"The example you give, even granting that such a thing as "trance" exists, is clearly an application of psychology." TFF

Are you sure of what you speak? IMHO, the trance experience--of which I have had practical experience--is very much a part of the traditions of religion and the prophetic tradition--As WS Kroger, in his great book, Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, makes abundantly clear. Prophetic visions, including the Koran, came out of the trance state.

BTW, when I majored in psychology in the 1950's www.mta.ca it was then under the department of philosophy. I have been a student of the philosophies and the psychologies all my life.

This prompts me to say: There is so thing one singular field called "psychology"; there are schools of psychology--for example, there is behaviourism--Watson and Skinner-- which is contra to the analytical schools like that Freud, Jung, Adler, etc., Then there is structuralism like that of William James.
Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=psychology&fulltext=Search

YOU SEE I TEND TO BE PRAGMATIC IN MY APPROACH TO PSYCHOLOGY--as I do with religion.
One of the early advocates of pragmatism was William James, Harvard. He wrote the classic,
THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE--A Study in Human Nature:
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It is a book that comprises his edited Gifford Lectures on "Natural Theology" delivered at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland between 1901 and 1902.

"Scientific theories are organically conditioned just as much as religious emotions are; and if we only knew the facts intimately enough, we should doubtless see 'the liver' determining the dicta of the sturdy atheist as decisively as it does those of the Methodist under conviction anxious about his soul. When it alters in one way the blood that percolates it, we get the Methodist, when in another way, we get the atheist form of mind."

These lectures concerned the nature of religion and the neglect of science, in James' view, in the academic study of religion. Soon after its publication, the book found its way into the canon of psychology and philosophy, and has remained in print for over a century. James would go on to develop his philosophy of pragmatism, and there are already many overlapping ideas in Varieties and his 1907 book, Pragmatism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=psychology&fulltext=Search

I later discovered that the achaic term for psychology was pneumatology.

By the way, one of my other intellectual heroes is Carl Jung, who I believe was more of a pneumatologist than a psychologist. I also love the ideas and work of Milton Erickson, MD, father of North American hypnosis, and one of the founders of neurolinguistic programming (NLP)--a very practical and effective form of what I call pneumatherapy--healing of the self, or self-actualization, holistically--body, mind and spirit.

I respect the animal kingdom, but IF WE WERE JUST ANIMALS would we be having this interesting dialogue?

In MHO, we are spiritual beings who happen to have a mind and a body. We differ from animals in that they are mind and body beings. If anyone can demonstrate otherwise I will keep an open mind, and spirit. smile

Also, check out the work of Abraham Maslow http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/maslow.html
...and Victor Frankl, logotherapy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logotherapy

As you can see, I am very pragmatic and eclectic in my approach.
Yes, I am in favour of useful medicines, especially those found in good foods.

Last edited by Revlgking; 07/02/07 08:50 PM.