Psychology as Religion and the Secular Church of Tony Robbins

I had a hot date with Netflix this past Saturday evening, and decided to take in the documentary on Tony Robbins, I Am Not Your Guru. Robbins, known to many for his late night infomercials and personal growth books, has become a celebrity coach of sorts. Even Ken Wilber was taken by him at one point.

I was never keen on Robbin's style, as it came off as too bombastic and cultish. Nevertheless, I mostly enjoyed watching one of his popular seminars (cost: $5,000!) made available to me at no cost. Moreover, it was compelling to watch workshop attendees reveal their deepest confessionals so that Robbins could work his “magic” and cut through their stuck patterns. While his technique appears effective for many attendees in the short term, I started to question how well their breakthroughs would endure.

Robbins attempts to downplay his role as a guru, however, with all the adulation and idolatry from his followers, this comes off as insincere. This is like a religion, but of what?

Paul C. Vitz wrote a terrific book, Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-worship, that speaks well to the issues behind this sort of self-help phenomenon. This book is packed with insight and so full of light, I think it would be best if I quote a bunch of the highlights for me (and throw in a few tidbits that relate to the world of Robbins).

This goal of self-realization or self-actualization is at heart a gnostic one, in which the commandment “Know and express thyself” has replaced the Judeo-Christian commandment “Love God and others.”

As a goal or purpose of life, self-actualization cannot be scientifically justified; it is based on unexamined philosophical and moral assumptions.

This self-knowledge is arrived at by the patient’s learning the meaning of his or her experienced states on their own terms, that is, phenomenologically and not via some “objective” subject-object philosophy, as found in natural science. All of this takes place in a universe that excludes God and is limited to three aspects: the external environment, the social and interpersonal environment, and the self and its relation to itself.

[It does come across in the documentary that there are no objective standards in Robbins approach. It's about growth and excellence, but in relation to what?]

The point is not that feeling bad about ourselves is good, but rather that only two things can truly change how we feel about ourselves: producing real accomplishments and having “basic trust.”

[This is stressed by Robbins, but again the accomplishments are not measured against an objective standard, and the "basic trust" presumably comes from oneself.]

Selfist psychology emphasizes the human capacity for change to the point of almost totally ignoring the idea that life has limits and that knowledge of those limits is the basis of wisdom.

[Robbin's belief is that people have no limits and can completely create themselves to whatever they want to be.]

The evidence strongly suggests that benefits from psychotherapy come from common factors found in every type of therapy. Major factors that make a difference include the commitment of the client to therapy and the therapist’s positive support of the client, combined with an ability (often based on experience) gently to challenge the client’s distorted thinking and to facilitate positive changes.

[Robbins follows this model, except there is no commitment beyond a seminar.]

A choice based on no criterion is not a choice.

The a priori existence of reason provides evidence that at least one part of a person’s existence—namely, his or her reason—already has an essence or nature; and this essence precedes the self’s existence.

[This is the nub of Robbin's existential psychology: existence precedes essence.]

But what is failing is not the family; what is failing is modernism, with its analytic emphasis on the independent, mobile individual, caught up in narcissistic goals. This uncontrolled individualistic search for personal gratification is as destructive of social ecology as the uncontrolled quest for economic satisfaction has been for our biological ecology.

Programs that emphasize the process of deciding, and ignore the content of what is chosen, are almost always relativistic.

[Again, the documentary highlights it's all about the individual using the tools to choose whatever they decide to be.]

Selfism’s active voice emphasis is contrasted... with Christian worship, which against all forms of idolatry is always and primarily rendered in the passive voice, in the expectancy and primacy of God’s action and Word. In such worship we do not invent values but discern them. We do not fashion our own identities but we are shaped and refashioned by the Spirit of God. Abraham, Moses, the prophets, and the disciples were all called. God’s word came to them and their work was a response.

This worship of creativity seems to be an outgrowth of the Romanticism of the nineteenth century. What was worshiped then was the rare “god” categorizable as “the Genius.” Gradually the “elitist” valuing of the Genius was transformed by American society into the inflated but comforting belief that the sacred creative self was centered in everyone. Our egos are all as worthy of worship as that of the Genius. Naturally, the supporting values of rebellion and defiant independence have been brought in as equally ideal for all of us. In the spread of this popular and flattering belief, creativity has been turned into a rationale for self-indulgence.

[Of all the transcendent values, clearly Robbins would say creativity is the highest. But what would he say is the source of this creativity?]

This emphasis on having faith in the self reduces God to a useful servant of the individual in his or her quest for personal goals.

These psychologists created a whole climate of opinion that made the unconscious, interior world seem more real than the conscious mind, with its awareness of external reality.

Like all popular heresy, selfism has some positive and appealing properties. That you should look out for yourself is nice (and useful) to hear; that you should try to be positive toward others is also nice and somewhat familiar. What is excluded is the spiritual life of prayer, meditation, and worship—the essential vertical dimension of Christianity, the relation to God. Selfism is an example of a horizontal heresy, with its emphasis only on the present and on self-centered ethics.

[Religion offers more a vertical relationship to something beyond oneself. While Robbins uses spiritual vernacular at times, it is always in service to the self.]

There is a poignant moment when Robbins acknowledges he received grace when a school teacher acknowledged his talent as a great communicator. He saw that event as the catalyst for re-creating himself from there on. But perhaps it was the moment where he was invited to become who he is. A subtle distinction, but not an insignificant one.

Many People, One Problem

Can we all just get along? We are one people united. We are the world. Okay, okay. You’ve heard all these slogans repeated in times in trouble. Why do we keep falling for it? And why is it such pap?

Spitzer talks about how “our desire for love and to love is unconditional, but our actuality is conditioned. Our desire is for the perfect, but our actuality is imperfect.” So we humans desire and have a sense for the perfect, but we definitely suck sometimes. And some more than others.

You don’t have to go far to see this in our personal lives. Just recall a time when a lover failed to meet your expectations. Initially in the honeymoon phase, we confuse the other for being perfect and unconditional in their love. He or she may have qualities of the transcendent, but they cannot be a proxy for God. So if you’ve killed off your relationship to Him, all your higher desires need to be fulfilled by that other person. Talk about high-maintenance!

It’s no different in communities and culture. People have their own self-interests and values, so some disorder is inevitable in any system that respects liberty and virtue. I once heard that democracy is designed to frustrate the totalistic impulse. And that’s a good thing, because any unifying system from top-down is going to constrain pluralism and the dynamism that ensues.

Gödel said any system has to be consistent or complete, but cannot be both. As such, it is not likely you can come up with one global vision where everyone will come to consensus with and live as one people united. 

Kristor at Orthosphere gets into the fallibility of political formalism and says,“This is why the general conservative deference to local traditions is the most appropriate political attitude. It is the opposite of a theory. It is rather a method…Or, it is like applying a few time tested general principles to plan a building fitted to its environment, rather than designing an ideal house or farm plan that will work well everywhere.”

The Church understood this need as Subsidiarity: concrete decisions must be made on the level closest to concrete reality. Local idiosyncrasies matter, and should be taken into account whenever possible. While this may lead to ethno-centricism, it can also allow for intimate imperfect love in community over an abstract, unachievable perfect love. 

“This is why there can be no global government. It is also why no government can be perfect in its execution of justice; for government as such involves adjudication between subsidiary social organs, in pursuit of social harmony according to some scheme of justice – of morality and right political order – that government per se cannot but presume must properly rule with just authority over disparate subsidiary social organs that are somewhat dissimilar in their own notions of justice. Only when all such social organs, up and down the social hierarchy, ascribe to a common cult, and so to a set of general principles about how society should go, is even good government ever possible.”

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. And that’s the problem in a nutshell folks!

Affirming Reality Through Leisure

The summer months can put one's impulses into slow gear. And although I'm perfectly fine with kicking back to recharge the battery, I find the battery can be regenerative if one affirms reality on a regular basis. We really don't need a summer holiday if we're resting in God, because that's one heck of a permanent vacation. Not to mention all the grief you avoid by not having to deal with the Route 95 or the TSA.

Josef Pieper wrote much about the topic of leisure. But he was not thinking about the idea of kicking back at all. His take is we all need leisure to contemplate significant matters. “Ratio as the decisively human activity was contrasted with the intellectus, which had to do with what surpasses human limits.” And its this intellectus that needs to be cultivated in man. Obviously our weekly and annual holy days are ultimately designed for this purpose, although so few engage them as such.

I recall attending a philosophy meetup dominated by secular-minded people who actually covered the topic of leisure, and brought in Josef Pieper’s work. Sadly, few understood Pieper’s premise at all. I suppose how could they, seeing that they did not believe anything surpasses human limits.

Instead, many advocated this for more lefty pursuits around social justice or educational systems that would support such thinking. One Sanders supporter even said something about how free college and more free time would create a new Marxist revival. Doh!

Pieper says, “now leisure is not there for the sake of work, no matter how much new strength the one who resumes working may gain from it; leisure in our sense is not justified by providing bodily renewal or even mental refreshment to lend new vigor to further work - although it does indeed bring such things!”

So ultimately, it is an end to itself. Because “that which has its meaning and purpose in itself, that which is itself purpose, cannot be made the means for some other purpose, just as someone cannot love a person “for such and such” or “in order to do such and such!”

Thomas Aquinas once said the reason why the philosopher can be compared to the poet is that both are concerned with wonder. Our wonder, like the innocence of a child, offers us an appreciation for things in themselves, rather than aiming for practicality or an agenda.

And to truly “philosophize means… to direct one's view toward the totality of the world.” And this includes all things seen and unseen, meaning it is directed to the source of all things. Hence, philosophy becomes a relationship to spirit and all its creation. Otherwise, you are just giving life short shrift.

So leisure is the starting place and the ending place, where your entire being is orientated to your source without being given all the answers. And somehow that’s okay. Pieper really nails it when he says:

“But philosophy does not become simpler by embracing the norm of Christian revelation. Instead...it becomes truer, more faithful to reality. What revealed truth brings to philosophical thinking is a creative and fruitful opposition. Christian philosophy sets a higher task for itself. Christian philosophizing differs, by having to withstand a force exceeding the realm of mere rational difficulties. Christian philosophy is more complicated because it does not permit itself to arrive at "illuminating" formulations through ignoring, selecting, or dropping certain areas of reality; and this is because, placed in a fruitful state of unease through its glimpse of revealed truth, it is compelled to think more spaciously and, above all, not to be content with the superficiality of any rationalistic harmony. Christian philosophy is different because of this splashing and foaming of the soul's breakers against the cliff of the divine Truth.”

And so here’s your summer mantra:

Looking Back to Know Forward

History is a mysterious approach to closeness. Every spiral of its path leads us into deeper corruption and at the same time into more fundamental return. -- Martin Buber, I and Thou

Our world seems to be at a crossroads always, and this cultural cross is the point of where countervailing forces meet - sometimes leaning one way or another but never revealing a definitive direction in time. 

I know some would argue either way, and by taking the middle path I may be copping out. But this is where I am now, and yet it was not always the case. As a former “evolutionary,” I had sensed we were progressing in time with greater impressions of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. This zeal was misguided by a limited sense of the world, the lens from where I viewed culture, and the way I believed transcendental virtues should manifest.

I was marveling more at the progress in the material sense, and the premise that improved life conditions allowed for a civilized world that was becoming more self-aware of itself. Now, I am not so sure (even beyond the banality on social media).

So reading Jeremy Naydler’s book, The Future of the Ancient World: Essays on the History of Consciousness, was truly a pleasure. He brought me back to a time when man inhabited transcendence in a way that definitely seems rare today.

One interesting point is while modern man leads with vision, which creates greater division, ancient man operated more through sound. “Whereas the eye shows us the surfaces of things—their extension in space, their form and color—the ear reveals to us that which is hidden from the eye... The sound an animal makes gives us an experience of what is happening in its soul, which no amount of looking would communicate to us.” This definitely seems valid. I’m sure we’ve all sensed how great music can touch our soul on a much deeper level than a great painting (see Schopenhauer on this).

Ancient man also lived in an enchanted world, where the visible and invisible worlds were connected. So how does modern man recapture that? Naydler suggests, “In these three practices of, first, stilling our thoughts so that awareness is intensified at the inner threshold where thoughts arise; second, attending to our dreams and “living the symbolic life”; and, third, practicing an “imaginative seeing” of the natural world, it is possible to become aware once more of the reality of what is not “there”—a reality that can become present to us in the three spheres of spirit, psyche, and nature.” 

Despite that lack of physical change that happened historically, ancient man did not necessarily live in a static disposition to life. “To the ancient Egyptian nothing ‘is as it is’: it is always potentially another thing.” Differently so for us, as we may be overwhelmed with the dynamism on earth, our depth in consciousness may be in a place of constant inertia.

“From the religious viewpoint of antiquity, however, the historical process would more accurately be interpreted as having involved, not the withdrawal of our psychic projections from the world, but a process of introjection, by which the gods dwelling in the interiority of nature have been appropriated by the modern psyche: a subtle but important difference of perspective.” So as we moderns like to do, we just put in all in heads.

Still, time has not done a complete disservice to man. Naydler notes that “This is the future of the ancient world—a future that differs from the past in one fundamental respect: that the renewed relationship to the world of spirit will be based on the autonomy of the individual whose center of consciousness is the free reflective act.” 

Yes, we own it now! But what is it that we own?

And here is the unfortunate thing: “Spirit has unraveled itself so completely into materiality, into that which is divided from itself, that this division must itself form the basis of reunion.”

So while we now have many gods today, as our ancestors once did, they are so much less sacred: the Kardashian-gods are just one such example. 

And the way out may be “just as the old polytheism was in fact monocentric, so does the emerging polytheism need to recognize a new principle of unity at its center. A principle of unity that cannot be reduced to any god, for it is the specifically human energy of transcendence, which links us with the One that embraces all multiplicity.”

So it doesn’t have to be is as it is, but oh so much more.

The Conundrum of Being Good and Not Believing in Ultimate Good

I recall the arguments that I've had with some of my friends who would propose that there are many atheistic/agnostic folks who are good, decent people, and there are so many religious people who are such arseholes. While I acknowledge this was difficult to disagree from by the fruits you shall know position, I've always believed that there is a deeper way to consider this. As non-believers can certainly be good and believers can definitely be jerks, but it appears only to a point.

One of the most sophisticated takes on morality came from Alasdair MacIntyre's classic book After Virtue. I will warn you it's not an easy read, but the points are good. MacIntyre does a great job positing how the modern project via the Western Enlightenment thinkers (Kant, Bentham, Mills) did a disservice to morality by freeing it from the Christian/Aristotelian teleology. Then along came Nietzsche who had a field day dismantling all this utilitarian/deontological nonsense that had little foundation for support. He then opened the door for the existentialists and the moral relativists which allowed for the fragmented, individualistic world of morality we inhabit these days.

MacIntyre posits that morality only has a rational ground when it is based on teleology (an overarching narrative), because it is only then when one can say whether or not something is good or bad in relation to achieving that shared good. The telos gives unity to the diversity of narratives, and this whole of narratives offers clarity for a moral vision to ensue. 

The Christian/Aristotelian teleology aims the primary goal as sanctification/divinization/theosis for each person, and love becomes the desire to will the good of the other in that story we all play our part in. That love can only come from a source greater than ourselves, otherwise it will always be conditional.

William Wildblood says, “True love [and the morality that ensues] only comes from going beyond yourself, or even other people, to a higher, transcendental truth and that is God. In effect these people are counselling the horizontal path without acknowledging the vertical but the horizontal without the vertical keeps you firmly in this world with its falsehoods and illusions, and you will never find height or depth.” Hence, the secular humanist will always be limited by his potential for the good. 

And as for all those religious people who suck. Wildblood notes that, “Firstly, the process is a long one and depends on the base level at which you start. And secondly, many people only believe in their heads but it is the heart not the mind that matters. Theoretical belief is of little use if the heart and the imagination are not involved. That is because only belief in the heart and the imagination affects the whole person.”

I would also add that your deeper beliefs and intellectual understanding do matter. You may belong to a religion that has a poor teleology (see Islam) or one that does not have much of a teleology (see Buddhism). As such, it is imperative to believe wisely, open your heart to Divinity, and be good Johnny. 

The Wisdom of the Reactionary

I find it so hard to define myself these days, but every so often you come across a quote that confirms what you know to be true but you could never articulate yourself as well. Again, Mr. Dávila nails it! The fact that such deep thinkers were with us can offer some hope in these confusing times.

“If the progressive casts himself into the future, and the conservative into the past, the reactionary does not measure his anxieties with the history of yesterday or with the history of tomorrow. The reactionary does not extol what the next dawn must bring, nor is he terrified by the last shadows of the night. His dwelling rises up in that luminous space where the essential accosts him with its immortal presence. The reactionary escapes the slavery of history because he pursues in the human wilderness the trace of divine footsteps. Man and his deeds are, for the reactionary, a servile and mortal flesh that breathes gusts from beyond the mountains. To be reactionary is to champion causes that do not turn up on the notice board of history, causes where losing does not matter. To be reactionary is to know that we only discover what we think we invent; it is to admit that our imagination does not create, but only lays bares smooth bodies. To be reactionary is not to espouse settled cases, nor to plead for determined conclusions, but rather to submit our will to the necessity that does not constrain, to surrender our freedom to the exigency that does not compel; it is to find sleeping certainties that guide us to the edge of ancient pools. The reactionary is not a nostalgic dreamer of a canceled past, but rather a hunter of sacred shades upon the eternal hills.” -- Nicolás Gómez Dávila