Someone on a mostly Buddhist list recommended James W.Fowler's "Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development" and "Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian: Adult Development and Christian Faith" and it really pushed my buttons.
After checking the Amazon reviews, I wrote:
Regarding the Fowler books, I must confess that the titles "Stages of Faith" & "Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian" immediately put me off because of the word 'faith' and the subtle implicitness linking 'adult' and 'Christian,' as if one cannot mature without embracing Christianity. The reviews of both books on Amazon did not inspire me to read either one.
Both religion and psychiatry (and indirectly a lot of psychology) I now tend to view as the diseases they pretend to cure. I view organized religion in direct conflict with spirituality, and understand 'faith' as a poor substitute foisted upon the suffering masses as a sop for the lack of direct experience. Patrarchy in full, rotting bloom. If you have direct experience, faith is meaningless. If you do not have direct experience, then faith is merely something that requires you to seek an intermediary such as a priest, as 'guru,' someone holier than thee to keep your faith erect (metaphor alert). But there is no one holier than thee, and if you're searching outside of yourself for the answers, you're going in the wrong direction. All of this in my humble opinion, of course.
The one sentence in the Amazon book reviews for "Stages of Faith" that caught my eye was from a review titled 'He Who Lives By The Theory....:' by a Thomas J. Burns (Apopka, Florida USA) :
During a break in the ungodly four-hour night class, a student asked the professor if, given the chance to do it over, she would have focused her doctoral efforts in another direction. Without batting an eye, the professor shot back: "Oh yes. Pharmacology." To say that a few somnolent students snapped to attention would be a profound understatement. Her message was clear enough: when studying human development, psychological theory is only one leg of the stool
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I must confess that 'psycho-pharmacology' added a very important leg under my spiritual seat. Sixteen double-0 capsules of ground peyote in 1963 shifted my understanding of reality 180 degrees, an experience for which I will remain forever grateful. Of course this sort of experience does not do more than open a door to the goal, unless you are one of those I consider the lucky few who could remain on 'the other shore.' But for me this direct experience dissolved forever any need to cultivate 'faith,' either as a noun or a verb. Of course it took many years of yoga and a number of other psychedelic experiences to integrate this view.
If you are sincerely searching for a vehicle to the other shore and have never experienced a mind-altering - preferably natural - substance, don't leave the the planet without trying one. Mother Nature has been very very generous over the millennia in providing vehicles for direct communion and unveilings of other realities. In our impoverished, fear-ridden consensus reality, so many hang desperately onto the filtered glint of the pure light that penetrates through the gloom and murk of our stained-glass edifices. Or perhaps the metaphor of Plato's cave is more to the point?
Of course these may be just the addled meanderings of a destroyed seventy-one-year-old brain... from someone who believes that one dionysian blast of unfiltered direct sunlight more than equals a library full of apollonian scribbles and platitudes. However your mileage may vary, depending on the make and year -- and current condition -- of your chariot-of-choice.
Thanks again for this chance to comment!
