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The Corruption of Reality: A Unified Theory of Religion, Hypnosis, and Psychopathology Hardcover – February 1, 1995

by John F. Schumaker (Author)

10 customer reviews

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This groundbreaking volume examines our sometimes strained grasp of reality and sheds new light on three subject areas that continue to fascinate researchers: religion, hypnosis and psychopathology.

The Corruption of Reality challenges many of the ideas in all three disciplines and paves the way for an exciting, far-reaching and unified theory of conscious and unconscious behavior. Schumaker argues that, despite their apparent differences, religion, hypnosis, and psychopathology are all expressions of the unique human ability to modify and regulate reality in ways that ultimately serve the individual and society. In turn, these same behaviors can be traced to the brain's remarkable capacity to process information along multiple pathways, thus allowing the person to manipulate reality in strategic directions aimed at improved coping. He includes a historical and cross-cultural analysis showing how reality reconstruction takes place, and outlines the shortcomings of current psychotherapeutic approaches as well as the promising trends toward a spiritualization of psychotherapy.

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From Booklist

Sure to be labeled immoral by some organized-religion enthusiast, balderdash by some ultrarational pragmatist, Schumaker's book makes a case for the essential sameness of religion, hypnosis, and psychopathology. Cogently reasoned, laboriously constructed, its arguments are obviously not for everyone, but they will inspire and animate adherents and opponents alike. Are these three areas of human behavior merely different manifestations of the desire, conscious or unconscious, to bend reality and the perception of it to personal ends? Schumaker deals with reality, sanity, culture, dissociation and suggestion, and the roles and interactions of society and the individual, reducing each to its essence and examining and evaluating it individually and in concert with the others. Citing noted researchers and observers, he demonstrates how humans generally are inclined to construct "insane" realities that distance them from objective but possibly undesirable reality. Furthermore, Schumaker's views and findings on the roles of ritual and perception in our lives and in our views of reality are fascinating. Mike Tribby

About the Author

John F. Schumaker is a retired Clinical Psychologist and author who also has 25-year career as a university academic across several countries including the United States, Zambia, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. He has researched and published articles on cross-cultural mental health, depression, psychology of religion, eating disorders and human suggestibility. His self-authored books are In Search of Happiness: Understanding an Endangered State of Mind (Kindle 2016; Penguin Books 2006; German edition Das Manipulierte Gluck: Von den trügerischen Verheißungen der Konsumkultur: WJS, Berlin); The Age of Insanity: Modernity and Mental Health (Praeger); The Corruption of Reality: A Unified Theory of Religion, Hypnosis, and Psychopathology (Prometheus Books); and Wings of Illusion (Prometheus Books). His edited books are Religion and Mental Health (Oxford University Press), Human Suggestibility (Routledge); Cultural Cognition and Psychopathology (Praeger); Psychology and the Developing World (Praeger); Motivation and Culture (Routledge); and Perspectives on Belief and Experience (Prism Press). His essays for The New Internationalist magazine include "The Demoralized Mind," "The Happiness Conspiracy," "The Triumph of Triviality," "Dying for the Things We Love," "Dead Zone," "Earth Warrior," and "Starstruck." He currently lives in Christchurch, Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Hardcover: 289 pages
Publisher: Prometheus Books (February 1, 1995)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0879759356
ISBN-13: 978-0879759353
Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.8 x 8.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
Average Customer Review: 10 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,029,146 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1501 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Psychology
- #5484 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Metaphysics
- #7423 in Books > Medical Books > Psychology > Psychotherapy, TA & NLP

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Jonathan Jett-Parmer

The elves and the Schumaker...

March 3, 2008

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

John Schumaker is an Australian psychologist and hypno therapist. In this work he presents a compelling argument for the connection between the human need for dissociation and the establishment of religion and other "irrational" thought. He spends a lot of time weaving the history of dissociative cultural practices with modern psychpathology. The text is well referenced and reratively easy to read.

Like many brilliant researchers, he occassionaly slips into repetition of his core arguments, rather than allowing them to stand on their own after a single well framed defense. Nonetheless, Mr. Schumaker's work presents an interesting construct for consideration. What if the "demystification" of modern society is actually undermining itscollective mental health? He argues, towards the end, that a new religion must be established to permit our individual psyches to be shielded from the various irreconciable pressures from within and without.

I certainly do not fully agree with his thesis, however, the method of argument and representation is well crafted. I think any student of psychology, theology and mysticism will find this text thought provoking and useful. He provides an extensive bibliography which may be a jumping off point for further reading.

6 people found this helpful7 people found this helpful

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Herbert L Calhoun

A Reality Reconstruction Project for Man

June 8, 2006

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This paradigm shift in psychological research and thinking (that just happens to update a key element of Freudian psychology) is powerful medicine for both the committed scientist and the layman. It gets five stars each for thoroughness, inventiveness, and the clarity of its exposition.

Building on his equally impressive work in "Wings of Illusion," Schumaker, uses an expanded examination of the process of diassociation, as a way of developing a unified theory of religion, hypnosis and psychopathology. In a research project that can only produce envy in its thoroughness and deft treatment of a very complicated subject, the author has left no stones unturned in bringing his unifying thesis to a resoundingly satisfying and successful climax.

The core thesis of this work is set forth in his "Wings of Illusion" in which the author asserts that as a result of developing greatly amplified intelligence as an evolutionary strategy for dealing with the fear and trauma of often overwhelming disorder and complexity, man began to seek psychological sanctuary in the form of illusion and self-deception.

Following on the heels of Ernest Becker and Otto Rank, Schumaker poses yet again perhaps the most important question for humankind: "On what level of illusion was man meant to live?"

As a way of unraveling this mystery, the author reveals man's primary evolutionary strategy as that of using conscious self-deception to forestall and avoid the unsettling tension-producing aspects of being unable to control and manage disorder.

This purposeful, and strategic use of self-deception - that is, learning to fashion and manage reality to suit our needs (or as the author puts it "this corruption of reality") -- has proven to be a survival enhancing evolutionary move.

The evolutionary process that helped man out of his quandary of being overwhelmed with disorder and complexity came in the form of a capacity for the brain to disassociate itself from itself.

That is to say specifically that the human brain has the capacity to selectively perceive its environment, selectively process information, selectively store memories, selectively disengage from already stored memories, and selectively replace dissociated data with more "user-friendly" data. Put yet another way, the brain can split the mind into distinct but unified submodules.

The primary level of this mind reorganization, for the purpose of reality reconstruction, of course takes place at the level of culture. It is culture that tends to homogenize and normalize people's false conceptions of reality. The reality of the individual is -- to a large extent -- the result of constructions that are fabricated and propagated at the level of culture.

And if culture can be said to be the central bank of this "artificial order creation project," then organized religion is its currency. Only by eliminating competing "real" data from consciousness can the tension between the disorder in reality and the artificial order we create in our heads, be reduced.

Religion, in its attempt to protect us from some of the most perplexing problems of survival -- such as how to deal with unknowns, uncertainty, and most of all death -- does this with a flourish.

Through cultural organization and manipulation, the human brain has evolved in such a way that it is capable of arriving at greater order than it perceives, or that even exists in reality. In distorting reality to create his own artificial order, man lowers dramatically his own criteria and need for accurate reality testing.

In this volume, Schumaker demonstrates beyond a shadow of doubt that through the mechanism of disassociation, religion and psychopathology are different sides of the same reality re-construction project. Hypnosis, another member of the same family of self-deception is used more or less as the experimental control for testing this thesis.

As religion, hypnosis, and psychopathology are explored, in each other's light, it becomes ever more clear that they are part of a single story, namely, the regulation or corruption of reality.

Schumaker's thesis will be unsettling and disturbing to conventional minds -especially religious ones -- but it is one of few trail-blazing undertakings in psychology that ends in a resounding success. Five stars.

31 people found this helpful32 people found this helpful

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Arne Saknussmm

A life-altering experience.

November 1, 2012

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This book formulates an hypothesis which, if not proven beyond criticism, at least is based on a body of data and research. It formulates a credible explanation ( evolution-selected dissociation capacity of the human brain as a coping mechanism against the CONSCIENCE of our finitude etc) for diverse and apparently unconnected phenomena, and provided me with a hope of understanding important questions, such as: why do people feel such a need of supernatural beliefs to explain the world? Why do rhytmic music induce trance-like, oftentimes near or religious ecstatic states? ...and others of great significance to me. It is, in the worst scenario, an hypothesis worth studying much more profoundly, through well done scientific research. This work should be better known and its themes widely debated. Prima!, as the germans say, Prof Schumaker!

3 people found this helpful4 people found this helpful

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Bob

Fairly good review of illusion, trance, and religion

February 20, 2005

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Fairly good review of illusion, trance, and religion in societies around the world. Not especially illuminating regarding recommendations.

It did turn me on to a book "Positive Illusions" by Shelly E. Taylor.

7 people found this helpful8 people found this helpful

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samuelsalter

the corruption of reality

August 27, 2010

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Dr. John F. Schumaker is probably 50+ years ahead of his time in understanding the relationship between Religion, Hypnosis and Psychopathology and their being three manifistations of the same dissociation disorder.

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The Corruption of Reality: A Unified Theory of Religion, Hypnosis, and Psychopathology Hardcover – February 1, 1995

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