Firstly, you don't have to give up! You don't have to be like people who equate spirituality with a religion they decide is false, then abandon. It is possible to look at spirituality another way, as something free of institutional structures and hierarchies, not so much about dogma and beliefs as about attitudes, values and practices, about what motivates you (us) at the deepest level, influencing how you think and behave, helping you find a true and useful place in your community, culture and in the world.
Larry Culliford, M.B., B.Chir. (Cantab), M.R.C. Psych. (UK), is the author of The Psychology of Spirituality and a psychiatrist in Sussex, England. The quote comes from his blog.
Silently waiting, sitting, hour on hour, week after week, slowly tempering the 'soul' – that inner spirit that drives life forward – like a patient hen sitting on her eggs. This is why they speak of Quakers being 'seasoned', like timbers; raw and green freshly felled wood is of limited use – it will warp and twist too much. The self, too full of ego, twists and warps. Tempered over time, seasoned by the long hours of silent waiting, the 'must have now, must do, must …' subsides as it cannot have the instant gratification it craves. Then the slow hatching of a deeper compassion and care for the living emerges.
Before Jung 'religion' and 'spirituality' were equated. You were either an entirely secular – a non-believing, reductively rational materialist – or practised one or other religions: signed up and induced into the 'fold' and fed with a pre-packaged meal of belief, which you might be required to regurgitate on occasions. Increasingly that was a diet that was proving to be too indigestible for many.
What Jung found among his patients were increasing numbers who had become alienated from 'religion' as proffered, and who were suffering from varying degrees of ennui as a result. They were – as the title of one of his books suggested – examples of Modern Man in Search of a Soul. They were cast adrift from the anchoring points traditionally provided by religions, but had found no substitute, often believing they needed none: that is why they were floundering and came to him for help.
His prescription was to look inwardly into the deep mind, often using dreams as a portal – although preferring what he called 'active imagination' – to try to find some anchor points. These often appeared symbolically represented in the pregnant imagery generated in the liminal spaces between full consciousness and the hypnagogic or hypnopompic stages of sleep.
Such discoveries activated the spiritual aspect of his patients lives – put them in touch with their 'soul'. He was little concerned what symbols triggered such awakening, which religion they might come from – he suspected that they were older than any particular religion – just recurring in different guises as religions transformed and evolved. What mattered was their psychological function in helping his patients become more integrated – less distressed and broken.
That shift from outward induction into a received religion, to inward seeking for what resonates, marks the change from being religious to being spiritual. A phenomena even more marked in recent times than in Jung's lifetime. Books such as Spiritual but not Religious (Robert C Fuller), After Religion (Gordon Lynch), After God (Don Cupitt), or even the Dali Lama's own Beyond Religion being testament to that shift.
What Jung admired about the Quakers was that they had already made that shift. Their centuries old practice of silent waiting opening them to being spiritually alert rather than being tied to outward forms of worship – the proscribed rituals of religion. Their rejection of creeds and dogmas readying them to respond to what arose rather than providing them with fixed formulas and ready answers.
It was a fascinating part of my research discovering the interactions between the Jungs (both Carl and Emma) and the Geneva Quakers on exactly such topics; and then tracing the consequences of that encounter for the Quaker world and beyond.
