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In order to better cope with the pressures and stresses of the current day, modern psychology is anxiously seeking to find new therapies to address the increasing disorders within the human psyche. In the process new fields of research, such as humanistic and transpersonal psychology, curiously appear to borrow more and more from the wisdom of the ages. This volume, containing eighteen articles by noteworthy expositors of the perennial philosophy such as Huston Smith, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and Frithjof Schuon, presents the spiritual psychology of the wisdom traditions as a much-needed antidote to the current impasse in modern psychology.
About the Author(s)
Samuel Bendeck Sotillos
Samuel Bendeck Sotillos is a Board Affiliate of the Association for Humanistic Psychology (AHP), an Advisor to the Institute of Traditional Psychology, and has worked for several years in the field of mental health, covering a broad spectrum of disorders in various psychiatric settings. He has published in numerous journals, including Sacred Web, Sophia, Parabola, Resurgence, Temenos Academy Review, and Studies in Comparative Religion.
Samuel Bendeck Sotillos is the editor of the forthcoming Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy: Studies in Comparative Religion volume.
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Reviews
- … As a whole, the book makes for bracing reading and shakes up modern complacency by obliging the reader to consider a more metaphysical perspective and exploring the real meaning of sacred psychology. It would be interesting to set this up as a conference.
from a review by David Lorimer in Network Review
- [Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy] is more than an anthology. It is a wisely crafted collection of classic and contemporary scholarship noting that what many are seeking is what has always been, a perennial philosophy, that remains foundational. As one of the authors, Tage Lindbom, properly notes, “Secularization is a fish in troubled waters.” This book claims the waters and is essential reading for all those who may have forgotten or are simply ignorant of the rich foundation provided by the perennial philosophy.
Ralph W. Hood, Professor of Psychology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, past president of the Psychology of Religion division of the American Psychological Association, co-founder of The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion and co-author of The Psychology of Religion
- I read Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy with great interest and enthusiasm. Here is a collection of well written and well argued essays endorsing the view that traditional cultures have much more to offer the contemporary mind (as both psyche and worldview) than most contemporary psychologists realize. This book offers multiple bridges between ancient forms of wisdom and current psychological theories and diagnoses, explaining how and why traditional forms of wisdom may provide our richest source of treatments for crises in both psychological illness and spiritual alienation. I strongly recommend this book, especially for those readers interested in transpersonal psychology, metaphysical aspects of the psyche, theories of nondual consciousness, and the perennial philosophy as an integral approach to spirituality.
Dana Sawyer, Professor and Program Chair of Liberal Arts, Maine College of Art, author of Huston Smith: Wisdomkeeper: Living The World’s Religions
- Samuel Bendeck Sotillos has put together a compendium of 18 essays and 3 book reviews which, taken together, build a robust foundation of readings. Anyone who is interested in the intersection where psychotherapy process and spirituality meet should read Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy. With essays ranging from the esoteric to more applied, this text is thought-provoking and stimulating for any reader, a collection of thoughts from some of the great minds of the perennial philosophy.
Craig S. Cashwell, Ph.D., LPC, NCC, ACS, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, co-editor of Integrating Spirituality and Religion Into Counseling: A Guide to Competent Practice
- Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy provides an accurate critique of modern psychology and its attempts to distance from the human soul and diminish traditional spiritual worldviews and practices. This informative book attempts to reclaim the sacred psychology of the world’s wisdom traditions and reassert self-realization to its essential place in the human journey.
Rick Johnson, Portland State University, author of Reclaiming Your Real Self and Spirituality in Counseling and Psychotherapy
- Samuel Bendeck Sotillos does an admirable job of gathering authoritative Western commentators and scholars of the perennial philosophy and bringing their insights to bear on the interface between spiritual wisdom and Western psychology. This anthology gives valuable historical and philosophical context to the current movement to develop genuinely nondual approaches to psychotherapy.
Stephan Bodian, MFT, licensed psychotherapist, former editor-in-chief of Yoga Journal, author of Beyond Mindfulness
- Psychology & the Perennial Philosophy: Studies in Comparative Religion gathers articles by René Guénon, Tage Lindbom, and others and provides a satisfying blend of psychology and analysis of spiritual tradition and wisdom, gathering essays written by representatives of the perennialist school. It offers a challenging blend of insights into psychology and mystical spiritual traditions, explaining how modern psychology lost touch with its spiritual roots and providing a fine synthesis of spiritual and psychological observations. The result is a fine recommendation for any interested in comparative religious studies.
from a review in California Bookwatch, a publication of Midwest Book Reviews
- A necessary and bracing critique of the assumptions and limitations of contemporary Western psychology, this generous volume is also a passionate call and learned guide towards a truer perspective that embraces man’s spiritual nature.
Gabor Maté, M.D., and author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction
- I am very happy that you are engaged in this project and I think that it can help to clear the atmosphere which is now very vague, confused, and cloudy. I honor and I am happy with the project.
Huston Smith, Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, Syracuse University, author of The World’s Religions
- Knowing the nature of the mind is perhaps the most difficult undertaking, especially in today’s world. To comprehend the nature of mind one needs to turn to the domain of religion and spirituality. Yet the truth of the mind and its complexity cannot explicitly be defined in words. Inner or transcendent wisdom sees the mind’s own nature without the duality of the seer. Suchness (tathat?) of mind is only experiential and not expressible. The words used to describe thought are themselves a product of thought, which is conditioned and limited. Thus, differences and contradictions are unavoidable. Therefore, a comparative study of different viewpoints and commentaries is immensely important to awaken the inner intelligence to see the mind as it is. Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy: Studies in Comparative Religion edited by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos is an outstanding effort in this direction.
Samdhong Rinpoche, former Prime Minister (Kalon Tripa) of the Tibetan Government-in-exile, author of Uncompromising Truth for a Compromised World: Tibetan Buddhism and Today’s World
- This book is a collection of essays primarily written by distinguished representatives of the perennialist school, or adherents of the philosophia perennis et universalis. As a psychologist, I find the case made for the spiritual and broader dimensions of psychology in the work enlightening and cogent. As a traditionalist Greek Orthodox believer, I do not adhere to many of the tenets of the religio perennis. Nonetheless, there are many fascinating ideas and views in these essays from which Orthodox thinkers can draw inspiration, including an essay on consciousness by Philip Sherrard, whom they will know from his work on The Philokalia. The volume offers a challenging intellectual adventure that I recommend to any open-minded and thoughtful student of psychology and mystical spiritual traditions.
Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna, Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, author of A Guide to Orthodox Psychotherapy: The Science, Theology, and Spiritual Practice Behind It and Its Clinical Application
- There is no better source than this unsurpassed work for someone seeking knowledge of the why, when, where, what, and how present-day psychology lost touch with its origins. I humbly express my gratitude for this hidden treasure of wisdom and wholeheartedly endorse it for whoever is searching, as I had been, for an answer to: Who am I?
Laleh Bakhtiar, President of the Institute of Traditional Psychology and author of Sufi: Expressions of the Mystic Quest
- This book is an anthology of great writings on a supremely fascinating and complex subject: what are the nature and the significance of the human psyche within the framework of perennial wisdom? Answers are sought in the writings of prestigious authors from various fields: comparative religion, philosophy, transpersonal psychology, the study of psychedelics. This is an impressive work, and most useful for helping readers to become aware of their implicit assumptions, and perhaps to challenge them.
Piero Ferrucci, author of Beauty and the Soul
- The rise of psychology has impacted the study and practice of spirituality, the experiences and attitudes relevant to ultimate human values that transcend ordinary behavior. Each chapter of this remarkable book demonstrates this interaction in a unique and provocative way. But rather than using psychology to reduce and ‘psychologize’ spiritual topics, its authors demonstrate how directives from the spiritual traditions can enhance and even illuminate the enduring importance of psychology in the 21st century.
Stanley Krippner, Saybrook University, co-author of Spiritual Dimensions of Healing
- Erudite, nuanced, complex, a thinking-feeling-sensing-intuitive person’s text on the spiritual truths of all times, Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy helps uplift our contemporary discourse and thus inspires real spiritual aspiration as well as edifying the intellect and clarifying our shared, current understandings of the perennial truths. I hope many will benefit from and enjoy this much-needed work.
Stuart Sovatsky, California Institute for Integral Studies, co-president of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology (ATP), author of Words from the Soul: Time, East/West Spirituality, and Psychotherapeutic Narrative
- The work at hand is a thinking and debating man’s delight. If you have any interest at all in attempting to include an educated and enlightened view of man’s higher functions in your purview of the world, you will learn from and enjoy this collection of essays. If you already have some knowledge in this area, brace yourself: you may see some of your favorites sharply criticized. A thought-provoking work.
Bruce W. Scotton, University of California, San Francisco, co-editor of Textbook of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology
- This book, superbly edited by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos, is a masterful critique of the field of psychology and its loss of the sacred ground in which it once was rooted. It offers depth psychologists an opportunity to contemplate timeless truths echoed through the centuries by perennial philosophers who have always claimed psyche is subordinate to Spirit. Although ignored in depth psychology’s early years due to prejudice and lack of understanding, this is a message today’s psychotherapists must take seriously. Human beings need a deeper and wider transpersonal vision of who and what we are, which the saints and sages of the world’s spiritual traditions have always pointed to. In psychotherapy with a therapist committed to such a vision, patients penetrate into their unconscious depths and not infrequently awaken to the Ground of all Being. Their suffering itself occurred because they had turned away from Spirit. Above all, this volume passionately calls upon depth psychology to remember its origin in the perennial wisdom at the core of the great religions. There is something of a polemic in these pages. It deserves to be considered by depth psychologists of all persuasions.
Bryan Wittine, Transpersonal psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst
- This book is rich and stimulating and provides us with a much-needed discussion of modern psychology and the perennial philosophy, and also has many implications for the practice of psychotherapy. As psychotherapists, do we approach our clients from an orientation that applies ‘cookie cutter’ solutions to their humanity, or do we recognize the individual as unique and as the spiritual being he or she is? This book challenges us to profoundly examine what we believe psychotherapy is and to examine our hidden assumptions about human beings, assumptions that we bring into the therapy room.
Ann Gila, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (Palo Alto), co-author of Psychosynthesis: A Psychology of the Spirit
- This anthology from Samuel Bendeck Sotillos is a must reference for anyone who is interested in psychology and its relationship to spirituality, and in developing an inclusive dialogue between disciplines that favor an integral outlook on the person and his or her potential. Selections in this anthology will inspire us to reexamine the metaphysical underpinnings of psychology, and remind us how important it is to rise above science’s attempt to reduce the human being to an epistemic object.
Sangeetha Menon, National Institute of Advanced Studies (Bangalore, India), Board Member of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA), author of The Beyond Experience: Consciousness in Bhagavad Gita
- To its credit modern science by-and-large is becoming more cognizant of the essential connection between spirituality and psychological health and well-being and most of all its positive implications within the field of psychology. While there is ample data to document this in a plethora of academic journals and books, this new book Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy adds a novel contribution to the dialogue between psychology and spirituality, which captures many nuances that for the most part go unnoticed within these discussions, and last but not least, it provides a keen eye of discernment to understand this intricate relationship on a deeper level that is crucially needed. This work will be a valuable asset to students and long term mental health practitioners and professors alike who seek to better understand the relationship between psychology and spirituality.
Harold G. Koenig, Duke University, Director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health, co-author of The Handbook of Religion and Health
- This is an interesting and meaningful collection sure to engage any student of psychology and comparative religion. Full of diverse views and thought-provoking prose.
Dana E. King, West Virginia University, Professor and Chair, Department of Family Medicine, co-author of Handbook of Religion and Health
- This judicious assembly of essays, interviews, and book reviews, some published here for the first time, offers an outstanding overview of the perennial philosophy and its implicit critique of contemporary psychology. Whether or not one is a proponent of the perennialist viewpoint, there is much to be gained from reading this informative, historically well-grounded, and astutely critical review of the philosophy’s major representatives and its psychological interlocutors.
David M. Wulff, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Wheaton College, author of Psychology of Religion: Classic and Contemporary
- The opening quotation from Rene Guenon’s Man and His Becoming According to Vedanta encapsulates the content and purpose of the collection of articles under discussion: “As for modern Western psychology, it deals only with quite a restricted portion of the human individuality, where the mental faculty is in direct relationship with the corporeal modality, and, given, the methods it employs, it is incapable of going any further. In any case the very objective which it sets before itself and which is exclusively the study of mental phenomena [of the ego], limits it strictly to the realm of the individuality, so that the state which we are now discussing [Atma or the Self] necessarily eludes its investigations.”
The editor of this rich volume on the question of psychology and spiritual works is academically qualified in the mental health field and a scholar in mystical literature. Briefly, the collection of articles is divided into three sections: Critique, Theoria and Praxis. There are three book reviews, two of which are respectively, evaluations on the modern spiritual authorities, Eckhart Tolle and Ken Wilber.
There are articles by distinguished scholars and academics such as Frithjof Schuon, Titus Burckhardt, Philip Sherrard, Ananda Coomaraswamy among others. It is a judicious mixture and the editor is to be commended for the quality of contributions. It has been lovingly and intelligently put together. The Coomaraswamy article ‘On Being in One’s Right Mind’ is one I have not read before and is excellent. For purposes of this short review the focus is on the editor’s article which is central to the collection, “The Impasse of Modern Psychology”. Sotillos delineates the four principal schools of modern psychology, namely Behaviourism, Psychoanalysis, Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology. He presents a succinct but brilliant synopsis of their basic premises and then proceeds to show their inherent limitations in the light of the perennial philosophy. It is the first time I have read such a clear account of these major schools free of woolly jargon and needless obfuscation.
Science is another dogma and does not control the quest for truth in all its aspects and for this discipline to declare it is the only valid instrument is simply wrong. It has affected all the disciplines in our world not just psychology, with the mechanical, deterministic and reductionist assumptions of its own discipline. In its most blatant aspect we see the science of economics define the worth of a human being in terms of how much monetarily is one worth. Sotillos writes: “The truth of the Absolute is not awaiting empirical or observable proof that it exists, and this is what modern psychology, and the modern and by extension the postmodern outlook as a whole, entirely fails to comprehend. The integral psychologies of the perennial philosophy, being grounded in metaphysical principles, cannot be reduced a priori to empirical or statistical data, as they lie outside the psycho-physical domain which is verified by one of the earliest sapiential traditions of this temporal cycle, known as the sanatana dharma.”
Though intellectually and technically quite demanding the effort is worth it. A rewarding book.The Mountain Path journal
- In Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy readers will read important critiques of classic and contemporary psychology’s understanding of the spirit and soul. The essays offer readers new to perennial philosophy an introduction to key concepts and rebuttals to objections from transpersonal and other psychological perspectives. Readers more familiar with the perspectives in this book will appreciate the blend of classic and fresh expositions in the perennial tradition.
Michael Nielsen, Professor and Chair of Psychology, Georgia Southern University, Co-Editor, Archive for the Psychology of Religion
- Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy, edited by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos, is a well-devised and stimulating anthology that provides much food for thought for therapists and mental health clinicians… It includes original and insightful pieces such as “Modern Psychology” by Titus Burckhardt, “The Psychological Imposture” by Frithjof Schuon, “The Confusion of the Psychic with the Spiritual” by René Guénon, “Situating the Psyche” by William Stoddart, “The ‘Four Forces’ of Modern Psychology and the Primordial Tradition” by Huston Smith, and “The Impasse of Modern Psychology” by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos, among yet several other essays by authors that belong in one way or another to the Perennialist school.…
Besides exposing the limitations and contradictions of modern psychotherapies, the book points out what might be considered as the principles that underline traditional or perennial psychologies.…
Samuel Bendeck Sotillos made surprising and bold choices in order to offer readers an intellectually rich challenge to the psychotherapeutic world, contributions which throw light for understanding not only on the place of the psyche in the total constitution of man, but also of roads to healing its imbalances and disorders. Such contributions confront with discernment, and love for the truth, the place of man in a world where the psyche was subtracted of its spiritual substance, and in which man and women were stripped of their spiritual side — a side which this book shows it is possible to reinstate.”Mateus Soares de Azevedo, author, translator, editor, and journalist, from a review in The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology
