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Religion and Psychology
Religion and Psychology is a thorough and incisive survey of the current relationship between religion and psychology from the leading scholars in the field. This is an essential resource for students and researchers in the area of psychology of religion. Issues addressed
* The Psychology-Theology Dialogue
* The Psychology-Comparativist Dialogue
* Psychology, Religion and Gender Studies
* Psychology "as" Religion
* Social Scientific Approaches to the Psychology of Religion
* The Empirical Approach
* International Perspectives
* The Psychology-Theology Dialogue
* The Psychology-Comparativist Dialogue
* Psychology, Religion and Gender Studies
* Psychology "as" Religion
* Social Scientific Approaches to the Psychology of Religion
* The Empirical Approach
* International Perspectives
356 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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March 31, 2025
I’m pleased that these scholars chose to collaborate on a volume about this subject (technically two or more subjects, with the intent of this book to compare, contrast and synthesize the two). And I am further pleased that several contributors tackled head many of the the gut-level concerns that I, and probably many have about the paradox of comparing these concepts.
The book consists of a series of essays from experts who come at the question from different perspectives – modernity, gender, mental illness among them. I’ll touch on a few themes that spiked my interest.
Potential for bias in the study of psychology and religion
It may be argued that both are limited by their biases. A person of religious studies is potentially looking for confirmation of their faith, and in fact, could subconsciously affect outcomes of studies by that predisposition. Psychologists studying religion may minimize the incredible impact that faith, belief and its associated lessons and credos have had on humanity for millennia. Plus, by using an overly mechanized psychological approach to study religion risks missing the “piggyback” effects that recurrently follow religiosity – for example, the strength of belief that increases the likelihood of a successful medical procedure.
In the process of conducting studies involving religion and psychology, there are limitations in terms of the best approach. A purely data/statistical model can be limiting. One author states “Since most researchers are affiliated with educational institutions, college students are easiest to procure,” thus, this kind of demographic limitation for a study group is likely to skew the results of any study professing to represent a larger audience.
Study models where the subjects are interviewed evidently provide a wealth of information, yet have their own limitations:
“Psychology has long noted the shaping of verbal reactions by subtle reinforcements. In addition, cross-validation infrequently occurs. We are rarely informed about how the data are recorded. In most instances, it appears that the interviewer simply writes down what seems pertinent, opening the door to fortuitous selection. The total process has the potential of leaving unquestioned the weaknesses of subjectivity.”
“Religion is first and foremost a cultural phenomenon.” (Belzen, p. 47) and “cultural psychology does not search inside the human being to investigate belief, feeling, reasoning and behavior, but rather tries to understand how the specific "form of life" the person is embedded in constitutes and constructs feelings, thoughts and conduct.”
The realization of the self, the collective unconscious, and archetypes
I appreciated the incisive breviary of Carl Jung’s work by author David Wulff:
“Jung hypothesized that underlying the personal unconscious familiar to the psychoanalysts is a deeper-lying region, the collective unconscious, whose structural elements, the archetypes, are said to represent the forms and patterns of experience of countless human generations and their pre-human ancestors. These archetypes dispose us, Jung says, to have these experiences anew, and to represent and preserve them in the form of various mythical images and ideas. There is in the collective unconscious, moreover, a fundamental tendency toward the progressive differentiation of its contents and the integration of them into consciousness; Jung called this lifelong process of striving toward psychic balance and wholeness "individuation." Throughout history, Jung (1969) says, it has been the religious traditions that have chiefly facilitated the realization of the self, the archetype of wholeness, which is commonly symbolized by images associated with divinity.” (Wulff, p. 24).
Referring to Hayak, “Human beings are inherently limited, self-centered, and non-rational. Their moral lives, especially, are not the products of conscious deliberation. Human beings, therefore, will not comport or bend themselves to "reasoning" as outlined in any fully articulated treatise.”
Limitations in comparative measures
As one of the authors points out, though clever, the use of “mapping” religion and psychology as the title of the book claims, is flawed because the exacting nature of mapping something requires clear and measurable parameters, which neither has.
“In favor of the Freudian critique of religion is its modernist stringency: by comparing folk religion against normative, rational behavior Freud and others detected numerous instances of magical thought. The uncanny parallels Freud adduced between neurosis and some forms of religion are indisputable. Against the traditional Freudian critique and similar modernist critiques are (1) the ubiquity of religion in all cultures, at all times (which argues against it being analogous to a disease); (2) the equally numerous instances of religion correlated with human health; and (3) the subtle ties that link certain kinds of faith to important human virtues, such as joy and optimism. One of these ties may be that by remaining embedded in narrative, myth, metaphor and the like, religious discourses maintain richness and therefore the flow of information is less impeded.”
Early studies
Earliest efforts to synthesize the two fields were born out of a struggle “to sort out the relative truth, cultural meaningfulness, and social usefulness of classic Jewish and Christian interpretations of human existence in relation to claims advanced by the newer social disciplines – especially twentieth-century psychology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and various psychotherapies” that were “of particular interest since they were concerned with healing the psyche and therefore overlapped with endeavors once performed almost exclusively by religion.” Some of the early questions were borne from concepts such as “What is the nature of human fulfillment? What is human brokenness: is it primarily sin, neurosis, psychosis, or anxiety?”
Abandonment of religion in early psychology
“Carl Gustav Jung devoted a great deal of his voluminous oeuvre to religion. His theories have generated an ongoing discourse about myth, religion, healing, and spirituality. Although his work is often contrasted with Freud's, the two figures share many assumptions about religion and psychology. Jung, with his "analytical psychology" and Freud with his "psychoanalysis" both developed "projection theories" in their quests for the origins of religion; both assumed that the contents of the unconscious are the primary force shaping religious ideas, images, and symbols; and both focused on religion as a primary site for the intersections of culture and psyche.
In spite of their similarities, however, there are major differences. Most significantly, Jung neither constructed an Enlightenment-based critique of religion nor proposed the abandonment of religion.”
Jung considered “the mid-twentieth century papal proclamation of the doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the “most important religious event since the Reformation,” interpreting it as a shift toward the incorporation of the feminine archetype into the Godhead.” (p 134)
Religion and Mental Illness
I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Religion and Mental Illness. Hippocrates argued that altered states of ecstatics was “Divine Madness.” Freud argued that “every belief without scientific or empirical foundation was a distortion of reality, and therefore a form of neurosis, if not psychosis.”
But obsessional religiosity was discussed for many years before Freud, in a manner suggesting a differentiation between “normal” versus those suffering from a morbid preoccupation with sin and purity:
“At a time that we cannot pinpoint with any certainty, Catholic confessors had noted that some persons suffered from a morbid preoccupation with sin and purity, or failed to be relieved of guilt by proper confession. These persons were considered to be suffering from "scrupulosity" (scrupulositas). They retained the capacity to understand that their morbid doubts were not in harmony with church teachings, but they could not control these preoccupations, manifesting an extravagant piety to a degree not required by any church standard. The earliest mention of this condition that I have found is in the work of Jean C. de Gerson (1363-1429), who recognizes the well-known connection with melancholic illness. Gerson warns spiritual advisors and pastors not to confuse scrupulosity with either piety or possession.”
The author goes on to illustrate that Ignatius likely suffered from OCD and obsessive compulsive personality disorder, which he was able to use to help others redirect obsessive thoughts into rituals that displaced those compulsive tendencies.
Ramana Maharashi, one of the greatest Indian mystics, led a life that, if were to be analyzed today, appears to have a significant psychopathology, potentially schizophrenic, as would the western Mormon prophet Joseph Smith. Contemporaries seem to see unusual people like them, or Russia’s Rasputin, as evolved souls and thereby seek deeper meaning from their utterings. I’d certainly be interested in reading more psychological autopsies of historical religious figures.
That said, Jeffrey Kripal wisely observes, “In terms of our discussion here, it is important to note that the mythical and the mystical cannot easily be read as "only" psychological manifestations of early family life without seriously distorting the material. With regard to mystical forms of religious experience, their physiological intensity and transformative effects on the personality often overflow and explode any such simple reduction.”
I love that Kripal continues this self-examination by further writing, “Why do we do what we do? What are we looking for? Confessionally speaking, I have often marveled at the strangeness, even weirdness, of my own life - a Nebraska boy spending much of his life studying Hindu goddesses and saints is a bit unusual, to say the least. Do we sometimes turn to the Other for compensatory or balancing reasons, to complete or make whole a humanity that is only half developed in our own culture (Kakar 1981)?”
Psychology as Religion
The editor astutely ended the book on a fascinating note, which is the study of concepts such as “mesmerism.” “Named after the Viennese physician Franz Anton Mesmer (1733-1815), Mesmerism was rooted in a quasi-scientific notion of energy, specifically an invisible, all-pervasive, cosmic lifeforce that Mesmer termed "animal magnetism." As a physician, Mesmer believed that all illness, both physical and mental, was the result of a depletion in this cosmic energy.”
“Many patients frequently reported that they felt a mysterious energy coursing through their body, or felt rushes of heat, or saw a luminous "fluid" streaming from Mesmer's body into their own.” (Yikes.)
“By the 1780s, Mesmer was all the rage in Paris (Lafayette was an ardent disciple and even attempted to initiate Washington into Mesmerism). But arguably, his reputation would not have been so glowing had his theatrical healing sessions not resulted in numerous healings, both physical and mental. (Hysteria was an especially prominent complaint.) Eventually, the scientific community in Paris could no longer ignore Mesmer's work and a commission of famous scientists studied over a hundred patients of one of Mesmer's most distinguished disciples. What they discovered was that in diseases ranging from "spleen infections, rheumatism, asthma, headaches, skin diseases, as well as various nervous disorders," most of the patients had substantially improved (Fuller 1982: 7). In fact, "all but six had already evidenced marked progress; over one-half claimed complete cure" (Fuller 1982: 7). Apparently, Mesmer's technique was astonishingly effective.
However, the commission, using the best instruments available at the time, could find no evidence of any transmission of electrical or magnetic force, so the cures - fully documented as they were - were simply said to be the result of the patients' overactive imaginations. This conclusion (which, surprisingly, did not instigate research into the astonishing healing powers of the human mind), was the beginning of the end of Mesmer's spectacular popularity.”
“Mesmer's cause was taken up, in a revised fashion, by his disciples. One of the most important was the Marquis de Puységur. According to Puységur, the impetus behind a patient's cure was psychological, not physiological. In Puységur's therapeutic sessions, he sought to establish a rapport between himself and the patient. This rapport enabled him, through a subtle effort of will and directed thought, to affect the patient's vital energy, which, in turn, catalyzed a profound altered state of consciousness: the mesmeric state of awareness. Puységur discovered that in the mesmeric state of awareness, several of his patients gained amazing abilities. Not only could some accurately diagnosis their diseases (or the diseases of others) and even at times offer remedies for these illnesses, but a few of his patients, while mesmerized, even demonstrated telepathic and clairvoyant abilities. Not surprisingly, Puységur claimed that he had discovered, below the level of ordinary, day-to-day awareness, a superior level of human consciousness.”
Clearly, we’re talking here about some form of hypnosis. I’d never considered that “mesmerized” was taken from the name of a Viennese physician, but find the connection fascinating.
The author of this particular essay, G. William Barnard, is an engaging writer who pulls in many stories and examples to illustrate the interwoven path of psychology in the past century, incorporating the mystical with the observed phenomena.
Overall, this was a worthy examination of the subject of religion and psychology, even though written and published a quarter of a century ago (I had to pause when one author referred to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ On Death and Dying, published in 1969 being out thirty years!) Perhaps we’re ready for another volume on the topic, in view of the insanity of the 21st century.
Some further reading I identified for myself from this book:
The Varieties of Religious Experience – William James
The Secret of the Golden Flower
Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis
Sudhir Kakar – The Inner World
Exploring Unseen Worlds - G. William Barnard
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross - On Death and Dying
The book consists of a series of essays from experts who come at the question from different perspectives – modernity, gender, mental illness among them. I’ll touch on a few themes that spiked my interest.
Potential for bias in the study of psychology and religion
It may be argued that both are limited by their biases. A person of religious studies is potentially looking for confirmation of their faith, and in fact, could subconsciously affect outcomes of studies by that predisposition. Psychologists studying religion may minimize the incredible impact that faith, belief and its associated lessons and credos have had on humanity for millennia. Plus, by using an overly mechanized psychological approach to study religion risks missing the “piggyback” effects that recurrently follow religiosity – for example, the strength of belief that increases the likelihood of a successful medical procedure.
In the process of conducting studies involving religion and psychology, there are limitations in terms of the best approach. A purely data/statistical model can be limiting. One author states “Since most researchers are affiliated with educational institutions, college students are easiest to procure,” thus, this kind of demographic limitation for a study group is likely to skew the results of any study professing to represent a larger audience.
Study models where the subjects are interviewed evidently provide a wealth of information, yet have their own limitations:
“Psychology has long noted the shaping of verbal reactions by subtle reinforcements. In addition, cross-validation infrequently occurs. We are rarely informed about how the data are recorded. In most instances, it appears that the interviewer simply writes down what seems pertinent, opening the door to fortuitous selection. The total process has the potential of leaving unquestioned the weaknesses of subjectivity.”
“Religion is first and foremost a cultural phenomenon.” (Belzen, p. 47) and “cultural psychology does not search inside the human being to investigate belief, feeling, reasoning and behavior, but rather tries to understand how the specific "form of life" the person is embedded in constitutes and constructs feelings, thoughts and conduct.”
The realization of the self, the collective unconscious, and archetypes
I appreciated the incisive breviary of Carl Jung’s work by author David Wulff:
“Jung hypothesized that underlying the personal unconscious familiar to the psychoanalysts is a deeper-lying region, the collective unconscious, whose structural elements, the archetypes, are said to represent the forms and patterns of experience of countless human generations and their pre-human ancestors. These archetypes dispose us, Jung says, to have these experiences anew, and to represent and preserve them in the form of various mythical images and ideas. There is in the collective unconscious, moreover, a fundamental tendency toward the progressive differentiation of its contents and the integration of them into consciousness; Jung called this lifelong process of striving toward psychic balance and wholeness "individuation." Throughout history, Jung (1969) says, it has been the religious traditions that have chiefly facilitated the realization of the self, the archetype of wholeness, which is commonly symbolized by images associated with divinity.” (Wulff, p. 24).
Referring to Hayak, “Human beings are inherently limited, self-centered, and non-rational. Their moral lives, especially, are not the products of conscious deliberation. Human beings, therefore, will not comport or bend themselves to "reasoning" as outlined in any fully articulated treatise.”
Limitations in comparative measures
As one of the authors points out, though clever, the use of “mapping” religion and psychology as the title of the book claims, is flawed because the exacting nature of mapping something requires clear and measurable parameters, which neither has.
“In favor of the Freudian critique of religion is its modernist stringency: by comparing folk religion against normative, rational behavior Freud and others detected numerous instances of magical thought. The uncanny parallels Freud adduced between neurosis and some forms of religion are indisputable. Against the traditional Freudian critique and similar modernist critiques are (1) the ubiquity of religion in all cultures, at all times (which argues against it being analogous to a disease); (2) the equally numerous instances of religion correlated with human health; and (3) the subtle ties that link certain kinds of faith to important human virtues, such as joy and optimism. One of these ties may be that by remaining embedded in narrative, myth, metaphor and the like, religious discourses maintain richness and therefore the flow of information is less impeded.”
Early studies
Earliest efforts to synthesize the two fields were born out of a struggle “to sort out the relative truth, cultural meaningfulness, and social usefulness of classic Jewish and Christian interpretations of human existence in relation to claims advanced by the newer social disciplines – especially twentieth-century psychology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and various psychotherapies” that were “of particular interest since they were concerned with healing the psyche and therefore overlapped with endeavors once performed almost exclusively by religion.” Some of the early questions were borne from concepts such as “What is the nature of human fulfillment? What is human brokenness: is it primarily sin, neurosis, psychosis, or anxiety?”
Abandonment of religion in early psychology
“Carl Gustav Jung devoted a great deal of his voluminous oeuvre to religion. His theories have generated an ongoing discourse about myth, religion, healing, and spirituality. Although his work is often contrasted with Freud's, the two figures share many assumptions about religion and psychology. Jung, with his "analytical psychology" and Freud with his "psychoanalysis" both developed "projection theories" in their quests for the origins of religion; both assumed that the contents of the unconscious are the primary force shaping religious ideas, images, and symbols; and both focused on religion as a primary site for the intersections of culture and psyche.
In spite of their similarities, however, there are major differences. Most significantly, Jung neither constructed an Enlightenment-based critique of religion nor proposed the abandonment of religion.”
Jung considered “the mid-twentieth century papal proclamation of the doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the “most important religious event since the Reformation,” interpreting it as a shift toward the incorporation of the feminine archetype into the Godhead.” (p 134)
Religion and Mental Illness
I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Religion and Mental Illness. Hippocrates argued that altered states of ecstatics was “Divine Madness.” Freud argued that “every belief without scientific or empirical foundation was a distortion of reality, and therefore a form of neurosis, if not psychosis.”
But obsessional religiosity was discussed for many years before Freud, in a manner suggesting a differentiation between “normal” versus those suffering from a morbid preoccupation with sin and purity:
“At a time that we cannot pinpoint with any certainty, Catholic confessors had noted that some persons suffered from a morbid preoccupation with sin and purity, or failed to be relieved of guilt by proper confession. These persons were considered to be suffering from "scrupulosity" (scrupulositas). They retained the capacity to understand that their morbid doubts were not in harmony with church teachings, but they could not control these preoccupations, manifesting an extravagant piety to a degree not required by any church standard. The earliest mention of this condition that I have found is in the work of Jean C. de Gerson (1363-1429), who recognizes the well-known connection with melancholic illness. Gerson warns spiritual advisors and pastors not to confuse scrupulosity with either piety or possession.”
The author goes on to illustrate that Ignatius likely suffered from OCD and obsessive compulsive personality disorder, which he was able to use to help others redirect obsessive thoughts into rituals that displaced those compulsive tendencies.
Ramana Maharashi, one of the greatest Indian mystics, led a life that, if were to be analyzed today, appears to have a significant psychopathology, potentially schizophrenic, as would the western Mormon prophet Joseph Smith. Contemporaries seem to see unusual people like them, or Russia’s Rasputin, as evolved souls and thereby seek deeper meaning from their utterings. I’d certainly be interested in reading more psychological autopsies of historical religious figures.
That said, Jeffrey Kripal wisely observes, “In terms of our discussion here, it is important to note that the mythical and the mystical cannot easily be read as "only" psychological manifestations of early family life without seriously distorting the material. With regard to mystical forms of religious experience, their physiological intensity and transformative effects on the personality often overflow and explode any such simple reduction.”
I love that Kripal continues this self-examination by further writing, “Why do we do what we do? What are we looking for? Confessionally speaking, I have often marveled at the strangeness, even weirdness, of my own life - a Nebraska boy spending much of his life studying Hindu goddesses and saints is a bit unusual, to say the least. Do we sometimes turn to the Other for compensatory or balancing reasons, to complete or make whole a humanity that is only half developed in our own culture (Kakar 1981)?”
Psychology as Religion
The editor astutely ended the book on a fascinating note, which is the study of concepts such as “mesmerism.” “Named after the Viennese physician Franz Anton Mesmer (1733-1815), Mesmerism was rooted in a quasi-scientific notion of energy, specifically an invisible, all-pervasive, cosmic lifeforce that Mesmer termed "animal magnetism." As a physician, Mesmer believed that all illness, both physical and mental, was the result of a depletion in this cosmic energy.”
“Many patients frequently reported that they felt a mysterious energy coursing through their body, or felt rushes of heat, or saw a luminous "fluid" streaming from Mesmer's body into their own.” (Yikes.)
“By the 1780s, Mesmer was all the rage in Paris (Lafayette was an ardent disciple and even attempted to initiate Washington into Mesmerism). But arguably, his reputation would not have been so glowing had his theatrical healing sessions not resulted in numerous healings, both physical and mental. (Hysteria was an especially prominent complaint.) Eventually, the scientific community in Paris could no longer ignore Mesmer's work and a commission of famous scientists studied over a hundred patients of one of Mesmer's most distinguished disciples. What they discovered was that in diseases ranging from "spleen infections, rheumatism, asthma, headaches, skin diseases, as well as various nervous disorders," most of the patients had substantially improved (Fuller 1982: 7). In fact, "all but six had already evidenced marked progress; over one-half claimed complete cure" (Fuller 1982: 7). Apparently, Mesmer's technique was astonishingly effective.
However, the commission, using the best instruments available at the time, could find no evidence of any transmission of electrical or magnetic force, so the cures - fully documented as they were - were simply said to be the result of the patients' overactive imaginations. This conclusion (which, surprisingly, did not instigate research into the astonishing healing powers of the human mind), was the beginning of the end of Mesmer's spectacular popularity.”
“Mesmer's cause was taken up, in a revised fashion, by his disciples. One of the most important was the Marquis de Puységur. According to Puységur, the impetus behind a patient's cure was psychological, not physiological. In Puységur's therapeutic sessions, he sought to establish a rapport between himself and the patient. This rapport enabled him, through a subtle effort of will and directed thought, to affect the patient's vital energy, which, in turn, catalyzed a profound altered state of consciousness: the mesmeric state of awareness. Puységur discovered that in the mesmeric state of awareness, several of his patients gained amazing abilities. Not only could some accurately diagnosis their diseases (or the diseases of others) and even at times offer remedies for these illnesses, but a few of his patients, while mesmerized, even demonstrated telepathic and clairvoyant abilities. Not surprisingly, Puységur claimed that he had discovered, below the level of ordinary, day-to-day awareness, a superior level of human consciousness.”
Clearly, we’re talking here about some form of hypnosis. I’d never considered that “mesmerized” was taken from the name of a Viennese physician, but find the connection fascinating.
The author of this particular essay, G. William Barnard, is an engaging writer who pulls in many stories and examples to illustrate the interwoven path of psychology in the past century, incorporating the mystical with the observed phenomena.
Overall, this was a worthy examination of the subject of religion and psychology, even though written and published a quarter of a century ago (I had to pause when one author referred to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ On Death and Dying, published in 1969 being out thirty years!) Perhaps we’re ready for another volume on the topic, in view of the insanity of the 21st century.
Some further reading I identified for myself from this book:
The Varieties of Religious Experience – William James
The Secret of the Golden Flower
Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis
Sudhir Kakar – The Inner World
Exploring Unseen Worlds - G. William Barnard
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross - On Death and Dying
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