Psychology & The Cross

Hans Trüb is one of the unsung heroes of the early movement of Analytical Psychology. He was a pioneer of relational psychoanalysis or intersubjective psychotherapy years before any such terms were coined. Trüb (which means 'cloudy' or ‘gloomy’ in German) had a personal friendship and later conflict with Jung and an ongoing correspondence with philosopher Martin Buber.

Trüb's psychological theory is an attempt of synthesising Analytical Psychology with Buber's dialogue-based philosophy. His vision was an analysis at eye level, a powershift between analyst and analysand, as well as an analysis as focused on the inner as the outer world.

I invited my favorite scholar Paul Bishop again to the podcast to help shed some light on Trüb's thinking, his contributions, and their importance for us today.

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - No light without darkness, Aimless and Mind 2.

In the final episode of this season of searching for the seeds of Secular Christianity, we travel to the 20th century to learn from the German Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

We explore his concept of religionless Christianity which developed as he sat imprisoned in Berlin by the Nazi regime for his resistance, and before his execution. McGrath continues to link back to Augustines idea of the invisible church and coins the term invisible Christianity.

In this episode we travel back in time to the city of Alexandria, the cultural Mecca of the Roman Empire to learn from the Christian theologian and philosopher Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD), about how to build resilience in our present age.

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK - SUBMERSIBLE

The Secret of the Golden Flower is a Taoist text on inner alchemy that landed in Jung's hands in the late 1920s. It was the sinologist and Christian missionary in China, Richard Wilhelm who sent the text to Jung for a commentary.

It's hard to overestimate the importance this text had on Jung and his work. Reading this text made him abandon his work on the Red Book and shift his focus outside to the comparative studies of the individuation process. Especially interesting for this podcast is that it's in Jung's commentary of the text that he most clearly outlines his rendering of the Imitatio Christi.

I invited Jason Smith, host of the podcast Digital Jung, and author of Religious But Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life, back to the podcast to discuss this important work of literature, Jung's comments on it, and what we can learn from it today.

Music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: "Hard Sell" by Ketsa.

In our third season of Secular Christ with Sean J. McGrath we go searching for the seeds of Secular Christianity. The series will go live in early 2024.