Sacred Texts
When patients present with religious issues, finding
out more about their religion is essential. Information
on religions and spiritual traditions around the
globe and throughout history is readily available
on the Internet. Almost all sacred texts are available
online, often with commentary, for example,
rare Buddhist
texts
the Bible (in
many languages with commentary)
Even the Dead
Sea Scrolls, which have not been fully translated,
are available online for viewing.
The
Internet Sacred Text Archive contains links
to other texts.
 REQUIRED
QUIZ ITEM 32
Sacred Texts
A sacred text for followers of Taosim is
a) The Talmud b) Bhagavad Gita c) Qur'an
d) Tao-te Ching
Record your answer for later insertion
into the Quiz. |
Media historians compare the online dissemination
of sacred texts to the creation of the printing press.
The first documents circulated were religious works,
beginning with the Bible. This had a profound effect
on religion that lead to the Protestant Revolution
and the ongoing development of many new religious
movements. Many theorists believe "the Internet,
with its boxes, cables, wires, and satellites, is
a materialization of the spiritual connection that
we already share with our fellow humans but have
been given little cultural permission to notice and
celebrate" (Hawes, 1995, p. 35). By making learning
about others faiths , the Internet helps people form
diverse religions and spiritual paths understand
the common ideas that bind them together. The Internet
could play a major role in increasing religious tolerance,
an effect that could have profound implications for
world peace, since most conflicts seem to revolve
around religious differences.
There are also many clinical resources online.
Psychiatric
Case Conference: When Religion and Therapy
Interface (Video) Jennifer Cyr, MD University
of Nebraska Medical Center
Grand rounds presentation on therapy with a pregnant
Catholic woman who believed God would punish her
if she had an abortion, but went ahead with the abortion.
National
Office of Post-Abortion Reconciliation and Healing
Researchers and psychotherapeutic professionals providing post-abortion support
services within secular and religious settings including Project Rachel.
Case Example:
Psychotherapy with a Muslim immigrant
Preparing
to Counsel Clients of Different Backgrounds
Excerpted from: Counseling: The Spiritual Dimension
Edited by Mary Thomas Burke, PhD and Judith G. Miranti, EdD Article author:
Robert T. Georgia
Mohammed is a recent immigrant from Iraq. College-educated
and employed as a computer analyst, he is torn
between his adherence to Islam and a desire to "fit
in" in his adapted society. He has conflicted
feelings about sex, family responsibilities, career
ambitions, and his sense of personal identity.
He is experiencing a tremendous strain between
his religion and his new social milieu. For a long
time, he hesitated to see a counselor for fear
of being misunderstood because of cultural differences.
He is not yet convinced that he has made the right
decision in doing so.
Dr. Georgia poses three questions for the therapist
who is trying to be culturally sensitive, including:
Have
I adequately explored and evaluated my own religious
values and beliefs so that I can identify possible
biases, presuppositions, limitations, doubts, and
still open questions? What kinds of resistance
or maneuvering might I bring to a relationship
with such a client?
How can I familiarize
myself with Islam? Which literature should I review to gain a comprehensive,
open-minded, nonjudgmental understanding of the religion, particularly
its influence on human functioning?
How can I experience
Islam in practice so that I can develop a personal sense of the
familial, social, and cultural dimensions and expressions of the
religion?
The Internet can be used to address these questions.
Online Resources on Islamic Religious Beliefs
and Values
Islam-101
An educational site on Islam, its way of
life, civilization and culture. It includes an introductory
course on Islam and presents Islamic views on contemporary
issues.
Online
Course on Islam
Covers beliefs about God and death, worship
practices, and the Prophet Mohammed.
Yahoo
directory of sites on Islamic Beliefs and Practices
Muslim Youth
A site on growing up in America--stories, poems, personal accounts, and message
board for Muslim youth.
Collection
beautiful Islamic architecture
A site to appreciate Islamic sensibilities
Case Example:
Spiritual Crisis
An Internet Guided tour of web sites that
provide resources for a person undergoing a spiritual
crisis, which has elements of visionary, shamanic,
and mystical experience types. Begin by reading the
case
history on which the tour is based. It describes
my own experience which occurred in 1971.
Resources
on Spiritual Crises
Religious and Spiritual
Issues
Shamanism
LSD and Religious Experiences
Online and Self-Help Resources
Resources
on Spiritual Crises
The Internet contains many resources on spiritual emergencies. Below are some interviews with
experts on spiritual emergencies that provide clinical perspectives on the
growthful potential of such crises.
Visionary
Experience or Psychosis?
Mental
breakdown as a Healing Process
John Perry, MD worked extensively with individuals in the midst
of acute psychotic episodes at Diabysis, the residential treatment
center he founded. These are two links to interviews where he presents
a Jungian growth model for acute psychotic episodes.
Spiritual
Crisis
Christina Grof, author of books on spiritual emergency and co-founder of the
Spiritual Emergency Network, describes her own transformative spiritual crisis.
Religious
and Spiritual Issues
Since in my personal experience, I had identified so strongly with Buddha and
Christ, I selected sites to learn more about who these figures were, their
life stories, their messages. Raised in a Jewish family, I knew little about
them at the time of my experience. During my Jungian analysis, I learned to
view Buddha and Christ as ideal models of my own inner self.
Tricycle.com:
Buddhism Basics
An introduction to Buddhism, including the life of the Buddha.
Frequently
asked questions about the life and death of
Jesus Christ
The answers are given from a traditional Christian perspective: Who was Jesus?
What did he say about himself? What evidence is there to support what he said?
How and why did Jesus actually die? Did he really rise from the dead?
C.G. Jung, Analytical
Psychology, and Culture
Jung observed that patients in a psychotic state experience mythological and
religious symbols. In my Jungian analysis, I learned to see the symbolic value
of my own "hallucinations" and "delusions." This well-developed
web site on Jungian Analytical Psychology includes full text articles by Jungian
analysts, a glossary of Jungian terms, dissertation abstracts, links to other
Jungian web sites, listings of programs in Jungian training, and Jungian publishers.
Shamanism
Working with shamans, reading about shamanism (particularly shamanic initiatory
crises), and participating in neoshamanic groups played a key role in integrating
my spiritual emergency. Below are some of the resources on shamanism that
I found relevant to my own experience.
The
Soul of Shamanism: Western Fantasies, Imaginal
Realities
This interview with Daniel C. Noel, PhD, Professor of Religious Studies, explores
the meaning and value of neoshamanic experiences. Shamanic practices provide
a controlled way to access the ecstatic states of consciousness that I had
first encountered in my spiritual emergency.
The
Way of the Shaman
Interview with Michael Harner, PhD, author of
several books, including The Jivaro, Hallucinogens
and Shamanism, and The Way of the Shaman.
Dr. Harner is a former professor of anthropology
and is currently the director of the Center for Shamanic
Studies, which teaches Westerners how to live and
practice as shamanic healers.
WWW Library
on Shamanism
This section of the library contains many online resources on shamanism.
LSD and Religious
Experiences
My spiritual emergency was also an intense and disorienting mystical experience
that served as my spiritual awakening. It was triggered by taking LSD for the
first time. Huston Smith, PhD, Professor Emertus of Philosophy at MIT and author
of numerous books on comparative religion, maintains that LSD-related religious
experiences occur and are valid.
. . . given the right set and setting, the drugs
can induce religious experiences indistinguishable
from ones that occur spontaneously. Nor need set
and setting be exceptional. The way the statistics
are currently running, it looks as if from one-fourth
to one-third of the general population will have
religious experiences if they take the drugs under
naturalistic conditions, meaning by this conditions
in which the researcher supports the subject but
doesn't try to influence the direction his experience
will take. Among subjects who have strong religious
inclinations to begin with, the proportion of those
having religious experiences jumps to three-quarters.
If they take them in settings which are religious,
too, the ratio soars to nine out of ten.
Do Drugs
Have Religious Import? by Huston Smith, Ph.D., The Journal
of Philosophy, Vol. LXI, No. 18, September 17, 1964
The
Psychedelic Library
The Internet has a number of web sites that address the relationship between
LSD and religious experience. This site has several articles on psychedelic
drugs and religious experience by Alan Watts, Walter Houston Clark, and others.
Yet adverse reactions to psychedelic drugs do occur.
A literature review concluded that broadly speaking,
there are two types of outcome:
Acute, short-lived reactions are often fairly
benign, whereas chronic, unremitting courses carry
a poor prognosis. Delayed, intermittent phenomena
("flashbacks") and LSD-precipitated functional
disorders that usually respond to treatment appropriate
for the non-psychedelic-precipitated illnesses
they resemble, round out this temporal means of
classification.
— Strassman RJ. Adverse
reactions to psychedelic drugs. A review of the literature. J Nerv Ment
Dis 1984 Oct;172(10):577-95.
A
Critical Review of Theories and Research Concerning
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) and Mental Health,
Chapter 2: Psychosis
by David Abrahart. LSD has also been linked to triggering psychotic
episodes which don't always have a positive outcome, as this MA thesis
shows in summaries of studies on this issue.
Online
and Self-Help Resources
Most people who have experienced a spiritual emergency want to find out more
about the nature of these experiences and to learn about other people's spiritual
emergencies. Below are web sites where anyone can post their experience, read
about others, or request a referral for a therapist.
Spiritual
Emergency Resource Center
A guide for clinicians and a self-help resource for people integrating a spiritual
crisis. Several personal experiences are online, and people can post theirs
in an online discussion forum.
Sacred
Transformations
Personal stories of spiritual emergencies, visions, awakenings, and their effects.
Center for Psychological & Spiritual
Health (CPSH)
Formerly The Spiritual Emergence Network (which
began as the Spiritual Emergency Network). Now with
a clinic and also an Information and Referral Service
that offers support and resources for individuals
experiencing difficulties with their spiritual growth
(415) 575-6299.
Spiritual
Emergence Service
A nonprofit Canadian society staffed by volunteers
that offers information and referrals for people
in psychospiritual crisis.
REQUIRED
QUEST ITEMS 33-37
Online Clinical Resources
Marelene is a 21 year old woman who has
been meditating intensively for the past
6 months 6-8 hours a day and doing yoga
as well. She went on a 10-day water fast
with the intention of reading the Tibetan
Book of the Dead. Five days into the
fast, she became convinced that she has
been selected to be the mother of the next
Dali Lama. She is hardly sleeping and is
very grandiose. She is not a risk to herself
or others. Her uncle, a physician in another
state, has told her and her parents that
she's in a manic episode and should be
put on lithium. A psychologist they consulted
said it sounded like a type of spiritual
emergency known as a kundalini awakening
which is associated with intensive meditative
and spiritual practices. He suggested it
should resolve on its own with proper support
and guidance.
33 Find an online article on spiritual
emergency
34 Find a site with diagnostic criteria
for spiritual emergency
35 Find a site with online support (Search
for kundalini)
36 Find a site with information on the Tibetan
Book of the Dead
37 Find a site where Marelene could post
an account of her experiences and interact
with others who have had similar experiences.
Record the name of the site or paste
in the URL address for later insertion
into the Quiz. |
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