The Care of Souls: Psychology and Religion in Anthropoligical Perspective

The adversarial quality of the psychology-theology relationship, as found in recent contributions to the literature on pastoral counseling, may begin to disappear when one's perpective is widened (made “anthropological”) enough to include several centuries and foreign cultures. The “shepherd of souls” is anyone whose occupation is the “care of souls,” whether affiliated with a church (a “pastoral counselor”) or not (a “psychotherapist”). The care of souls is a “religious” occupation whenever it deals with an interlinking set of symbols, explanations, and behaviors which refer to ultimacy. Shepherds who assist souls to find ultimacy in the religion of the main-stream society may be said to operate in the “priestly” mode. Those who refer to ultimacy in an alternate community operate in the “mediumistic” mode. Those who find ultimacy in the individual's own existence, independently of social reference, operate in the “shamanic” mode. Generally speaking, the mode of “shepherding” ought not be selected in advance by any soul-shepherd, regardless of affiliation; for souls become lost in different ways and require different kinds of direction to find their way. In all cases soul-shepherding ought to lead the individual first to the experience of “having a soul,” the experience whereby one's life is appreciated in part as a function of a creative agency which is “within” one and yet does not wholly “belong” to one. To have a soul is to have an eternal meaning, identity, and destiny. Partisans of each of the three modes of shepherding go astray insofar as they ignore the integrity and requirements of the individual soul.