Bridging the Ideal and the Real

This talk was given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on 4/18/2001. Pittman describes his near death experience when he was a five year old child. He was critically burned over 1/2 of his body and for 3 days was near death. This amazing story was blocked out as an important event in his life when he entered therapy as a 30 year old priest. Seeing he needed therapy himself when he began counseling people...

This talk was given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on 4/7/91. Pittman describes how the holiness in each of us is projected when we meet a highly developed soul such as the Dalai Lama. Resurrection, a new birth is continuous throughout our lives as it is deeply desired in the psyche of everyone. It is infectious to us when we meet someone of this stature and consciousness as we are seeing and feeling...

In part 4 of the series given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. in April of 2004, Pittman describes the nature of the Jungian concept of the Self with a capital “S”. A synonym is God within, Buddha nature, Christ, etc. The Self occupies the center and circumference of our life which includes everything about us, conscious and unconscious including our shadow. Our Ego tends to take up residence in a safe...

In part 3 of the series given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. in April of 2004, Pittman is describing the nature of the Jungian concept of complexes, (where we have coalesced energy around a particular archetype), how they are formed and what we can do to in the second half of life to integrate our complexes so that they can serve us instead of us serving them. As Jung said, “We don’t have complexes,...

In part 2 of the series given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. in April of 2004, Pittman elaborates on the attachments and defenses we all express. He gives detailed examples of suppression, repression and denial along with idealization or illusion (which is also a form of denial) we use to hang on to the romantic delusion of the magic other. To have these defense mechanisms is a natural part of our eg...

This 4 part series was given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. in April of 2004. Pittman begins with a humorous and mind provoking song by Terry Allen that gave him the title for the series. He then goes on to elaborate on the developmental stages of the ego as it leaves the unconscious. By nature we lose soul when we are developing ego so the process involves becoming our own authority and this is a lo...

This talk was given at Bridget’s Place by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on March 5, 2005. Pittman describes our ego’s evolutionary development starting from childhood to  becoming an adult. Our ability to make choices in the beginning is shaped by our parents, surrogate parents, church, government, society, etc. He emphasizes the struggle everyone faces to become ourselves not what everyone expect...

This Sunday School class was given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on 6/18/1989. (scratchy in places but very worth hearing anyway). Pittman describes the biblical story of David and Bathsheba which is about our instinctual human nature and the unconditional love God has for us. This complex story because involves eros, sexuality and forgiveness and has both a subjective and objective truth simultaneo...

This talk has two parts by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on October 20 and 27th, 1996. In part two, Pittman recites two poems, one by William Butler Yeats and another one by William Blake. Then tells us what the poems mean to him. He describes the sacred task we each have to become conscious in order to evolve the creator. As Jesus said, “One discovers one’s life by giving it up.” Ultimately the entire...

This talk has two parts by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on October 20 and 27th, 1996. In part one Pittman explores six basic reasons we all fear change. He is speaking from the standpoint of developmental psychology and part two will be based on theology. Pittman explains the process of how our developing ego and its attachments to outer world people and rewards will be taken from us by the Self (the...

This Sunday School class was given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on 3/27/1987. The American extroverted and materialistic way of our culture would much rather avoid the reality of death. We value old things but we don’t value older human beings. Life and death are very real and at the same time there is something immortal in us that transcends time and space. He talks about another kind of death we...

This Sunday School class was given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on 3/14/1987. Speaking on the trinity in a way you have never heard, this talk is both intriguing and thought provoking. Speaking first on family systems, the self I am, the self you see in me and the way the spirit transcends both as the third. He then tells two stories that personalize what he is conveying — three persons who are one...

This Sunday School class was given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on 12/13/1987. Pittman continues from the previous talk that something has to die so that something new can be born.  He describes the role of John the Baptist who came before Jesus and he also tells some stories from his youth that explain the anticipation and apprehensiveness he felt as a boy about the responsibility to let Chri...

This Sunday School class was given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on 11/28/1987. Pittman tells the bible story preceding the birth of Christ that symbolizes something dying so that something new can be born. Life doesn’t allow us to stay in the same place although we know there will be excruciating pain to break the boundaries and birth the new story in us, the story that is begging to be born. Can y...

This Sunday School class was given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on 11–22-1987. If an angel came to you today, what would it look like? Angels as messengers come in many ways and as a storyteller, Pittman invites us to see the many forms an angel can arrive and he doesn't believe they look like white statues with wings, halos and gowns. Do we want to be entertained by the story of how the angel came...

This talk was given by Rev. J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on October 20, 2002 at The Women’s Institute. We’ve all heard the saying that what we don’t know can’t hurt us, but the truth is our unconscious behavior, attitudes and drives that motivate us can hurt us. Jung called these invisible archetypal effects in us complexes. They are our psychic energy. When we are willing to become responsible for ou...

Pittman McGehee, D.D. speaks at the Paths to Healing Conference at Christ Church Cathedral in Houston, Texas on 1/27/01. He describes the relationship between body and soul as bodies ensouled. Speaking of St. Augustine who embraced the Manichean philosophy, and how our culture which is very Augustinian, (puritanical), believes that instinctuality is bad. St. Augustine believed in original sin and...

In Part 2, McGehee continues answering questions from the audience.

In this talk given in San Antonio on May 15, 1998 at the C.G. Jung Center of San Antonio, Pittman McGehee, D.D. describes a new way of looking at darkness as containing a place for transformation as becoming conscious is not an easy thing to do. The Self is using our mistakes, failures and suffering as opportunities for our increased consciousness and urging us towards wholeness. This teleological...

This Sunday School class was given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on April 9, 1989. McGehee describes two of the post resurrection appearances to show what happened before that are pivotal to the way Jesus comes to us in our everyday quotidian life. Usually when we hear the story of the appearance to Saint Paul on the road to Damascus, we don’t get the details of what came before that are important t...

This Sunday School class was given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on 11–20-1988. McGehee states that we have to see things as they are before we can see them as they aren’t. We have to be wiling to see both sides. In order to do exactly that, Eve gave us that opportunity when she risked going against the conformity of what she was told to do by God. Lucifer asked her (meaning the light bearer) to see...

This Sunday School class was given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on October, 1989. Pittman talks about the fundamentalist in all of us as a result of placing authority outside ourselves. We always have to make choices and an adolescent ego always looks to an authority for their decisions. We all get dizzy from the myriad of choices we have to make and our ego doesn’t want to be wrong or make mistake...

This Sunday School class was given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on February, 14, 1988. Pittman talks once again about the Greek words for love, Eros, Philia and Agape, but this time he uses stories in the bible about David which are in the Old Testament in Sammuels. There are 3 stories about King David he uses to describe these 3 different ways that we love. As he says, “Read scripture, you’ll feel...

Pittman McGehee was asked to give a 15 minute talk on Play in Houston at the University of Houston Center for Humanities called Visions for Houston. So the beginning of this talk is about someone happening in the news at the time (Ginsberg) who was denied the ability to serve his country because of smoking marijuana and what a miserable theology it was to not forgive misdeeds and experimentation....

We live in a culture of narcissism centered on ego and ego gratification and most of us think love is a synonym for excitement instead of the Jungian view point of a Self for a Self, what Martin Buber calls an I-thou relationship. We are each barely conscious of who we choose to love as the unconscious seeks to reenact earlier relationships that have been left incomplete. In this talk, Pittman McG...