Rama Coomaraswamy

THE PROBLEMS THAT RESULT FROM LOCATING SPIRITUALITY IN THE PSYCHE

Part 3: A Deeper Examination of Spiritism

Most individuals, have a desire for truth. This thirst cannot be dismissed as a psychological aberration. As Aristotle said, 'all men desire to know.’ In the scientific world of which we are products, the idea of immortality is much scoffed at, and so this search for something real frequently takes the form of desiring to have some knowledge of what happens to us after death.

There is however, no greater danger than to seek for Truth within the realm of the psyche. The reason for this is that the Psyche lacks stability even within any given individual, and is itself subject to the various passions. But once one has rejected the possibility of anything higher in man than his feelings and thinking processes, where else can one look. And it is here that many fall into a bottomless pit. It is little recognized to what extent psychiatrists have explored the world of the psyche in seeking for some greater understanding – an understanding that can only be derived from the Spirit of God.

Thus for example Sonu Shamdasani in her introduction to Theodore Flournoy’s ’From India to the Planet Mars’ tells us: 'At the end of the nineteenth century, many of the leading psychologists – Freud, Jung Ferenczi, Bleuler, James, Myers, Janet, Bergson, Stanley Hall, Schrenck-Notzing, Moll, Dessoir, Richet, and Flournoy – frequented mediums. It is hard today to imagine that some of the most crucial questions of the 'new’ psychology were played out in the seance, nor how such men could have been so fascinated by the spirits. What took place in the seances enthralled the leading minds of the time, and had a crucial bearing on many of the most significant aspects o twentieth century psychology, linguistics, philosophy, psychoanalysis literature, and painting.’

In the subsequent period the involvement of psychiatrists in Spiritist or spiritualist studies varied between those who like Freud were committed to a more or less completely materialistic viewpoint, and those like Jung, who as Dr. Richard Noll has demonstrated, became deeply involved with the world of the spirits. This dichotomy remains within modern psychiatry even today, with 'authorities’ like Kubler-Ross, whose influence on thanatology or the treatment and assistance of the dying is pervasive. Kubler-Ross, a committed spiritualist, communicates with the spirits of the dead and encourages those facing death to rejoice because they also will be able to continue living in another form while waiting to be reincarnated once again on earth.

Lest one think this individual represents a 'fringe’ aspect in modern psychiatry, I offer the comments in 1976 of Dr. Robert Gibson, who the following year became the president of the American Psychiatric Association: 'I know Dr. Ross, and I cannot find words to express fully my tremendous admiration for her contributions to our understanding of the final stages of life. Her research in death and dying is remarkable. It will have enduring value for decades to come.’ This same individual, the author of several books and many articles, was asked to testify before Congress on the subject matter of treating the dying. She, along with Dr. Moody and others, have also been involved in the study of 'near death’ experiences. Near death experiences, and they are by no means always pleasant, are entirely within the psychic realm as is clear from the fact that they can be analyzed by the discursive intelligence.

What is the attraction that belief in the 'spirits’ of the dead provides? For people brought up in a materialistic world, it provides evidence for immortality, that life goes on and isn’t over when we die. This is also particularly consoling to those who have lost loved ones and have been left behind. At the same time such beliefs make few demands as to how one is to live one’s life, for concepts such as sin and evil are mitigated by the fact that the spirits are themselves evolving to ever higher states of existence. This seeking for contact with the dead is very much with us as is well illustrated by the Episcopalian Bishop Pike who died in the Israeli desert while attempting to contact his recently deceased son.

Many will protest that they are not themselves ’Spiritists,’ and certainly there are many different varieties of Spiritist belief systems running all the way from Theosophists, Santoria and Vodoo, to New Age cults and reincarnationists. What do these all have in common? It is their belief that one can communicate with the dead. These 'spirits’ of the dead act on matter and produce physical phenomena such as knockings and noises and a host of other paranormal phenomena. These actions are indirect and exercised through the intermediary of a living person who is called a 'medium.’ Their conception of the human being is ternary in that they distinguish between the spirit (not the Spirit of God, indeed, this spirit is never clearly defined), the 'perispirit’ (a kind of 'aura’ which some claim to see) and the body. Nothing changes with death except that the body disappears. The spirit itself remains exactly the same as he was in life except that he has been 'disincarnated.’ Such an understanding allows for communications to occur. They may describe these 'spirits’ as more evolved or higher 'souls,’ but in all these cases, it is some dead person that provides them with wisdom or what passes for wisdom. It may surprise some that I have included reincarnationists within this category, but most Spiritists hold that the spirits evolve from lower to higher stages, and are reborn in this world as part of their continuous development and progression.

While haunted houses have been with us since time immemorial, it would appear that Spiritism developed with the Fox sisters who lived in a haunted house in Rochester, New York, a house in which a murder had occurred and in the basement of which a skeleton was subsequently found. The Fox family felt it was their duty to spread belief in the 'spirits.’ and when they ran into opposition, the Quakers came to their support. In France the movement was given impetus by the publication of the books of Allen Kardec – whose writings to this day provide the Santoria movement with their intellectual foundation. Kardec was actually an individual named Hippolyhte Rivail, who on the advise of the spirits took the Celtic nom de plume of Allen Kardec, and whose actual writings were the production of a group of Spiritists who wished to remain anonymous. If these books, or the 'spirits’ teachings involve both Socialist and Evolutionary ideas, this is to be expected, for such ideas were in then in the air as much as they are today.

Spiritists believe they are taught by the 'spirits’ they are in touch with, and they do not hesitate to claim that these teachings are in fact a 'revelation.’ If this statement seems a little extreme, one has only to examine the Theosophical beliefs in the 'Masters’ who are highly evolved spirits, and whose teaching and direction is so greatly respected. Spiritists even go so far as to state that the founders of genuine religion (such as Christianity) were men who were very powerful mediums, seers and wonder-workers combined. They diminish miracles to the measure of the phenomena that are produced in their seances, prophecies to the messages they receive, and the Gospel healings to what can be demonstrated by Charismatics. If some of the messages received are rather trite, Spiritists explain this by referring to 'inferior spirits,’ and even 'rogue spirits,’ who are less 'evolved,’ and point to the teaching of the 'superior’ or more evolved 'spirits’ as more pertinent. Yet even these communications are closely related to the ideas that are current in the milieu in which they are formulated, and indeed one suspects that the real source of these communications is to be found in the subconscious of those who are present , and above all in the subconscious of the medium. Thus for example, reincarnation was acceptable in France while Anglo-Saxon Spiritists initially rejected it with vigor. Kardecism (the works of Allen Kardec), retains traits of Socialism as it was born in the socialist milieu of 1848. The point is important, for Spiritism was surprisingly acceptable in Communist circles because it preached Bolshevism!

Mention has been made of reincarnation which first came upon the scene in the middle of the 19th century – prior to that time it was virtually unheard of. Madam Blavatasky adopted this from the French Spiritists and brought it to England as part of the Theosophical baggage. She also introduced reincarnationist ideas into India where they were surprisingly acceptable, especially among the better (English) educated. It should be clear that no orthodox religion teaches such a doctrine, though there are passages in both Scripture and in other religions that can be given a reincarnationist twist. Now, what is extraordinary is that both Spiritists and reincarnationists consider that what survives is the individuality of the deceased. He loses his physical body, and than his astral body (akin to the perispirit), but retains his individuality and if reborn, it is the same individuality which assumes yet another body in which to evolve further. Nowhere is it clear what the end process of all this evolving is, but what is clear is that the whole idea of a heaven or a hell is destroyed. Again, in this 'astral world’ there is no room for demons or evil spirits, for there is nothing in this intermediate world but human beings in various stages of evolution.

There are of course many varieties of Spiritists, and so also for reincarnationists. Some insist that the same sex is retained throughout various reincarnations, while others deny this or claim that sex is alternated with each earthly visit. Again some claim that humans are reincarnated on other planets and Allen Kardec felt that after a series of earthly reincarnations, one finally achieved a planetary one.. Theosophists insist that only terrestrial reincarnations are possible. Allen Kardec’s works are held in high regard among those involved in Santoria, a widespread cult with seemingly Catholic overtones, especially among the Puerto Ricans.

We have mentioned how common Spiritist ideas are. For example, Anna Lea, foundress of the Shaker movement claimed that she was in touch with 'spirits’ who assisted her. The Mormans also claim contact with entities outside of this world, namely an Angel named Moroni. They further believe that when they die, they go to a special planet and live in glass houses. The founder of the Quaker movement had visions or hallucinations that today would end him in a psychiatric hospital. Consider the following list of cults which fall into this category – of course those within them will object to their being listed, but be that as it may: Course of Miracles, Scientology and some of its related groups like EST, Temple of Understanding. Gaia, Celestine Prophecies, Wicca and Witchcraft (Philip Davis’s book Goddess Unmasked shows clearly that this is a 20th Century concoction.), The Church of Satan (with its own inverted bible), Syncretism, Dipak Chopre, Radhasoami Movement, mostly in India, The Hindu-Aryan Myth and Neo-Nazism (Hitler’s Priestess – closely tied to the Green political party), the Cult of Tilak, Ekkanikar, The Maharishi with his TM (who salvaged the Beatles, and whose picture adorns their record cover along with one of world’s greatest Satanists, Alexander Crowley). A recent text entitled Psychology and Religion, published with the approval of the America Psychiatric Society, while not openly promulgating Spiritist teachings, clearly places 'spirituality’ in the realm of the psyche and repeats all the false notions that primitive man developed his religious ideas because of his fear nature’s forces. This kind of spiritualism is clinically useful in that patients with strong belief systems accept pain, suffering and death better than others. The attempts to define 'spirituality’ in this text gives proof to all we have said. And of course, this simplistic approach leaves the way open to all the other aberrations. Truly the number of cults offering or promising a false spirituality is legion.

Many of these ideas have infiltrated the Catholic Church, bringing it closer to the level of current 'spirituality.’ Mention has already been made of the Charismatics whose glossolalia is so highly praised – forgotten is the fact that Glossolalia has always been considered as a symptom of diabolical possession. (Cf. Knox, Enthusiasms), the Cursillo movement, Renew and a host of similar programs that periodically change their names. Catholic colleges are teaching 'Enneagrams’ a la Jung and Gurdjieff to determine personality and spirituality types. Recently I came across a city boy attending a Catholic retreat who was sent on an American Indian 'vision quest’ – three days alone in the mountains. We could give countless examples of similar situations.

An important outgrowth of the Spiritist movements is the purposeful intent of individuals to make contact with the Spirits. Here we run into the problem of 'Channeling,’ that is, to invite spirits to use one as a channel so that their 'teachings’ can be shared with others. Here it is no longer the spirits of the dead, but any spirit at all that may be wandering around in the intermediate plane – like 'a lion, seeking whom he may devoir.’ Clearly, to invite such 'spirits’ to enter one’s life is to invite, not just the dead, but demons (who are skilled in presenting themselves as 'angels of light’ into one’s soul – again, into one’s psyche and body, since demons by definition cannot attack the Spirit of God that dwells within us. It is no wonder that all the revealed religions forbid such activities.

Given the fact that devils do exist, it is clear that they cannot attack the Spirit. While they can attack the body in isolation. It is the lower soul or psyche that is as it were, their playground. While the will remains free, they can through the memory, imagination and passions influence the will. If one lacks the safeguards that a truly religious culture provides – what would be called in Christianity the 'sacramentals,’ and above all, if one denies the influence of the Spirit and places the psyche at the apex of one’s being, one is clearly open to whatever influences the devil may wish to exert.

It is clear then that our philosophical beliefs inevitably color our views of religion Our conviction that man is nothing but a rational animal who has evolved over the centuries to his present high estate; our conviction that, being more intelligent than our forefathers, we cannot turn to them for wisdom but can only look ahead to some perfect future when the perfection of man will be complete; our belief that there is nothing in man that surpasses his psyche and thinking processes; all this forces us to place the 'spiritual’ in the realm of the 'psyche,’ and precludes the possibility of our looking beyond these limited horizons. It is not that everything in the psyche is bad, but that there can be no integral humanity which does not take into consideration the whole man.

The Jewish fathers taught that the worst form of idolatry was to assume to oneself the right to determine what is true and false. This indeed occasioned the fall of Adam and it is nothing other than that pride and egoity which displaces the divine with the human. The net result is that many who have a thirst for what is real are led into the dark pit of the psyche – well described by both psychoanalysis and spiritual writers – and never find their way out.

’By their fruits ye shall know them.’ Individuals have lost all the safeguards that were once provided by religion against spiritual delusion. Individuals not only become enmeshed in a variety of cults that range from the benign to the diabolical, but actually go out of their way to become channels for inferior influences – remembering that the devil can appear as an angel of light – And even at best are discouraged from seeking the one thing useful – for they forget that the Kingdom of God is within them, and that the aim of spirituality is to say with St. Paul, 'I live not I, but Christ lives in me.’

’As my body without my Soul is a Carcase, so is my Soul without Thy Spirit, a chaos, a dark obscure heap of empty faculties: ignorant of itself, unsensible of Thy goodness, blind to Thy glory: dead in sins and trespasses. Having eyes, I see not, having ears, I hear not.’

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