Religion & Depth Psychology

By Leo J. Zeff, Psychotherapist

The following paper was presented at the November public discussion meeting and oreeted such a stimulating and thought-provoking discussion that we reprint it here for those who were unable to attend. -ED.

Man, through the ages, has become aware through his own experiences that what he conceived himself to be in his own consciousness was only a part of himself, that there seemed to be some kind of unknown forces operating within his own depths which had a powerful influence on his own experience of life. He has always been intrigued by this knowledge and has spent a great deal of energy trying to discover the nature and the source of the se forces, using a multitude of approaches to the problem.

The word religion, to me, signifies the attempt to understand these forces and to find a way to integrate them into consciousness so that the power and strength that is inherent in them becomes available to the individual. All the different religions of the world seem to be different approaches to the same problem. While they all have their own special theories and vocabularies, the theories and words they use all refer to the same thing. I do not believe that there is a Catholic soul, a Jewish soul, a Protestant soul, a Chinese soul, a Hindu soul, or a Moslem soul. I believe that each man has a soul and that Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Chinese, Hindu and Moslem is a particular approach to the understanding of this soul.

It is my opinion that "depth psychology", no matter which school or system is being represented, is concerned with the attempt to understand this same soul, whether it is called the unconscious, the psyche or anything else.

This, in brief, is my definition of the title of this paper. Since the subject itself concerns the greatest mystery and the most profound problem in life I do not expect to be able to