Curious Christian

Whilst researching texts on counseling in the Morling College library last week I fortuitously came across a book entitled, The Unconscious Christian by James A Hall. In it, he argues, many of us deal unconsciously with religious problems. If you would indulge me I would like to quote from the book at length:

For several years I had in psychotherapeutic treatment a man who had at one time wanted to be a minister … he had been quite serious about that career choice, feeling that he had been “called” to it by God … but as time passed he let this slip away. He entered an entertainment career and became successful and financially stable. At the time that I saw him, he and his wife separated. Both of them, however, seem motivated to rehabilitate the marriage … Although separated, they still spent one evening a week together and were sexually intimate. On another standing afternoon date, Chris [a pseudonym] met with his long-term paramour, a married woman. On other nights he frequently visited a well known local bar and picked up women with whom he had casual sexual involvements. If Freud had been right about repressed sexual impulses being the cause of neurosis, Chris should have been neurosis free, for clearly he was expressing his sexuality in an uninhibited manner.

In the midst of his frantic “sexual schedule,” Chris had dreams with an unexpected theme. He dreamed of going to his church and taking communion! What should we make of this? It was certainly not repressed sexuality that showed forth in Chris’ dreams. I would suggest, rather, that it was his suppressed religious feeling! While Chris’ outer life had become entirely secular and quite hedonistic, his unconscious, the maker of his dreams, was vitally concerned to return to his life the missing religious feelings that at one time had been quite dominant. One could say that Chris was an unconscious Christian.

Is Chris a rare example, or do we find in many persons today a hidden religious impulse, one that has lost connection with the usual cultural forms of church and congregation? In current western society, many persons have abandoned conscious religious concerns. My experience suggests that these repressed, left out religious feelings may return in dreams. It is important that this possibility be recognised and responded to by secular psychotherapists and religious counsellors alike.

In my practice I have seen many persons whose religious concerns have gone “underground,” into the unconscious, from which they return in dreams. These cases illustrate Jung’s point that the natural function of a dream is to compensate for an unbalanced state of consciousness, and to return to the dreaming mind material that has been ignored by consciousness … and yet the repression of religious values is seldom acknowledged. This is partially because our culture still assumes a Freudian, corrective attitude towards Victorian over-repression of sexuality in the name of religion. But, just as Victorians were prudish about sex, we have become prudish about honest religious concerns. Too often religion is equated with strict and oppressive morality, particularly regarding sexuality. In some circles religious behaviour is still regarded as evidence of neurosis.   

Thought provoking isn’t it? While I could critique Hall on many aspects of this book, not least his complete lack of reference to Joseph Cambell when it came to discussing Pagan symbols and his inadequate consideration of cross-cultural anthropology issues, at a basic level I think he may be onto something.

In my time as a blogger I have had numerous people contact me for dream interpretation and in many cases it involved Christian symbolism bubbling to the surface – quite clear  to me but clearly unrecognized by the dreamer. Is it a co-incidence that many of them had unresolved religious issues percolating beneath the surface?

Hall then goes on to explore some other interesting issues – the connection between dreams, God and the self. Can God speak to us through dreams? As he did in the Bible? Or should dreams of God always be interpreted as manifestations of the deeper self? As manifestations of our minds but nothing more? Hall probes how Jungian psychology and Christian theology could mutually inform one another, asking, “Is there no middle ground between these positions? Is there no way to establish some common conversation between religious and clinical approaches to the meaning of dreams?”

But for me this links in with an even deeper issue. The Bible instructs us to worship God with all our heart, mind, body and soul. Read that: All our mind. Not just the conscious part. All our mind. That suggests the unconscious side ourselves is not somthing we should avoid as demonic. Quite the contrary. It is something we can and should work on as an aspect of Christian spiritual discipline. We should work on our dreams; the renewing of our mind includes our unconscious mind.

SynchroBlog

Oh, and if you thought that was interesting here’s the SynchroBlog list for everyone blogging on “alternate states of consciousness” today:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
at Mike’s Musings

Shamanic Vision and Apocalyptic Scripture
at Phil Wyman’s Square No More

Can prayer be an example of Alternate Conciousness?
at Eternal Echoes

Better Than I Was [at times], Not Better Than You Are
by Mike of Earthsea

Emotionalism vs Rationalism
at Adam Gonnerman’s Igneous Quill

Consciousness of the absurd and the absurdity of consciousness
at Steve’s Notes from the Underground

The Unconscious Christian
by Matt Stone

Hypnochristians
at Jamie’s More Than Stone

The extreme consciousness of the Spirit
by Les Chatwin