Psychology & The Cross

In the final episode of this season of searching for the seeds of Secular Christianity, we travel to the 20th century to learn from the German Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We explore his concept of religionless Christianity which developed as he sat imprisoned in Berlin by the Nazi regime for his resistance, and before his execution. McGrath continues to link back to Augustines idea of the invisible church and coins the term invisible Christianity. 

What Meister Eckhart learnt, and we can learn, from The Beguines.

We left off in Alexandria in the second century and in this episode time travel a thousand years forward in tie, to the 14th century Northern Europe. At this point in time, particularly in Belgium and in Western Germany in the Rhineland, a non dual philosophy of Christianity emerges. The center player is Meister Eckhart and we explore his relationship to the woman's movement of The Beguines.Visit our pop-up shop for the existential swag you did now know you needed! The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK - SUBMERSIBLE

In this episode we travel back in time to the city of Alexandria, the cultural Mecca of the Roman Empire to learn from the Christian theologian and philosopher Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD), about how to build resilience in our present age. The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK - SUBMERSIBLE

We need to reclaim the future for Christian consciousness, and to recognize that the first Christians were looking towards the future, looking towards the fruition of something. They were not commemorating something that was past. They were actually witnessing something that is coming to be. - Sean J McGrath and Jakob Lusensky go seeking for the seeds of Secular Christianity.The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK - SUBMERSIBLE

The Christian teaching is that we are not yet human. We are on the way towards humanity. Humanity is still to come.  - Sean J McGrath and Jakob Lusensky go seeking for the seeds of Secular Christianity.The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK - RAINBOW

Sean J McGrath together with Jungian Analyst Jakob Lusensky go seeking for the seeds of Secular Christianity. The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK - RAINBOW

I am delighted to announce that the upcoming publication C.G Jung: Face to Face with Christianity - Conversations on Dreaming the Myth Onward published by Chiron Publications is now available for pre-order.The book can now be pre-ordered on Amazon or for a 20% discount for followers of the podcast using the discount code facetoface2024! on Chiron’s website. With the conversations from the podcast as a starting point this book explores C.G. Jung's lifelong wrestling with Christianity and its importance for us today. Can Jungian psychology be understood as Jung's attempt to recover a genuine experience of being Christian? If so, was it successful?The book contains some of the most vital conversations from the podcast with scholars such as Murray Stein, Paul Bishop, Sean McGrath, Pia Chaudhari, Jason Smith and David Tacey. The introduction and epilogue of the book is an attempt to distill the insights from the conversations of the last years, and work as an introduction to Jung’s relationship to Christianity and its relevance for today.Special thank you to my editor Christina Galego who helped translate my broken written English into a pleasant reading experience. 🌸 🙏

The Secret of the Golden Flower is a Taoist text on inner alchemy that landed in Jung's hands in the late 1920s. It was the sinologist and Christian missionary in China, Richard Wilhelm who sent the text to Jung for a commentary. It's hard to overestimate the importance this text had on Jung and his work. Reading this text made him abandon his work on the Red Book and shift his focus outside to the comparative studies of the individuation process. Especially interesting for this podcast is that it's in Jung's commentary of the text that he most clearly outlines his rendering of the Imitatio Christi. I invited Jason Smith, host of the podcast Digital Jung, and author of Religious But Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life, back to the podcast to discuss this important work of literature, Jung's comments on it, and what we can learn from it today. Music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: "Hard Sell" by Ketsa.

Hans Trüb is one of the unsung heroes of the early movement of Analytical Psychology. He was a pioneer of relational psychoanalysis or intersubjective psychotherapy years before any such terms were coined. Trüb (which means 'cloudy' or ‘gloomy’ in German) had a personal friendship and later conflict with Jung and an ongoing correspondence with philosopher Martin Buber. Trüb's psychological theory is an attempt of synthesising Analytical Psychology with Buber's dialogue-based philosophy. His vision was an analysis at eye level, a powershift between analyst and analysand, as well as an analysis as focused on the inner as the outer world. I invited my favorite scholar Paul Bishop again to the podcast to help shed some light on Trüb's thinking, his contributions, and their importance for us today. The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - No light without darkness, Aimless and Mind 2.