Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

waiting for the next revelation. He took this time between utterances, time to pause,
to listen. For Buber, speaking was a way of listening … for Buber, listening was
electrifying. There was rest, quiet, pause between, but expect to be burnt by the
tongue’s fire. Buber’s death between utterances was anticipatory. One emptied self
in order to be ready for the next time Thou surge, from moment of meeting to
moment of meeting, waves of impacts (1998: 154).
During this period Eigen also met Erich Fromm, an influential psychoanalyst who was part
of the neo-Freudian school that emerged in the USA consisting of analysts, sociologists and
anthropologists who applied psychoanalytic ideas to wider contexts, which found a home in
the William Alanson White Institute. Fromm developed an interest in Zen and was part of a
significant conference that took place in the late 1950s where a large group of up to fifty
psychoanalysts met with Suzuki and others and engaged in the interface between these two
disciplines. Fromm identifies the differences.
Psychoanalysis is a scientific method, nonreligious to the core. Zen is a theory and
technique to achieve “enlightenment,” an experience which in the West would be
called religious or mystical. Psychoanalysis is a therapy for mental illness; Zen is a
way to spiritual salvation (Suzuki, Fromm, and DeMartino 1960f.).
Fromm then engages with the areas of convergence and sees how each discipline can
enhance the other, in a similar way to a prior book Psychoanalysis and Religion (Fromm
1950). Eigen was influenced by ideas from Fromm through his writings which he devoured
(alongside Jung) in his late teens and early twenties (1998: 154, 182, 201), and also adopts a
convergence approach but found his meeting of Fromm in person, ‘too activist’. For Eigen
the physical presence and impact of both Suzuki and Buber in their different ways was
influential. It went beyond just the ideas and Eigen was touched by these experiences.
After a painful and blissful mystical experience in his twenties Eigen explored Zen
Buddhism further, which he has come back to consistently over forty years. Eigen also
found aspects of other religions helpful including Hinduism (1998: 20, 24, 193), Taoism and
Sufism (1998: 24, 193). In 1980, Eigen met with Bion, who made a cryptic remark about
the Kabbalah but it was only following his father’s death a decade later that Eigen explored
this in depth when ‘Judaism provided a powerful point of access to Divinity’ (1998: 25).
Throughout Eigen’s writing he draws on Biblical passages (Ps 150 for example); Biblical
figures (Jacob especially); Jewish teachings and midrash (Creation stories) and Jewish
sayings (personal communication). So Eigen concludes he took up the ‘biblical challenge to
love your God, with all your heart, soul, might. This all your heart, soul, might, mind – all
of you, good and evil aspects, all – there is no more passionate calling (1998: 25).
2. Eigen’s mystical concepts
While it is true that ‘there is no universally agreed upon definition of mysticism’ (McGinn
2005: 19). Eigen and his writings are regarded as mystical. It is said of Eigen that all his
‘writing is imbued with a deeply charged sense of religiosity, of mystery and wonder. There
is throughout the evident sensibility of a mystic’ (1998: 190). He speaks from his own
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