Psychology & Witchcraft
Posted byBy Tim Boucher,
This is old news, but still interesting: seems some women have filed lawsuits in Illinois alleging that their psychologist “used witchcraft during treatments and threatened patients“. The description of events these women were forced to endure allegedly goes like this: One of the plaintiffs alleges while undergoing treatment for a neurological syndrome, she was taught spells and told to divorce her husband. She moved in with the psychologist and allegedly was forced to take care of the house and take nude pictures of the psychologist.
The other suit alleges the psychologist told the patients to strip and commit acts of self-mutilation and join a Wicca coven, the newspaper said.Apparently this psychologist has been sued before over this same thing. Here’s a link to that article (and a site to get you a registration to view it). Now, I’m certainly in no position to judge the merits of either of these cases, nor do I have any idea what really happened, and if there was any abuse or unprofessionalism involved. That said, I’m rather skeptical of the whole thing. Not because I don’t believe it could have happened - but because of the many similarities between witchcraft and occult work with depth psychology. Jung himself was deeply involved with and inspired by astrology, alchemy and gnostic thought. I don’t believe that his work was “based” on occult practices, but rather that he sought out the underlying principles of how the mind operates by studying systems like these. And if you read Jung’s autobiography, you’ll see just how deeply enmeshed in this style of thinking he really was. To some people, his overt mysticism is a turnoff, but I think it’s what makes his work so enormously powerful.
To the untrained eye - and especially to a patient who’s going through an internal struggle and is filled with fear - it’s very possible that they would confuse depth psychology with something more sinister (especially if part of their psychological problem is a persecution complex!). Not to say, of course, that witchcraft is “dark” or “evil” or anything. But I’m sure there are many exercises used by psychologists which must look somehow occult, or like “spells.” Especially things like creative visualization exercises, which are designed to help you solidify changes in your psyche by accessing archetypal centers, and unlocking repressed energy etc. So whether psychology could be construed as witchcraft, or vice versa, the point is that they both draw on the same things, even utilizing some of the same methods. I’d venture to guess that in the cases described above, the psychologist may have gone too far outside the realms of the story-systems which these women were comfortable with that is, she just chose the wrong sort of costume with which to deliver the psychic medicine. But who knows, maybe she really did tie them to chairs and force them to clean her house nude. I have no way to know. [Originally found these news items via Jennifer Emick’s Alternative Religions]
