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Journal Entries for November 2002 Jump to: November 28, 2002 Thanksgiving Day The Life of Benjamin Franklin on PBS portrays an American Heritage that we can be proud of, because we see that his actions were dictated by the gospel of selfless service. He invented the lightning rod and chose not to patent it so that it would be free for all people to use. The PBS program documents that Franklin started the Voluntary Society, which was the foundation of building the American Society. This Thanksgiving Day brings up thoughts of the American Shadow of genocide that caused us to murder Native Americans for withholding their land from profit. We demonized Native Americans and as an emerging country continued the work that the Spaniards and English started in killing the Native Americans and taking their land. On this Thanksgiving Day we have a choice again as a powerful country to let the spiritual side of our humanity emerge and to practice nonviolence. We can choose to follow the gospel of selfless service and help people in our own country and around the globe in ways that enhance their survival, or we can let our National Shadow dominate our better side as a country and inflict war and genocide on the world as we have done so many times in our history. Let's hope that the citizens of our country can be proud and join hands with our brothers and sisters on the planet in a Thanksgiving Day that is practiced every day of the week throughout the year in the spirit of love and world peace. Happy Thanksgiving! In the spirit of Native Americans, we can pray:
November 27, 2002 Liberation Psychology and My spiritual director Morton Kelsey gave the Christian inner tradition to me. He taught me the value of dreams and meditation for spiritual direction in psychotherapy. The tradition of Christians having a direct encounter with God through dreams and meditation is documented in the writings of the early Church Fathers. Morton documents that Christians have being healed through dream awareness for hundreds of years. This tradition is overlooked and ignored in our capitalistic, scientific society that stresses that the invisible, nonrational reality is a metaphysical absurdity and at best pure nonsense. Morton taught me how to use western meditation and dream analysis in spiritual direction. This excited me to know that I now had a way to teach my clients how they could access this Christian inner tradition and have victory over the inner tyrants that create resistance to therapy. My clients could be helped to deal with and transform this inner suffering through encountering their transpersonal spiritual reality through dreams and meditation. This is what Morton Kelsey would describe as doing the inward journey so that people can be liberated to do the outward journey of love and work in their everyday reality. This is a way of healing western society by helping people to get out of the scientific space-time box. It is a true Liberation Psychology that helps us to learn the necessary discipline to overcome our likes and dislikes so that we can direct and transform our desires and emotions. With this psychological practice we can come closer to bringing a nonviolent spiritual reality into our concrete everyday life. Morton's psychological theology was and still is an ongoing factor in the development of my Liberation Psychology. References Kelsey, M. (1986). Christianity as Psychology: The Healing Power of the Christian Message. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg. [Morton honored me by dedicating this book to me and to seven other people who are bridging the gap between psychology and theology. November 26, 2002 Liberation Psychology and Selfless Action Through Eknath Easwaran, a spiritual teacher of mine, I learned about bhakti-yoga and karma-yoga in the middle 70s. This helped me when I was establishing mental health services and trying to advocate for mental health practices that were culturally relevant for Native Americans. Using bhakti yoga by saying a mantra and meditating helped me to use selfless service in facing entrenched mental health and legal professionals who were opposed to Native Americans receiving the services they needed for daily problems of living in a neocolonial situation. Devotionally repeating a sacred word and focusing on the work helped me to overcome the fear that I felt when being threatened by the dominant professional establishment. Since I was working for a salary, it also meant that I did not let the fear of being fired stop me from working for the fruits of the action. Such direct action is a form of Liberation Psychology that uses karma-yoga, or selfless service, along with humanistic and transpersonal psychology in my role as an expert witness. November 22, 2002 In Process The thought that entered my heart today was realizing the Christian inner tradition known in the Eastern Church as the Royal Road or Royal Way is at the center of my process thought. The current inspirations of this website indicate that my thoughts are always in process. I realize that there are no real foundations of truth in an ever-changing world that has not reached completion. The Mystical way of all traditions points to an ineffable, incomprehensible process reality, that is communicating with us in the world and helping to guide us through triggering our intuition. The rational scientific method by pointing to sensory and rational aspects of life has separated us from an inner reality that is full of love and knowledge that directs us on our inner journey. I am interested in the subjective world of spiritual experience and how that activates us to bring compassion, love, nonviolence, and justice to the world. References Teasdale, W. (1999). The Mystic Heart: Discovering a Universal spirituality in the World's Religions. Novato, CA: New World Library. Cargas, H. J. and Lee, B. (1976). Religious Experience and Process Theology: The Pastoral Implications of a Major Modern Movement. New York: Paulist Press. November 20, 2002 My Emancipation Proclamation This web site is a place for me to express my views on total nonviolence. The site is the home of the Liberation Psychology that I have been working on for 30 years. Liberation Psychology originated from my work in those 30 years with African-Americans and Native Americans. The foundation of Liberation Psychology stems from Child Development; Humanistic, Existential and Transpersonal Psychology; Marriage and the Family; and Social Theory. The inner work of 30 years of meditation and disciplined spiritual practices supplements the outer work of the Liberation Psychology that I have been developing. Therefore, this web site is a place to express my current inspirations and an open forum to get feedback from Internet users as I continue to develop a Liberation Psychology that is practical, useful, and essential in our transition to a more peaceful world. I am presenting this site as a way to help fulfill my utopian dream for a nonviolent world. My religion is the religion of nonviolence. Liberation Psychology is a Humanistic Social Psychology as well as using liberation approaches of emancipating the individual from inner tyrannical forces of oppression. Through this website, I can hear from academics and nonacademics as well as nonspiritual and spiritual views on nonviolence. I want everyone to feel free to contact me on spirituality, psychology, philosophy, marriage and the family, child development, and everyday life issues.
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and Morton
Kelsey's Psychological Theology
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