Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

inherent human knowing of infinity and oceanic feeling. 182 Grotstein argues Bion was ‘one
of the rare mystics of our time’ if the mystic is the one closest to O and transmits from O to
K (Grotstein 1983).
Bion identified areas of connection and potential transformations encountered inside and
outside of the psychoanalytic realm in the pursuit of truth and eternity (Grotstein 1983). His
ideas offered new ways of thinking that went beyond psychoanalysis, as it had been
formulated until then. Bion opened up the potential for the unconscious to being beyond the
individual self – another dimension where O takes form, yet is intrinsically linked to the
self. The unconscious comes alive in relational encounter, within self and beyond self,
defined by the words and symbols - O/Other/god/God/Gods. His ideas were taken up and
allied to religious and spiritual engagement through Eigen (Eigen 1981a, 1998, 2005), while
Lopez-Corvo notes a possible link in O as Origins as found in Zen Buddhism (Lopez-Corvo
2003). Black sees a parallel in the Hindu upanishadic concept of maya (Black 2006), while
Rubin and Epstein find links with Buddhism (Epstein 1995, 2007).
Grotstein, who more than any other psychoanalyst adopts and adapts Bion’s thinking, links
O to forty-four aspects of Bion’s work (Grotstein 1983, 2000, 2007). Grotstein, utilizing
ideas from Bomford and Matte Blanco, also offers insights from Christianity (Grotstein
1997d) and Christian Science perspectives and like Bion was concerned that institutions
(psychoanalytic or religious) try to control the mystic experience of making ‘direct contact
with, or is “at one” with, God’ (Bion 1970: 111). Bion’s ideas, arising out of his early
clinical work on psychotic states, pointed to a transformation of being that like the mystics,
182 “Thoughts without a thinker” became the title of Epstein’s popular and influential work on relating
psychoanalysis to Buddhism (Epstein 1995).
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