Lionel Corbett

This book presents an approach to spirituality based on direct personal experience of the sacred. Using the language and insights of depth psychology, Corbett outlines the intimate relationship between spiritual experience and the psychology of the individual, unveiling the seamless continuity between the personal and transpersonal dimensions of the psyche. His discussion runs the gamut of spiritual concerns, from the problem of evil to the riddle of pain and suffering. Drawing upon his psychotherapeutic practice as well as on the experiences of characters from our religious heritage, Corbett explores the various portals through which the sacred presents itself to us: dreams, visions, nature, the body, relationships, psychopathology, and creative work. Referring extensively to Jung’s writings on religion, but also to contemporary psychoanalytic theory, Corbett gives form to the new spirituality that is emerging alongside the world’s great religious traditions. For those seeking alternative forms of spirituality beyond the Judeo-Christian tradition, this volume will be a useful guide on the journey.

Spirituality Beyond Religion

Psyche and the Sacred

Laura Mei

We all have moments in life when we know we are touched by a force that is larger than ourselves, something very real that transcends our experience of the ordinary world. Rudolf Otto used the word “numinous” to describe this unique quality of the encounter with the sacred. He described this experience using the Latin phrase 𝘮𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘶𝘮 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘮 𝘦𝘵 𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘴, a mystery that is at once tremendous and fascinating, and thus produces the sense that we have been addressed by what he called the “wholly Other.” We feel stunned, astonished, and filled with wonder because we have been addressed by something uncanny, not of our ordinary world, something very difficult to put into words. Or we may feel entranced, captivated, and transported. The feelings of awe, dread, and amazement that accompany a numinous experience are important not simply because they help us to identify the experience as sacred. These emotions tell us that the experience has been embodied.

We feel as if we are separate beings, but this is true only at the level of everyday, conventional experience. At a deeper level we are all contained within a transpersonal field of Consciousness that Jung refers to as the Self, the element of the divine within the personality. Here, we are deeply connected. We experience ourselves as separate from one another at the physical level because we have our own bodies, personal life stories, and memories, but the same Self is expressed through all of us. We sense this numinous field at moments of profound connection with others, and the experience is powerfully enlivening and life-affirming. Unfortunately, as we are growing up, we are not taught to recognize the divine in others. Whether we are taught to compete with others or to treat them kindly, there is always the implication that they are separate from us.

Although we have individual preoccupations, our most fundamental concerns are universal. All human beings are concerned with the experience of suffering, loneliness, confusion, pain, fear, and joy. At this level of experience we are not separate from one another at all.

Human beings are archetypally predisposed to engaging in ritual behavior. Simply stated, a ritual is any symbolic action that we invest with sacred meaning and has emotional significance to us. Ritual emphasizes the physical world as a medium of connection to the divine. We feel the need for ritual especially when we are in the throes of a life crisis or a major life transition. At such times, ritual gives us the means by which to express feelings and ideas that cannot easily be put into words. Ritual symbolically links the unconscious with consciousness, using the body as a means of connection. The body itself becomes a symbol. Including the body in this way counteracts any tendency to separate mind from body, and opens us to the possibility of discovering meaning within the situation. Thus, ritual has a healing effect.

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