A potent quote from Saint Sophrony about Psychology

rusmeister

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that's why I mentioned Dr Renos, as he checks with the Fathers since he is so close to the monastery in Essex.

This seems to miss my point altogether. You said that he is a Jungian psychologist. It is no help to say that it is OK because he has a renowned spiritual father and hangs out at monasteries. The Jungian aspect is the darkest and most dangerous. I just about might as well say an Osteenian therapist. Such people are so out of touch with our Tradition that the truths they do speak are problematic. I say I am Chestertonian. But I think anyone has the right to question what is wrong in Chesterton and how he could lead me outside of Orthodox Tradition. And Chesterton is a heckuva lot closer to our Tradition, and outside of averring the Roman claims, notably of Roman and papal supremacy, he doesn't contradict our Faith but supports it at every turn. So I have a huge problem with someone engaged in a profession that professes by its very name to deal with the soul who sees Jung as a prime mentor. I don't care how many elders he hangs out with. It's one thing to take specific things a man of the world says and admire their support of our Faith; it is another to see one as a prime teacher. And I see Jung as sufficiently outside our Tradition to think him unacceptable as a prime mentor (the idea of considering oneself to be "Jungian").
 
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ArmyMatt

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This seems to miss my point altogether. You said that he is a Jungian psychologist. It is no help to say that it is OK because he has a renowned spiritual father and hangs out at monasteries. The Jungian aspect is the darkest and most dangerous. I just about might as well say an Osteenian therapist. Such people are so out of touch with our Tradition that the truths they do speak are problematic. I say I am Chestertonian. But I think anyone has the right to question what is wrong in Chesterton and how he could lead me outside of Orthodox Tradition. And Chesterton is a heckuva lot closer to our Tradition, and outside of averring the Roman claims, notably of Roman and papal supremacy, he doesn't contradict our Faith but supports it at every turn. So I have a huge problem with someone engaged in a profession that professes by its very name to deal with the soul who sees Jung as a prime mentor. I don't care how many elders he hangs out with. It's one thing to take specific things a man of the world says and admire their support of our Faith; it is another to see one as a prime teacher. And I see Jung as sufficiently outside our Tradition to think him unacceptable as a prime mentor (the idea of considering oneself to be "Jungian").

I didn't miss your point, rus. the reason I mentioned that he is Jungian was because Jung is so wacky, and yet Professor Renos isn't. it's because he not only has a renowned spiritual father and hangs out at monasteries, but that his spiritual father is very skeptical of modern psychology. so he runs himself through the monks to make sure he is in line with the tradition. I have heard this from his former students about him.

so, I disagree that pointing out that about him is no help.
 
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Platina

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I didn't miss your point, rus. the reason I mentioned that he is Jungian was because Jung is so wacky, and yet Professor Renos isn't. it's because he not only has a renowned spiritual father and hangs out at monasteries, but that his spiritual father is very skeptical of modern psychology. so he runs himself through the monks to make sure he is in line with the tradition. I have heard this from his former students about him.

so, I disagree that pointing out that about him is no help.
I suppose the question then is, in what sense is he a Jungian?
 
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ArmyMatt

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I suppose the question then is, in what sense is he a Jungian?

I dunno the specifics. I do know that he has written about Jung. I also know that Dr Christopher Veniamin has basically said that Dr Renos is the best guy if you want to see a truly Orthodox approach to psychology.
 
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rusmeister

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I dunno the specifics. I do know that he has written about Jung. I also know that Dr Christopher Veniamin has basically said that Dr Renos is the best guy if you want to see a truly Orthodox approach to psychology.
What Platina said.
Having written a paper on somebody doesn't make you a disciple of that person. Maybe this Dr Renos is fine and not at all Jungian in that sense of discipleship. I don't know.
The objection would be if Mr. Renos thought Jung an important teacher and a central influence in his own life. In that case, I would be HIGHLY doubtful of the Orthodoxy of the man's mindset, no matter how someone tried to paint him, for exactly the same reasons I would reject the teaching of a man heavily dependent on Joel Osteen. So everything depends, not on the assurances of another priest or professional, but how much influence Jung has in this man's thought.
 
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ArmyMatt

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What Platina said.
Having written a paper on somebody doesn't make you a disciple of that person. Maybe this Dr Renos is fine and not at all Jungian in that sense of discipleship. I don't know.
The objection would be if Mr. Renos thought Jung an important teacher and a central influence in his own life. In that case, I would be HIGHLY doubtful of the Orthodoxy of the man's mindset, no matter how someone tried to paint him, for exactly the same reasons I would reject the teaching of a man heavily dependent on Joel Osteen. So everything depends, not on the assurances of another priest or professional, but how much influence Jung has in this man's thought.

if you knew how critical folks like Dr Veniamin and Fr Zacharias are of modern psychology, you would know how it hasn't impacted his Orthodox outlook. his Orthodox students have said as much as well.
 
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rusmeister

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if you knew how critical folks like Dr Veniamin and Fr Zacharias are of modern psychology, you would know how it hasn't impacted his Orthodox outlook. his Orthodox students have said as much as well.
I grant that. It is to be hoped that the mind of the Church conforms us, who come in with the mind of the world, and sometimes thinking it to be the mind of the Church.
 
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SalemsConcordance

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May they be leaven in that godless field!

This rant isn't directed at you, rather the field of psychology. That blood-stained dead field needs to prove its worth rather then the other way around, the last 50 years of their fruits have born out destruction of broken souls. They do not deserve any coddling in their worship of dead and stupid idols of pills and scientism.

We are so modern and progressed, hundreds of millions of Americans are on pills and still killing themselves.
NIMH » Suicide
>During that 20-year period, the total suicide rate in the United States increased 35% from 10.5 per 100,000 in 1999 to 14.2 per 100,000 in 2018.

Meanwhile, the vaunted professors I studied under (Cognitive, Neuro, Behavioral) said "those other cultures just didn't have the tools to measure depression." Oh, its not the culture and removing God? Its that they are too stupid to know they are depressed?

What satanic logic - in the words of St Paisios - not that psychologists change tactics every 10 years because people are getting worse, not better under their modernist purview.

They have started moving away from childhood trauma "work" because they can bring trauma's out, but they can't heal the soul and they drive those poor people mad!

MEDICATION
When I studied psychology in school (because mostly soul-broken people do this), nobody - including myself - was horrified at meta studies showing SSRIs had a 10% efficacy rate. This means 90% of them are NOT effective, and may be damaging. Those warning labels are due to them getting SUED by DEAD teenager parents and homicide victims.

They even tell you they don't know which medication works for people - because everyone's brain is different, so they HAVE TO TRY you on medications which may make you MORE suicidal or MORE homicidal over a period of 3-8 weeks "before the medication takes effect."

We are a culture of pills, and have hundreds of MILLIONS on pills, and this isn't a crises?

I've read recently the efficacy rate is now "a healthy" 30%, meanwhile science as a whole, and especially psychology is suffering from reproducibility issues, and the "college effect". Most research is done on college students, and then applied to the broader population.

Then they barely talk about the research they use from the Soviet Union - decades of Clockwork Orange torture, and medication experimentation - or from the Japan death camp experiments and Germany. BUTCHERS.

I do not wonder why such a poisoned tree brings poisoned fruits.

JUNG
My initial - and unfair condemning of the individual - was also caused by the Jung reference. That is a spiritually dangerous theology, one which in my early teens sent me off into the world with ideas of "working on my shadow," which I still hear people do, which has maintained itself in new-age and meditation.

That you separate yourself, and try to visualize and see, THEN TALK TO your "dark" side. Oh, you can eventually do it - that is just the noetic realm of the demons, which I did for 10 years while chanting hindu mantras, but oh did I rip my flesh up and poison my brain with all sorts of drugs to hide my soul!

No concept of prelest!

OVERCONSCIOUSNESS
Or that God is a "overconsciousness," that each "race" has a "consciousness" and the entire world is under a "collective unconsciousness." That all leads to "man can save self, we just need to "wake" people up to the God in them! Or, that "that race is inferior, we can destroy their consciousness, and bring them into ours." Fruits of the Enlightenment and Scientism.

Sound familiar to "ascended master" or "star children" or stupid "you are children of light, just look within yourself!" with zero emphasis on repentance. How about "intent" and "create your own reality?"

ARCHETYPES
Or Christ is just an archetype. My friend who is lost in Tibetan meditation for 20 years thinks he saw the Theotokos last year - who he calls "the Virgin Mary" in a vision while at another Tibetan retreat. This was after drug rehab, and nearly shooting himself again for the last 5 years.

I told him "that's not good," he said, "relax, its just an archetype" - this was after he knew of my conversion, the poor man! This is 20-30 years of hindu buddhist meditation, a near-death experience, on TOP of psychologists, and psychiatrists, and medication, and he just "graduated" from whatever "loving" therapist he just had.

One may think, "oh your friend is just a broken and weak person," YES, THAT IS TRUE, SO THESE INSTUTIONS THAT DONT HELP BROKEN PEOPLE DONT NEED APOLOGIA! THEY NEED TO PROVE THEY HAVE ANY VALUE WHATSOVER.

STOP SENDING BROKEN PEOPLE TO WOLVES!

The soul is not healed by psychology, psychiatry. But they are happy to get people into hindu and buddhism while really, really, hating Christ!

St Sophrony:
When someone has passed through Buddhism he needs to repent and weep a lot. Otherwise a certain pride will remain in him as a residue from his previous life. Carnal sins (fornication) are forgotten through repentance and are easily cured. Psychological and spiritual sins (pride, heresies, experimenting with Buddhism) are not easily cured. It is the same with culture. A monk who spends his time on cultural pursuits shows that he has no experience of repentance. If he had repentance, all his past interests, including culture, would be left behind, since the grace of God would be before him.

RED BOOK OF OCCULT
Jungs Red Book is full on occult, self-individualization "tap into your own primordial self" as he went completely insane in his later life - a blessing from God to hopefully allow him repentance.

Of course this is his underpinning of theology - the natural outcome - Jung is a poison of the soul, that makes people think of Christ as mythos, and religion as "just evolved states of what we need as people." Then they get into Maslow, and think they have figured out the "animal" of humanity.

MENTAL ILLNESS FROM ST PAISIOS
Fr Kosmas Talk 25: Why Logic and Reason in Spiritual Matters Can Lead to a Loss of Grace
~1:45:00
When psychology removes the soul, they "are sick" when they study it - St Paisios - who also says some may need medication or be helped when they are in danger of hurting themselves, others, but not to FIRST go to psychology.

~1:55:00
A lot off times God allows that (mental illness) as a way to help us. Depression, even though it does come a lot of times from sin, it comes from unrepentance, it comes from the fact that we can’t repent – or send by God for a trial, we have some Saints who had depression, even though they were very holy (St Tikhon of Zadonsk)
 
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