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The Phenomenology of Belief Systems

In our journeys through life, sometimes we get lost. Suddenly people appear from all around offering us maps that will show us the right direction. Even when we're not lost and we're walking down the street toward some specific goal, fanatics try to drag us to their meetings where supposedly we will learn about the true path and the error of our ways.

In this article I focus on the world views and advice given by religions, psychotherapies, cults, and schools. I call these groups that offer such advice, "systems."

The reader is reminded of what it is like to be approached by a person representing a belief system, and also of the great variety of such systems that exist in our culture. Next, some characteristics of systems are presented. Then, the reader is asked to identify with an imaginary individual who has "fallen into" a system and to join him on a phenomenological journey through five stages or levels of his relationship to systems.

Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 20, No. 2, 57-68 (1980)
DOI: 10.1177/002216788002000206


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