The attitude of traditional psychiatry and psychology toward religion and mysticism is determined by the mechanistic and materialistic orientation of Western science. In a universe where matter is primary and life and consciousness its accidental products, there can be no genuine recognition of the spiritual dimension of existence. A truly enlightened scientific attitude means acceptance of one’s own insignificance as an inhabitant of one of the countless celestial bodies in a universe that has millions of galaxies. It also requires the recognition that we are nothing but highly developed animals and biological machines composed of cells, tissues, and organs. And finally, a scientific understanding of one’s existence includes acceptance of the view that consciousness is a physiological function of the brain and that the psyche is governed by unconscious forces of an instinctual nature.
It is frequently emphasized that three major revolutions in the history of science have shown human beings their proper place in the universe. The first was the Copernican revolution, which destroyed the belief that the earth was the center of the universe and humanity had a special place within it. The second was the Darwinian revolution, bringing to an end the concept that humans occupied a unique and privileged place among animals. Finally, the Freudian revolution reduced the psyche to a derivative of base instincts.
Psychiatry and psychology governed by a mechanistic world view are incapable of making any distinction between the narrow-minded and superficial religious beliefs characterizing mainstream interpretations of many religions and the depth of genuine mystical traditions or the great spiritual philosophies, such as the various schools of yoga, Kashmir Shaivism, Vajrayana, Zen, Taoism, Kabbalah, Gnosticism, or Sufism. Western science is blind to the fact that these traditions are the result of centuries of research into the human mind that combines systematic observation, experiment, and the construction of theories in a manner resembling the scientific method.
Western psychology and psychiatry thus tend to discard globally any form of spirituality, no matter how sophisticated and well-founded, as unscientific. In the context of mechanistic science, spirituality is equated with primitive superstition, lack of education, or clinical psychopathology. When a religious belief is shared by a large group within which it is perpetuated by cultural programming, it is more or less tolerated by psychiatrists. Under these circumstances, the usual clinical criteria are not applied, and sharing such a belief is seen as not necessarily indicative of psychopathology.
When deep spiritual convictions are found in non-Western cultures with inadequate educational systems, this is usually attributed to ignorance, childlike gullibility, and superstition. In our own society, such an interpretation of spirituality obviously will not do, particularly when it occurs among well-educated and highly intelligent individuals. Consequently, psychiatry resorts to the findings of psychoanalysis, suggesting that the origins of religion are found in unresolved conflicts from infancy and childhood: the concept of deities reflects the infantile image of parental figures, the attitudes of believers toward them are signs of immaturity and childlike dependency, and ritual activities indicate a struggle with threatening psychosexual impulses, comparable to that of an obsessive compulsive neurotic.
Direct spiritual experiences, such as feelings of cosmic unity, a sense of divine energy streaming through the body, death-rebirth sequences, visions of light of supernatural beauty, past incarnation memories, or encounters with archetypal personages, are then seen as gross psychotic distortions of objective reality indicative of a serious pathological process or mental disease. Until the publication of Maslow’s research, there was no recognition in academic psychology that any of these phenomena could be interpreted in any other way. The theories of Jung and Assagioli pointing in the same direction were too remote from mainstream academic psychology to make a serious impact.
In principle, Western mechanistic science tends to see spiritual experiences of any kind as pathological phenomena. Mainstream psychoanalysis, following Freud’s example, interprets the unifying and oceanic states of mystics as regression to primary narcissism and infantile helplessness (Freud 1961) and sees religion as a collective obsessive-compulsive neurosis (Freud 1924). Franz Alexander (1931), a very well-known psychoanalyst, wrote a special paper describing the states achieved by Buddhist meditation as self-induced catatonia. The great shamans of various aboriginal traditions have been described as schizophrenic or epileptic, and various psychiatric labels have been put on all major saints, prophets, and religious teachers. While many scientific studies describe the similarities between mysticism and mental disease, there is very little genuine appreciation of mysticism or awareness of the differences between the mystical world view and psychosis. A recent report of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry described mysticism as an intermediate phenomenon between normalcy and psychosis (1976). In other sources, these differences tend to be discussed in terms of ambulant versus florid psychosis, or with emphasis on the cultural context that allowed integration of a particular psychosis into the social and historical fabric. These psychiatric criteria are applied routinely and without distinction even to great religious teachers of the scope of Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Sri Ramana Maharishi, or Ramakrishna.
This results in a peculiar situation in our culture. In many communities considerable psychological, social, and even political pressure persists, forcing people into regular attendance at church. The Bible can be found in the drawers of many motels and hotels, and lip service is paid to God and religion in the speeches of many prominent politicians and other public figures. Yet, if a member of a typical congregation were to have a profound religious experience, its minister would very likely send him or her to a psychiatrist for medical treatment.