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Dirk Campbell - Subud and Psychology

The Need to bring in Psychology. From Salamah Pope, July 7, 2007. Time 23:1

First, I agree completely with Dirk's suggestion that, if we are to be healed (made whole) by the latihan, we need to bring in some psychology somewhere. I also found Psychosynthesis quite helpful, Jungian psychology even more so, but certain elements of the Gurdjieff system for "the harmonious development of man" were - and still are - the basis for my own personal combination of the Subud latihan and psychology.

Bapak seemed to assume that we would all "go back to our own religions" once we had felt the reality of the latihan: but many of us westerners didn't have a religion to begin with. Yet - as Dirk says - generally speaking, the latihan alone doesn't seem to be enough to develop integration, nor dynamic and/or humane(?) values and behaviour. Transform us, in other words.

There's another element that interests me here. There is an unconscious element to religions and their moral codes - "Just do this and you'll go to heaven/be saved/achieve Self-realization" - as there is also in the assumption that the latihan "will do it all" for us. But (again) some of us westerners - for better, for worse - somehow have a need to know what's going on in us. Some of us at least, feel the need to be conscious of what is happening to us in and through the latihan. Or, more likely perhaps, is this just a particular phase, or stage in the latihan? In any case, I agree with - and aplaud Dirk's suggestion.

Secondly, a bit about Hassanah Briedis's remarkable paper. In writing about the latihan in relation to brain processes, I think she has done a wonderful thing for those of us who itch to see at least other elements of "the whole picture". Really, for me, it's too much - her paper - to take in all at one sitting, so I will have to study this at leisure.. but overall my admiration for this work is enormous. Gratitude to you, Hassanah!

I do have one qualification, though, or perhaps just an addendum. It seems to me that, eventually, many years down the line, some of us do seem to be brought, by the latihan (with, or without, a dollop of psychology) to a healthy state of individuation (Jung's term), in which all(?) facets of the unconscious are integrated. If, that is, we have faced up to our own inner shit, and dealt with that. And that, again, it seems to me, is where Dirk's suggestion is so valuable.

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