Posts on religion/spirituality and man’s search for meaning.
“Protect the plants, stay on the path” a Reno trail sign reads. Viewed literally, the sign asks that hikers not trample the sensitive plants growing beside the trail. Looked at symbolically, it offers quality advice for life. The “path” is your path in life. It is the intended journey that leads to your destiny. The…
Carla was a young woman who had a compulsive need to be liked, to be popular, and be approved of. Not surprisingly, she was never content and rarely happy. With the source of her self-respect outside of her, attached to the ever-changing opinions of others, she was never secure in herself. She was like a…
The bible talks about usury in very negative terms. To commit usury is to take advantage of people through interest levied on borrowed money. In usury, individuals are required to pay back more than they have been loaned. Inflated rates of interest by credit card companies and banks can be considered a form of usurious…
“I feel things are coming together,” a client told me recently. “Something is speaking to me and I want to hear what it is saying.” This young man was working on his dreams in psychotherapy. He faithfully recorded them and through his therapy worked to understand and learn from them. Over time he observed patterns…
A retired teacher had the following dream: I found myself at a party for retired teachers at my former school. I felt that I was not really welcome there. The hostess seemed very insincere in welcoming me. I noticed a large basket on a counter which held gift mugs for the retired teachers. There was…
In her book, On Dreams and Death, Jungian psychologist Marie-Louis von Franz shares the nearing death dream of a woman who did not believe in the existence of a spiritual reality: I am standing, quite confused, inside a courtyard. There is no exit. On one side of the yard are garbagemen who say that I…
Alchemy was the “science” of trying to turn base metals, such as lead, into gold. Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung studied alchemy in great depth because he saw in it a symbolic representation of the psychological process of individuation. The writing and drawings of the alchemists reflected universal steps in the development of the personality. One…
Patient (anxiously): “Doc, am I gonna die?! Doctor: “Believe me, that’s the last thing you’re gonna do.” They say that laughter is the best medicine and this often applies to encounters with evil as well. You may be familiar with the morbid humor found in professions that deal with death or the negative aspects of…
When you have been hurt or taken advantage of, when evil has gotten one over on you, there is a natural tendency to want to hurt back, to even the score. When you feel life hasn’t meted out a proper punishment your ego may take it upon itself to restore justice. At these times, it…
In the second article of this series I described evil as a force that “corrodes and eats away at the human spirit,” that “delays or derails the natural unfolding of your deepest potential,” and pursues “the destruction of goodness in all its forms such as love, creativity, consciousness, healing, and maturation.” But accurately applying this…
