Psychology & The Cross

"The opposite of sin is faith in which one responds, you might say, appropriately to the call that comes to one. So faith is a kind of response. Faith is a passion. It requires grace. It requires divine assistance." Episode description: If there would be a Christian type of depth psychology, a part of its foundation would most likely be founded on the insights about the human self articulated by D...

"The six million dollar question is, what is this God that Jung is talking about? What is Yahweh? In effect, he's putting Yahweh on the couch.  That's the entire genius of what Jung's doing, is putting God on the couch. As also if one were to look at it from a faith perspective, that's the entire problem is, you don't put God on the couch." Episode Description: The key questions examined in the Bi...

Church music 2029. A musical interlude by The Psychia†ry. 1. Move into our own - Nicole Mitchell  2. This and that and the other - African Head Charge  3. The carnival of the Animals R.125 The Swan - Camille Saint-Saens  4. Helgmalsrigning - The Psychiatry  5. Coconut - Mango  6. Sickness unto Death - The Psychiatry  7. Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten Arvo Pärt  8. Vorbei - Dora Gerson 9. Inat...

This is a sample of a video recording with Jungian Analyst Robert A. Johnson (May 26, 1921 – September 12, 2018) author of books such as Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche. The interview was conducted by J. Pittman McGehee in San Diego in 2002.  For the full three-hour video visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=M0raXj8AM6M

Edited recording of live Q&A and summary of season 2 of Secular Christ with Sean J McGrath. 

What's the point of a Christian community? Why is community important for a contemporary contemplative Christian? In the final episode of the second season of Secular Christ, Sean McGrath turns to the question of community. We discuss its importance in the contemplative tradition and its absence within psychoanalysis and Analytical Psychology. We discuss the necessity also for a communal symbolic...

Sean McGrath received an email from a young person who has been listening to Secular Christ asking: How can I keep growing spiritually through the Christ image, any words of wisdom that helped you along your path of living the contemplative life? This was Sean's reply.

In the third episode, McGrath takes on the self-help industry and how its ideological spokespersons such as Jordan B. Peterson misses the point of grace and self-transformation through self-surrendering. He discusses how to understand the Lord's Prayer ( previously discussed with Donald Carveth ) and how contemplative Christianity offers a different path of shadow integration and individuation thr...

In the second episode of Secular Christ, McGrath explores the symbolic structures that underlie our search for truth and meaning. He contrasts the "going east" with a return to the "western symbolic" in order to connect with our spiritual and religious mother tongue. He examines how 2000 years of Christianity is a part of the problem and is accelerating a perversion as well as the possible politic...

In the second season of Secular Christ , Dr. Sean J. McGrath continues his conversation with Jungian Analyst Jakob Lusensky about the contemplative life in a Secular Age. In this episode McGrath introduces the concept of "Christ nature" and contrasts it with Buddha Nature before he turns to Paul and the Colossians and the Gospel of John to ground it in scripture. Share your comments and subscribe...

An audio clip from C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain , in which he explains Rudolf Otto’s classic work, The Idea of the Holy and the numinous.  Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlhBcsgIylA&t=6s

In this extra material for episode 13 of Psychology & The Cross Donald Carveth and Sean McGrath discusses: * How it's possible to believe in God although he does not exist * Examines the Buddhist concept of provisional names * Offers a critique of religious hubris * Agrees that mystical or numinous psychedelic experiences are necessarily not what is needed in order for religion to become a sus...

“Somewhere Jung says that the only evil is unconsciousness  and this, I think touches to your work Don, that this growth in consciousness, which psychoanalysis aims towards, has to be understood as a moral drive towards  the good.” Episode description: What’s the role of conscience, ethics, and morals in psychological development and individuation? To investigate this question we invited again the...

For those of you who listened to the last episode of Psychology & The Cross and got interested in learning more about Julius Spier and Etty Hillesum, we’re now making a previously unreleased essay by Alexandra Nagel available on our new Substack account.  The essay is titled Julius Spier read the Bible for guidance (Etty Hillesum followed him) and outlines how reading the Bible and Christian w...

“Julius Spier is a hand reader, and hand reading in itself is looked down upon, dismissed, forgotten, ignored by regular science. Jungians have not paid attention to Julius Spier.”  Episode description: This episode is dedicated to the Jungian hand reader Julius Spier (1887-1942). Until now Spier is most known for being the analyst and lover of brilliant Jewish diarist Etty Hillesum , whose writin...

A bit more than a year into this podcast series, it felt like a good time to stop and reflect more deeply on Jung’s wrestle with Christianity, and how it is still relevant for us today. For this reflection, I invited back three Jungian scholars with whom I had spoken individually on previous episodes. Our discussion together was an opening both of insights and questions: * When we speak of dreamin...

Read excerpts from the letter correspondence between C.G Jung and Protestant theologian and Pastoral psychologist Adolf Keller (1872-1963). An important conversation when trying to understand the difficulties and possibilities in bridging Christianity and Jungian psychology. Recommended reading: C. G. Jung – Adolf Keller:  On Theology and Psychology , edited by Marianne Jehle-Wildberger and publis...

"I think that individuation should be in service to the community. It should lead to one's living within the larger. It's about me bringing my individuality, not my individualism, but the uniqueness of myself into the community. And in some ways, the community helps me to individuate." Episode description: In this episode, I speak to the pastor, theologian, and Jungian analyst in-training Kenneth...

A letter from Carl Gustav Jung to Sigmund Freud. Küsnacht 11th of February, 1910 "Dear Professor Freud, The ethical problem of sexual freedom really is enormous and worth the sweat of all noble souls. But 2000 years of Christianity have to be replaced bv something equivalent. An ethical fraternitv, with its mythical Nothing, not infused by any archaic-infantile driving force, is a pure vacuum and...

“Jesus was the first psychoanalyst. The most brilliant psychoanalyst of all time. The whole theory of projection is right there.  Why do you complain about a mote in your neighbor's eye when there's a beam in your eye, he says. So much of psychoanalytic insight is there in the New Testament, especially in the words of Jesus and in St. Paul. So I became increasingly struck by these parallels.” Epis...

I think so much of Jung's work is his wrestling with Christianity. I think if you want to understand Jung, you need to have some understanding and engagement with Christianity. You certainly need to read the bible. Episode description: In this episode, I speak to Jungian analyst Jason E. Smith, author of the book Religious But Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life . We discuss Jason’s background a...

In this last episode of the first season, Sean McGrath continues his conversation with Jungian Analyst Jakob Lusensky , in seeking the secular Christ. A conversation that leads back to the question of antichrist and how social media and consumerism feed a life of the imaginary at the cost of the real. McGrath discusses climate change, 'Friday's for future' and Greta Thunberg and the question of sa...

"What we're talking about in the Christ is something that actually doesn't naturally belong in this world. It is experienced as infection in a certain way, but it's the infection that brings life and hope and new forms of community." In this episode, Sean McGrath returns to some of the questions we initially asked in this podcast. In what way is Christ a secular figure? What is the Church in the s...

How to practice contemplative Christianity? In this episode of Secular Christ, McGrath makes it clear that there are no (Jordan B Peterson) rules for life needed, but what's necessary is to carve out a space in our everyday life for contemplation, meditation, and prayer. He discusses further the importance of coming to terms with our own psychological impotence and the move from the necessary soli...

In the fifth episode of Secular Christ , Philosophy and Theology professor, Sean J McGrath continues his seeking for Christ in the Secular Age. His starting point this time is the work of the American Franciscan priest and writer Richard Rohr , who through his many books and public lectures has led to a rediscovery of the cosmic christ and contemplative Christianity. McGrath aligns with Rohr in ar...