Psychology & The Cross

In the fourth and final season of Secular Christ, Sean McGrath introduces his ideas around everyday Christian Mysticism. 

In the fourth and final season of Secular Christ, Sean McGrath introduces his ideas around everyday Christian Mysticism. 

In the fourth and final season of Secular Christ, Sean McGrath introduces his ideas around everyday Christian Mysticism. 

In the fourth and final season of Secular Christ, Sean McGrath introduces his ideas around everyday Christian Mysticism. 

In this episode, I speak with Swedish psychotherapist and historian of ideas, Suzanne Gieser, who shares some of her recent research on the fascinating topic of Jung and psychedelics. She offers insights into Jung’s views on the therapeutic potential (and dangers) of these substances and sheds light on early Jungian pioneers in the field of psychedelic psychotherapy. Suzanne also shares some of her own clinical experiences as a psychotherapist, actively working with psychedelic substances to treat complex trauma.

Suzanne is a licensed relational psychotherapist with a private practice in Stockholm, Sweden. She is also a historian of...

Jung on death. An audio clip from John Freeman's 'Face to Face' (BBC) interview at Jung's house at Küsnacht, in March 1959, two years before Jung's passing. Watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0p1ITcGtKI

In this episode I speak to a dear friend and colleague, Luis Moris about his most recent book "Confronting Death". The conversation ambulate around Jung's writings on death and dying and the role of "the dead" in the process of individuation. 

Luis Moris is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Zurich. He is the founder of Blue Salamandra Films. He has produced and directed several films including interviews with prominent Jungian analysts. His website is: www.luismoris.com

Confronting Death edited by Luis Moris and Murray Stein is now out on Chiron Publications.

In this episode, I speak to religious studies scholar Aaron French. We discuss Rudolf Steiner’s concept of the Doppelgänger and Jung’s concept of The Shadow, and explore what to learn when putting these two visionaries in the same room. 

Aaron J. French is a post-doctoral researcher in Religious Studies at the University of Erfurt in Germany.  His main research focuses on the History of Esotericism, the History and Philosophy of Science, Sacred Space and Architecture, modern German Philosophy, and Science and Technology Studies.

The music played in this episode...

I invited a few of scholars partaking in C.G Jung: Face to Face with Christianity to share a personal reflection after reading the book. Third out is Jungian analyst and scholar Murray Stein. 

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Siddharta Corsus - Constellations

I invited a few of scholars partaking in C.G Jung: Face to Face with Christianity to share a personal reflection after reading the book. Second out is Jungian scholar and Orthodox Christian Pia Chaudhari.

Here is a link to an earlier conversation we had which is also to be found in edited form in the book.

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Siddharta Corsus - Constellations

I invited a few of scholars partaking in C.G Jung: Face to Face with Christianity to share a personal reflection after reading the book. First out is Paul Bishop.

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Siddharta Corsus - Constellations

Today the book C.G Jung: Face to Face with Christianity - Conversations on dreaming the Myth onward is finally released. For this episode I decided to swap seats and have Sean McGrath interview myself. Thank you for listening and feel free to support this podcast by purchasing a copy of the book. 

I had a conversation with Freudian psychoanalyst Don Carveth on his excellent youtube channel "Psychoanalytic thinking". The conversation takes as a starting point the upcoming book C.G Jung: Face to Face with Christianity, but also discussed Ernest Beckers book Denial of Death and the importance of further Freudian/Jungian dialogues. 

In the final episode of this season of searching for the seeds of Secular Christianity, we travel to the 20th century to learn from the German Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

We explore his concept of religionless Christianity which developed as he sat imprisoned in Berlin by the Nazi regime for his resistance, and before his execution. McGrath continues to link back to Augustines idea of the invisible church and coins the term invisible Christianity.
 

What Meister Eckhart learnt, and we can learn, from The Beguines.

We left off in Alexandria in the second century and in this episode time travel a thousand years forward in tie, to the 14th century Northern Europe. At this point in time, particularly in Belgium and in Western Germany in the Rhineland, a non dual philosophy of Christianity emerges. The center player is Meister Eckhart and we explore his relationship to the woman's movement of The Beguines.

Visit our pop-up shop for the existential swag you did now know you needed!

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK...

In this episode we travel back in time to the city of Alexandria, the cultural Mecca of the Roman Empire to learn from the Christian theologian and philosopher Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD), about how to build resilience in our present age.

 
The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK - SUBMERSIBLE

We need to reclaim the future for Christian consciousness, and to recognize that the first Christians were looking towards the future, looking towards the fruition of something. They were not commemorating something that was past. They were actually witnessing something that is coming to be.
 
- Sean J McGrath and Jakob Lusensky go seeking for the seeds of Secular Christianity.

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK - SUBMERSIBLE

The Christian teaching is that we are not yet human. We are on the way towards humanity. Humanity is still to come. 

- Sean J McGrath and Jakob Lusensky go seeking for the seeds of Secular Christianity.

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK - RAINBOW

Sean J McGrath together with Jungian Analyst Jakob Lusensky go seeking for the seeds of Secular Christianity.

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK - RAINBOW

I am delighted to announce that the upcoming publication C.G Jung: Face to Face with Christianity - Conversations on Dreaming the Myth Onward published by Chiron Publications is now available for pre-order.

The book can now be pre-ordered on Amazon or for a 20% discount for followers of the podcast using the discount code facetoface2024! on Chiron’s website. 

With the conversations from the podcast as a starting point this book explores C.G. Jung's lifelong wrestling with Christianity and its importance for us today. Can Jungian psychology be understood as Jung's attempt to recover a g...

The Secret of the Golden Flower is a Taoist text on inner alchemy that landed in Jung's hands in the late 1920s. It was the sinologist and Christian missionary in China, Richard Wilhelm who sent the text to Jung for a commentary.

It's hard to overestimate the importance this text had on Jung and his work. Reading this text made him abandon his work on the Red Book and shift his focus outside to the comparative studies of the individuation process. Especially interesting for this podcast is that it's in Jung's commentary of the text that he...

Hans Trüb is one of the unsung heroes of the early movement of Analytical Psychology. He was a pioneer of relational psychoanalysis or intersubjective psychotherapy years before any such terms were coined. Trüb (which means 'cloudy' or ‘gloomy’ in German) had a personal friendship and later conflict with Jung and an ongoing correspondence with philosopher Martin Buber.

Trüb's psychological theory is an attempt of synthesising Analytical Psychology with Buber's dialogue-based philosophy. His vision was an analysis at eye level, a powershift between analyst and analysand, as well as an analysis as focused on the inner a...

In this episode, I speak to Jonah C. Evans about the ideas of Austrian social reformer, architect, and Christian esotericist Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) and how they relate to Jung's psychology.

Jonah is a priest and director of the seminary of the Christian Community in North America based in Toronto. The Christian Community is an international Christian movement inspired by Rudolf Steiner and still very active today. 

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - Mind 2

In our third season of Secular Christ with Sean J. McGrath we go searching for the seeds of Secular Christianity. The series will go live in early 2024.

In this episode, I speak to Pia Chaudhari about her book Dynamis of Healing: Patristic Theology and the Psyche published by Fordham University Press. 

Pia holds a doctorate in theology from the Department of Psychiatry & Religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Her research interests include theological anthropology, depth psychology, processes of healing, and the engagement with aestetics and beauty. She is a founding co-chair of the Analytical Psychology and Orthodox Christianity Consultation (APOCC). 

Thank you for listening in on our conversation. 

The music played in...

A letter from Carl Gustav Jung to Sabina Spielrein (1885-1942), 4th of December 1908.

My Dear,

I regret so much; I regret my weakness and curse the fate that is threatening me. I fear for my work, for my life's task, for all the lofty perspectives that are being revealed to me by this new Weltanschauung as It evolves. How shall I with my sensitive soul, free myself from all these questions? 

You will laugh when I tell you that recently earlier surfacing, from a time (3-4 year) when I often hurt myself badly, a...

In this episode, I am joined by Sarah Larkin to discuss the life and work of Christian depth psychologist Fritz Künkel (1889-1956). Sarah has a background in religious studies and a Master's in Theology. She is a poet and has created an online archive of Künkels writing online accessible on fritzkunkel.com

Künkel was a giant in psychology in the 1920s and 1930s corresponded with Jung and studied under Alfred Adler. He lived in Berlin but emigrated to California in 1939 and developed a religiously informed depth psychology that he named “We-Psychology”. 
 
Künkel's psy...

In this episode, I speak with Martin Liebscher from the Philemon Foundation. Martin is a Research Fellow in the German Department and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Centre for the History of Psychological Disciplines at University College London. We discuss the recently published book by Philemon, "Jung on Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises," which includes lectures that Jung delivered at ETH in Zurich between June 1939 and November 1940.

Martin begins by contextualizing these lectures in Jung's life and theory-building and gives an overview of Jung's activities in the 1930s. We discuss why Jung turned towards Western and...

This is an edited version of an old interview with Jungian Analyst and Episcopal priest John A Sanford (1929-2005). Sanford begins by defining his own understanding of Christianity as a religion "where the mind is free to explore". He then turns to clarify some of Jung's confusing statements about evil and to defend the Privatio Boni. Sanford does not seem evil as an integral part of God but as something allowed for by the higher purposes of God.

Sanford inhabits the position of his mentor and analyst Fritz Künkel (1889-1956), who launched the today mostly forgotten i...

Eighty years ago this month the Berlin-born Jewish German cabaret singer and actress of silent movies Dora Gerson (1899-1943) was murdered with her family in Auschwitz. This episode is done in her memory and includes two of her most famous songs Vorbei and Die Welt ist Klein Geworden.

The story is read by Katharina Albrecht.

Sources:

Jacques Klöters Facebook post in Dutsch, 16 Nov. 2020
http://www.musiques-regenerees.fr/GhettosCamps/Camps/GersonDora.html

"We never know what comes forward in a soul when the worst of the worst happens."   

Episode description:

Ever since I first read the diaries of Etty Hillesum (1914-1943) I wanted to understand better her relation to the psychology of C.G Jung. A few episodes ago I had a conversation about Jungian Analyst and hand-reader Julius Spier, who was Etty's analyst. In this episode, we shift the attention to Etty Hillesum and as our guide, we have Barbara Morrill.

Barbara Morrill is a clinical psychologist in private practice and an Associate Professor at...

In February 1961, four months before his death, C.G Jung was interviewed at his home in Küsnacht by Kaarle Nordenstreng, a freelance journalist for the Finnish Broadcasting Company. This is an edited version of a rather comical interview in which the two discuss Jung's late book 'The undiscovered Self' (Gegenwart und Zukunft), National Socialism, Jung's legacy in the public domain as well as his distrust of modern machines.

Musical interpretation and Finish tango selection by The Psychiatry

Photo taken by Kaarle Nordenstreng

Read more about the interview and access a full version h...

A read excerpt from chapter XIV, "Divine Folly" of Jung's Red Book, Liber Secundus. In this chapter, Jung picks up Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471) book The Imitation of Christ. He starts his working through of this fundamental concept of Christianity and presents a radical rendering of it.

Text and picture sources: The Internet Archive 

Are you interested in a more intimate and in-depth exploration of the intersection of Jungian psychology and Christianity? Maybe you should consider joining the online course starting on January 10th? We will meet online for four weekly learning sessions and lectures related to Jung and Christianity.

There will also be room to discuss what we have learned between the sessions and an exchange of ideas. For more information about the course and early-bird registration go to this link.

This online course will cover: 

Session 1: Following the footsteps of a Protestant. In our f...

"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 Danish Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). Our guest in this episode, Professor C. Stephen Evans, has not only imagined but also articulated important parts of t...

We would like to invite you to an online meetup and Q&A with Sean J. McGrath where we will wrap up the second season of Secular Christ. We will be meeting on Zoon on Sunday the 13th of November at 5:00 PM CET. We will start with a short lecture by McGrath and a summary of the second season. We then invite you all to converse, ask your questions and also share ideas for future seasons. The session will be recorded.

Please RSVP to j.lusensky@gmail.com

"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 Biblical Story of Job are: How can the suffering and injustice in the world be reconciled with the image of God that w...

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 - Impérieux 
10. Delicado - Rudi Lakatos 
11. Awakening - The Psychiatry

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