INTRODUCTION
I am, therefore, widely generalising. There are those to whom this generalisation
does not apply, but even they, if they are students of human affairs, of
sociological conditions, and of human equipment, are prone to question and at
times to despair. Life is so difficult
these days; the tension to which men are subjected is so extreme; the future
appears so threatening; and the masses of men are so ignorant, diseased and
distressed. I am putting this gloomy
picture before you at the start of our discussion in order to evade no issue,
to paint no silly optimistic and glamourous situation, or to portray no easy
way of escape which would only lead us deeper into the gloomy forest of human
error and illusion.
Yet, could we but know it, present conditions indicate their
own cause and cure. I trust that by the
time we have studied the problem (cursorily, I realise, for that is all that is
possible) I shall have been able to indicate a possible way out and to have
offered such practical suggestions that light may appear in the dense darkness,
the future hold much promise, and the present much of experiment, leading to
improvement and understanding.
The major science today is Psychology. It is one that is yet in its infancy but it
holds the fate of humanity in its grasp and it has the power (rightly developed
and employed) to save the race. The
reason for its greatness and usefulness lies in the fact that it lays the
emphasis upon the relation of the unit to the whole, to the environment and
contacts; it studies man's equipment and apparatus of such contact, and seeks
to produce right adaptation, correct integration and coordination and the
release of the individual to a life of usefulness, fulfillment and service.
Some of the difficulties which have to be faced as one
considers the conclusions of the many, many schools of Psychology are based
upon the fact of their failure to relate the many points of view to each
other. The same cleavage and even
warfare is to be found within the confines of this science as are found in the
individual man or in the religious field.
There is to be found a lack of synthesis, a failure to correlate
results, and a tendency to overemphasise one aspect of the ascertained truth to
the exclusion of others equally important.
The outstanding weakness or weaknesses in an individual's equipment or
presentation of life (and also those of the group or social order) are
considered to the exclusion and even negation of other weaknesses not so
obvious but equally crippling.
Prejudice, dependent upon a biassed scholastic training, often
frustrates the outlook so that the weakness in the psychologist's own equipment
negates his efforts to aid the patient.
The failure of education today to take into consideration the whole man,
or to allow scope for the activity of an integrating centre, a central point of
consciousness, and a determining factor within the mechanism of the one who
must be helped to adapt himself to his life condition—this above everything
else is responsible for much of the trouble.
The assertion of the purely materialistic and scientific attitude which
recognises only the definitely proven, or that which can be proved by the
acceptance of an immediate hypothesis, has led to much loss of time. When again the creative imagination can be
released in every department of human thought we shall see many new things
brought to light that are at present only accepted by the religiously inclined
and by the pioneering minds. One of the
first fields of investigation to be benefited by this release will be that of
psychology.
Organised religion has, alas, much to answer for, because of
its fanatical emphasis upon doctrinal pronouncements, and its penalisation of
those who fail to accept such dicta has served to stultify the human approach
to God and to reality. Its over-emphasis
upon the unattainable and its culture of the sense of sin down the centuries
have led to many disastrous conditions, to interior conflicts which have
distorted life, to morbidity, sadistic attitudes, self-righteousness and an
ultimate despair which is the negation of truth.
When right education (which is the true science of
adaptation) and right religion (which is the culture of the sense of divinity)
and right scientific unfoldment (which is the correct appreciation of the form
or forms through which the subjective life of divinity is revealing itself) can
be brought into right relation to each other and thus supplement each other's
conclusions and efforts, we shall then have men and women trained and developed
in all parts of their natures. They will
then be simultaneously citizens of the kingdom of souls, creative members of
the great human family, and sound animals with the animal body so developed
that it will provide the necessary instrument upon the outer plane of life for
divine, human and animal revelation.
This, the coming New Age, will see take place and for it men are today
consciously or unconsciously preparing.
We will divide the problems of psychology into the following
groupings:
1. The Problems of Cleavage, leading frequently to the many
ways of escape, which constitute the bulk of the modern complexes.
2. The Problems of Integration, which produce many of the
difficulties of the more advanced people.
3. The Problems due to Inheritance, racial, family, etc.,
involving the problems of inherited diseases, with consequent crippling of the
individual.
Read the rest here:
No comments:
Post a Comment