Beer, Sex, Shopping, Chocolate, God

From the Chapter, “Beer, Sex, Shopping, Chocolate, God” in Saints and Madmen, How Pioneering Psychiatrists Are Creating a New Science of the Soul by Russell Shorto

Andre Papineau, a Catholic priest from Milwaukee, has a perspective on the confluence of psychology and spirituality:

One of the tenets of a psychospiritual perspective is that spirituality, striving for something beyond the confines of ordinary individual consciousness, is natural to us all.  If the socially sanctioned paths to it – religions – are cut off or overgrown or otherwise useless, we find others.  Madness is one alternate route.  But there may be others.   There may be paths that are not authorized by any known church or temple, and that also don’t fit the definition of serious mental illness.  These are the paths that crisscross the terrain of ordinary life, the ways that all of us, every day, try to break free.

Addiction is one of Papineau’s favorite topics.  Addiction, in his mind, is an intriguing, ornately carved, though tragically short flight on the staircase of psychospiritual transcendence.  For an old-fashioned drunk, sitting of an afternoon in a dark, stale-smelling bar, Papineau will tell you, “God is in the beer.”  You might think that by this he means that the alcoholic worships his drink, and you would be right.  But he means it truly, not ironically.  Alcoholics are initiates into the Mystery, as true a group of seekers as those in seminary or yeshiva.  This is not, Papineau admits, a politically correct observation, but he believes it is a compelling one.

His starting point for this insight, which he developed over years of working with people who are struggling with the modest tortures of life, was Jung, who expressed to Bill W., the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, his belief that “craving for alcohol was the equivalent, on a low level, of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness.”  (William James too insisted that the “drunken consciousness is one bit of the mystic consciousness.”)  The Jungian Self, the center of the psyche, the part of the individual that seeks union with the infinite, tries to achieve this union by projecting its internal striving outward, onto an object.  In the case of an alcoholic, the object is drink.

To this psychological perspective Papineau adds a religious layer, borrowed from the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner.  Rahner talked about what he called the transcendental horizon:  the visible edge of wholeness and infinity toward which the soul continually journeys but never truly reaches.  This horizon is the farthest, highest, and truest home of all our longings.  It is the oxygen from which every human act of love and knowledge takes its breath.

Put simplistically, a psychological view locates the ultimate goal and source of this longing – the Self -  inside the person, while some theological views call it God and place it on the outside.  But in overcoming the dualistic split between body and mind/soul, one transcends the split between earth and heaven.  If you come to see all reality as one, then religion and psychology merge, or at least significantly blend into one another.  Psychological problems become spiritual problems, and are susceptible to spiritual solutions.

This awareness is not Papineau’s alone.  In varying degrees one might say it is shared by all psyche-spirit practitioners.  Paul Duckro considers that a woman with an eating disorder may be acting out a spiritual hunger; Tomas Agosin sees a patient falling in love with him as a projection of her Self, her “God-within,” onto him.  These interpretations come from the doctors’ seeing body, mind, and soul as all of one substance, or on one continuum.

But Andre Papineau goes a bit further.  What he is getting at in talking about addictions is, in part, the psychospiritual core of Alcoholics Anonymous.  You have sought spiritual fulfilment, but in the wrong place; now put yourself directly in God’s hands.  But, according to Papineau, the twelve-step programs highlight only part of the truth.  The darker reality is that the alcoholic, drink in hand, is on a spiritual path – as is a heroin addict, a crackhead, even a chainsmoker.  The spiritual component isn’t the thing itself but the longing.  In the reaching out for the object of mystery, the self vanishes; you become an arrow.  “The point is that we are all drawn toward the transcendent, the Other,” he said.  “And that is, inevitably, an impossible goal to achieve.  We reach out for It, capital I...but find that what we have grabbed is an  it – a lowercase thing.  So we supercharge this thing, this mere object.  We invest it with transcendent energy.”

Alcohol is one of the many objects that we supercharge.  Addiction is the clinical term for a particular pitch this universal striving may take.  Addictions, delights, interests, obsessions, preoccupations, tics, and hobbies:  all are escapes from the self to the Self, all are roads to the transcendent horizon.  It can be sought in beer, chocolate, cigarettes, gambling, shoes, antiques, old coins, garden gnomes, lacquer boxes, model trains, porcelain vases, elephant earrings, heirloom seeds, or baseball cards.  It can be sought in overeating or dieting, in orgasms or old movies.  Practically anything can trip the lock on the self and send it on the path of transcendence.  One needn’t be clinically addicted for it to happen – a DSM diagnosis is not a prerequisite to entering the psychospiritual sphere.  Having a passion or hobby will do.  Curiosity and arousal are just fine.  To a genuine religious sensibility, everything is spiritual.

One difficulty with this view is that according to traditional psychology (and common sense) developing an intense passion for gambling or sex or vodka or chocolate is not a good at all but a defense, a weakness, an escape from reality.  How can such strivings be that and also genuine spiritual endeavors?  Perhaps because we live in the here and now:  a spiritual journey may be a journey of psychological growth, but if it comes at the expense of ordinary concerns – of family, work, physical health – it is flawed, for in its passionate reaching it forgets what is right in front of us, which at best is at least half of what it means to be human.

In Andre Papineau’s widened psychospiritual sensibility, the healthiest of strivings are, at least in part of the way, indistinguishable from the vices and obsessions.  To have, rear, and love children, to bond with friends and community, to give oneself, to live and die well:  these are psychospiritual strivings, journeys toward the horizon.  Love is the quintessential road to that horizon.  Losing yourself in the mystery of another is the definition of love; head-over-heels is a state of intoxication.  “In love,” Papineau said, “you reach out for that transcendent horizon, and find it embodied in another person.  But in supercharging this other, you place an impossible burden of expectation on the person.  Eventually you realize the person isn’t the All.  You become disillusioned.”

This is where things get interesting.  Depression too is a psychospiritual condition.  Disillusionment, Papineau believes, whether with a lover, a drug, or life, is “a form of liberation.”  The Latin root of illusion is ludere, to play.  If all of our striving, transcendence-seeking activities – love affairs, pastimes, business ambitions – are destined to come up short of the ultimate, they are illusive, but this fact does not mean that we should not reach outward (the only other choice is to reach inward – to sink into narcissism), but that we should keep the element of play alive in them.  Play can be a serious thing, but it also has an aspect of lightness.  We should proceed, but stay light on our feet.