Sacred Psychology; A Global Perspective; Sotillos

Samuel Bendeck Sotillos [+–]

Psychotherapist

Samuel Bendeck Sotillos, PsyD, LMFT, LPCC, CCMHC, NCC, CPRP, CCTP, MHRS, is a practicing psychotherapist who has worked for many years in the field of mental health and social services. His focus is on comparative religion and the intersection between culture, spirituality, and psychology. His recent works include The Quest For Who We Are: Modern Psychology and the Sacred (2023), Paths That Lead to the Same Summit: An Annotated Guide to World Spirituality (2020), and Dismantling Freud: Fake Therapy and the Psychoanalytic Worldview (2020).

Psychology today pathologizes all aspects of the human condition without ever examining its own ills, which have caused it to become fragmented. People from non-Western backgrounds are often adversely affected by the limitations of the discipline, and often avoid treatment altogether. By contrast, a true “science of the soul” has existed for millennia in all the world’s diverse spiritual cultures. Although a plethora of modern therapies are now available, they are hindered in their efficacy by having become entirely divorced from sacred reality. This work argues that it is necessary to restore this “science of the soul” by drawing on the perspective of non-Western wisdom traditions as understood since time immemorial. Examples are given of the fundamental differences that are found between modern psychology and the traditional psychologies of various religions, which also existed in the West prior to the Enlightenment era. Furthermore, this book shows how non-Western philosophy can help rehabilitate an authentically healing psychology in support of promoting sound mental health in our afflicted modern culture. Sacred psychologies, therefore, afford us the best opportunity to tackle the innumerable challenges that confront human beings today, such as trauma, mental illness, addiction, death, and the meaning of our lives.

Series: Global Philosophy

Introduction

Theoretical Presuppositions [+–]

An inquiry into the origins of modern Western psychology is also an inquiry into metaphysics, philosophy, and sacred tradition. While it claims a monopoly on all knowledge about behavior and the human mind, it is often overlooked that modern psychology is also a worldview with its own uncritical assumptions. In truth, this totalizing outlook—having determined the way humanity understands itself—has now effectively become a substitute for religion. While the discipline has severed itself from a true ontology, it has unknowingly forged a pseudo-metaphysics that permeates the whole of post-Enlightenment psychology, which has given it a vast global reach. Addressing this deviation, requires a far-reaching analysis of its theoretical presuppositions; in doing so, we need to turn to sacred psychology to support authentic forms of human flourishing.

Chapter 1

A Wayward Beginning [+–]

Since the inception of psychology as a distinct field of study in modernity, it has been widely regarded as the only valid form of this discipline, supplanting all other accounts that aim to understand the psyche. The West is unique in having produced the only psychology that consciously severed itself from metaphysics and spiritual principles. The momentous intellectual revolutions inaugurated by the Renaissance and the European Enlightenment further entrenched the prejudices of its purely secular and reductionist approach. Yet, across the diverse cultures of the world, we find spiritual traditions that embrace a fully-integrated psychology, unsullied by the limitations of the modern scientific method. It is only by grounding psychology on a foundation of sacred and universal truths—found in all traditional civilizations—that we can begin to restore a true “science of the soul” that addresses the entire gamut of human needs and possibilities.

Chapter 2

Birth as Theophany [+–]

The birth of a human being into terrestrial existence is a profound mystery. This is something that, in the present day, is often taken for granted and dismissed without much reflection. Devoid of a profound metaphysical framework, modern science and its mental health treatments are unable to fully comprehend our inseparability from transpersonal Reality and how this informs all facets of human existence. By contrast, sacred psychology is founded on a triadic understanding of a person as Spirit, soul, and body, which allows for fully integrated therapies to support healing and wholeness. If we do not deeply reflect on the nature of birth and death, can we truly say that we know ourselves, or that we fully understand the meaning and purpose of our lives? This chapter looks at how the various religious and spiritual traditions understand birth as a divine disclosure.

Chapter 3

The Metaphysics of Trauma [+–]

Trauma, which has become a hallmark of everyday life in the modern world, forms part of the broader mental health crisis that afflicts society today. It also, arguably, reflects a lost sense of the sacred. Throughout humanity’s diverse cultures, suffering is understood to be intrinsic to the larger fabric of life in this world; trauma, therefore, is a direct consequence of not being able to properly integrate afflictions into one’s life. The prevalence of acute traumatic suffering has always been a major cause of disbelief in religion. Yet the increased weakening of faith in the modern world has provoked a particularly severe spiritual crisis, which could be dubbed the “trauma of secularism.” Through recourse to traditional metaphysics, we can begin to understand this phenomenon in greater depth, and thus provide better mental health care. Healing and wholeness cannot take place outside the purview of a “sacred science”, the spiritual dimension of which transcends the limitations of mainstream psychology and its profusion of profane therapies.

Chapter 4

The Enigma of Psychosis [+–]

The epidemic of mental illness has become a global crisis. The World Health Organization estimates that one in eight individuals—or almost a billion people—around the world experienced mental illness in 2019, often without access to adequate therapeutic treatment. In an era that prizes empirically verifiable evidence-based treatments, it is puzzling that much of what constitutes psychopathology (and its etiology) is a mystery. There is so much that remains unknown about mental illness, yet the mainstream systems continue with business as usual, without giving proper attention to this fundament quandary, let alone the dangers of unleashing, on tens of millions of people, a massive arsenal of prescribed psychotropic medications that are often far from helpful to them. Modern science has failed to fathom psychosis. In order to better grasp its nature, modernist understandings of this phenomenon (and other extreme states of mind) are contrasted with spiritual approaches as illuminated by the world’s religions.

Chapter 5

Addiction and Wholeness [+–]

The global rise of addictions in the modern world is alarming. What the discipline of modern Western psychology refuses to acknowledge is the connection between the loss of a sense of the sacred, and the rise in addiction and mental illness. Due to the spiritual desolation prevalent in the present day, along with its traumatizing effects, the human search for wholeness and healing is all too often diverted into destructive and dysfunctional behaviors. It is only a spiritual approach to a more profound “science of the soul” that allows psychology to restore the categories of Spirit, soul, and body into its myopic perspective. This chapter examines the root causes of addiction in order to identify a better path towards wholeness and healing. In doing so, a more integrated approach is proposed in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of addiction.

Chapter 6

Death as Transformation [+–]

Throughout the traditional cultures of the world, there are sacred rites and ceremonies that support transpersonal levels of consciousness, modes of knowing, and healing. In the teachings of many world religions, one often finds an injunction to die before you die. This refers to a psycho-spiritual process made possible through a traditional “science of the soul” which confers purification, illumination, and spiritual reintegration. This “alchemical” transformation serves to provide true healing, and to restore the wholeness of our primordial nature as human beings. Due to the desacralized foundations of modern Western psychology and its mental health treatments, it cannot access the metaphysical dimension found at the heart of all sacred psychologies. Without this vital understanding to help inform our therapeutic approaches, modern psychology remains at a profound impasse in its attempts to aid humanity in achieving more integrated modes of healing.

Conclusion

Rehabilitating Psychology [+–]

We highlight the profound inadequacies of modern Western psychology that prevent it from being an effective therapy for humanity at large. This is due to its desacralized foundations and blind adherence to a scientistic and materialistic outlook that rejects transcendence. Paradoxically, the present-day mental health calamity can only be understood in light of the spiritual crisis of the modern world, which is the very same malady that gave birth to modern psychology in the first place. Notwithstanding the ongoing availability of time-honored spiritual insights concerning the human mind and its potential as found in all traditional cultures, modern psychology continues to arrogantly assert its supremacy despite a demonstrable failure to relieve the suffering of countless souls.

Reviews

Sacred Psychology is a very important work that situates psychology and mental health against a larger philosophical and ethical background. Not only does it chronicle the myriad of ways in which the sacred traditions of the world have elaborated on the inner dimensions of human beings, but also reminds us that the modern approach to mental health, however well intentioned, often fails to explain its own failures and successes even on its own terms. One of the strengths of this book lies in its ability to demonstrate that psychology is unavoidably metaphysical as it engages ultimate presuppositions about what is real, possible, and good—both from the point of view of the clinician and also in terms of the basic beliefs of the person seeking emotional, psychological, or spiritual help.
Caner Dagli, College of the Holy Cross

Sacred Psychology deals with the very foundation of “psychology” as a modern discipline and points to its flawed, materialistic paradigm. It shows convincingly how modern psychology is in need of an overhaul as our societies struggle with mental health crises such as loneliness, depression, and the loss of meaning. Drawing on the world’s wisdom traditions, this book charts new territory for rehabilitating the relationship between psychology, ethics, and metaphysics.
Muhammad U. Faruque, University of Cincinnati

Sacred psychology is a topic of critical importance today, and this book constitutes a major step towards improving our understanding of it. Dr. Sotillos has clearly the necessary knowledge, philosophical acumen, and clarity of expression to challenge modern psychology’s monopoly of the field, while impressing upon practicing psychologists and scholars of religion the fact that in traditional psychologies religion is not only a system of beliefs and practices but also a science of reality that addresses and illuminates knowledge of the soul (Gr. psyche) in light of the sacred.
Munjed M. Murad, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities

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Sacred Psychology

A Global Perspective

Samuel Bendeck Sotillos [+–]

Psychotherapist

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