Episode 132 - Dr. Nick Literski - Psychology, Spirituality, and Esoteric Traditions

My guest for this episode is Nick Literski.

 

Nick is a Jungian scholar, spiritual guide, author, and retired attorney.  Dissatisfaction with a career working in law, together with the experience of coming out as part of the LGBTQ+ community, led them to rebuild their life and pursue their interest in the intersection of spirituality and psychology. After three years of training as a shamanic practitioner, Nick’s desire to help facilitate the spiritual journey of queer persons led them to earn a master’s degree in Spiritual Guidance at Sofia University, where their thesis work focused on how gay men from non-affirming religious backgrounds create their own sustaining, affirming spiritual practices. This work, in turn, inspired Nick to pursue further graduate work in depth psychology and attain a PhD in that subject. Their dissertation work involved a depth psychological analysis of Palaeolithic cave art, through Carl Jung’s technique of active imagination, with an eye toward what these images can reveal about the human religious instinct.

 

Nick is an accomplished author, having essays and articles published in multiple academic journals. They also co-authored Method Infinite: Freemasonry and the Mormon Restoration, published in August 2022 by Greg Kofford Books. In addition, Nick served briefly as Assistant Editor of the journal, Anthropology of Consciousness.

 

I begin the interview by talking with Nick about the life events that led up to their decision to change career and pursue their passions for psychology and spiritual development.  From there we discuss some of the methods they use to help their clients and this leads into an interesting conversation about how best to understand extraordinary experiences and the importance of personal meaning and subjective reality in trying to do that.

You can find out more about Nick and their work at https://www.dancingancestors.com/ and they can by contacted by email at nick@dancingancestors.com.

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The podcast theme music is by The Night Monitor, from his album, ‘Close Encounters of the Pennine Kind’. You can find out more about The Night Monitor's music at https://thenightmonitor.bandcamp.com/.