A Wayward Beginning
Sacred Psychology - A Global Perspective - Samuel Bendeck Sotillos
Samuel Bendeck Sotillos [+]
Psychotherapist
Description
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.