Jim Cogley’s Reflections: Tues 28 April – Mon 4 May 2026

Coming Events: A seminar entitled Healing the Wounds of our Broken Humanity -Growing Strong at Broken Places, with Jim Cogley and Luba Rodzhuk, will be held in the Community Centre, Lady’s Island on Sat 16^th May from 10am – 4pm. Bookings to 087-7640407.

Advance notice for those wishing to do a Summer Retreat: A 5-day residential retreat will be given by Jim Cogley and Luba Rodzhuk in the Spiritan Retreat Centre in Navan June 22^nd to 26^th. This will be entitled Coming Home to Ourselves – The Healing Journey. As these events tend to fill up quickly early booking is advised on 046-9078973.

Tues 28^th April – Carl Jung 

Like the Franciscan priest Fr Richard Rohr, a major figure in my spiritual life has been the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961). Although he was not a church-going Christian and said many things highly critical of organized Christianity as he saw it in his time, he laid a very solid foundation for the rediscovery of the spiritual world in an extremely materialistic and increasingly secular Europe. Jung utterly knew and believed that the inner life was the source of the outer and that all lasting change could only come from within. Late in his life, he firmly and proudly replied when asked ‘Do you now believe in God?’ with ‘I know. I don’t need to believe. I know.’ 

Wed 29^th April – Soul-less Psychology 

Many years ago, after years of doing pastoral counselling, I felt that I owed it to myself and to those coming, to do some formal training in psychotherapy. The work of Carl Jung resonated with me deeply because of his profound spiritual awareness as opposed to others like the atheist Freud who were soulless. For me Jung was a mystic and he once wrote that all his thoughts cantered around God like the planets cantered around the Sun, and he was just as irresistibly attracted. I then studied Jungian Psychotherapy for five years but always with a sadness that had Jung and not Freud been adopted as the true father of psychoanalysis what a difference it would have made in the lives of countless thousands who were held back by a soulless psychology that could well be described as a bird trying to fly with only one wing.

Thurs 30^th April – Christ – The Archetypal Human being

Jung made statements that would surprise many Christians, conservative and liberal alike. For example, he saw Jesus’ life and many of the doctrines of the Church as a complete and perfect map and guide for human transformation. Christ he regarded as the most individuated human being in history. He believed in the central importance of rituals, myths and symbols, which Catholics and Orthodox Christians could appreciate. Although Jung gave Bible passages more meaning and more credibility, he was perceived as an unbeliever by most Protestants. His development of concepts such as shadow, paradox, archetypes, symbols and the psychological character of human transformation into the Divine made him a true prophet of the soul and a teacher of deep, inner wisdom.

Fri 1^st May – Inner Reality V External Observance

Jung believed that if God wants to speak to us, God has to use words that will, first of all, feel like our own thoughts. How else could God come to us? That’s why we have to be taught how to recognize, honour and allow that sometimes our thoughts are God’s thoughts. That internal trust and authority is necessary to balance out the almost exclusive reliance upon external authority promoted by mainline Christianity. While Scripture, priests, pastors, and the pope may be necessary, Jung recognized that they are all external to the self, and offer us a religion from the outside in. Jung wanted to teach us to honour those same symbols, but from the inside out. If we do not have deep contact with our in-depth self, he believed we could not know God. 

Sat 2^nd May – A Mystical Perspective

A lady walked the beach early one morning with miles of beautiful sand ahead of her. She was the only one there and thought, ‘Imagine, this is all mine, all this is God’s gift to me at this moment’. Her’s was a mystical perspective. Jung wrote, ‘The whole world is God’s suffering’. That is the knowing of a mystic, and it’s one of my favourite lines of his. A mystic sees thing in wholes, not just in parts. They can connect all the anecdotes and intuit the big patterns. Christian mystics recognize that every incidence of suffering is a participation in what we Christians would call the eternal crucifixion of the Christ. When we see in wholes, we can always find a place for each of the parts. Sun May 3^rd – What is Heaven really like?

There are moments when we realize that our time on this earth is remarkably brief when viewed in the light of eternity. As the Bible says, ‘It’s no more than a watch in the night or a flower that blooms today and withers tomorrow’. The question that every conscious human being has to confront at some stage is if there is a heaven then what is it like? I grew up believing that it was a place so great and wonderful that no eye could see or heart conceive, and that our loved ones who were there continued to love and care for us. For all of us who lost a loved one quite young that was wonderfully reassuring to know where they were and that they still loved us.

Unfortunately, so many young people today who grow up in homes where faith is not practiced are being deprived of that comfort. Knowing how important that was in my own life I deem it to be nothing short of tragic to see that happening especially with parents who want to give their children everything and yet turn a blind eye to not giving them what they most need that can sustain them through life and particularly its dark times.

So what is heaven really like? That is truly the big question? Having met with and read numerous accounts of people who have passed over and come back in what has come to be known as a Near Death Experience the reality they describe is remarkably the same. Whether they be Christian, Buddhist, Muslim or Jew doesn’t seem to make much difference, and they all say the same thing and it’s very much in line with what our faith has taught us. There are several even in our own community who have had this experience. So, it’s not that unusual.

One remarkable account is of an Indian lady who is a Hindu and living in Hong Kong. She was in the terminal stage of cancer suffering from multiple melanoma with her body mass down to three and a half stone. Her body functions ceased and while her heartbeat flatlined she passed over. While there she was offered a choice as to whether to stay or to return and do some important work on earth. Leaving that place of absolute bliss was very difficult and she feared going back into a body that was as good as dead. Yet she knew that if she chose to return, her body would be fully healed. And so it was, because within three weeks the doctors were amazed to find no trace of her tumours and she quickly regained full health. This was on a par with any of the miraculous healings we hear of in Lourdes and other sacred shrines.

When fully recovered this lady was quizzed over and over by all sorts of experts, medical and otherwise, as to what she had witnessed while she was away from her body, and they all agreed that given the terminal state of her body there was no way she should be alive.

She said that there were no words that could come close to describing such a wonderful experience. She could only use the analogy of a warehouse larger than you could ever imagine. During life you live there with just one small flashlight and everything you know about this vast place is what you have seen by the beam of the flashlight. Everything you need is there and if you can’t find it it’s just because your beam is shining somewhere else. Then we shine our light on so many things but with our limited understanding we are left wondering what they are and so we live with a lot of unanswered questions about certain happenings and how they are all related. At any stage we can only see what our light is focused on and we can only identify what we already know. Such is the reality of our life on earth where we have such limited understanding and poor awareness.

Then she said imagine someone turning on a switch that illuminates the entire building. It stretches much farther than you can even imagine and there is a sudden burst of brilliance, sound and fabulous colour so much more beautiful than you could ever have imagined. Every shelf is packed with everything your heart would delight in, everything that tantalizes your senses and emotions. Looking back on your life you realize that you were just a speck in that vast universe that surrounded you and now you see how everything has its place and how everything is connected. Everything you knew before is already there but you see it in an entirely new light where it is suffused with colour, sound and texture. Everything that once seemed so banal and ordinary we now see and having been sacred all along. In that space you have a great sense of belonging and being utterly at home and that you are part of a much bigger picture that is so alive, infinite and altogether fantastic.

This lady then saw her father coming to meet her. They hadn’t had a good relationship. As an Indian he had tried to arrange her marriage to someone she didn’t love and she rebelled but now it was different, and the cultural pressures that he had tried to impose upon her didn’t matter, and she just felt his unconditional love. It was as if she was meeting her real father for the first time and felt safe and cherished in his presence. He had died many years earlier and she realized that while physically absent his essence had always remained with his family.

It was 24 hours later before she came out of that state and I use the word ‘state’ deliberately because a big revelation for her was that heaven was more a state of being than an actual place. Regaining consciousness the switch was turned off and she was back to her flashlight. Yet nothing could take away the wonder and beauty of the experience. Having had a glimpse of all that existed in that warehouse nothing could ever cancel out or make her doubt the reality of what she had seen. Even with her little flashlight she found herself looking at everything and everyone in a different light. The awesome sense of divinity in everyone and the sacredness of everything never left her and ever since her work around the world has been to spread the message of what she has seen to as many as possible.

Hers is without doubt an extraordinary story and far from being any way morbid it’s very reassuring for all of us, and for so many who have a fear of death, and the unknown, it’s a source of great comfort.

Some of you may have an interest in reading the full account of her experience. If so, the name of her book is Dying to be Me and her name is Anita Moorjani. I can recommend it as really inspiring as well as being a very good read.

Mon May 4^th -Our Disowned Shadow 

Perhaps one of Jung’s greatest contributions and legacy to society was his understanding of the human shadow and how to befriend it. This became central to so much of my preaching and teaching. As a church, along with most organized religions, we have tried to do everything possible with the shadow, except befriend it. We tried to repress our sexual  shadow and it surfaced in the form of sexual abuse. We tried to repress our anger shadow and it surfaced in guilt, unworthiness and institutional punishment. We offered up our challenging emotions and they went nowhere. Throughout history we projected our shadow onto all sorts of groups, the Jews, the Muslims, the homosexuals, the coloured people. The one thing we never thought of, until Jung reminded us, was the need to befriend our shadow.