Andrew Jasko, Religious Psychological Abuse Recovery Blogger and Coach

[AndrewJasko]

Greetings everyone! Wanted to introduce myself and my work. I blog and speak to raise awareness about healing from the psychological abuses of religion. I'm working on developing a training manual on healing indoctrination for helping professionals. Before I transitioned out of religion, I was a Pentecostal Christian minister preparing to become a missionary to India. I studied Bible at the Evangelical Christian Wheaton College and obtained my Master of Divinity from Princeton Seminary. Religion was my life’s passion, but I suffered greatly from anxiety, depression, and guilt about my sexuality. I began to realize that the Bible’s teachings were the cause of my psychological distress. After a slow, painful process of awakening and denial, I quit my ministry job, left religion, and moved to California to start my life over. I began to study religion from the perspective of trauma. In my journey, I found healing through secular humanism, meditation, entheogens, and sexuality. I am a clinical psychologist in training at California Institute of Integral Studies. My writings and interviews can be found at http://www.lifeafterdogma.org/. I love to write articles, record podcasts, and work with people to heal from religious abuse. Reach out to me if you're interested in this work.

 

https://lifeafterdogma.org/2018/12/20/is-god-the-devil/ - "Was the Bible Inspired by Dark Spiritual Forces? Why does God demand human sacrifice and spirit possession of his followers? Is God the Devil? " (Spiritual terminology used in this article as a literary device to highlight abuse)

 

Reclaiming Sexuality from Religion Talk: 

 

 

 

[Geezer]

This is an informative video and deals with a subject that needs to be brought out of the closet. My only negative comment is that the video is too long. Few people are likely to listen for the full hour and twenty minutes. It needs to be condensed, IMO, to no more than 15-20 minutes. 

 

Most preachers know their audience will not listen for more than 20 minutes and I believe that is true for instructional videos too. 

[Joshpantera]

On 12/28/2018 at 1:46 PM, AndrewJasko said:

"Was the Bible Inspired by Dark Spiritual Forces?

 

Welcome Andrew! 

 

The above is a direction I've explored as well from different perspectives. Not that there exists some literal dark spiritual forces, but that these are some of the products of the human psyche. And yes, the dark forces of the human psyche and many egoistic tendencies are found at the base foundation of many christian ideas. The eternal life situation, for instance, is based around an appeal to the human ego's desire to live forever without end. And to receive great rewards in heaven, where materialistic ideals are set forward like streets of gold, jeweled crowns, etc., etc. All in all, it's a very materialistic and egotistical appeal under the guise of doing good and being better than everyone else, or "the world," as it were. These could all be argued as coming from dark forces of the human psyche. They provide the foundation for a world view of seeing other christians outside of one's elite sect, and indeed the rest of the non-christian world as inferior along side of oneself, who is sided with "The TRVTH!" 

 

 

[sdelsolray]

Keep up with your work.  I suspect many secular mental health practitioners need resources such as those you are publishing.