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Dr. Faber, a professor emeritus of English language and literature at the University of Victoria, apparently has an ax to grind. His previous books, which include The Magic of Prayer: An Introduction to the Psychology of Faith (2001), Synchronicity: C. G. Jung, Psychoanalysis, and Religion (1998), Modern Witchcraft and Psychoanalysis (1993), and New Age Thinking: A Psychoanalytic Critique (1996), all propose a “naturalistic” explanation for religious experiences, such as prayer and Jung's concept of synchronicity. In this latest book, he recruits psychoanalytic developmental theory and neuroscience to sharpen his ax.
Faber seems to assert repetitively that religious experience can be adequately explained “naturalistically.” He defines naturalism as “a theory denying that an object or event has a supernatural significance and suggesting that scientific laws are adequate to account for all phenomena” (p. 13). The “scientific laws” that Faber relies on in this book are an eclectic mix of neuroscience and several analytic approaches to child development.
Faber asserts that the “basic biological situation” of early life involves “imprinting” as the infant's cries are almost magically responded to by its caretakers.
As the parent-child relationship develops over time, it is steadily, unremittingly internalized by the growing youngster, not in some vague, metaphorical way, mind you, but emotionally, affectively, organically, even neurally until it becomes the foundation of his budding perceptual existence. For a psychology of religion, this is of the utmost importance. (p. 19)
Faber cites Winnicott, Freud, Mahler, Renee Spitz, Klein, Daniel Stern, Bollas, and Vygotsky to depict the psychological transformations of that basic situation, from its earliest days through the development of transitional relatedness, the transformational nature of the maternal representation, and the role of verbalization in the development of infantile amnesia. Over and over again, he describes the