Lives in spirit : precursors and dilemmas of a secular Western mysticism

Lives in Spirit......Page 4
Contents......Page 6
Acknowledgments......Page 12
Introduction......Page 14
PART I: Psychological and Cultural Bases of Inner-Worldly Mysticism in Modern Western Society......Page 22
1. Phenomenology and Psychodynamics of Transpersonal Experience......Page 24
Descriptive Phenomenologies......Page 26
Personal Development, Psychodynamics, and Metapathology......Page 35
Almaas, Transpersonal Psychology, and Psychodynamic Perspectives......Page 48
Multiple Forms of Essence: A Cartography of the Numinous......Page 57
Issues and Controversies......Page 65
Max Weber on Radical Salvation Movements......Page 70
Inner-Worldly Mysticism as the “Secret Religion of the Educated Classes”......Page 78
Dilemmas and Societal Implications of Contemporary Inner-Worldly Mysticism......Page 84
PART II: The Historical Roots of Inner-Worldly Mysticism: Prototypes of Crisis and Resolution in Plotinus, Epictetus, and Gnosticism......Page 92
4. Plotinus and Hellenistic Inner-Worldly Mysticism......Page 94
Epictetus and Personal Presence......Page 95
Plotinus and the Formless Dimensions......Page 98
Cognition and Contemplation: The Plotinian Psychology of Silberer and Jung, and the Origins of Transpersonal Psychology......Page 102
Object-Relational Patterns in Plotinian Contemplation: Mirroring and Splitting......Page 107
Plotinus on the Metapathologies of the Gnostics......Page 109
5. Gnosticism: Mystical Dualism and the Metaphysics of Hate......Page 114
The Elements and Social Background of Gnosticism......Page 115
EGYPTIAN HERMETICISM......Page 119
BARBELITES, CAINITES, OPHITES, AND SETHIANS: MYSTICAL SATIRISTS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT......Page 121
VALENTINUS AND PTOLEMY: HETERODOX CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS AND THE REDEMPTION OF SOPHIA......Page 124
MANICHAEANISM: A RADICAL PROPHETICAL DUALISM......Page 127
“Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself ”: The Problem of Splitting in Mystical Gnosticism......Page 128
Freud’s Gnostic Metapsychology of the Newborn......Page 130
PART III: Transpersonal Anticipations and Conflicts in Nineteenth-Century Precursors to a Naturalistic Inner-Worldly Mysticism......Page 136
6. Nietzsche......Page 138
Aspects of Essence in Nietzsche’s Thought and Experience......Page 139
Nietzsche’s Life: Dynamics and Tragedy......Page 145
Relations between Pathology, Creativity, and Essential States in Nietzsche......Page 151
The Nietzschean Psychologists and Abraham Maslow......Page 155
Emerson’s Eternal Moment of Being......Page 160
Dynamics and Openings to Essence in Emerson’s Life......Page 164
Thoreau: The Woods of Concord as Mirror of the Soul......Page 167
Thoreau’s Life and Dynamics......Page 169
Hiram Marble and Spiritualism: Kierkegaard’s Knight of Faith at Dungeon Rock......Page 175
PART IV: Some Political Ambiguities in the Development of Presence: Inner-Worldly Mysticism, Metapathology, and National Socialism......Page 184
Self, Archetypes, and Collective Unconscious......Page 186
Carl Jung’s Dance with the Devil......Page 190
Narcissistic Vulnerability in Jung’s Development......Page 194
From “Collective Unconscious” to “Objective Psyche”: Jung’s Shift from Pseudo-Biology to a Cognition of Metaphor......Page 199
Aryan Racial Occultism: Why Jung is not a Nazi......Page 202
Hitler as Charismatic Prophet......Page 206
Max Weber on Spirituality and Politics......Page 208
9. “Triumph of the Will”: Heidegger’s Nazism as Spiritual Pathology......Page 212
Heidegger as Spiritual Thinker......Page 213
The Rectorship......Page 214
Heidegger’s Spiritual Crisis and its Partial Resolution......Page 216
1928–1932: PURGATION......Page 218
1933–1934: FALSE ILLUMINATION......Page 219
1935–1944: TRUE ILLUMINATION—DIRECT MANIFESTATIONS OF ESSENCE......Page 221
Vulnerabilities of Character......Page 224
JUNG AND HEIDEGGER......Page 231
SOCRATES AND HEIDEGGER......Page 232
Heidegger and Weber......Page 234
PART V: Roots of a Contemporary This-Worldly Spirituality......Page 236
Gurdjieff’s Life and Teachings......Page 238
Gurdjieff’s Anticipations of Object-Relations Theory......Page 245
Object-Relational Dilemmas in Gurdjieff’s Life and System......Page 251
THE SCHIZOID POSITION......Page 252
THE PARANOID POSITION......Page 255
THE DEPRESSIVE POSITION: MAKING REPARATION AND THE CAPACITY FOR CONCERN......Page 258
Gurdjieff and Almaas......Page 260
A Final Note on Gurdjieff in Nazi-Occupied Paris......Page 261
Crowley’s System of Mystical Will......Page 264
The Practices: Astral Travel and the Invention of the Speedball......Page 272
FALSE WILL......Page 277
FALSE LOVE......Page 279
FALSE POWER AND THE ROLE OF HATRED......Page 281
The Horrific Childhood of Aleister Crowley......Page 283
Contrawise: The Avoidance of Essential Power and Will in Jerry Garcia......Page 285
Crowley and the Dilemmas of Contemporary Spirituality......Page 289
Psychology, Gender, and Transpersonal Experience......Page 292
Socio-Cultural Bases of a Feminist Shamanism......Page 296
The Feminist Roots of Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism and Theosophy......Page 299
Contemporary Feminist Spiritualities......Page 305
The Autobiography of Jean Houston......Page 307
Limitations of a Feminist Inner-Worldly Mysticism......Page 311
PART VI: Transpersonal Psychology, New Age Spirituality, and the Human Sciences......Page 314
Reconciling Transpersonal Approaches and the Human Sciences......Page 316
INNER-WORLDLY MYSTICISM AND DEEP ECOLOGY: THE WEBERIAN DILEMMA REVISITED......Page 321
CONSCIOUSNESS EVOLUTION VS. CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION......Page 324
A Closing Word from Kierkegaard......Page 329
2. A.H. Almaas and the Synthesis of Spiritual Development and Psychoanalytic Object-Relations Theory......Page 332
3. The Sociology of Inner-Worldly Mysticism in Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch......Page 333
5. Gnosticism......Page 334
6. Nietzsche......Page 335
7. Emerson, Thoreau, and Hiram Marble......Page 336
8. Jung, Visionary Racial Occultism, and Hitler......Page 337
10. George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff......Page 338
11. Aleister Crowley, Sexual Magick, and Drugs......Page 339
References......Page 340
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O......Page 368
T......Page 369
Z......Page 370