Psycho-practices in Mystical Traditions from the Antiquity to the Present. by Andrey Safronov - HTML preview

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[62]. But for subjectivity, there are a number of other shortcomings of the empiric approach; for example, it requires direct participation of a person that went through corresponding experiences, and his wil ingness to share with these experiences, that is not always possible in case of investigation of religious background. Besides, the empiric approach does not enable the description of intrapsychic processes that are connected to the experience or that had invoked it. At the same time such approach makes it possible to by-pass a complicated methodological and ideological issue of religious experience interpretation as a purely psychological one, what deprecates its spiritual content and is not accepted by religious psychology adherents.

Th e energetic approach was used by Freud in his late works for description of intrapsychic tension decrease during catharsis that he compared to a process of release the “psychic energy” that is “blocked” within the traumatic situation. Th e question of substantial or metaphoric nature of this energy is solved in diff erent ways by diff erent schools. Freud himself related “energy” to metaphor, but his closest follower W. Reich [201] has formulated the “orgone” theory that was based upon substantial nature of psychic energy — the orgone. Th e psychotherapy of today is using this approach to its advantage in many 34 Andrey G. Safronov. PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS

directions, mainly of corporeal-oriented character, but the question of the energy “being real” is bashful y avoided. Th e energetic approach gives a good explanation to the essence of such practices as confession and self-confession, ritual cleansing, cathartic dances, carnival practices etc.

Th e structural-psychologic approach makes it possible to describe psychopractice as a process of inner restructuration of the psyche. Th e best elaborated methodology of psychic reality description is available from psychoanalysis, with concepts of Jung being those most adapted for description of religious phenomena. Th e psychoanalysis practical therapeutic orientation makes it the only school that disposes of effective description system of intrapsychic changes that result from a psychopractice. Th e psychoanalysis itself was established as psychotherapeutic practice which main target was to enlarge individual’s conscious sphere due to its taking over objects of the unconscious sphere by means of their apprehension. With consciousness’ enlargement and amplifi cation, the number of suppressing unconscious elements subsides, while the positions of the consciousness become more solid thus providing its release from the eff ects of unconscious mind. It is worth mentioning that on the way to this there also comes merger of conscious mind with diff erent unconscious archetypes and sub-personalities, stil not at the cost of consciousness imprisonment by these archetypes, but on the contrary — due to the absorbing of there contained energy, emotions, experience and knowledge by the conscious mind.

Freud has formulated this basic principle of psychotherapy by the wel -

known phrase: Where id is, there shall ego be.

Th is concept was signifi cantly developed by C.G. Jung who introduced the categories of “the Self” and “the Person”. Th e Self is both the symbol of conscious and unconscious mind reunion and at the same time the transcendence in relation to them. It can be depicted only in part, and partial y it remains incomprehensible and indeterminable for a while. At the level of unconscious mind the Self is the archetype that reveals itself in dreams, myths andfables as a “supraordinate personality”. Th e Person stands for social roles, masks. On the ground of this methodology Jung formulated the target of psychopractices that is metaphysical y contained in the necessity that is proper to psyche —

the individuation, the process in which a personality acquires the wholeness and integrity of its existence.

PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS. Andrey G. Safronov 3 5

Th e evolution of structural-psychological approach was rather suffi -

cient. In major part it related to detailed diff erentiation of intrapsychic objects. Th e following categories were added: the “defense mechanisms” (A. Freud [321]), “the programs and scenarios of superconscious mind” (E. Berne [21]), “the sub-personalities” (R. Assagioli [13], G. Gurdjieff

[205]), “the attitudes” (R. Harris), “the perinatal matrices” (S. Grof [61]) etc. Th e purposes of psychopractices — both religious and those established within psychotherapeutic schools — were correspondingly specifi ed. Th e structural-psychologic approach (though this term was not used) was applied in works of native researchers dedicated to closely related problematic, for example the work of J. Yuzvak [363, pg. 141].

Th e existential approach is related to description of rituals as a set of actions performed within specifi c reality connected to individual’s sacral world. It is not possible to describe processes that take place in this world from the point of common logic in an adequate way [359].

Such approach is considerably widespread in anthropology but it can be used to the advantage of religious psychopractices’ description as wel , the more so because from psychologic point a signifi cant part of religious rituals can be considered as psychopractices.

Th e “energy” approach proposed by S. Khoruzhij that originates from the mode of spiritual practices’ description that is conventional for the Hesychasm can be treated as a synthesis of the energetic, structure-psychologic and phenomenologic approaches. According to the energy approach, “the individual changes “his whole-self”…, but the self that is taken and considered not substantial y, but from the position of action and energy, as a summation of all physic, psychic, mental actions and impulses that are cal ed “creatures’ energy” by the Orthodoxy. Such summation or confi guration of energies makes up individual’s “energy pattern”, its projection ontoenergy background, the being-acting dimension… Th e practice…performs transformation of the

“self”, the own energy pattern that is treading to some particular ty-pethat is acknowledged as the goal and the destination point, the“telos” of Spiritual practice” [309]. One cannot but note the similarity between the “energy” approach and the energetic approach of psychoanalysis.

It was also acknowledged by the author of this approach: “In terms of method and principal these are Freud and psychoanalysis that our advanced model is closest to: they develop the energy discourse of a man 36 Andrey G. Safronov. PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS

and deeply analyze the Borderline phenomenon”. Still, staying within an obviously religious context, S. Khoruzhij strictly distinguishes himself from the psychoanalysis: “… but this proximity is radical y shattered by contrast of many principal positions. Psychoanalysis is an ideologized discourse, it illuminates only one part of Anthropological Borderline, the topography of Unconscious Mind, and militantly rejects the existence of others — fi rst of al , the meta-anthropological Borderline” [309]. To our opinion the diff erence between the approaches is more suffi cient and lies in fact that the “energy” in the context of “energy approach” is the self-sentiment, the mode of individual’s self-perception — that is expressed by the aforementioned quotation, while the “energy” of the psychoanalytic approach is the basis of diff erent observed processes, including those observed by the individual himself, itself not being the object of observation. In this sense the distance between these approaches appears much more signifi cant than it seems at fi rst sight.

Th us, modern science disposes of signifi cantly manifold store of facilities for description of inner content of psychic experiences that can be applied to the investigation of religious psychopractices.

1.4. ANTHROPOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTIC

OF RELIGIOUS LIFE ELEMENTS

Basing upon the above listed methodological approaches and taking into consideration the focus of the present work, that is, the study of religious psychopractices, let us formulate characteristic features of religious system elements within the reference system of individual’s inner world.

Th e religious image — that is, any object that is emotional y notional for an individual or a group of individuals, stirring up their religious feelings [235; 241]. In terms of the afore-drawn structureal-psychologic approach the religious image belongs to one of structural elements of the psyche. Th e defi nition given by us correlates suffi ciently with the mentioned doctrine of C. Jung; moreover, it enables avoiding of such a delicate issue as the existence of god or deities, as wel as can be applied for description of utmost non-traditional forms of religiosity. Needless to say that the religious image should not always be PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS. Andrey G. Safronov 3 7

a supernatural creature, though supernatural creatures might make up the most numerous group of religious images. To this very group we can also relate the deities of polytheistic religions, the creatures that personify natural phenomena, the second-ranked creatures of monotheistic religions: the saints, angels, the ghosts such as brownie, satyrs

\wood goblins\ etc. A separate category of supernatural creatures is made by the forefathers that are and have always been anobject of worshipping in all known religions.

Items — fetishes — can also serve as religious objects. In early forms of religions fetishes enjoyed their independent role, while later they were transformed into symbols of more abstract religious images.

As examples of fetishes one can draw icons, statues of gods and other religious objects. In some cultic systems religious images can be those of people. Th e most vivid and notorious samples of such phenomenon were the cults of GodKingsthat existed in Egypt, Mesopotamia and the countries of Far East [325, pg. 85]. Th e offi ciating priests can also be partial y related to people that make up religious objects. Final y, an idea, a process or a method can also come as religious object, and this wil be shown in further sections. Here we should draw another quotation of E. Fromm that il ustrates diversity of religious images: “Man may worship animals, trees, idols of gold or stone, an invisible God, a saintly man or diabolic leaders; he may worship his ancestors, his nation, his class or party, money or success; … he may be aware of his system as being a religious, diff erent from those of the secular realm, or he may think that he has no religion and interpret his devotion to certainallegedly secular aims like power, money or success as nothing but his concern for the practical and expedient” [335].

In this way E. Fromm has pointed out a mostly important moment: the majority of religious images are not comprehended by peopleas such.

In order to make the defi nition of religion image more specifi c we shal characterize its features from position of individual’s inner world.

1. As a rule, religious images come as formations of an unconscious mind. Th ey cannot be completely grasped or comprehended. Moreover, almost al religious systems contain bans to perform discussions about supernatural forces and phenomena.

38 Andrey G. Safronov. PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS

2. Religious images are the objects with strong emotional constituent element. Th is peculiarity is revealed in rising of believers’ emotional tone during discussion of religious topics. It is this very feature of religious images that makes them signifi cant for individual’s life.

3. Religious images are wholesome objects not subjected to analysis or breakdown into any constituent parts. Any attempt to provide some analyses upon them results in loss of that atmosphere of sanctity and mysteriousness.

Th e source of religious images’ existence can lay both in individual’s personal experiences that were subjected to mythologization, as wel as in images that had already been mythologized at cultural level and imposed upon individual through methods of upbringing or, as it wil be shown further, by means of special psychopractices.

Th e ritual is an a priori determined succession of actions and psychic states that assumes achievementof some particular result [235; 241].

Th e purpose of rituals may lie in outer modifi cations of ambient reality as wel as in inner alterations of psychic state of the ritual performing individual. In this case the ritual simultaneously performs the function of a psychopractice. In terms of their forms rituals can be divided into following groups:

Th e mysteriesare the most complicated type of religious rituals that assumes a big number of participants playing back cosmogonical or mythological stories in fi gurative or symbolic form [48].

Magic rituals are the acts of individual’s infl uence on actual environment that are based upon application of sympathetic and homeopathic magic principles. Depending upon the tasks set magic rituals can be divided into rituals for luck attraction, rituals meant for healing or related to love, as wel as rituals related to bringing damage to other people and creatures [325].

Unlike magic rituals, the prayers are grounded upon perception of nature as governed by supernatural creatures and represent conditional or unconditional requests addressed to these creatures. Along with the request itself conditional prayers also contain the so-cal ed “spiritual coupons” promised by praying people (piety, performance of religious prescriptions, sacrifi cing), since having them in possession might in-PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS. Andrey G. Safronov 3 9

crease the possibility of the request performance. In this case a veiled assumption of the supernatural creature’s wil being dependent upon

“spiritual coupons” owned by the individual brings the prayers close to magic rituals [278].

Sacrifi ce is a rejection from part of an item that belongs to an individual or a group of individuals for the benefi t of supernatural creatures. Th e form of rejection can vary in many ways: from ritual property committing to the fl ames up to its contribution into church possession. In almost al known religions a sacrifi ce is a most widely-spread method of “spiritual coupons” accumulation. Yet it is worth mentioning that in some cases rituals connected to off ering heaving maynot be of sacrifi ce character, but bear feature of a magic ritual. For example, kil -

ing of a person at the dawn of a new agricultural season that is proper to many agrarian cultures is not a sacrifi ce to spirits but a magic ritual of cal ing for rain that is based upon homeopathic principle: the more tears and blood shedding from the off ering, the more rains the season shall bring [325, pg. 550].

Glorifi cation rituals is a group of rituals that are not that widely spread; like prayers, they are addressed to supernatural creatures, but in this case they do not contain any requests but simply express individual’s ecstatic attitude to the object of cult.

A particular interest is stirred by rituals that can be united into one group, being related to actualization of world perception, for instance, the delivery of faith formula that is practiced by many religions. For example it is a must for an orthodox Muslim to utter the “I testify that there is none worthy of worship except God and I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of God” several times a day. To this very group one can also relate the rituals of worship (adoration) which essence lies in status actualization of worshipping individual.

On the basis of the aforesaid let us pay attention to some issues that are signifi cant from the point of view of psychology. First of all, religious rituals are not comprehended as such at the time of their performance, for example, the 1st of May demonstration is not realized to be a mystery by the majority of its participants, though it is by al of its features. Th e second point is that psychological and religious goals of the ritual may be diff erent.

40 Andrey G. Safronov. PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS

Practical y al religious systems include three main blocks of rituals: 1. Seasonal rituals, connected to annual cycles of nature; 2. Daily-basis rituals;

3. Th e rituals that accompany the individual’s life cycle. In particular, they enclose the initiation rituals, i.e. the rituals that infl uence uponchanging of person’s social status or his status within a religious group, as well as healing (curing) rituals. It is this very group that in major wayreveals their features as those of psychopractices, and thus it shall be subjected to more thorough scrutiny.

In addition to aforementioned groups of rituals which are common for al religions, each religion has its specifi c, solely proper rituals.

A ritual is a comprehensive element of al known forms of religion.

Yet, notwithstanding the manifold factual material available, the core subject-matter of religious ritual stil remains insuffi ciently comprehended and studied.

It was Z. Freud [324] who initiated psychological description of religious rituals, being the fi rst to raise a question about psychological infl uence of a religious ritual and accordingly about feasibility of such ritual usage for aff ecting (or self-aff ecting) upon psyche for solving some psychic problems. Despite the acknowledgement of Freud’s priority in this aspect we shall yet notice that his research studies of religious rituals’ psychological nature were limited within the aforementioned conclusions. Freud did not try to broaden his investigations in direction of other religious rituals’ types, and this was also stipulated by insuffi cient database relating to this issue. In addition to this, Freud did not consider the case of conscious (deliberate) application of religious psychopractices,since despite of their presence in European tradition (for instance, the “Spiritual exercise” of the Jesuits) they were not much known to the wide academic community.

Further development of psychoanalysis methodology, in particular the concept of psyche’ mechanisms of defense that was formulated by Anna Freud [321], facilitated signifi cant enlargement of the list of similar analogies and rituals subjected to persuasive psychological interpretation. Th e most bright analogy is the similarity between the defense mechanism of suppression that reveals through one’s “forgetting” the factors that bother him, and the magic ritual of deliverance from PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS. Andrey G. Safronov 4 1

troubles by means of getting rid of (burying, burning, drowning) an item that symbolizes them.

Another sample is the analogy between the transference– the mechanism of defense that transfers emotional tension from one object onto another one, usual y the one that is closer — and various rituals of religious cult items’ consecration through their contact with other, already consecrated items [235].

Such analogies enable to draw one common conclusion in relation to psychological meaning of religious cults. Let us thus remember that from psychological point of view the objects of ritual manipulation are those objects that haveexpressed emotional colouring. Such colouring is also proper to religious images that are actualized during the process of rituals. Th e performance of corresponding actions with religious images and items facilitates redistribution of unconscious tensions according to the schemes that are provided by psyche defense mechanisms. Furthermore, it is the performance of ritual that launches corresponding mechanism of defense. In terms of psychology energetic model this idea can be expressed in the fol owing way: rituals come asa technique of managing the unconscious mind energies [235]

and thus can be considered as a kind of psychopractice.

Structuring of religious images in one’s consciousness comes out as mythology. A myth is a mostly signifi cant and absolutely essential compound of a religious system. Russian philosopher and theologue S.

N. Bulgakov wrote that “A cult is an experienced myth — the myth in action” [31].

Th e most primitive interpretation of a myth narrowed it down to mere imaginary or illusive description of reality. In his criticism of researchers in support of this position, A.F.Losev wrote in his “Th e Dialectics of Myth”: “Th ey want to disclose the essence of a myth, yet fi rst dissect it in a way it no longer contains neither fabulous nor miraculous elements at al . It is either unfair or absurd”. “One should fi rst share the point of view of mythology itself, become a mythological object on one’s own” [146].

Th e ontological function of a myth was highlighted by M. Eliade:

“Any religion, even the most primitive one, is the ontology — it rdis-closes the “existence” of sacred notions and divine images, fi gures out 42 Andrey G. Safronov. PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS

“the actual y existing items”, and thus creates a world that is no longer ephemeral or inconceivable, as if in the nightmare, as wel as a world that diff ers from what it always becomes when there is a risk of existence immersion into the “chaos” of absolute relativity without any visible “center” that could provide with orientation” [359].

Th us, the most important feature of the myth that diff ers it from any other form of world description is that the mythology involves the individual inside, making him a kind of associate to the events described in the myth. Th e text alone, beyond its emotional perception, is not the myth. Th e text may seem absurd and pointless to the strange reader so far as it does not evoke any essential feelings. Th e experience of the myth happens only in case there is a resonance between the text contents and the mythological “world view” of the reader.

Th ere are the following types of myths defi ned [48; 58; 84; 368]: the foundational, or cosmogonical, myths, astral myths; the anthropogonical myths that tel about creation of a man, the mankind forefathers, fi rst human pair etc.; the eschatology myths, i.e. myths about the last day (apocalypse).

We suggest there is one more type to be introduced, and we shall be calling it the existential myth [230; 235]. We shal draw some results below in order to substantiate the reasonability for this.

In early 60-s Clyde Kluckhohn and Fred Strodbeck who studied variants of cultural dominants on the instance of agricultural and culturally developed communities of South-Western America: Spanish Americans, Mormons, Indian tribes of Tjekan, Cuna and Navajo [388, pg.

157] made an assumption that estimative dominant-convictions inside each culture are not chaotic but interrelated (i.e. form an integrated cultural theme) and diff er signifi cantly from corresponding dominant-convictions of other cultures.

For the purpose of their investigation the researchers took 5 abstract categories that they consideredto correspond to “panhuman questions” which answers should beavailable in every culture:

1) man’s attitude to nature;

2) man’s attitude to time;

3) modality of human activity;

PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS. Andrey G. Safronov 4 3

4) modality of interpersonal relationships;

5) idea about individual’s inner essence.

Th ese obviously existential notions were to have been subjected to verifi cation by analysisof certain human behaviour, in particular the behaviour of agricultural communities’ members at the moment of show-ers of rain suddenly pouring down on them. Each respondent was to select out of suggested variants of replies (in terms of sociology the methodic applied is referred to as the “stiff ” one) the description of the behaviour type that he considers as the most preferable, most adequate in relation to the situation. In general, the results of the interview confi rmed initial assumption of authors that there are rather explicit intra-cultural correspondences and cross-cultural diff erences.

Yet the authors failed to perform correlation of cultural dominants with mythology peculiar to correspondent communities. In the meantime the ontology appropriate of every culture can be traced in its basic cosmogonical myths. As observed by G. Gachev, “Every people see the Unifi ed dispensation of Genesis in peculiar projection that I call the “national world image”. Th is is the variant of invariant… Th e national world image implies in pantheons, cosmogonies, shows itself through the set of main archetype-symbols, through art” [50, pg.11].

We don’t support such emphasis of outstanding role of the “national” world image — it is rather that diff erent world images correlate with diff erent cultural traditions, but the main idea of world image manifesting in mythology is pretty expressly set. Still, in any case, mythological stratum comes as one of the deepest strata of human psyche that determines existential mode of worldview, i.e. primary mythological pattern through which prism an individual perceives himself, his whereabouts in nature, in society, and his attitude to supreme notions.

We shall be calling the myths that compose this pattern the existential myths. Th ese myths refl ect the notions that S. Khoruzhij refers to as

“the topology in energy dimension of genesis” [310, pg. 65], professor S. Krymskij cal s “the value-notional Universum (VNU)” [116, pg.102], while L. Bevzenko defi nes as “the innermost individual world model”

[19, pg.42]. Let us note that individual’s world contemplationcovers al essential elements that surround him: the Nature, the Cosmos, the Society, his own inner world. Yet it is in the cosmogonic myths that 44 Andrey G. Safronov. PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS

such worldview is displayed in the most defi ned and conscious way.

Th e emergence of existential mythology in other aspects of culture can be traced through analysis of the most popular metaphoric images that are used in corresponding culture.

Let us single out cosmogonic myths that contain elements of world contemplation. Th ough in their most pure form such myths existed in must ancient culturesyet it is easy to show that their infl uence upon life of a modern individual is so far rather signifi cant.

1. Th e myth of the World Mountain emerged in Indian culture and is peculiar to Indian mentality [50; 84]. According to this myth, the world is a mountain that holds al living creatures on its surface: from minor creatures up to deities. Th us according to this mythological pattern the world is of static and hierarchic character while living creatures are dynamic and can take diff erent places in the already formed hierarchy. It is easy to understand that the caste system of India was the refl ection of this existential myth. And indeed the old-Indian society was static and hierarchic. Al existing social roles (dharmas) and functions connected to them were described beforehand. An individual had nothing but to take his niche and follow his dharma or try to upgrade his status in cosmic hierarchy by means of diff erent esoteric systems like yoga.

2. Th e World Tree myth was spread among the Aryan people [50; 84], in some variations of sham