Distorted perceptions of faith
Nowadays the natural inclination towards spirituality is very often a reason for being discredited in our society. Faith in transcendence is looked upon as fantasy and life according to principles of a certain faith is considered to be outdated or simply naïve and blind.
This is one of the big reasons why people are so desperate nowadays. OIDA-therapy wants to restore the dignity and necessity of faith and help in this way to cure people’s diseased condition.
Psychiatrists and psychologists such as Stanislaw Grof and Roberto Assagioli are quite worried about the symptoms of uncontrolled ecstasy, attributed to spiritual experiences. They note that these ecstasies were often considered to be pathological manifestations of neurotic individuals.
Traditional psychoanalysis explains spirituality as a regression, or as a fixation on an infantile stage, rather than a step forward in the maturing process of a human being.
In this context the concept of God is interpreted as a projection of our infantile image of the “father in the sky”. Or even worse – writes Grof – the interest in religious ritual is seen as an analogy for obsessive, compulsive behavior of a neurotic and is explained as a regression to the libidinous anal stage.
Grof writes that a credo of each major religion is a direct spiritual experience of the founders, saints, and prophets. According to traditional psychiatry all these people would be seen as psychotics or suffering from other serious psychiatric condition.
As Grof wrote, if you look back at human history, you will find that many people have invested an enormous amount of energy in the spiritual quest. They have made a tremendous sacrifice for this purpose. They have sacrificed material possessions, professional carriers, as well as personal needs and sexual life.
In transpersonal psychology this impulse towards spirituality is viewed as a very natural and very powerful drive in human beings. Whatever may be there, we have to judge a faith and it promoters by the amount of sacrifice which is being done for the welfare of others. Furthermore the lifestyle which is being propagated should be transparent and pure, both in words and conduct.
That should be the criteria for the authenticity and the beneficial nature of a propagated belief and life style.
The seven deadly sins by Hieronymus Bosch