The Whole Culture Is Under Terrible Pressure

The New Age Self-help Phenomenon Is Pretty Mushy, But It's Also Very American. Our History Is Filled With Traveling Preachers And Quack Medicine And Searches For The Soul. I Don't See This As A New Thing. I Think The New Age Is Part Of A Phenomenon That's Been There All Along.

In The History Of The Treatment Of Depression, There Was The Dunking Stool, Purging Of The Bowels Of Black Bile, Hoses, Attempts To Shock The Patient. All Of These Represent Hatred Or Aggression Towards What Depression Represents In The Patient.

People Used To Trust Their Doctor. They Went To An Expert. Now People Have New Ideas And Are Thinking For Themselves. That's A Very Important Change In Our Collective Psychology.

Beauty Has Never Been An Important Topic In The Writings Of The Major Psychologists. In Fact, For Jung, Aesthetics Is A Weak, Early Stage Of Development. He Follows The Germanic View That Ethics Is More Important Than Aesthetics, And He Draws A Stark Contrast Between The Two. Freud May Have Written About Literature A Bit, But An Aesthetic Sensitivity Is Not Part Of His Psychology.

Too Often In The West We Fail To Realize That Even In Eastern Disciplines The Spiritual Life Is Not Meant As An Escape From The Worldly Life. There Is Karma To Be Fulfilled On Earth, Within The Dharma Of Necessity.