Shamanic Initiation, Descent, and Learning through Direct Experience of the Sacred

January 29, 2020 Bonnie Bright, Ph.D.

Shamanic initiation is a metaphor for the way we can take a soul-centered approach to life's challenges

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION VIA YOUTUBE HERE (approx 7 mins) A common and compelling component of both shamanism and Jungian or depth psychology is that each seeks to treat soul loss by retrieving and reintegrating vital essence that is missing. This must occur through direct experience; therefore, the underworld journey to retrieve the soul is one of necessity and initiation. Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung believed symptoms of soul loss, such as disorientation, lack of focus, or feelings of powerlessness, exist because a portion of psychic energy that is normally available to the ego has vanished into the unconscious; […]

On Transpersonal Psychology: Science, Consciousness, Spirituality—Interview with Les Lancaster

September 15, 2018 Bonnie Bright, Ph.D.

LISTEN to the full interview with Les Lancaster here (approx. 35 mins) Though Les Lancaster has a long history as a neuroscientist, he has always been fascinated by mysticism and spirituality. He ultimately found a way to bring his two passions together through the field of Transpersonal Psychology, and currently serves as the Founding Director of The Alef Trust, an online graduate school offering transformational programmes and open learning courses for in consciousness, spirituality, and transpersonal psychology. Transpersonal Psychology is interested in what goes beyond on that small part of ourselves that we know as the “ego,” notes Lancaster. So […]

Spiritual Implications of Psychosis: How a Spiritual Perspective Can Provide Health Benefits to Mind and Body—Interview with Dr. Tanya Luhrmann

May 30, 2018 Bonnie Bright, Ph.D.

Is schizophrenia a “severe mental disorder,” as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO)? How might changing the perspective of the traditional western medical model, which labels certain symptoms as strictly pathological, ultimately transform those who are suffering? The Hearing Voices Movement (HVM) which originated in Europe teaches people with schizophrenia to respect their voices and to treat their voices as persons, says Dr. Tanya Marie Luhrmann, whose research seeks to understand the phenomenology of unusual sensory experiences often linked with schizophrenia. C.G. Jung used the imagination to work at the borderlines between dissociation and psychosis… Sharing some ideas that […]

Normalizing Non-Ordinary Experiences: An Interdisciplinary Approach

May 7, 2018 Bonnie Bright, Ph.D.

In her research, Ann Taves, Ph.D., professor of Religious Studies at The University of California at Santa Barbara, explores non-ordinary experiences and the way different disciplines might diagnose the same experience, such as hallucinating, from different perspectives—including psychology, psychiatry, religion, or spirituality. For example, while psychiatrists largely look at hallucinations as symptoms of pathology, many religious and spiritual movements are based on those exact same kinds of unusual experiences, which could potentially be more common or less problematic than psychology or psychiatry tends to view them. Taves believes that depth psychology, influenced so deeply by Jung, is in a unique position […]