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Jungian Nun
Promotes the "God-Within"
Sr. Pat Brockman & Dream Analysis
from the July-August 1998 issue
During May this year St. Francis Xavier
Church in downtown Cincinnati hosted a series of four
luncheon seminars with Sr. Pat Brockman, O.S.U. Brockman,
who identified herself as a Jungian "community
psychologist," spoke on the topic of her expertise:
dream analysis. "Our dreams," said Brockman,
"are our personal Scriptures." Instead of
honoring Mary during this month of May, Brockman honored
Carl Gustav Jung.
Educated at the C.G. Jung Institute in
Zurich, Switzerland, Sr. Brockman spoke candidly of her
admiration for Jung, eminent spiritualist, sun worshipper
and founder of the 20th century psychoanalysis
movement. Jung’s work formed the basis of her own
theology, she said, and "although Jung was not
Catholic, he was faithful to his own tradition."
Canonizing the Swiss psychoanalyst, Sr. Brockman quoted
pantheist Joseph Campbell as saying, "that’s
the way saints are made. Saints are those who are
faithful to their own tradition."
But in fact Jung was not faithful to
his tradition. Reared a Lutheran, he abandoned the
Christianity of his parents to dabble in the Occult. His
entire life and work were motivated by his detestation of
the Catholic Church, whose religious doctrines and moral
teachings he considered to be the source of all the
neuroses which afflicted modern Western man. Despite
Jung’s anti-Christian disposition, Sr. Brockman
considered Jung a "reformed Christian."
Supplanting traditional prayer and
devotion
Sr. Brockman then outlined her technique of "dream
play," which she considers a modern form of prayer.
A careful examination of her dream technique reveals that
traditional Catholic prayer and devotional life—the
morning offering, acts of faith, hope and charity,
aspirations (e.g. "My Jesus, mercy!), prayer before
the Blessed Sacrament, the evening examination of
conscience, etc.—is supplanted by the daily ritual
of dream play.
"One common way to work with a
dream," said Sr. Brockman, "is to confront it,
name it, describe it, ask its significance, and dialogue
with it." Then taking action on your
dream—"expressing the God
experience"—will become much easier, she added.
Instead of the traditional evening
examination of conscience, Sr. Brockman suggested we
prepare for dream play each night: "Just before
falling asleep, prepare your consciousness for dreaming
and remembering your dream. Consider important moments of
the past day," she said, "and think of any
issues about which you would like to have a dream.
Prepare yourself for the dream experience.
"You might decorate your pillow so
as to awaken your unconscious. Then ask yourself, what do
I want birthed by me? Where in your life would you like
to be bettered? Then ask for a message, ask for an
angel." But the angel that Brockman invokes is not
what Catholics understand as an angel. She appropriates
the traditional term, corrupts it, and uses the
figurative angel as a part of her Jungian dream ritual.
In place of the traditional morning
offering, Sr. Brockman recommended the Jungian concept of
"journaling": "As soon as you awaken,
write down your dream or the thoughts in your head,
without censoring or editing."
"The most universally helpful
short technique in dreamwork is known as TTAQ," she
explained, "Title, Theme, Affect, Question."
The title may be one or a series of words, she said:
"It can be a question, a feeling statement or action
sentence. One way to focus yourself in doing this
technique is to ask: What title does this dream want
itself to have? You may use colorful language like
‘sh**’ because God won’t be scandalized.
He’s seen and heard much more than that."
After giving thought to the theme and
the emotional affect of the dream, she said, "you
are to ask, what question does this dream seem to be
asking me?" Then, she said, "you can follow the
dream ego, which is the character or characters in the
dream that feel like you… You may look as you do
right now, or as a child, or an older person, animal,
flower or some other object."
The final step is "Dialoguing with
a Dream Figure," a process which is not unlike that
of channeling—communicating with a spirit or demon.
Before beginning the so-called
dialogue, Sr. Brockman instructed, "write down
several key questions you have about your dream. Some
typical questions might be: Why did you appear in my
dream? What do you have to teach me? Why did you act in a
certain way in my dream? What gift do you have for me? I
am feeling angry (attracted, frightened, loving, etc.)
toward you. Please tell me why.
"Tell the dream figure of your
uncomfortableness and ask what you should do about it.
Let yourself relax, place yourself in a meditative
attitude, and in your own way welcome God’s presence
and guidance as you begin your dreamwork. Using your
imagination, recreate the dream scene where your chosen
figure appeared. Let the dream figure come alive again
for you. Begin with a few opening questions to get the
relationship started. Write down your first question and
in your imagination picture yourself asking it to your
dream figure.
"Then write whatever response
seems to come to you as the dream figure’s reply.
Let your pen move spontaneously as you write, not caring
about grammar, spelling or punctuation. Continue the
dialogue until you feel something has been changed or
resolved, an insight has been gained, or until you want
or need to stop. The dialogue itself is a gift.
"When the dialogue seems to come
to a natural closing, we recommend you ask one last
question: Do you have anything else to tell me or give
me? Just in case something important has been forgotten.
After the dialogue, reflect on what happened, perhaps
taking a few minutes to reread the dialogue. Find some
way to clarify the energy and insight that may have been
communicated to you, and propose ways you might use this
gift in your daily life."
This is what is known in the "New
Age" world as automatic writing. Just as during
channeling a "spirit within" speaks through the
channeler, during automatic writing sessions, this
so-called "spirit within" communicates through
the medium of writing.
What Sr. Brockman is proposing as
ritual is opening up oneself to a host of preternatural
influences.
Beyond journaling
"Beyond the journaling discipline," said Sr.
Brockman, "we often find a desire or need to express
the inner mystery of our relationship to God in a
nonverbal form. Non-rational forms can begin to free up
the inhibitions with which we face this unimaginably
perplexing invitation. Often-used examples are
mandala-making, mask-making, shields, dream pillows,
dance, gestalt, chant, drumming, song, verse, haiku,
mantra crystals, gesture, and movement."
Examining but one of these
"non-rational forms" of expression, the mandala
(which was introduced to Westerners by Jung), we find
another serious indictment of Sr. Brockman’s
commitment to New Age occult practices. Mandala-making is
one of many meditative techniques used by the Eastern
religions to map the psyche, the "indwelling
spirit." The word mandala is Sanskrit for
"circle," and the mandala is representative of
the cosmic whole. In the form of religious icons they are
used for a multitude of purposes.
Mandalas are designed in a pattern that
creates the illusion of being drawn into a center of
concentration. Hindus and Buddhists have traditionally
used it as a hypnotic tool, a way of achieving an altered
state of consciousness in order to tap into hidden
knowledge.
Jung saw the significance of the
mandala as a symbol of the "god-within." It is
the embodiment par excellence of the Cult of Self.
The experience of the
"god-within" was always a key promise of Jung.
It was the central part of Jung’s repudiation of
Christianity. Having the "god-within" could
lead to the experience of becoming one with God, or
merging somehow with a God-force.
Jung, premiere spiritual guide
For the past thirty years Jung has become a premiere
spiritual guide in the Church throughout the United
States and Europe. Three courses at the Athenaeum of
Ohio—home to Cincinnati’s archdiocesan
seminary—for example, are devoted to Jungism, one
exclusively to Jung’s topic of "Dreams and
Spiritual Growth." Further, in the Archdiocese of
Cincinnati, Sr. Brockman offers her own dream analysis
workshops several times throughout the year. This summer
she will be offering three $75 Jungian workshops on dream
analysis at the Franciscan Wholistic [sic] Health Center,
and another three at the Jesuit’s Milford Retreat
Center.
From July 19-July 24, 1998, Sr.
Brockman will be directing a $300 week-long retreat,
"Dreams and Transformation of Soul," at the
Diocese of Cleveland’s St. Joseph Christian Life
Center. "My retreats mainly attract women
religious," she said, "but lay people are
certainly welcome too." The retreat, she said,
"is for anyone serious about developing their [sic]
sense of God speaking through dreams. Both lay people and
religious have found it to be an effective way to deepen
their inner awareness of the Indwelling God."
Jungism has become an enormous
money-making business, as the advertisements for books
and cassettes for "Jungian Catholics" in the National
Catholic Reporter attest. Credence Cassettes, a
division of the National Catholic Reporter, sells
a five-hour cassette tape series by Sr. Brockman, called
"Our Dreams Transform Our Life," promoted as a
"Jungian personalist approach" to dream
analysis. Other Jungian practices promoted in
Brockman’s retreats and workshops are:
"discovering the god-within,"
"psychodrama," "journaling," and
"mandala making." These practices are ways,
according to Jung’s methods, to tap into one’s
subconscious to retrieve "hidden knowledge."
Instead of calling it the Occult, it is referred to as
"Jungian."
Redefining rituals
Psychologist Richard Noll, PhD. in his book, The Jung
Cult, comments, "for literally tens of
thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of individuals
in our culture, Jung and his ideas are the basis of a
personal religion that either supplants their
participation in traditional organized Judeo-Christian
religion or accompanies it."
"A lot of rituals in the Church
need to be broken up in order to express them more
adequately," Sr. Brockman explained. "Many
people have left the Church because the Church was out of
touch with their deep inner experience. We’ve got a
lot of dead bones in the Church, and Vatican II’s
renewal has been working to bring us back in touch with
our inner selves," she said.
"We modern Catholics need a
continued renewal in liturgy. We need to create
meaningful rituals for ourselves," she said.
"We need to create a new culture. We need to mute
intolerance of other religions and concentrate on the
commonality. Some still think that the Church is the
center of the world, but we are really the center, the
abode of God."
In the manner of a true disciple of
Jung Sr. Brockman explained that we need to appropriate
or replace traditional Catholic symbols with ones that
are more meaningful to us. "We can and should
express our spiritual experience by creating simple
gestures and words which become rituals honoring the God
who dwells within. Your personal dream acts as a personal
scripture, a way in which God calls you, challenges you,
and affirms you."
Dr. Grant Herring, a classics
instructor at the University of Cincinnati, who attended
two of Sr. Brockman’s seminars, commented that
"these Jungian parasites have infiltrated the Church
and they expect Catholics to believe they are teaching
what the Church teaches. And many Catholics do that, and
end up falling away from their true Catholic roots, being
recruited into the Cult of the Self, devoid of all
intellectual or spiritual content. A real dead-end."
—Michael S. Rose
RELATED ARTICLE: The Jung
Cult: Jungians in the Church
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