Morton Kelsey

[Dactyl]

Hi folks. Our parish’s DRE is in charge with coming up with a meditation for the upcoming Good Friday Communion Service. She has come up with a meditation that incorporates writings by a guy named Morton Kelsey. I’ve done a little searching around the internet, and it looks like he has written extensively on dream interpretation.

We have a lector in our parish who has stated he will not participate in reading any of these meditations because this writer is tainted by New Age thinking. I read somewhere that this writer leans a lot on psychologist Carl Jung whom I know has some philosophies that have cause problems with our Catholic faith. Here I’m thinking of an article I read many years ago In Latin Mass Magazine about how Carl Jung wrecked the IHM Nuns.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to see if anyone knows anything about Morton Kelsey. Is he problematic or is he reliable? If he is problematic, why is he problematic? Are there any quotations I can look at to back this up? If we approach our DRE about this we want to have some facts so we aren’t just dismissed as reactionaries.

Thanks in advance for any feedback anyone can offer.

 

[Julian0404]

Hi folks. Our parish’s DRE is in charge with coming up with a meditation for the upcoming Good Friday Communion Service. She has come up with a meditation that incorporates writings by a guy named Morton Kelsey. I’ve done a little searching around the internet, and it looks like he has written extensively on dream interpretation.

We have a lector in our parish who has stated he will not participate in reading any of these meditations because this writer is tainted by New Age thinking. I read somewhere that this writer leans a lot on psychologist Carl Jung whom I know has some philosophies that have cause problems with our Catholic faith. Here I’m thinking of an article I read many years ago In Latin Mass Magazine about how Carl Jung wrecked the IHM Nuns.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to see if anyone knows anything about Morton Kelsey. Is he problematic or is he reliable? If he is problematic, why is he problematic? Are there any quotations I can look at to back this up? If we approach our DRE about this we want to have some facts so we aren’t just dismissed as reactionaries.

Thanks in advance for any feedback anyone can offer.

Go ask your DRE why Morton Kelsey was selected ?

 

[Lifeisawesome]

I am with the previous poster about asking why he was selected when there is an unending supply of beautiful materials from the doctors of the Church. Here’s more specific info. Personally, if it were my parish, this is serious enough that I would contact the priest, and if he did not respond, I would contact the Bishop. This is not gray area stuff.

BTW - Hank Hanegraaff (below) is no friend of Catholicism though he is an orthodox reformation protestant. He rarely makes claims that he cannot back up.

The following information is all available from Counterfeit Revival, p91. Kelsey claims that, after a decade of studying dreams and visions, “I discovered that my dreams were wiser than my well-tuned rational mind….These strange messengers of the night offered suggestions on how to find my way out of my lostness”. Kelsey believes that “almost all Christians who were true disciples were something like shamans in the style of their master.” “Jesus not only used powers [of the shaman] Himself but He passed the same powers of superhuman knowledge, healing and exorcism on to his followers”. Hanegraaff says that Kelsey “turns Christians on to such committed occultists as Carlos Casteneda (dubbed by the Los Angeles Times as one of the ‘godfathers of the New Age movement’. This despite the fact that Castaneda classifies the art of dreaming as the most vital method of the sorcerer’s armory and the most dangerous. After indulging in this practice for many years, Castaneda recalled, ‘In my daily state I was nearly an idiot, and in the second attention [altered state of consciousness] I was a lunatic.’”

 

[Joannm]

I am a bit confused. Why is the DRE designing a Good Friday Communion Service when the Church has a service for that Day that IS the liturgy for that day? What is called for is the reading of the Passion and veneration of the cross with communion following. It doesn’t sound “kosher,” especially considering the “readings” she wants to choose.

 

[Dactyl]

I, too, don’t understand why this is happening.

 

[puzzleannie]

Hi folks. Our parish’s DRE is in charge with coming up with a meditation for the upcoming Good Friday Communion Service. r.

what is wrong with this thread starts with this sentence. this is no part of her duties nor is it within her competence. The Church has a rite for Good Friday, and that is the right, and those are the readings. Period. There is no “meditation” unless the bishop has approved something for use in parishes where a priest or deacon will not be available–something I find hard to believe on Good Friday. I don’t care if she is reading from Lives of the Saints or St. Ignatius, they are not part of the established GF liturgy so they would be equally forbidden at that time.

 

[littlequestion]

Good Friday is certainly not the day to experiment with something like that. Of all the times of the Liturgical year, that is the most sensitive. If your DRE is fooling around in the New Age and you cannot get past her self-confidence, at least get her to recognize the need for caution on Good Friday while you argue against this man’s occultism in any part of the Catholic year.

Other Catholics who might be inclined to listen to her because they are not as astute as you would at least be likely to support a more cautious approach to Good Friday while you talk to her or go through channels about it.