Presents the first comprehensive survey of the varieties of psychedelic experience since 1975.

The Ecstatic Imagination: Psychedelic Experiences and the Psychoanalysis of Self-Actualization

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Merkur, Dan

Psychology & Counseling

State University of New York Press

Provides an alternative to the traditional psychoanalytic explanation of mystical experience by viewing unitive thinking as a line of cognitive development and mystical moments as creative inspirations on unitive ideas. Merkur proposes an alternative to the traditional psychoanalytic explanation of mystical experiences as regression to the solipsism of earliest infancy. He does this by viewing unitive thinking as a line of cognitive development, and mystical moments as creative inspirations on unitive topics. Utilizing classical self-reports by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim mystics, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, and modern Western peak experiences, Merkur argues that experiences of mystical union are manifestations of a broader category of psychological processes that manifest in scientific and moral thought, as well as in mysticism. Unconscious as well as conscious, unitive thinking is sometimes realistic and sometimes fantastic, in patterns that are consistent with cognitive development in general. Mystical moments of unitive thinking may be considered moments of creative inspiration that happen to make use of unitive ideas. Building on the psychoanalytic object-relations theory that the self is always in relationship with an object, Merkur argues that the solipsism of some varieties of mystical union always implies unconscious ideas of a love object who is transcendent.

Mystical Moments and Unitive Thinking

Delineates how medieval meditation on the passion of Christ was intended to transform personality―a practice with affinity for the goals of modern psychotherapy. Crucified with Christ offers a fascinating study of the psychoanalytic character of medieval meditation. Most meditation practitioners imagined themselves in the place of an eyewitness to the passion; however, some, including Bernard of Clairvaux, Francis of Assisi, and Bonaventure, introduced meditation from the perspective of Jesus. They felt the imagined crucifixion, passion, and death as experiences of their own and understood them in Pauline terms as “crucifixions with Christ.” As knowledge of mystical death experiences accumulated over the centuries, it was noted that repeated mystical unions with Christ in his death could create personality change, imparting the sweetness of Jesus’ personality to the meditators. Author Dan Merkur illustrates that in both its details and its goal, the meditative process meets contemporary psychoanalytic criteria for psychotherapeutic change. The medieval practice of meditation, Merkur writes, is comprehensible as guided imagery therapy that takes the meditator from fear of death to forgiveness of persecutors―in psychoanalytic terms, dissolving resistance through a capacity for concern and relationality.

Crucified With Christ: Meditation on the Passion, Mystical Death, and the Medieval Invention of Psychotherapy

History

World

State Univ of New York Pr

Crucified with Christ: Meditation on the Passion, Mystical Death, and the Medieval Invention of Psychotherapy

• Compelling evidence that the early Jews and Christians used psychedelics as part of their religious rites.
 • Reveals the Bible's disguised references to this tradition and traces knowledge of this secret to the gnostics, masons, kabbalists, and the legends of the Holy Grail. 
 • Explores the idea that psychedelics have played a role in nearly all religious traditions.
 When Moses fed manna to the Israelites, he told them that after eating the miraculous bread they would see the glory of God. And indeed they did: "They looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of Yahveh appeared in a cloud." In The Mystery of Manna, religious historian Dan Merkur provides compelling evidence that this was the Israelites' initiation into a psychedelic mystery cult that induced spiritual visions through bread containing ergot--a psychoactive fungus containing the same chemicals from which LSD is made. 
Citing biblical material, as well as later Jewish and Christian writings, Merkur reveals the existence of an unbroken tradition of Western psychedelic sacraments, from Moses and manna to Jesus and the Eucharist. Most important, Merkur shows that this was not a heretical tradition, but instead part of a normal, Bible-based spirituality, a continuation of the ancient tradition of visionary mysticism. Even when this practice became unacceptable to the religious orthodoxy, it was perpetuated in secret by gnostics, masons, and kabbalists, as well as through the legends of the Holy Grail. Merkur traces a long line of historical figures who knew of manna's secret but dared only make cryptic references to it for fear of persecution. The Mystery of Manna is the strongest contribution yet to our growing realization that, contrary to popular belief, psychedelics and religion have always gone hand in hand.

The Mystery of Manna: The Psychedelic Sacrament of the Bible

Park Street Press

• Reveals the secret teachings from the Judeo-Christian traditions that promote the use of psychedelic substances to enhance religious transcendence.
 • Explains how special meditations were designed to be performed while partaking of the "psychedelic sacrament".
 In The Mystery of Manna, religious historian Dan Merkur provided compelling evidence that the miraculous bread that God fed the Israelites in the wilderness was psychedelic, made from bread containing ergot--the psychoactive fungus containing the same chemicals from which LSD is made. Many religious authorities over the centuries have secretly known the identity and experience of manna and have left a rich record of their involvement with this sacred substance. 
In The Psychedelic Sacrament, a companion work to The Mystery of Manna, Dan Merkur elucidates a body of Jewish and Christian writings especially devoted to this tradition of visionary mysticism. He discusses the specific teachings of Philo of Alexandria, Rabbi Moses Maimonides, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux that refer to special meditations designed to be performed while partaking of the "psychedelic sacrament." These meditations combine the revelatory power of psychedelics with the rational exercise of the mind, enabling the seeker to achieve a qualitatively enhanced state of religious transcendence. The Psychedelic Sacrament sheds new light on the use of psychedelics in the Western mystery tradition and deepens our understanding of the human desire for divine union.

The Psychedelic Sacrament: Manna, Meditation, and Mystical Experience

Reference

Jung's Ethics (Philosophy and Psychoanalysis)

This volume presents the first organized study of Jung's ethics. Drawing on direct quotes from all of his collected works, interviews, and seminars, psychoanalyst and religious scholar Dan Merkur provides a compendium of Jung’s thoughts on various topics and themes that comprise his theoretical corpus―from the personal unconscious, repression, dreams, good and evil, and the shadow, to collective phenomena such as the archetypes, synchronicity, the psychoid, the paranormal, God, and the Self, as well as his contributions to clinical method and technique including active imagination, inner dialogue, and the process of individuation and consciousness expansion. The interconnecting thread in Merkur's approach to the subject matter is to read Jung’s work through an ethical lens.      What comes to light is how Merkur systematically portrays Jung as a moralist, but also as a complex thinker who situates the human being as an instinctual animal struggling with internal conflict and naturalized sin. Merkur exposes the tension and development in Jung’s thinking by exploring his innovative clinical-technical methods and experimentation, such as through active imagination, inner dialogue, and expressive therapies, hence underscoring unconscious creativity in dreaming, symbol formation, engaging the paranormal, and artistic productions leading to expansions of consciousness, which becomes a necessary part of individuation or the working through process in pursuit of self-actualization and wholeness. In the end, we are offered a unique presentation of Jung’s core theoretical and clinical ideas centering on an ethical fulcrum, whereby his moral psychology leads to a cure of souls.     Jung’s Ethics will be of interest to academics, scholars, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of Jungian studies and analytical psychology, ethics, moral psychology, philosophy, religious studies, and mental health professionals focusing on the integration of humanities and psychoanalysis.

Jung's Ethics: Moral Psychology and his Cure of Souls (Philosophy and Psychoanalysis)

Mental Health

Routledge

This volume presents the first organized study of Jung's ethics. Drawing on direct quotes from all of his collected works, interviews, and seminars, psychoanalyst and religious scholar Dan Merkur provides a compendium of Jung’s thoughts on various topics and themes that comprise his theoretical corpus―from the personal unconscious, repression, dreams, good and evil, and the shadow, to collective phenomena such as the archetypes, synchronicity, the psychoid, the paranormal, God, and the Self, as well as his contributions to clinical method and technique including active imagination, inner dialogue, and the process of individuation and consciousness expansion. The interconnecting thread in Merkur's approach to the subject matter is to read Jung’s work through an ethical lens. What comes to light is how Merkur systematically portrays Jung as a moralist, but also as a complex thinker who situates the human being as an instinctual animal struggling with internal conflict and naturalized sin. Merkur exposes the tension and development in Jung’s thinking by exploring his innovative clinical-technical methods and experimentation, such as through active imagination, inner dialogue, and expressive therapies, hence underscoring unconscious creativity in dreaming, symbol formation, engaging the paranormal, and artistic productions leading to expansions of consciousness, which becomes a necessary part of individuation or the working through process in pursuit of self-actualization and wholeness. In the end, we are offered a unique presentation of Jung’s core theoretical and clinical ideas centering on an ethical fulcrum, whereby his moral psychology leads to a cure of souls. Jung’s Ethics will be of interest to academics, scholars, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of Jungian studies and analytical psychology, ethics, moral psychology, philosophy, religious studies, and mental health professionals focusing on the integration of humanities and psychoanalysis.

Maimonides' Cure of Souls: Medieval Precursor of Psychoanalysis

Explores the unacknowledged psychological element in Maimonides’ work, one which prefigures the latter insights of Freud.

Weiss, David S.

Bakan, David

All approached psychoanalysis from one or another mystical perspective and emphasized issues of importance to mystics. They also modified their clinical procedures in keeping with their mysticism. All conceptualized the mystical not as a regression to earliest infancy that can be ignored for most practical purposes, but as a developmental line that is central to human psychology throughout life. They attended to processes of ego synthesis, individuation, and the integration or cohesion of the total psyche. Where Rank and Fromm regarded their mysticism as adjuncts to psychoanalysis, Loewald argued that therapeutic change consiss precisely of psychic integration. Bion drew additionally on mystical language to illuminate aspects of an otherwise conventional practice of clinical psychoanalysis, while Grotstein, Symington, and Eigen are currently elaborating the fusion of psychoanalysis and mysticism in original ways.

Explorations of the Psychoanalytic Mystics (Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies, 11)

Brill Academic Pub

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