David C. McClelland (1917–1998)

Perhaps surprisingly, this pamphlet is not dated, but is a fascinating argument by a brilliant psychologist (not an analyst), who was also a Quaker, about the commonalities between psychoanalysis (of the 1950s) and mysticism. He asks: the success of psychoanalysis as a lay religious movement (secularist in that it denies God but religious in that it performs many of the same functions as mystical religion) presents the church with the question: can the church give up some of its reverence for old formulas and seek new ones that speak for God to the condition of our times? Can it allow progressive revelation without weakening its foundation? Can it absorb enough of the mystical approach to religion to respond flexibly to the revelations of God in our time?
While his argument is based on the 1950s situations of the Protestant churches and psychoanalysis, the argument and the questions retain relevance and interest.… (meer)