A Look Inside …
… Drawing on the Analytical Psychology of Carl Gustav Jung, on the discoveries of modern science, and on mystical traditions from numerous world religions, this book proposes a psychological mysticism that preceded, and now replaces, the historical theological mysticism that has been dependent on theistic images of god. Such images are no longer meaningful for many people – or necessary.
… These pages explore an alternative spiritual path that has the character of a grounded, embodied mysticism and replaces the heavenly, disembodied escapism that has dominated the religious collective for more than 4,000 years.
… Psychological mysticism expands the meanings of god, religion, mystic, and mystical and validates the universality of human experiences of the numinous. The mystical perspective is one of radical immanence.
… The whole of the human enterprise is this: It is an experiment to accept both our inner angels and monsters, individually and collectively, and to live responsibly our social contract assigned by Nature.
… When the divine is located within matter, within the natural world, and within the human psyche – rather than outside or beyond – the whole of life becomes a mystical sanctuary. This perspective promotes a practical or pragmatic mysticism that embraces what is and how to live what is responsibly.
Praise for A Mystical Path Less Traveled: A Jungian Psychological Perspective
It took real courage to write this book, in which we are led on a journey to let go of our ‘old time religions,’ in order to directly experience the numinosity of everyday life. Jung called upon each of us to connect to the infinite and Jerry’s book helps us do just that. I am deeply appreciative for this spiritual gift.
– Jeffery T. Kiehl, Ph.D., Jungian Analyst, author of Facing Climate Change: An Integrated Path to the Future
Here Jerry R. Wright has woven together poems, personal journal entries, and informative psychological perspectives to show how a mystical pathway of encounter with the numinous is available to all – believer and nonbeliever alike – through the human psyche. These evocative pages will certainly encourage those with “a hunger for the holy” to join Jerry in this delicious banquet. Here we are invited to embrace a mature and authentic spirituality that acknowledges our capacities for both creation and destruction while honoring the divine mysteries deep within us, and in the larger world. The blessings written for Iona pilgrims alone are worth the price of admission. A beautiful read!
– Sheri D. Kling, Ph.D., author of A Process Spirituality: Christian and Transreligious Resources for Transformation and founder of DeeperRhythm.net.
In describing A Mystical Path Less Traveled I will steal shamelessly from the author because it is hard to improve upon his own words. The book is “directed to those who have a hunger for the holy,” and readers who fit that description will devour this book. In the sharing of journal entries, poems, blessings, and dreams, Jerry Wright opens his personal backpack filled with “both angels and monsters” and gives us a look at the outer world and inner world through his very perceptive eyes. This honest, sometimes gut wrenching, often humorous book sent “chills up my spine / And down to the soles of my feet.”
– Alice Smith, author of several collections of poetry including That Little Girl and Reimagining.
Carl Rodgers wrote: “That which is most personal is most universal.” Dr. Wright in this psycho/spiritual worldview – A Mystical Path Less Traveled – provides a resource for all searchers on a spiritual path. With reflections on journal entries, poems, dreams, and blessings, he provides an excellent resource for those who seek meaning and purpose.
– J. Pittman McGehee, D.D., Episcopal Priest, Jungian Analyst, author of seven books
Table of Contents
Introduction
I Reimagining God and Religion
II A Mystical Path Less Traveled
III Jungian Psychology: A Modern Mystical Path
IV Dreams Along the Mystical Path
V Wisdom for the Mystical Path
VI Blessings for Life’s Daily Pilgrimage
Epilogue
Sources Cited
