Psychology is the New Mysticism

The Intersection of Intellectual Mysticism, Kabbalah and Transpersonal Psychology

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Transcript

Adam Jacobs: I learned about you and your work from a book called Spiritual Awakenings by Dr. Marjorie Woollacott, which outlines all of these thinkers and scientists and folks who have the pedigree of authentic scientists, but nonetheless mostly admit to having had spiritual tendencies even though some of the people had to put their name as anonymous in the book. Because I guess it's not fully accepted yet in the academy. I know the answer for myself, but for the sake of the people watching, can you tell us a little bit about what your spiritual awakening was about, and also what the Aleph Trust is?

Les Lancaster: Yes. I don't know whether I would use the phrase spiritual awakening. I have always been interested in religion, many religions, my own religion, Judaism, and from my early twenties, I think I was looking for ways to understand religions and especially mysticism in ways that related to my career, as it were, which is in psychology. So I wouldn't say spiritual waking. I don't think I ever woke up on top of a mountain and realized that there was some blinding light enlightening me.

Adam Jacobs: Okay. Yes, I don't think me either.

Les Lancaster: But I guess over my many years. This has been a kind of deepening of the sense of what it means to engage with something beyond oneself. We could use the word God source, whatever word we want to use for that. And I mean, if I go back to my early twenties, when I first became interested in the Kabbalah Jewish mysticism, at that point I was beginning my career as a neuroscientist, as a psychologist, or a research psychologist. And I kind of came to the conclusion quite early on that the most insightful things that I was reading about the nature of the mind and the potential of our own being were coming from the mystic side and not from the psychology side.

Although at that time, I decided that they should be coming from the psychology side. I mean, this is about the mind. Psychology is the study, many would say science of the mind and behavior. So as far as I was concerned, I was being enriched through my interest in mysticism, mainly the Kabbalah, which I became interested in at that stage. And my orientation was that there was a challenge here. The challenge was to try and work on the psychology side with this equation to bring it, as it were, more in line with the powerful insights that I was understanding through my reading, but also through experiential work in a more kind of mystical framework, virtual framework. That was the challenge. And I would say now, more than 50 years later, that's something I've tried to work on. I wouldn't say I've achieved it.

I tried to work on it. Which brings me to the second part of your question, the Aleph Trust. So you asked what that is, and so the art of trust, we founded the Aleph Trust fourteen years ago, something like that. So I had a career at the university. I was a professor of transpersonal psychology, which again is the area of psychology that does take these kind of spiritual and mystical ideas quite seriously. But at the same time, I was still steeped in my background as a neuroscientist. I wanted to work with the brain and so on. And I felt that the university world that I was in, maybe it's changed now. Actually, we were talking about 15 years ago, thereabouts was too restrictive, and I wasn't able to move in the directions with the kind of speed that I wanted. Our world is changing; it changes so fast in all kinds of ways, which I'm sure we could talk about. And the wheels of the universities turned somewhat slowly.

It was an opportunity at the time, and I thought, let's move in this direction. Okay, we'll keep connection with the university. So Aleph Trust, is a partner of the university where I'm now an emeritus professor. So we're doing postgraduate work online, a master's program, PhD program. So that is legitimate, accredited, sorry, that's the right word. It's accredited through the partnership we have with the university, but we're not burdened in the way that I felt that I used to be with the baggage of the university. It's a relatively small organization, although I must say we've grown a lot, and we've been able to move beyond the academic sphere.

The academic side of things is, if you like our backbone, I think it gives us some credibility. And I'm obviously an academic myself, but we moved a lot more into applied areas and are trying to bring what I see as the wisdom of these ancient traditions and the benefits of a transpersonal approach into applied and professional areas for the benefit of all.

Adam Jacobs: Yeah. When I was looking at your coursework, I started to wonder whether I could take these courses, and it's a very attractive program, I think, and I think personally that transpersonal studies is the future of psychology. I see a lot of indicators that seem to be pointing in that direction. It obviously may take a long time before that is achieved, but you could tell me better than you would know better.

It seems to me that psychology is rooted in spiritual ideas to begin with. And the examples I could think of are DBT. I know it's rooted in Buddhist thinking ultimately. And I think that Freud, I don't know if the connection, I think it's debated whether he had a connection to Kabbalah through Jung, but the notion of id, the ego and the superego seemed very much like the kabbalistic idea of nefesh, ruach, and neshama, these two competing aspects of the mind, if you will. But would you say that there's a natural organic connection with psychology and Kabbalah specifically and the origins of psychiatry and psychology, or am I making that up?

Les Lancaster: Okay, so I think you've touched on a number of different things there. And lemme try and unpack them, right? I mean, the question of whether the future of psychology is in the area of the transpersonal, that was one thing you mentioned, and I don't have the answer to that, time will tell, but what I do think is that as a culture, there are some major changes that are taking place. And in a way, we live in a transitional age that you could date the onset of this transitional age around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, which does place it in relation to Freud, interestingly. So, before we go to Freud, I think that our society as a whole is looking for new ways of expressing what is a very deep, profound urge within humankind. And that is the urge to be part of something larger, to recognize the place of meaning that our lives are not vacuous, that we have a need to belong.

And our place of belonging, if you want to put a religious frame on that, our place of belonging is a relation to God. If you don't want a religious frame, I think that our place of belonging is the universe. So this is the transition, and all areas of thought are responding to that transition some more slowly, some maybe less consciously, but we will develop, we change. That's what's happening. Globalization, for example, is not just a trivial phenomenon. When those first pictures of the globe of the Earth came back from space, the gem of our planet hanging in the blackness, I mean, it's so profound. And that's about shifting consciousness. That's what we're talking about. And so psychology, all kinds of other areas are responding to that.

So if I go back to the beginning of my career in psychology, which is kind of the early 1970s, when I was very interested in meditation, to give one example, right? I wouldn't have dreamed of bringing that into my academic work. It was a no-no, it was not. One had to step very carefully. But today, completely different. Ideas of spirituality are very central, very central in psychology in the areas of health, social ideas of community, and so on. So we are witnessing a big change. That's the first point.

Freud, in particular, is a hugely influential character. In terms of the sort of changes that I've been talking about, was he influenced by the Kabbalah? Well, some say he was, but I can tell you for certain that his approach to what became psychoanalysis is essentially built on Jewish foundations. So what I'm saying is that whether he was involved with the Kabbalah is a totally other question. I'm not sure that he was, or some have argued that, but was he steeped in the midrashic mind as I would call it. I mean, his way of getting into the unconscious, as it were, was through free association to get the person to make connections between seemingly diverse ideas.

So, anyone who knows anything about Judaism knows that this is the rabbinic style. This is midrash, as we call it. And so Freud, and I think this was intentional. I said before, I dunno, that he was really involved in the Kabbalah, but I think he did have a sense that there was gold in the rabbinic approach to ideas that he was able to draw from that. And as it were, secularize it. The question where the limits of religion and secularization, why are the boundaries there? I think that's a whole other question. But he certainly, as one writer put it, transferred the idea of miash from the sacred text to the mind, the psyche.

Adam Jacobs: Fascinating and important, I think. I think that that fact or those facts go unrecognized often in the public at large. I don't think that they necessarily recognize a connection between these two things, either currently or in the past. But I think that they would benefit from incorporating more of a spiritual approach into their psychology. And I think that studies bear that out.

Les Lancaster: Can I jump in there?

Adam Jacobs: Yes, please.

Les Lancaster: Yes. I think there is a growing recognition academically that those roots, those Jewish roots of what Freud was bringing into Western culture, were a major source for him. Freud himself was an expert at covering his tracks, and I think that he did not want, and you've got to think about this in terms of time and place. We're talking about the early end of the 19th very early 20th century in Austria. And of course, there was a huge amount of antisemitism in all kinds of ways. And he was very concerned that his work should not be seen as Jewish, and he wanted it to be seen as scientific. And a lot of his writings conceal some of the more religious dimensions.

But it's very interesting, his relationship with Jung, you mentioned (I mean there was a falling out between the two of them, which is quite famous). But essentially Jung was the character who translated the fundamental insights of psychoanalysis into the realm of spirituality and mysticism, especially.

Adam Jacobs: Right? He seemed much more overt about it, his connection to it.

Les Lancaster: Yes. And when you mentioned the Kabbalah, because you were asking, was Freud influenced by Kabbalah? When we look at Jung, I think there's no question, no question. In fact, you may have come across it. And there was an interview that Jung gave to a journalist. I think he was 80 at the time. And at one point in that interview, he says that the the Maggid of Mezritch, a Hasidic master, Jung said that he anticipated my entire psychology in the 18th century.

Adam Jacobs: I didn't know that, actually, but that's fascinating.

Les Lancaster: It's a very interesting, yeah, that's on record. And the fact is that Jung had a whole major visions involving Kabbalistic themes, and again, anyone who's looked seriously into Jung will know that one of the major sources of his insight was alchemy. And the alchemy was itself majorly influenced by the Kabbalah. So these paths of connection are interesting and sometimes worth following. There are dangers of falling into a rabbit hole. But I think in terms of understanding the deep forces that formed our, as it were, western culture, these connections are really important.

Adam Jacobs: So you wrote a wonderful piece in the International Journal of Transpersonal studies called “Re-Veiling the Revealed” and I was really taken by it. And I really thought about it, and I have a number of questions on that, if that's okay.

Les Lancaster: Sure.

Adam Jacobs: So in one part, you say the Zohar conveys its conception, the Zohar being the quintessential kabbalistic work, probably. So “it conveys its conception of such higher mystical states of consciousness using the imagery of awakening; those who are unable to gaze into the concealed levels are asleep. And the path toward awakening entails complex hermeneutical and intellectual work to awaken, just to become alive to the levels of meaning inherent in the veiling and to grasp the imperative to re-veil the revealed. So there's so much in that, right? So I don't think it's uncommon for the metaphor of being asleep to be unaware of higher consciousness and whatnot, that we understand. But what does it mean that there's an imperative to re-vail the revealed isn't the revealed, the goal we want the revealed to remain revealed?

Les Lancaster: Firstly, let me say that I wrote that particular article to emphasize the importance, as I see it, of what can best be called intellectual mysticism. I think there has been a renewed interest in spirituality and mysticism in our time, and often the emphasis is on experience. And it can be intellectually somewhat simplistic. I don't mean to be unduly critical, but I think there is that tendency in this reawakening of the spiritual in our age.

So I thought that there should be a kind of rebalancing towards understanding, not just the role of the intellect in reading texts and stuff, which, of course, is important. As I said, you quoted the sort of hermeneutic style, which connects to the midrash we discussed before. Actually, the hermeneutic style is the mystical path. It is not like I'm going to read something and then I'm going to sit on my cross legs or whatever and get into a wonderful experiential state. But actually, the intellectual process itself for the kabbalist is a way of reaching a higher state. And I wanted to convey that because I think it's timely to make that point. The particular point you talked about revealing the revealed, I mean, it's a little bit poetic or whatever, so excuse that.

Adam Jacobs: No, I like it. It's okay.

Les Lancaster: I mean, this comes from the Zohar itself. But I think there's a quote, I can't remember the quote now. I probably quoted it in that article, which says that the Zohar is really about trying to see the structure underneath the sacred scripture, particularly the Torah. So for the Zohar or the author of the Zohar, the Torah is clothing to something more fundamentally important: the nature of the divine in kabbalistic terms, the structure of the Torah, and the paths of wisdom. So that's a whole esoteric idea, which maybe we'll unpack, but just to take that as red at the moment. So the Zohar is trying to say, okay, here's a text, here's something in the Torah, let's delve further into it. Let's play with it a bit. Play is very important. And we can see, actually, there's something deeper going on in this text.

Then the Zohar itself says, that's not enough. You have to recover. Recover what you are privileged to have discerned in depth. It's interesting, isn't it? The word recover in English. What does it mean? Think about health. If I recover, I mean, what you had in mind immediately is to recover, to put another cover on, or whatever. But why does that term also mean to be healthy? I've been ill, and I've recovered. What's going on there? So the way we use language I think is very important, and that itself is a very cabalistic point as well. The meaning of language and the etymology of words are hugely important. So there's something going on there. In other words, if there is something of a deeper insight, then our duty from the point of the Kabbalah or the Zohar is to transmit it, but not in its full uncoveredness.

I dunno, you probably know the Zohar. I can imagine. It's a very famous parable in the Zohar about a beautiful maiden, lady. So this princess is in the palace, and this person, this man, is outside, and so he's very distant from her. And then the parable goes through different levels of getting into the palace, getting closer to the princess. Ultimately, he kind of unified being one with the princess. Now you might say, well, okay, that's the end of the story. Isn't a beautiful story that he is some aspect of the divine and to gain access and to be intimately close to the divine, that's the goal.

But that's not where the story ends. The story ends by going back to the initial scene where he was standing outside the palace, and the story ends with him saying, Ah, now he understood what was going on there. In other words, there is this need to recover and to put it into psychological terms, which is what I, as I work as a psychologist, the whole emphasis on concealing and revealing, which is absolutely central to Kabbalah, it's like the conscious on the unconscious.

Obviously, the unconscious is concealed. I mean, you've mentioned Freud before. It's a clear parallel. So in this sense, we're trying to get access to the world of the unconscious. Our potential is bound up with the world of the unconscious. But consider a dream, for example. So this is classic Jung, Freud, whatever, and it's in mystical traditions as well. Say you have a dream, as the Talmud says, if you don't open the letter, a dream is like a note, got that wrong I a letter that's not been opened. You've got to open it, you've got to go into it, but it's not always necessary to interpret everything. It's like, psychologically speaking, flowing and playing with the subtle content is the way to enrich oneself.

There are dangers in thinking, “Ah, I've just uncovered this. Oh, I know what it means.” I dreamt of whatever it was, and thought about it a bit. Oh, that's it. Now I know what it was. Well, that closes it. That closes it down. If you work with that part of the mind that is playing and flexible, then you see greater richness in things veiling the revealed.

I mean, in that article, I also talk about the Islamic and the Sufi tradition. A lot of interesting material about the veil, of course, we have it in the idea of the temple or the Mishkan tabernacle. What's a veil? The word for veil in Hebrew. Let's go into a little bit of this. So, certain letters in Hebrew are known as double letters. They have two different pronunciations. So the word for veil is totally made up with these double letters. If anyone, I mean if you know the word is parrot veil, they're all double letters. Why? Well, clearly a veil has this twofold aspect. The veil conceals and it reveals.
And so there's a deep mysticism here about what a veil is. And as I say, Sufism has a lot to say about that comes in for Kabbalah as well, the interchange between Sufism and Kabbalah historically. That's very interesting.

Adam Jacobs: So I think that that is the way that I personally have my own spiritual quest, which also comes through the Judaic path for us, mostly through prayer and contemplation. That's where a lot of the development comes from. At the same time, we do have an element, I think we have an eastern element that gets underemphasized often, which does have a meditative aspect. It does have a non-attachment aspect. It's just not as overt as maybe in some of the eastern practices. And I say that to set up, I'm leading to a question, which I had a conversation recently with a friend and teacher who leans more towards the eastern way of things. And we were talking about this, is this really a psychological question, but he was talking to me about making progress in a certain area of my life that I would like to make progress in.

And he's like, you have to be more non-attached to the outcomes and use a more eastern approach, is basically what he was saying. You have to empty yourself of all your thinking and your active mind and all that, and allow things to flourish on their own. And in some ways, it strikes, I guess, the Jewish mind as counterintuitive, the opposite of maybe what you're supposed to do. But at the same time, it sounds like a very good idea. But his main point was that you've read about these ideas, you know them already. Your intellectual mind knows you shouldn't be doing X, Y, and Z things, and therefore, you've already proven to yourself that it's not sufficient. You need another path to break through this problem. And so my question to you is based on the intellectual mysticism concept, which I'm very drawn to, does it have limitations along those lines? Does the intellect fail at a certain point?

Les Lancaster: It reminds me of something that Elie Wiesel once said. This was a program on the TV decades ago, whenever, and was asked, it was about different religions, and he was asked about these other religions like Buddhism, eastern religions, the idea of silence is a great goal, math, meditation, or whatever. Then, if you look at a seminary and Judaism, and it's a lot of noise, is there a place of silence? That's what he was asked. He said our mystical tradition is full of silence, but we don't talk about it. That was a very clever comment.

So that article that you refer to revealing the reveal, I'm talking about intellectual mysticism. I'm not saying that's all there is to Judaism or that's all there is to the Kabbalah. I mean, we have many sources that are writing about the need to strip away thought and try to translate it, trying to get to the roots of thought. Where does thought arise from? Where does the thought come from? What's the beginning of thought? And of course, what they're really saying is the root of thought is a kind of silence, the stillness in which thought arises. So, is there a difference between Eastern traditions and Western traditions? That's a very big question. But the idea that through Christianity as well, the idea that there is somehow not a place for the kind of meditator do stillness that is encouraged in eastern traditions, that's not a correct idea.

The issue is a question of different paths and different ways of working. I mean, we are westerners, whatever that means. And I mean, so much of the world has been influenced by what I can best call the Western mindset. It's not just Western in that sense. I mean the European intellectual tradition, which itself was founded in many ways around Christianity. And then you had the tension between Christianity and Judaism or rabbinic Judaism. So, going back 2000 years, there is a schism. So we've got the birth of Christianity, we've got the birth of what becomes rabbinic Judaism, and they have very different worldviews.

And that, as it were, fault line in a collective psyche has gone down through 2000 years. Some might say the Holocaust was the kind of end point of that fault line, but that's going off the point. But the reason I mentioned that is because you are asking about Eastern traditions, and I'm saying that I think the age that we're kind of tentatively moving into, an age of globalization, is seeing those divisions coming down. But I mean, going back to Jung, Jung or himself thought that the Western mind was not always suited to the Eastern spiritual traditions. Now, I dunno whether he's right or wrong, but I do know that connecting with one's roots is a very important part of spiritual growth.

Adam Jacobs: Yes, I would agree with that. Perhaps more organic, easier, but okay, so your point is well taken. But let me just drill down on one more aspect of intellectual mysticism because certainly there's a great interest in mysticism, I think, in general in the world. And as I said, I think psychology is developing into a form of mysticism that's just been accepted. But there's a quote from a great kabbalistic thinker, Moshe Idel, that you write in this article, which says, “undue focus on the experiential and ultimate features of mystical states stymies the psychological study of mysticism. Focus on experience leads to a kind of academic no man's land in which neither psychologists nor scholars of mysticism see value in our approach.”

That's interesting for a variety of reasons, because I think that experience is held as the paragon of the mystical path. Everyone's looking for the feeling; they're looking for the endpoint, the enlightenment, the arrival, or whatever you want to call it. The reason we're doing all this meditation is to experience something profound, right? So are you saying, or is he saying, that it actually stymies the process? Is it something not worth pursuing? Because also at the end of the article, you mentioned how the Zoar talks about the mystical process is ongoing. There is no arrival point. It's an infinite series of discoveries and development. Do you understand my question?

Les Lancaster: Yes, yes. I think something that's very popular these days is talking about non-dual. What is the non-dual? Well, dual in this sense means subject and objective division and everything that develops from that, right? So we are, in a sense, distanced from whatever it is that we're looking at someone we're talking to. There's always that distance, that duality. And a goal of mystical traditions is to connect with the one to be at one. So I think this is in all traditions, in one way or another. It's in all traditions. So the core essence of the divine, as far as the Kabbalah is concerned, is that which means no limit, but essentially. And so, yes, that is always a goal, but what can you say about it? It is possible that people experience it, although I tend to be a little cynical here.

I think what people say about the experience and what the reality may be are not always the same. And there's a whole, again, academic literature about that. Do we ever, as it were, get beyond the structures of the deep psyche? I don't know. I can't answer that. But the point, and I think this ties in with what Moshe Idel is saying, is that our study is to understand something intellectually, and then what's interesting is the sort of intermediate realms. So ultimately, yes, there's nothingness, let's call it nothingness or non-dual whatever.

And certainly in Kabbalah, and I think other traditions as well, are much more focused on what's between where I am in my mundane natural state of consciousness and that ultimate. So it's the path that is important. And I think that's true. I think Moshe Idel is talking really academically. So it's true academically if, say, well, ultimately it's all about non-duality. Well, fine, there's nothing I can say about that. But it's also true in terms of our experience as well. So, again, if we're talking about the Kabbalah, then 99% of the Kabbalistic texts are talking about, as it were, the structures in the higher realms. I mean, how do we understand that as a whole question? And psychologically, I think it relates to ideas of the unconscious, actually, in the way that Jung was writing about. So that's an example of something that I think is fruitful to study.

What's an archetype? In what sense do archetypes have an impact on my life? So rather than say, well, what about the oneness and the non-dual? I can't say so much more about that. It's a goal. But in terms of let's say the structure of the tree of life as we call it, or the archetypal structure of the deep psyche, then yes, we can explore that. We can uncover the intrinsic patterns of the deepest sense of our being and in the world, I mean the coming together of physics and psychology, that's a whole interesting area as well.

Adam Jacobs: I wish I had more time, as this is very interesting and very edifying and a whole different take on how I had up to now been conceiving of kabbalistic study. And so it's very validating on many levels. So I thank you for that. But I have time for one more question, and I hope we'll have a chance to speak again in the future. So this is therefore for everybody, it seems as though that only the true intellectual is going to be able to participate in this kind of contemplation. It's almost like the Zohar and other kabbalistic texts are setting up this very difficult entry point where, if you can't comprehend all these complexities, we're sorry, but there's just no way for you to access this. And I dunno, maybe that's where the whole Hasidic movement comes in with its simplicity. But okay, so is this only for an elite band of scholars, or how does it affect humanity in general?

Les Lancaster: So the Kabbalah in its classic forms, although again you mentioned Hasidism, which is interesting as well, but the Kabbalah is elitist. I don't think there's any question about that. And the issue is not about elitism. Well, maybe it's just to some extent. For example, the Kabbalah is hugely chauvinistic. I mean, it's very male-oriented. So we could criticize in that sense as well. And I'll come back to the point. But let's just say in passing here that I think it's the responsibility of those of any age to make the traditional ideas, to update them, and make them relevant. So, for example, on the feminist side, not to say, oh, well, the ancient ideas are sansan, we can't touch them. We can't change them. No, I mean the Kabbalah has evolved over the centuries, and it needs to evolve in our day as well. I mean, I would say that connecting with psychology is part of that evolution, actually.

So that's a bit of a tangent. So let me come back to the point about elitism. Yes, I think that the path of Kabbalah is, it's what I've already said, intellectual mysticism, working with profound ways of connecting ideas and really penetrating into ideas that are central to the Kabbalah. And I think it's formative for the Jewish mind historically as well. But that's not the same thing as saying that someone who maybe doesn't have that acumen, that sharpness of mind, is as if you were abandoned. And again, that's why the Hasidic movement developed the person.

The problem we have is that the word elitism is kind of viewed negatively. It is tarnished. But here we're talking about what it is to be in relation to the source of the highest. Let's say that, and I'm not saying it, but I don't think the Kabbalah says that if you don't engage with this intellectual practice, you can't be in touch with the highest. It's not saying that. And that's exactly what the thrust of Hasidism was. That's why it arose. But I think what we're saying is if your mind is such that you want to look at this in these kinds of deeper ways, this is the way in which using the mind brings about higher states or whatever you want to think about it.

And so I think we're mixing out two things. One is an individual's potential, and we all have that potential. The other is what it means to be engaged deeply with intellectual work. The famous story you'll know is when he got up to Heaven, and he said he died, he got up to Heaven, and he was being quizzed. And God says, “Look, I didn't require you to be Moses. I needed you to be Zusha.” You need to be true to yourself. And so that's the real point.

Adam Jacobs: I hear. And that's an important point, and hopefully is inspiring to people to become fully you is ultimately the goal. And there are multiple pathways seemingly to achieving that. But thank you for your time, but also for your work. And I do hope people will go and check out the all of trust, which we will link. And I wish you great success in your work going forward. I think it's really valuable, and it was really a pleasure to speak today.

Les Lancaster: Thank you. And can I just mention that if anyone is interested in this area, I'm running a course on the Kabbalah and the Psychology of Consciousness through the Shift Network, so that's another link for people to connect with.

Adam Jacobs: I'm going to check that out myself, but that's okay. Thank you for taking the time. I hope to speak soon. Thank you so much.

Les Lancaster: Bye now. Bye.

Adam Jacobs: Take care. Bye-bye. Bye.