Pacifica Graduate Institute

Pacifica Graduate Instiute, a longstanding RA school with programs in and around Jungian and depth psychology and mythology some of which are low-residency, is the subject of some controversy over its direction and management decisions according to this opinion piece from a critic:

Op-Ed: Has Evangelical Influence Taken Over Pacifica Graduate Institute? (Amy Katz, Edhat Santa Barbara, August 23, 2024)

 

What an interesting article, thanks for posting it. I take it that the tolerance of some of the folks at PGI affords all sorts of spirituality but not Christian spirituality.

 

No, I had many thoughts about the op ed. I just didn't feel like documenting them.

 

Sounds like the Seventh Day Adventists and evangelists taking over the school are being intolerant of everyone at a school that was founded to be open-minded. They're shoving Christianity down everyone's throats at a non-Christian school. I'm sure conservative Christian schools wouldn't like it if someone came in and forced another religion upon everyone. They go out of their way to not hire people who aren't conservative Christians. Since Pacifica is a mythology school, they should have taken the religious freedom stance and refused to hire anyone who doesn't align with their spiritual views.

Tolerance means allowing individuals to practice and believe how they want. It does not mean forcing everyone to follow the beliefs and practices of one religion as this new administration is reportedly doing.

 

I wonder if there's any further commonality between this originally Jungian institution potentially moving closer to conservative Christianity and Jordan Peterson, who entered public life as a Jungian psychologist, potentially moving closer to conservative Christianity.

 

Being anti-science? I was never a fan of Jungian psychology. Jordan Peterson is a sexist drug addict who almost died while seeking alternative (junk science) treatments overseas.

Jung was a psychiatrist who was into woo and pseudoscience. A lot of psychology's early, weird beliefs came from psychiatrists. Read up on Dr. Henry Cotton. The guy was a sadist who thought he could cure psychiatric problems by pulling out teeth, tonsils, stomachs, reproductive organs, and colons. Psychology was saved by the behaviorists. Interestingly, B.F. Skinner was an atheist, and he course corrected psychology from all the weirdos.

 

JP seems to have started his own school (not degree granting). He isn't a believer yet much less a 7th day Adventist. I think his wife became Catholic.

Not sure how all of this will shake out but it happens. Many institutions that were formerly conservative religious schools (including Ivy League) became liberal over time. There are currently complaints about wokeness worming its way into conservative theological institutions.

Believe it or not some guy and his organization were going after Al Mohler and Southern Baptist Seminary for allowing woke professors. Mohler is hardly an emoting liberal and he famously or infamously fired female professors teaching men and dumped liberal departments. The result was great growth for Southern. He did take ownership of the past of Southern Baptist Seminary in terms of some benefactors being pro slavery and perhaps that set opponents off (believing he had gone woke).

My impression of Pacifica was a not too academic new age chakra sort of institution. It will be interesting to see where it leads. Presumably, they can turf the President.

This just brought to mind the Graduate Theological Foundation. Its new President (United Methodist) took it in a new direction (interfaith kind of Unitarian Universalist Unity type direction). Whether that works for them only time will tell.

Is not the only constant change?

 

Agreed. I wonder why they picked her. She doesn't seem to have the educational background one would expect.

I'm not sure I'd characterize what the individual was doing as "forcing everyone to follow the beliefs and practices of one religion." That was certainly the draft I got from the writer of the op-ed. However, the evidence she used seemed to divulge an increasing appearance of Christian-esque literature (I think the SDA is a theological cult) and not much else. Sure, there's the assertion of "manipulative rhetorical pressure to convert and pray to Jesus" during meetings and graduation speeches (wow, that is slippery), but is that what is really happening? Is the prez really pressuring people in a formal speech to convert? I doubt that but its possible I suppose. And the president is reported to have promoted Christian spirituality in the same context as PGI and sold and promoted her devotional literature. But is it really accurate to say that people are being forced to "follow the beliefs and practices of one religion"? Hardly.

 

Sanantone, you have a talent for abominating a person in one sentence. I heard that he became dependent on a prescribed benzo and subsequently sought a medically induced coma to overcome the dependence and the BZD withdrawal. Is that really junk science, or was it just an attempt to escape the physiological fallout of drug abuse? Whether "drug addict" is the right appellation, we can disagree.

 

I agree. She exhibits an extremely judgemental attitude and a lack of understanding of substance use issues (and that drug).

 

You can see more of the drama unfold in the comments section of this page. This is almost as interesting as former Virginia University of Lynchburg employees reporting the administration to law enforcement.

https://pgiaa.org/news-announcements/update-regarding-serious-concerns/

 

LOL. So, now you claim to know more about substance use disorder than a former substance abuse counselor? Addict is a term that is used within the community. Is this like when you claimed to know more about Lee Atwater's tactics than Lee Atwater, himself?

Jordan Peterson's entire grift is to be judgmental.

 

This is from a website at which Jordan Peterson is a columnist.

Jordan Peterson increased his dosage of benzos to deal with his wife's cancer. He decided to quit cold turkey; as a psychologist, he should have known that you shouldn't quit benzos cold turkey.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/jordan-peterson-recalls-waking-from-coma-confused-tethered-and-surrounded-by-people-speaking-a-foreign-language

After the medically-induced coma in Moscow, he suffered neurological damage and experienced a period of not being able to walk. He also developed pneumonia. In North America, this treatment is considered too dangerous.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/jordan-peterson-treatment-russia-1.5456939

 

Jung was a complicated person but had some unique and interesting insights. Some of it has lent itself to the new age types but there still is a credible core. Jungian analysis was also open to encouraging female analysts (early in the movement). There is a documentary I watched with interviews with people around Jung (including these pioneering female analysts).

 

The school can have branches, or partition the programs for additional fee, if concentration is Christian or eastern, other religion or mixed.

Masters in Counseling Psychology
Masters in Psychology & Christian Counseling
Masters in Counseling Psychology & xxxxxxxxxxx

 

That is interesting. In the end a school is a business as well as an academic institution. It has to market itself to a constituency. Sometimes University Presidents develop and implement a vision and that isn't done well or effectively. We have a couple of well-known examples where University presidents have help drive their institutions into the ground.

It will be interesting to see what happens here and how that sits with the educational board for the school.

A quick look seems to indicate a modest enrollment that has increased in the last couple of years. If the majority of those are kind of new age chakra types then her attempting to pivot the institution may alienate a significant portion of the constituency of the school.

I would think as a president you should be looking at how to take the school and improve it and grow it and not simply use it as your personal experiment in implementing your philosophy. There is more than one stakeholder in that entity.

 

Pacifica also has a unique structure in higher education: It's a for-profit corporation with almost all its shares owned by an Employee Stock Ownership Plan.

 

I imagine then that if she steps too far out of line some of the stakeholders who happen to be stockholders could remove her.

That is an interesting structure.