(47) Spiritual Explorers

"...I consider [Carl] Jung to be one of the great visionary and
spiritual explorers of our century, along with Pierre Teilhard
de Chardin and Thomas Merton."
[Donald Corcoran, O.S.B., "Contemporary Forms of Spirituality
and Monastic Life," an article in THE CONTINUING QUEST
FOR GOD: MONASTIC SPIRITUALITY IN TRADITION AND
TRANSITION, William Skudlarek, O.S.B. , General Editor,
Liturgical Press, 1982, p. 242.]

Comment: Sr. Donald is a lady after my own heart. It has
been so long ago, but I actually remember when I first got
into Carl Jung's psychological philosophy. It was because
of some Benedictines, with whom I had traveled to Greece.
They belonged to an abbey out in New Mexico, and they
employed a lot of Jung's thinking both in their retreats and
in their Spiritual Direction school.

Goodness! I had never heard of Jung before then. Freud,
yes, and I didn't like him. Anyway, I began to study Jung and
became a devotee. Not only did his teaching help me
personally, but it helped me better to understand our religious
projections and god-imagery. Most importantly, Jung's
ideas about individuation exhibited how so much of this
religio-spiritual symbolism dwells right in our minds. Somehow
discovering this, myself, it made the Spirit Within far more
real--because I had *experienced* it.

Interestingly, later retraining as a philosopher, studying with
the Jesuits, I chose to focus on Teilhard. He, too, talked about
a Within--not only within ourselves, but a Within of the Universe!
Comparing Teilhard's theory of "Cosmogenesis" with David
Bohm's Implicate Order, I was able to modernize Teilhard,
linking him with the new scientific understanding of modern
Quantum Physics.

As for Thomas Merton, well again I can trace my interest in this
great spiritual explorer via my connection with the Benedictines.
What I love about Merton was his willingness to evolve
spiritually, growing, moving into what might be called an
"Ecumenism of the Spirit." He dared to study other cultural
expressions about the World and God, i.e. Buddhism. Today
monastics from both East and West come together, teaching
and learning from one another. Merton helped get the ball
rolling, so to speak.

But best of all was my discovery that Benedictines are *great*
spiritual explorers!