfills a function in our soul life only when we create inner images of him. This is not necessarily something that diminishes God. That we function in such a way that God has to take this way into us says nothing about whether God is real or not. God is not just a teddy bear. There is nothing _just_ about a child's transitional object.”

He ends the essay thus:

“My faith was based on certain assumptions. Still, I was so unsure. I didn't doubt God, but I doubted myself.

I was sure that God deals with those who surrender to him, but not that I was surrendered enough. I knew that whoever believes is saved, but I didn't know if my faith was enough.

Now I'm less sure. But also less afraid.”

Praise God

Praise God

Interview on Irish TV a few years ago, with the British comedian Stephen Fry, which leads to him being reported for blasphemy. A goal that may not have been decided yet?

Anyway, Fry jumps at the chance when asked, "What would you say to God if you met him?" (2,5 min)

There are probably many people who have thought about or known Stephen Fry. Many lose their faith, if they had any. Some feel that they find the solution - to this "theodicy problem": How can an all-wise, all-powerful & all-loving deity allow the world to look the way it does? - in new spirituality/new age

Psychological research

Psychological research

Granqvist and Hagekull (2001) were able to show that there was a large consensus around the statements they presented. That is, a shared worldview. Did the followers share something more than certain interests and a collection of ideas about how existence worked?

In the same study (Granqvist & Hagekull, 2001), the above questionnaire was combined with a survey based on attachment theory. The researchers wanted to see if people who were positive about new age also excelled in terms of so-called attachment patterns. The hypothesis was that the test subjects would show a higher degree of so-called "insecure attachment", which indicates that the individual experienced the early, close relationships in life as insecure. The result of this part of the study also gave it a positive result. People who scored high on the NAOS scale distinguished themselves for such an "insecure" attachment pattern. In comparisons (Granqvist, Ivarsson, Broberg & Hagekull, 2007) with people who had a traditional religious faith, these rather showed a "secure" attachment. At the group level, there seems to be something that unites those interested in new spirituality even on a deeper level. In the latter survey, those with high scores on the NAOS were judged to have experienced more rejection and role reversals during their upbringing than those with low scores.

The group of neo-spirituals has also been examined with various cognitive tests and personality tests. For example, researchers have investigated such things as a tendency towards magical thinking, thin-walledness and cognitive looseness (Farias, Claridge & Lalljee, 2005). Here too, people with a new spiritual interest have shown a common and deviant profile in comparison to the control groups (often traditionally religious and non-religious). All of these variables deal in one way or another with heightened sensitivity or associative/perceptual mobility. In a study by Farias and Lalljee (2006, cited in Farias & Granqvist, 2007), test participants were asked to comment on some stories with everyday events based on the question: "How would you interpret this situation?" The stories could, for example, describe a meeting with a person who felt very familiar. Instead of suggesting that it was someone the test subject might run into at the store one day, or even that "God wanted us to meet," people with a neo-spiritual orientation often explained situations like this using paranormal or supernatural arguments: " Our souls have probably met before”, or “We have the same energies that make us feel drawn to each other”. In an experiment by Farias et al. (2005) had the subjects sit in front of a computer screen in a dimly lit room. On the screen, 100 dots were projected which changed at high speed in a random manner for ten minutes. The instructions were that motifs would be interspersed with random images and that the test subjects would say when something recognizable appeared. The newly spiritually oriented saw significantly more motifs (eg animal motifs, dancing people and angels) than the other groups. People with a traditional religious orientation saw no more than average.

People with a neo-spiritual interest are thus not only united by certain thoughts or relationship patterns, but they also seem to share a cognitive disposition that makes them seek meaningful connections between seemingly distant and unrelated things and events. Farias and Granqvist (2007) believe that this psychological tendency also lies behind the fact that these individuals change groups and activities often without forming close ties, in contrast to people with a traditional religious faith who more often find themselves at home in a congregation. In another study (Farias & Lalljee, 2005), it was concluded that individuals with a neo-spiritual orientation are characterized by something the researchers chose to call "holistic individualism". This represents a combination of two tendencies that do not normally occur in the same person, more precisely an individualistic orientation, which is about self-actualization and striving towards one's own goals, rather than as part of a group, while at the same time the person expresses universalistic ideals of solidarity, equality, not wanting to compete, but even wanting to join a larger unit. In addition, the newly spiritual test subjects had a peculiar way of describing themselves. On the question "Who am I?" they gave extremely abstract answers. Individuals with a collectivist orientation usually, when asked to describe themselves, do so with judgments that are concretely connected to their social reality (for example, "I am a daughter" or "I am a baker"), while those with a more individualistic orientation use comparatively more abstract judgments about themselves (for example “I am cheerful”). Those newly interested in spirituality described themselves with expressions such as "I am a bridge", "I am united" or "I am an illusion".

The new spirituality also differs from traditional religion in that it often lacks a personal God with whom the individual can have a relationship, and seek comfort and understanding from when needed (Granqvist, 2014). People with a secure attachment take over their parents' religion to a greater degree and they then transfer their good experiences to the image of God. Even if these individuals choose a different religion than their parents, they tend to find a loving God there. People who adopt a neo-spiritual worldview, with an impersonal or absent deity, are also assumed to be influenced by their earliest experiences. Granqvist (2014) emphasizes how God is used as a symbolic attachment object by the secure attachment in a way that lies deeper than just being a conscious representation. In subliminal experiments, it has been possible to demonstrate that these individuals have access to a "safe haven" within themselves from which they automatically seek support in a stressful situation.

Study Overview