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WEB 4 - ARCHIVE
Commentary 11 - Page 3 |
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A method of therapyWhat we can say, at this point, is that despite its differences from modern psychology and psychotherapy, this millennium-old material constitutes a true psychological science and - in its true context, an effective system of therapy that is older by many centuries than anything that passes today by that name. More to the point, as I hope I shall show in this book, once adapted to the different conditions and the different states of mind of modern life, it is also a very precise and workable science, despite its basic differences from modern psychology. The human psyche is basically constituted to heal itself. However, not only is this process normally ineffective as a result of a situation that is more often explained not in terms of observation but in mythical language. In addition, modern beliefs, modern career-centred education, and contemporary upbringing all further interfere with this process. All the great religions of the world have a tradition that exists just to answer the question of how this therapeutic element can again become functional, what has been called a therapeutic tradition; a means of healing the soul and so making saints. Hinduism has its Yoga. Islam has Sufism. Buddhism has a number of meditation traditions including Zen. Only Christianity, at first sight, lacks such an 'organ'. But that was not always so, Christianity has an almost forgotten mystical science, a science of metanoia sometimes called the Royal Road, that is akin to psychological means of therapy yet more than merely psychological in character; and this ancient and forgotten science not only parallels these eastern traditions, but it is entirely Christian in character. This early Christian psychology reflected the Gospel statement that: "They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." (Mark 2:17) Despite the fact that both contain a 'corrective element,' there is a major difference between modern and early Christian means of psychotherapy, a difference which is wrongly seen as making the classical forms 'old fashioned,' with the assumption that this makes them ineffective. The crucial difference, as P .D. Ouspensky pointed out, is that modern psychology is primarily a tool of a medicine which studies pathologies, so that it sometimes calls itself 'abnormal psychology,' or of the 'social sciences' which have sprung from this concern with abnormality. |
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