Spirituality Studies 9-1 Spring 2023 91 Oleksandr Zubariev choanalyst Carl Gustav Jung. Jung points out that in the West, the spiritual situation is characterized by a strict distinction between science and faith, while yoga differs significantly from what it is in the East. What makes yoga attractive to Europeans? According to C. G. Jung, there are several reasons: yoga appears as a method that unites scientific and religious approaches; the depth of Indian philosophy and the possibility of obtaining controlled experience that is in line with “scientificity” for a European; and the great possibilities that yoga is believed to offer. However, yoga is a method of mental hygiene that can only be effective with the philosophy that is seamlessly bound to it. A westerner tends to differentiate between body and soul, science and faith, while they make a harmonious unity for an Indian (Jung 1994, 38–39). This is why Jung takes a critical approach to the possibilities of yoga used by Europeans. Jung conducted an in-depth study of the place of transpersonal experience in Eastern religiosity in his writing On the Psychology of Eastern Meditation. Reflecting on the specific character of Indian thinking, he writes that this way of thinking and its images are embodied in the sensory world but cannot be deduced from it. These images are supersensible and refer to another world, a potential reality that can change its ontological status at any moment, and therefore, the ontological status of the sensory world. In fact, the goal of yoga is to master the powers that bind a person to this world (Jung 1994, 8–10). Jung studied the peculiarities of the mental processes of yoga based on fragments from the Amitāyur Buddha Dhyāna Sūtra, illustrating the process of achieving transpersonal experience, which is fundamentally different from, say, night dreams. In a dream, a person does not act according to an aim or project, while meditation contemplates that a new reality is created by the psyche actively and consciously. Jung’s analysis of the treatise is based on the assumption of the existence of the collective unconscious (Jung 1994, 11–32). The American psychologist and psychiatrist Stanislav Grof’s studies are dedicated to altered states of consciousness, which lie beyond the realms of psychology, religion, and orientalism. Grof’s research specifically focuses on altered states of consciousness resulting from psychedelics, particularly LSD. In his work, Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research, Grof identifies four basic levels of LSD-induced experiences, each representing a realm of the human unconscious: abstract and aesthetic experiences, psychodynamic experiences, perinatal experiences, and transpersonal experiences (Grof 1976, 25–34). Transpersonal experiences, according to Grof, are “experiences involving an expansion or extension of consciousness beyond the usual ego boundaries and beyond the limitations of time and/or space” (Grof 1998, 155). Stanislav Grof further distinguishes two categories of transpersonal experiences: experiential extension within the framework of “objective reality” and experiential extension beyond the framework of “objective reality”. The former encompasses experiences such as the temporal and spatial extension of consciousness, including experiences of the embryo and fetus, ancestors, collective and race experiences, phylogenic experiences, and more. The latter encompasses experiences such as communication with superhuman spiritual creatures, experiences in other worlds and communication with their inhabitants, archetypical experiences and complex mythological episodes, communication with various deities, intuitive understanding of universal symbols, activation of chakras, and spiritualistic and mediumistic experiences (Grof 1998, 158–204). Grof’s classification represents a mapping of the unconscious human experience as he moves from observing individual phenomena during LSD sessions to constructing a theoretical model that encompasses each phenomenon. However, it should be noted that these studies are not exhaustive. Grof fails to acknowledge that internal experience only becomes accessible and understandable through symbolic articulation, that is, through discourse. LSD therapy is one of many discourses in which such articulation is possible. Evgeny Torchinov’s writing, Religii mira: opyt zapredelnogo (En. World Religions: Experience of the Transcendent), represents a unique synthesis of research in religious studies and transpersonal psychology. Torchinov agrees with William James that religious experience is a prerequisite for any religion but presents a counter-thesis of the uniformity of religious experience. Evgeny Torchinov claims that religious experiences expressed in various traditions can be attributed to a certain level of the unconscious at which they were experienced (Torchinov 1998). In sociological discourse, the phenomena of the supernatural and the holy are predominantly studied within the framework of the sociology of religion. According to Peter Berger in his work The Heretical Imperative, a crucial aspect of the supernatural, as against other finite provinces of meaning, is its radical quality (Berger 1979, 41). The world of the supernatural can turn from an enclave within the framework of the routine world into the reality par excellence, compared to which all the concerns of everyday life lose their meaning. As a religious experience of experiencing the supernatural threatens the stability of everyday life, a religious tradition
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzgxMzI=