conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

When I hear "self-actualization" I wonder how close that is to "theosis" as understood in Eastern Christianity?

Isn't that what the Transfiguration is all about?

I like your thinking here, Tripp.

It is like that...Basil Penninngton takes it that direction. In Centering Prayer he speaks of the discipline of the Transfiguration in our prayer lives and ministry. Yes, we encounter God...in the middle of our journey with Jesus. We cannot plant ourselves on the mountain (unless we are called to contemplative life) because God calls us to ministry with Him. However, we are to make time to go to the mountain. Pennington suggests crafting a personal discipline and siticking to it. And in that sticktuitiveness we give witness to the Transfiguration and to Christ's divinity.

Respectfully, "self-actualization" is nothing at all like the reality of theosis. The way to theosis is not self-actualization but self-denial.

The Transfiguration is indeed emblematic of theosis. But the Transfiguration and "self-actualization" are mutually opposed to one another.

Cliff! I was hoping you might pipe up.

Yeah, I think you are right in this Cliff. But to defend Maslow a little, he's not talking about spiritualized hedonism. He's talking about epiphany and spiritual knowledge. He's not speaking of desire at all...well, not once you get to the "peakest" of peak experience. But the hierarch of needs can be very hedonistic. But when healthy, it is the loss of self, I think. It is simply so often used to describe the unhealthy...psychotic breaks can be peak experiences.

Maslow would likely say that religious visions etc are one type of peak experience. He is not so interested in honing everything into a specific doctrinal pattern. Thus, he's only useful to a point.

Just some brief thoughts for you...

• Peak experiences are especially joyous and exciting moments in the life of every individual. Maslow notes that peak experiences are often inspired by intense feelings of love, exposure to great art or music, or the overwhelming beauty of nature. "All peak experiences may be fruitfully understood as completions-of the-act…" (Maslow, 1968, p. I 11).
• "It looks as if any experience of real excellence, of real perfection ... tends to produce a peak experience" (1971, p. 175). These experiences may also be triggered by tragic events…peak experiences, understood in the broadest sense, are those moments when we become deeply involved, excited by, and absorbed in the world.
• The most powerful peak experiences are relatively rare. For Maslow, the highest peaks include "feelings of limitless horizons opening up to the vision, the feeling of being. Simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before, the feeling of great ecstasy and wonder and awe, the loss of placing in time and space" (1970, p. 164). They have been portrayed by poets as moments of ecstasy; by the religious, as deep mystical experiences.

So, theosis is not this...but mystical experience may be. But the difference or connections between theosis and "mystical expericne" is unclear to me.

I am thinking of St Francis and the stigmata, St John of the cross, Julian of Norwich, Theresa of Avilla...etc. I don't know the Eastern mystics at all.

I think the notion of "feelings" being somehow the standard of measurement, or if not that, an indicator of "peak experiences" is a telling hint that "peak experiences" are not theosis.

I doubt St. John of the Cross' "dark night" would fit Maslow's paradigm.

Furthermore, one may have an experience of fasting in which one feels irritation, envy, jealousy, disconnected from one's fellow man, and even disconnected from God--and yet this is the pathway to theosis.

Don't know whether an Anglo-baptist celebrates the Fast starting today, or on Ash Wed (I suspect the latter, given your parish work), but in any case, may the Lord's blessings fall richly on you and Trish, and your parishioners, this holy Fast.

Please remember to pray for me, a sinner.

I think you are right. Maslow's psychologizing of religion depends upon the emotive and leaves little room for the disciplines of the faith.

That being said, one of the interesting interpretations of the peak experience and the Transfiguration came from Basil Pennington, OSB. He understands the contemplative to be called to stay on the mountain top...on Tabor. His book, Centering Prayer, is founded upon the notion. It's interesting that he wants to constantly re-enter the peak experience. Those are his words, not mine.