General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1955 Original Publisher: Association Press Subjects: Pastoral psychology Psychology, Religious Mental illness Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: Self-Deception and Self-Encounter in the Religion off the Mentally III Psychiatrists Have Been Astute to observe that patients often use religion as a self-concealment device. Yet, on the other hand, theologians have always been concerned about the self-revelatory character of religious experience. The depth psychotherapists have made one of the most trenchant criticisms of religion by empirically describing the various concealment and defense devices whereby the sick person defends himself from reality. As Karl Menninger puts it, From the standpoint of the psychiatrist a religion which merely ministers to the unconscious repudiation of reality … cannot be regarded as anything other than a neurotic or psychotic system. 1 He observes that religion may mean different things to different people; … psychological mechanisms determine what type of religion will satisfy a particular individual. 2 Flugel, in addition, says that ever since Adam and Eve, mankind has endeavored to escape the consequences of their guilt by projecting upon one another. 8 The utterances of Jesus, however, even more trenchantly criticize popular religion. For instance, he said: i Karl Menninger, The Human Mind (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1947), p. 466. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites 1 for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, stra…