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Mystical Christianity: A Psychological Commentary on the Gospel of John
This book opens a new door to the Gospel of John and discovers a treasure-house of psychological wisdom. The Fourth Gospel is the most mystic of all the gospels and Mystical Christianity sheds light on its myriad meanings.
360 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 11, 2016
Great book. Great insight. It's opened up a whole new method of Bible study for me. Lots of additional reading potential to be discovered as well.
July 16, 2021
Individuation
While the psychologizing of Christianity may be very difficult for fundamentalists who are encased within literalistic ideology, John Sanford (1929-2005) makes it much easier to understand the uncanny similarities between traditional religious conversion and the processes of psychological growth. Carl Jung (1875-1961), the famous Swiss psychiatrist, termed this process “individuation”, which he defined as the process by which things repressed into unconsciousness are recognized by the whole personality and dealt with.
This book will certainly challenge any atheist because Sanford uncloaks the traditional literalistic interpretations, by presenting God in a practical fashion. Similarly, Sanford forces the fundamentalist to deal with difficult religious questions, doubts, and transgressions, instead of ignoring them. By showing that religion and psychology are concerned with the same thing, Sanford brings both the atheist and the fundamentalist forward toward “individuation”, which is, in Sanford’s words, “the evolution of consciousness”.
In fact, reading this will make one shudder to think how much spiritual damage has been done by literalistic preachers and parishioners who insist that merely confessing faith in Jesus constitutes salvation. Sanford shows that “the way” actually involves far more than mere verbal espousal of some doctrine or public profession in some particular denomination.
Egotistical priests, in frenzies of perceived power, beckon parishioners from church pews, perceiving themselves to be like Jesus calling forth the deceased Lazarus. However, it is highly misleading to entice naive people out of their seats, under pretense that the mere act of coming forward will somehow miraculously change their lives. Missing from such sermons is the more important explanation that the spirit of Christ is “the Way”, not some corridor through an earthen chapel erected by men.
Certainly, the commencement of seeking may begin anywhere, even along such a lonely corridor, but the true way is, as Sanford expresses, the way of a growing consciousness, the way of sustained seeking, and the process of binding to an interior presence that has been traditionally labeled as good, and which Jung referred to as an archetype.
Archetypes
Carl Jung showed that it is possible to bring into our spiritual lives figures from our dreams or unconscious and to engage these figures in dialogue with our ego. Sanford suggests these figures are real, but exist within a different kind of reality than the material world that we know. Examples in the Bible include the dialogue between Elijah and Yahweh in the cave on Mt. Sinai, the dialogue between Jesus and Satan in the wilderness, or the dialogue between Moses and the voice of Yahweh from the burning bush.
In fact, the very process of thinking is a dialogue with the inner self, as we contemplate various modes of action, consider what to say, or think about how to act in a particular situation. Sometimes a solution to a problem may come forth to us in dreams or daydreams. Sanford insists that such visions can render revelations of actual fact. Indeed, much of the Bible, like the book of John, involves teachings received from Christ after His death. Certainly, the Book of Revelation clearly proclaims itself to be written documentation of a visionary experience.
The phenomenon of automatic writing reveals that sometimes a writer may not himself fully understand everything he is recording, but is merely a conduit for an influx of insights. We find repeatedly, in the development of science and sociology, that certain persons are set aside to receive a new understanding in advance of the general public, i.e. Newton, Einstein, Gandhi, MLK, Socrates, etc. The Bible itself is a sacred document precisely because of its ability to impart to readers new insights, even many generations after it was written.
Jesus was clearly in touch with the spiritual world, and certainly capable of receiving certain new insights, for which no historical antecedents can be found. Jesus did not simply relay the refurbished, hand-me-down doctrines of his day, but instead presented totally new inspirations that were not previously part of known tradition.
Information, much like a virus, may be contained within a human body, and infectiously transmitted to others, disseminated widely, and sustained through history. Just as Jesus mixed the microbes in his spit with dust to make a paste to heal the eyes of a blind man; so Jesus has similarly mixed information into history, in order to continue opening human eyes, even thousands of years after His physical existence here.
We see then (or don’t see), that the post-resurrected Christ is not someone we find in materiality, but someone that we discern from within our human soul. When knowledge of Christ wells within us, we become a bearer for God’s thoughts. Being a bearer of God’s thoughts facilitates their convergence into our reality. However, being such a bearer may necessitate rejection of traditional beliefs as handed down to us, just as Jesus contested the Pharisees.
Higher Consciousness
God may not be contained within a box formed of established beliefs and formulated doctrines. All those people whose religious understanding is literal, and whose perspective is formed solely by what they have been told, do not experience the deeper meaning of religious truths.
Understanding must well from within so that the symbolism, synchronicity, and deeper meanings of things may be discerned. Persons with an entrenched consciousness fail to experience this inner world. Such people subscribe to what Jung referred to as the “collective consciousness”, which consists of the generalized, prevailing attitudes, beliefs, and prejudices commonly possessed by the broader population. This collective consciousness is contrasted against the higher consciousness that may be instilled within us through individuation.
Higher consciousness comes from a deeper reality than the ego. The path to higher consciousness involves gaining awareness of the ego, acknowledging things that have been repressed, and dealing openly with those things. The tendency of most is to suppress and store away into the unconsciousness any vile or unpleasant aspects of the personality. There are things about ourselves that we do not wish to be exposed, not even to ourselves. To protect ourselves against such self-revelation, we forget these things, refusing them the light of our conscious awareness, thereby allowing the ego to pretend it’s something that it’s not.
Jung’s idea is that by making this suppressed darkness conscious, something he called “facing our shadow”, we accomplish the process of individuation. By contemplating those things we have been afraid or ashamed to face, we are forced to change. When we become transparent to ourselves and capable of living in the open, we are able to arrest the charades of the ego and deal with our whole self, and with others. Once we face our shadow, we are no longer afraid to see who we are.
The life of consciousness and truth is not about following the path of least resistance. It is the road less often taken and the more narrow way. To obtain a ticket for entry along the path into this next realm we must defeat the ego. Grace is the gift of time within which we may endeavor to subdue the ego.
Self-honesty is one of the most essential qualities for individuation. To live with self-honesty is to constantly expose oneself and ones actions to the light and to be fully seen by others. The veil of ignorance must be lifted and a new consciousness developed.
We must overcome our literalness and cultivate our capacity for seeing. Knowledge comes when we stop suppressing it. New life can only emerge when there has been the death of the old life.
Escaping the Egotistical
Sanford describes how the ego must die or be weakened so that the inner presence may gain prominence and control of the personality. This is especially difficult in modern times because we live amidst profuse psychological pollution of egocentric ideas and attitudes. The climb out of childhood indoctrinations is a difficult one and most are never fully free from them. And even when we dismiss childhood indoctrinations, the mob remains ever present about us, bearing forth waves of collective thoughts and popular opinions. We are constantly bombarded with lectures, preaching, prescribed education, commercials, myths, responsive readings, and many other forms of persisting public opinion.
When our ego is displeased with certain things about ourselves, particularly those things that contradict the mainstream, it simply stores these things away in what Jung called the “personal unconsciousness”, which is a storehouse of repressed information that our ego can’t tolerate. The process of individuation involves opening ourselves up to this information and dealing with it. We become a greater person when we recognize fully who we are and defeat the ego’s attempts to mask us as something different. Enormous creative energies are unleashed as we better discern what we are all about.
Bringing repressed information to light is very liberating, especially for literalistic fundamentalists who have refused to acknowledge that certain Biblical passages contradict their core values. For example, the Biblical writings of Paul clearly denigrate women by assigning them to inferior social and spiritual roles. Certain passages in the Old Testament define God as one who would command the Israelites to commit genocide. Popular theology essentially assigns a sex to God by proclaiming a “Him” and often even conjures a personality for God. How many fundamentalists are willing to recognize their indoctrination with teachings that essentially make them sexist and racist? In contrast, the New Testament portrays Jesus as having remarkable relationships with women and as espousing a radically new social consciousness.
Jesus was one who freed himself from the imprisonments of ignorance, materialism, indoctrinations, and popular opinion. Jung invites us to do the same, through the process of individuation, which brings insights and truths that transcend our present state of limited awareness. In order to experience spiritual growth, one must have personal experiences, not merely follow an outline of prescribed ritual, dogma, myth, or theology. Individuation doesn’t come merely by faith, with its emphasis on blind belief; nor does individuation come through works, with its extroverted do-goodism. Rather, it is found only through interior transformation.
One may first “believe” in God but subsequently come to “know” God. Individuation entails no longer merely “believing”, but rather “knowing” that which is the most important to you, that which you love foremost, and that which is most worthy of your praise. We must ultimately ask ourselves if the Center we encounter through individuation is God’s goodness, or something else?
The Center is the life force, the “in His image part of us”, and “The Way”. God’s self reference in scripture is “I Am”. When God calls to Moses from the burning bush (Exodus Chapter 3), Moses answers: “Here I am”. When Moses asks God what his name is, God says he is to be called: “I AM” and says further: “this is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.” What better reference could there possibly be for God’s residence within the human heart? The human Center is the medium through which God is to be known.
Wholeness
The emergence of the Center into consciousness has the effect of multiplying the extent of consciousness. The Center reproduces insight, knowledge and intuition endlessly. Moreover, the personality of an individual in whom the Center is activated has an effect on others. This is why the influence of a great personality continues to live on in history. This is the psychological truth expressed by Jesus in the Parable of the Talents, which instructs us to multiply the mentality we have been granted. However, most bury their mentality in the ground of collective thoughts because of the fear of losing or diminishing their ego.
The ego must become subservient to the inner “I Am” and cease its ridiculous maneuverings for praise. Instead, the ego must learn that the praise it seeks is properly directed to “I Am”, which resides in the Center of all persons who choose to recognize It. The manifestation and distribution of this shared inner presence is what brings forth “The Kingdom” of which Christ spoke. Understanding the spread of “I Am” about the world brings us to a true understanding of the teleological aspects of the Gospel. The way forward into a more heavenly social existence involves a much broader awakening among the masses.
Presently, our social existence is run by the dominance of the ego in the expressions of human beings all around the world. Whenever possible, the dominant egotistical world endeavors to crucify the inner Center, preventing it from disseminating its valuable information (its Word) because the ego fears its destruction. Social growth necessitates that more people come to recognize “the Way” that is directed by the inner source (the Center). Jung saw this inner source as an archetypal energy mediated to us through the unconscious; Christians see it as Christ within; others see it as the Life Force, and many other religions attempt to explain it in various other ways. Scripture directs us to understand it as: “I Am”.
We are all in the process of becoming something spiritually and either this process is proceeding or deteriorating. The revelational thing is that eternal life begins in the here and now with the soul either growing toward imperishable spirit or diminishing toward destruction. As expressed in The Parable of the Talents, we have been given life with the the task to grow this gift, not to keep it “as is” by burying it in the sands of popular collectivism.
Sanford lists for us the “I Am’s” proclaimed by Jesus that we may use like a mantra. This mantra can only be properly approached by one who is free of the taint of egocentricity.
I am the light of the world
I am the resurrection
I am the way, the truth and the life
I am the door
I am the good shepherd
I am the true vine
I am the bread of life
To repeat this mantra in a first person narrative is to merge our motivations with those of Christ, instigating oneness with God. This is what it means to become an ingrafted branch, as referenced in scripture (Romans 11). The great paradox is that serving the Center within is the only way to true freedom. All else is a quagmire of materiality binding one in egocentric illusion. The often quoted early church father Irenaeus (130-202) said: “Jesus became what we are in order that we might become what He is.”
Great responsibilities arise for one who would repeat this mantra and declare himself a bearer of God, which we see as we endeavor to expand Sanfords’s list:
I am the light of the world (a responsibility to exhibit the Center).
I am the resurrection (a responsibility to grow the Center.)
I am the way, the truth and the life - (a responsibility to live “the Way” of the Center, the Way of wisdom and of growing consciousness)
I am the door - (a responsibility to sustain the interior gateway to the Center)
I am the good shepherd - (a responsibility to care for oneself, the environment & others)
I am the true vine - (a responsibility to connect to others, to be receptive)
I am the bread of life - (a responsibility to understand and be the undivided, whole, transparent self)
These are not easy burdens and, when properly exercised, they may even lead to ones persecution. To open oneself to ones personal unconsciousness is to take up ones cross, to deal with ones undesirable aspects, to crucify any part of oneself that remains addicted to materiality, and to proceed in the way of goodness, as a whole being. To “take up ones cross and follow” is symbolic of beginning the process of moving from the world of concrete reality to the world of spiritual reality.
Understanding Jesus involves confrontation with the truth about oneself and that understanding can never come for one who refuses to relinquish their ego. To reject Jesus is to deny the truth and so long as one lives the lie of the ego, they are encapsulated in deceptive materiality. Jesus himself explains: “I came into the world to bear witness to the truth.” All of this life is a confrontation between the ego and the Center. It is from this battle that all the dichotomies in mythology and religious postulations arise: light v darkness, good v evil, God v Satan, etc. The devil is the ego, God is the Center, and the battle is within us.
The difference between the real God and the god of the literalistic fundamentalist is much more than simply a different type of relationship; it is a different God all together. The god of simple theism is described in human terms, with a personality, like a big brother or parent, prescribing written rules and regulations. Conversely, the God of the Christian mystic is an ineffable presence beckoning from within that is totally beyond confining boxes made of human descriptions.
The God of mystical Christianity is the God-energy that moved through Jesus to approach closer to humanity, like sap extending through a plant which emerges out of materialistic ground. This process alchemically translates mere matter into a life that can bear fruit. Enlightened humans are branches that can bear the fruit of goodness, which nourishes and sustains spiritual entities. We see in this the symbology of the story about Jesus producing more wine for the wedding, thereby expanding spiritual influence upon others, who may ultimately become married to the Center.
The Christian mystic knows God via a numinous interior union whereby the mind of God becomes expressed in the creation. To the extent the soul becomes a dwelling place for God it becomes divine, enduring, and certainly much more than the mere functioning of a brain.
Who can deny the existence of the impetus for goodness that beseeches us from within? Those that not only recognize it, but also endeavor to cultivate it, gain the propensity for endurance within a parallel realm beyond what is merely material.
-End-
While the psychologizing of Christianity may be very difficult for fundamentalists who are encased within literalistic ideology, John Sanford (1929-2005) makes it much easier to understand the uncanny similarities between traditional religious conversion and the processes of psychological growth. Carl Jung (1875-1961), the famous Swiss psychiatrist, termed this process “individuation”, which he defined as the process by which things repressed into unconsciousness are recognized by the whole personality and dealt with.
This book will certainly challenge any atheist because Sanford uncloaks the traditional literalistic interpretations, by presenting God in a practical fashion. Similarly, Sanford forces the fundamentalist to deal with difficult religious questions, doubts, and transgressions, instead of ignoring them. By showing that religion and psychology are concerned with the same thing, Sanford brings both the atheist and the fundamentalist forward toward “individuation”, which is, in Sanford’s words, “the evolution of consciousness”.
In fact, reading this will make one shudder to think how much spiritual damage has been done by literalistic preachers and parishioners who insist that merely confessing faith in Jesus constitutes salvation. Sanford shows that “the way” actually involves far more than mere verbal espousal of some doctrine or public profession in some particular denomination.
Egotistical priests, in frenzies of perceived power, beckon parishioners from church pews, perceiving themselves to be like Jesus calling forth the deceased Lazarus. However, it is highly misleading to entice naive people out of their seats, under pretense that the mere act of coming forward will somehow miraculously change their lives. Missing from such sermons is the more important explanation that the spirit of Christ is “the Way”, not some corridor through an earthen chapel erected by men.
Certainly, the commencement of seeking may begin anywhere, even along such a lonely corridor, but the true way is, as Sanford expresses, the way of a growing consciousness, the way of sustained seeking, and the process of binding to an interior presence that has been traditionally labeled as good, and which Jung referred to as an archetype.
Archetypes
Carl Jung showed that it is possible to bring into our spiritual lives figures from our dreams or unconscious and to engage these figures in dialogue with our ego. Sanford suggests these figures are real, but exist within a different kind of reality than the material world that we know. Examples in the Bible include the dialogue between Elijah and Yahweh in the cave on Mt. Sinai, the dialogue between Jesus and Satan in the wilderness, or the dialogue between Moses and the voice of Yahweh from the burning bush.
In fact, the very process of thinking is a dialogue with the inner self, as we contemplate various modes of action, consider what to say, or think about how to act in a particular situation. Sometimes a solution to a problem may come forth to us in dreams or daydreams. Sanford insists that such visions can render revelations of actual fact. Indeed, much of the Bible, like the book of John, involves teachings received from Christ after His death. Certainly, the Book of Revelation clearly proclaims itself to be written documentation of a visionary experience.
The phenomenon of automatic writing reveals that sometimes a writer may not himself fully understand everything he is recording, but is merely a conduit for an influx of insights. We find repeatedly, in the development of science and sociology, that certain persons are set aside to receive a new understanding in advance of the general public, i.e. Newton, Einstein, Gandhi, MLK, Socrates, etc. The Bible itself is a sacred document precisely because of its ability to impart to readers new insights, even many generations after it was written.
Jesus was clearly in touch with the spiritual world, and certainly capable of receiving certain new insights, for which no historical antecedents can be found. Jesus did not simply relay the refurbished, hand-me-down doctrines of his day, but instead presented totally new inspirations that were not previously part of known tradition.
Information, much like a virus, may be contained within a human body, and infectiously transmitted to others, disseminated widely, and sustained through history. Just as Jesus mixed the microbes in his spit with dust to make a paste to heal the eyes of a blind man; so Jesus has similarly mixed information into history, in order to continue opening human eyes, even thousands of years after His physical existence here.
We see then (or don’t see), that the post-resurrected Christ is not someone we find in materiality, but someone that we discern from within our human soul. When knowledge of Christ wells within us, we become a bearer for God’s thoughts. Being a bearer of God’s thoughts facilitates their convergence into our reality. However, being such a bearer may necessitate rejection of traditional beliefs as handed down to us, just as Jesus contested the Pharisees.
Higher Consciousness
God may not be contained within a box formed of established beliefs and formulated doctrines. All those people whose religious understanding is literal, and whose perspective is formed solely by what they have been told, do not experience the deeper meaning of religious truths.
Understanding must well from within so that the symbolism, synchronicity, and deeper meanings of things may be discerned. Persons with an entrenched consciousness fail to experience this inner world. Such people subscribe to what Jung referred to as the “collective consciousness”, which consists of the generalized, prevailing attitudes, beliefs, and prejudices commonly possessed by the broader population. This collective consciousness is contrasted against the higher consciousness that may be instilled within us through individuation.
Higher consciousness comes from a deeper reality than the ego. The path to higher consciousness involves gaining awareness of the ego, acknowledging things that have been repressed, and dealing openly with those things. The tendency of most is to suppress and store away into the unconsciousness any vile or unpleasant aspects of the personality. There are things about ourselves that we do not wish to be exposed, not even to ourselves. To protect ourselves against such self-revelation, we forget these things, refusing them the light of our conscious awareness, thereby allowing the ego to pretend it’s something that it’s not.
Jung’s idea is that by making this suppressed darkness conscious, something he called “facing our shadow”, we accomplish the process of individuation. By contemplating those things we have been afraid or ashamed to face, we are forced to change. When we become transparent to ourselves and capable of living in the open, we are able to arrest the charades of the ego and deal with our whole self, and with others. Once we face our shadow, we are no longer afraid to see who we are.
The life of consciousness and truth is not about following the path of least resistance. It is the road less often taken and the more narrow way. To obtain a ticket for entry along the path into this next realm we must defeat the ego. Grace is the gift of time within which we may endeavor to subdue the ego.
Self-honesty is one of the most essential qualities for individuation. To live with self-honesty is to constantly expose oneself and ones actions to the light and to be fully seen by others. The veil of ignorance must be lifted and a new consciousness developed.
We must overcome our literalness and cultivate our capacity for seeing. Knowledge comes when we stop suppressing it. New life can only emerge when there has been the death of the old life.
Escaping the Egotistical
Sanford describes how the ego must die or be weakened so that the inner presence may gain prominence and control of the personality. This is especially difficult in modern times because we live amidst profuse psychological pollution of egocentric ideas and attitudes. The climb out of childhood indoctrinations is a difficult one and most are never fully free from them. And even when we dismiss childhood indoctrinations, the mob remains ever present about us, bearing forth waves of collective thoughts and popular opinions. We are constantly bombarded with lectures, preaching, prescribed education, commercials, myths, responsive readings, and many other forms of persisting public opinion.
When our ego is displeased with certain things about ourselves, particularly those things that contradict the mainstream, it simply stores these things away in what Jung called the “personal unconsciousness”, which is a storehouse of repressed information that our ego can’t tolerate. The process of individuation involves opening ourselves up to this information and dealing with it. We become a greater person when we recognize fully who we are and defeat the ego’s attempts to mask us as something different. Enormous creative energies are unleashed as we better discern what we are all about.
Bringing repressed information to light is very liberating, especially for literalistic fundamentalists who have refused to acknowledge that certain Biblical passages contradict their core values. For example, the Biblical writings of Paul clearly denigrate women by assigning them to inferior social and spiritual roles. Certain passages in the Old Testament define God as one who would command the Israelites to commit genocide. Popular theology essentially assigns a sex to God by proclaiming a “Him” and often even conjures a personality for God. How many fundamentalists are willing to recognize their indoctrination with teachings that essentially make them sexist and racist? In contrast, the New Testament portrays Jesus as having remarkable relationships with women and as espousing a radically new social consciousness.
Jesus was one who freed himself from the imprisonments of ignorance, materialism, indoctrinations, and popular opinion. Jung invites us to do the same, through the process of individuation, which brings insights and truths that transcend our present state of limited awareness. In order to experience spiritual growth, one must have personal experiences, not merely follow an outline of prescribed ritual, dogma, myth, or theology. Individuation doesn’t come merely by faith, with its emphasis on blind belief; nor does individuation come through works, with its extroverted do-goodism. Rather, it is found only through interior transformation.
One may first “believe” in God but subsequently come to “know” God. Individuation entails no longer merely “believing”, but rather “knowing” that which is the most important to you, that which you love foremost, and that which is most worthy of your praise. We must ultimately ask ourselves if the Center we encounter through individuation is God’s goodness, or something else?
The Center is the life force, the “in His image part of us”, and “The Way”. God’s self reference in scripture is “I Am”. When God calls to Moses from the burning bush (Exodus Chapter 3), Moses answers: “Here I am”. When Moses asks God what his name is, God says he is to be called: “I AM” and says further: “this is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.” What better reference could there possibly be for God’s residence within the human heart? The human Center is the medium through which God is to be known.
Wholeness
The emergence of the Center into consciousness has the effect of multiplying the extent of consciousness. The Center reproduces insight, knowledge and intuition endlessly. Moreover, the personality of an individual in whom the Center is activated has an effect on others. This is why the influence of a great personality continues to live on in history. This is the psychological truth expressed by Jesus in the Parable of the Talents, which instructs us to multiply the mentality we have been granted. However, most bury their mentality in the ground of collective thoughts because of the fear of losing or diminishing their ego.
The ego must become subservient to the inner “I Am” and cease its ridiculous maneuverings for praise. Instead, the ego must learn that the praise it seeks is properly directed to “I Am”, which resides in the Center of all persons who choose to recognize It. The manifestation and distribution of this shared inner presence is what brings forth “The Kingdom” of which Christ spoke. Understanding the spread of “I Am” about the world brings us to a true understanding of the teleological aspects of the Gospel. The way forward into a more heavenly social existence involves a much broader awakening among the masses.
Presently, our social existence is run by the dominance of the ego in the expressions of human beings all around the world. Whenever possible, the dominant egotistical world endeavors to crucify the inner Center, preventing it from disseminating its valuable information (its Word) because the ego fears its destruction. Social growth necessitates that more people come to recognize “the Way” that is directed by the inner source (the Center). Jung saw this inner source as an archetypal energy mediated to us through the unconscious; Christians see it as Christ within; others see it as the Life Force, and many other religions attempt to explain it in various other ways. Scripture directs us to understand it as: “I Am”.
We are all in the process of becoming something spiritually and either this process is proceeding or deteriorating. The revelational thing is that eternal life begins in the here and now with the soul either growing toward imperishable spirit or diminishing toward destruction. As expressed in The Parable of the Talents, we have been given life with the the task to grow this gift, not to keep it “as is” by burying it in the sands of popular collectivism.
Sanford lists for us the “I Am’s” proclaimed by Jesus that we may use like a mantra. This mantra can only be properly approached by one who is free of the taint of egocentricity.
I am the light of the world
I am the resurrection
I am the way, the truth and the life
I am the door
I am the good shepherd
I am the true vine
I am the bread of life
To repeat this mantra in a first person narrative is to merge our motivations with those of Christ, instigating oneness with God. This is what it means to become an ingrafted branch, as referenced in scripture (Romans 11). The great paradox is that serving the Center within is the only way to true freedom. All else is a quagmire of materiality binding one in egocentric illusion. The often quoted early church father Irenaeus (130-202) said: “Jesus became what we are in order that we might become what He is.”
Great responsibilities arise for one who would repeat this mantra and declare himself a bearer of God, which we see as we endeavor to expand Sanfords’s list:
I am the light of the world (a responsibility to exhibit the Center).
I am the resurrection (a responsibility to grow the Center.)
I am the way, the truth and the life - (a responsibility to live “the Way” of the Center, the Way of wisdom and of growing consciousness)
I am the door - (a responsibility to sustain the interior gateway to the Center)
I am the good shepherd - (a responsibility to care for oneself, the environment & others)
I am the true vine - (a responsibility to connect to others, to be receptive)
I am the bread of life - (a responsibility to understand and be the undivided, whole, transparent self)
These are not easy burdens and, when properly exercised, they may even lead to ones persecution. To open oneself to ones personal unconsciousness is to take up ones cross, to deal with ones undesirable aspects, to crucify any part of oneself that remains addicted to materiality, and to proceed in the way of goodness, as a whole being. To “take up ones cross and follow” is symbolic of beginning the process of moving from the world of concrete reality to the world of spiritual reality.
Understanding Jesus involves confrontation with the truth about oneself and that understanding can never come for one who refuses to relinquish their ego. To reject Jesus is to deny the truth and so long as one lives the lie of the ego, they are encapsulated in deceptive materiality. Jesus himself explains: “I came into the world to bear witness to the truth.” All of this life is a confrontation between the ego and the Center. It is from this battle that all the dichotomies in mythology and religious postulations arise: light v darkness, good v evil, God v Satan, etc. The devil is the ego, God is the Center, and the battle is within us.
The difference between the real God and the god of the literalistic fundamentalist is much more than simply a different type of relationship; it is a different God all together. The god of simple theism is described in human terms, with a personality, like a big brother or parent, prescribing written rules and regulations. Conversely, the God of the Christian mystic is an ineffable presence beckoning from within that is totally beyond confining boxes made of human descriptions.
The God of mystical Christianity is the God-energy that moved through Jesus to approach closer to humanity, like sap extending through a plant which emerges out of materialistic ground. This process alchemically translates mere matter into a life that can bear fruit. Enlightened humans are branches that can bear the fruit of goodness, which nourishes and sustains spiritual entities. We see in this the symbology of the story about Jesus producing more wine for the wedding, thereby expanding spiritual influence upon others, who may ultimately become married to the Center.
The Christian mystic knows God via a numinous interior union whereby the mind of God becomes expressed in the creation. To the extent the soul becomes a dwelling place for God it becomes divine, enduring, and certainly much more than the mere functioning of a brain.
Who can deny the existence of the impetus for goodness that beseeches us from within? Those that not only recognize it, but also endeavor to cultivate it, gain the propensity for endurance within a parallel realm beyond what is merely material.
-End-
June 12, 2019
The best part of this work is the 1st 4 or 6 chapters. After that I began losing interest and drifting off. However those 1st chapters were extremely insightful very very helpful and I think very worth reading.
July 25, 2011
best book on John's Gospel!
January 25, 2016
I really like this book but I think a reader would need a background in and familiarity with Jung, or at least Sanford, to gain the most from it.
October 14, 2025
"Mystical Christianity" is a Jungian interpretation of the Gospel According to John. That's what drew me to reading it. I've read other books by John A. Sanford, and always find his approach stretches my understandings.
As with other works I found the book heavier on Jung than mysticism, which is to be expected. (To be fair, a chief characteristic of mysticism is the inability of language to relay its reality.) Sanford equates mystical experience and encounters with the Unconscious. Readers who are interested in Jung's theories of Ego, and the Unconscious, and especially the process of Individuation will enjoy this book. So will religious seekers, though probably not fundamentalists.
As with other works I found the book heavier on Jung than mysticism, which is to be expected. (To be fair, a chief characteristic of mysticism is the inability of language to relay its reality.) Sanford equates mystical experience and encounters with the Unconscious. Readers who are interested in Jung's theories of Ego, and the Unconscious, and especially the process of Individuation will enjoy this book. So will religious seekers, though probably not fundamentalists.
March 21, 2017
Awesome!! So many great Greek words that were explored that added TONS of meaning to John.
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