Label: psychology of religion

Conspirituality (again)

Conspirituality (again)

Just stood and fried pancakes. Thought of the mix of esoteric holistic spirituality, and conspiracy theories. What is now called "conspirituality" in research. How is it that? That the two ways of looking at the world seem to marry so well?

Conspiracy theories in general are not that exciting. Resentful, marginalized and fearful people in the mid-west, etc, grasping for a simple answer in all uncertainty & disappointment. It is more interesting to try to understand how educated, conscious, idealistic individuals, such as those who like Western esotericism, with their "on the way to the light-and we are in the lead" philosophy, can start such a thing? What's in the works?

So, as I stood there staring into the frying pan & turning my plates, I came up with one thing and another! Suggestions, partial explanations... Not all of them are correct, but one or a few, possibly in combination... Fill in the ones you want...

  • That both things, esotericism and conspiracyism, use the same brain center? As if trained up, became extra active, "over-movable", via the spiritual studies? So that it is only too easy to think outside the box
  • That you have a spiritual world view that is so bright, and personal ideals that are set so high, that the urge to see sinister conspiracies & dark pacts "out there" becomes... Yes, what do you call that? Projected? That the outside world becomes a projection surface for a darkness that is actually one's own, but which one does not want to be aware of
  • That the world has become too crass, material, atheistic, "demystified"? An attraction, a craving for conspiracies, becomes an attempt to remedy, via the imagination, a kind of mental and cultural deficiency

Then there are, of course, conspiracies that are real too. High-level unholy alliances, cartel formations, etc…

Psychospiritual honey trap?

Psychospiritual honey trap?

This post relates to a previous entry, which was, among other things, about a protracted copyright dispute in the circle around the Danish mystic Martinus Thomsen (1895-1981).

Actually, I don't care that much about the fuss over literature. It's sad. But let the dead bury their dead, as he said, the Nazarene. However, the discussion that followed my post helped me get to grips with what is and has been my fundamental problem with all of this.

“Everyone does not understand the Master, they cannot appreciate, they do not need him. This is because they are not mature enough. They have not been through as much suffering as we/me. People are at different stages in their humane, intellectual development. Some are before, some are after. It is as it is. Everything is very good.”

You hear that from time to time. (Guess that in the argument about literature, you can hear it from both sides?) But there is something clever about it. Alluring, but devious. Like a psycho-spiritual "honey trap".

("Honey trap" is a term from the spy world. Someone is seduced by an attractive man/woman and can be picked on secret information and/or put themselves in a blackmail situation. That is, something attracts, tastes sweet, but it fetches a high price.)

But, again, I therefore do not take a position on whether such things as spiritual development exist (as in my made-up quote above). One would perhaps want to dismiss the whole thing because it sounds so elitist, old-fashioned or even colonial? But I actually don't. Satisfying myself with psychology. It comes closest.

Are we equipped to handle and face life with this thinking - regardless of whether it is true or not - or will it do something to one, dull, simplify, betray one's mind? (But the downsides I'm trying to describe don't apply to everyone. Some seem to be able to parry it. Is probably not a matter of will, whether you can handle it or not. It is something else that then acts as an "antidote".)

But one might think it is a strange circumstance that so many other movements arose and individuals came forward who formulated their philosophies in a similar way to Martinus Thomsen, then a hundred years ago?

Then in some camps there were also darker, more active dreams, as in the extension of this "some are ahead, some are behind"... Shouldn't one actively try to get rid of those who slow down, who only cause trouble, etc. Philosopher Jules Evans wrote about the dark history of esoteric neo-spirituality in a long, readable text A couple of years ago.


New book on spirituality and psychology

New book on spirituality and psychology

“Can no one be in Safer? religious psychologist Pehr Granqvist maps the connections between our need for security, connection and spiritual thirst. By applying attachment theory to religion, Granqvist shows how religiosity and spirituality can be important ingredients for experiencing security."

Sounds exciting. Released March 2023.

No one can be safer?
Freud and the religious

Freud and the religious

"Freud himself […] insisted that people should not need religion, called it a cultural neurosis, and set himself up as an example of those who could do without it. Intentionally or unintentionally, he gave the world several generations of psychoanalysts who, coming to him from all walks of life, dropped whatever religion they had at the doors of their institutes.

If they refused to do so, they managed to dissociate their beliefs from their analytical training and practice, with the sad effect of having an important area of ​​their lives untouched by their training. If they dealt with religion during their own analyses, that was the beginning of the end of it.”

Rizzuto, 1981

Sigmund Freud and religion... "Everyone" knows that Freud didn't like people being religious. The quote above, by Ana-Maria Rizzuto (from “The Birth of the Living God”) I guess describes what it was like. She is a psychoanalyst herself, but does not belong to the 1st generation, those who needed to undergo analysis by the Master himself in order to be approved, but she has certainly studied the subject thoroughly so she knows what she is talking about.

My view of that, Freud's contribution to the subject of religion and spirituality, is that he was prepared to admit and was fascinated by everything possible strange up to some kind of "limit", but did not cross. He guarded that border very carefully. For example, Jung, in Freud's eyes, passed. (He's sitting there in the first row f 🙂 ) There is a famous quote where he accuses Jung of unleashing "a flood of occultism" etc. with the additions Jung wants to make to psychology. Assagioli did well, did not want to settle for the landscape beyond the border. (And the gifted gentlemen went on to found their own schools, systems.) But Freud's contribution to understanding religion and spirituality when such becomes problematic lives on. That is his valuable contribution to the field, as I see it.

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."

Martinus in practice (Nexus 4/1982)

Martinus in practice (Nexus 4/1982)

"Martinus friends usually don't trumpet themselves or Martinus. However, one usually cannot fail to notice those who are very much into Martinus' teaching when discussing a deeper aspect of life in some context. Then they can suddenly start talking as if they have the answers to all of life's mysteries. Not infrequently they speak as if they really knew how it was. Because if you've read your Martinus, you know."

This article has been in my memory, sometimes chafed, sometimes inspired, since I read it almost forty years ago. A while ago I found the magazine in a box. And today took the opportunity to scan it in.

I don't believe the opinions in the article only, or even extra much?, concerns the Danish mystic Martinus Thomsen (1890-1981) and his followers. You can probably read it more generally. As an angle on this with doubt and wonder, e.g.

(Tip: If you're reading on a mobile phone, it's easiest to enlarge the text in the article with "two fingers", instead of using the buttons.)

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