Have mercy on me, O God

Across decades of research, the evidence is clear: long-term recovery from mental health issues, nihilism, despair, and addiction most reliably endures when anchored in a spiritual or religious transformation. Studies on Alcoholics Anonymous and similar healing frameworks consistently show that those who report a “spiritual awakening” — however they define it — are significantly more likely to maintain recovery and transformation years later. Neuroscience supports this: practices such as prayer, meditation, ritual, and awe-inducing spiritual and mystical experiences activate neural circuits tied to emotional regulation, meaning-making, and resilience, which sustain healing over time.

Yet many on the path of healing are wounded by traditional religion. Memories of judgment, exclusion, or dogma may leave them wary of and damaged by organized faith. For these seekers, talk of God or “religion” can feel like a barrier rather than a doorway. Here the work of Joseph Campbell offers a healing bridge. Campbell showed through his study of myth and religion that all cultures share one universal story — the Hero’s Journey. The stories may look different on the outside, but at their core they reveal the same path toward illumination, integration, and transcendence.

This recognition dissolves the fear of “choosing the wrong path,” or not choosing a path at all. It reveals that what matters is not adherence to a single doctrine, but the willingness to enter the universal journey that every tradition encodes. At the center of that journey lies what Campbell and other true people of the Spirit describe as the inner holy light — the sacred spark that exists within each of us. And to successfully complete the Hero’s Journey, one cannot rely on willpower alone; as myth and experience alike testify, the traveler MUST receive supernatural aid — a power greater than oneself — that breaks in like grace, guiding, protecting, and strengthening when the ego reaches its limits. This aid may appear in the language of gods, mentors, visions, artifacts, or sudden awakenings, but its reality is the same: without it, the journey stalls; with it, the path unfolds.

Carl Jung’s psychology provides the interior map that aligns with both healing and myth. For Jung:

• Religio — the word “religion” at its root means to bind back. Jung taught that true religion is the reconnection of the ego to the greater Self. Addiction, nihilism, and despair in contrast, result a severing of this bond.
   
• Individuation — Jung saw the purpose of life as individuation: the process of becoming whole through integration of unconscious contents (shadow, anima/animus, archetypes) into consciousness. This mirrors the Hero’s Journey and the healing process.
   
• The Self — Jung described the Self as the organizing center of the psyche, our inner image of God. Healing is not merely about not doing this or that; it is about restoring relationship with this Self.
   
• Shadow integration — Healing requires facing and integrating the Shadow, those rejected parts of ourselves. Left unacknowledged, the Shadow rules unconsciously; brought into the light, it becomes strength. The Ego is blind to the Shadow, until forced to confront it. And confront it we must.
   
• Archetypes and the symbolic attitude — Myths, dreams, and religious images are archetypal expressions of inner truths. Approached with humility (what Jung called the “symbolic attitude”), they guide us toward transformation.
   

For Jung, then, the “spiritual awakening” is not optional — it is the natural outcome of individuation.   Jung even told an early alcoholic patient (Rowland Hazard) that only such that of a vital spiritual experience could bring lasting recovery — wisdom that later inspired Bill Wilson and became the foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous. This awakening may be expressed in Christian language, Hindu devotion, Native ceremony, or even in entirely personal symbols, but its reality is universal: a reconnection with the Self, the divine spark within.

 Because of this universality, many find their awakening through a pluralistic practice: blending multiple traditions into a living whole. A seeker might draw on Buddhist mindfulness, Hindu devotion, Pantheist reverence for nature, Pagan ritual, Native American ceremony, and Christian Gnostic wisdom — not as contradictions, but as complementary paths around the top of the same mountain.
This pluralism echoes Campbell’s discovery and Jung’s psychology alike: beneath the diversity of symbols, all traditions point us toward wholeness, integration, and union with the sacred center. Campbell’s work, unrivaled in depth, drew from a lifetime of study across all religions and myths — understanding that religion is simply myth adopted by a group — and from this created an easy-to-follow journey through the unfolding of humanity’s story. By tracing every recorded tradition and myth, he showed that the purpose is not to hand you a single rigid path, but to help you discover your own individualized way — the personal path that leads you back to the sacred center within.