Neville Symington, Catholic priest and then psychoanalyst, published in 2016, ‘A Different Path’ which he called an emotional autobiography covering the search for meaning in the first part of his life. He writes early in the book that: ‘Friendship and wisdom are the most precious fruits …’ but that he  could only find close friendship with those who were in emotional contact with life. Quoting Socrates that the unexamined life is not worth living, he suggests changing the word from “unexamined” to “unnoticed”. The very question “What is life?” or “What is life for?” makes the whole business of living a natural enquiry. Life itself is an enquiry. The very search for meaning, he writes, has been at the centre of his life: “Why? Why? Why?”

For Symington religion enshrines the mystery of life, but the search for meaning takes one below the surface preoccupations.

‘It is a quality of soul which I would call religious or philosophical, but I know that is not defined by any outer categorisation but by the person’s inner orientation to life. It is a humble deference to something bigger, to an Absolute, to mystery.  It is a spirit of enquiry. For convenience I will call it personal faith.’

Symington also sees it as involving a generosity of heart, where material ends are always secondary for a love and interest in other people. He contrasts this openness to the experience of other people with what he calls the ‘missionary spirit’, where there is a failure to respect the orientation of the other person’s soul:

‘Why is it important to convert someone to Catholicism, psychoanalysis, transcendental meditation, Buddhism or Communism? These outer clothes never guarantee the inner quality of soul that has been of central importance for me. I have, however, found it extremely difficult to convey this to those who are committed to the clothing.’

Brought up in a family where Catholicism was seen as the truth, and where Protestants were simply wrong and to be pitied, Symington was steeped in ‘superstitious piety’ so he writes that a central struggle to find meaning has been to ‘slough off the self-righteousness and superstition which are handmaidens of one another.’ The belief that he was wicked and deserved to be punished was inculcated by various Catholic instructors during his childhood.

‘I came to hate the Church which had made such an agony for me in my childhood. However, I now know that the fearsome God, although aided and abetted by superstitious injunctions, was a product of my own emotional state which I had projected onto and into the Church. … Nevertheless, I think the Church has much to answer for when it inculcates fears of this kind into its members.’

He recounts as when a Catholic priest he met young men and women tormented by sexual feelings that they had been encouraged to believe were wrong and sinful, he would suggest that as a penance they thank God that their sexuality was healthy, and that their body was working as it should. Symington later realised that going to confession whilst forgiving the individual sin, left the state of the soul that had generated the sin remaining.

‘I came to see much later in life that there was no procedure within the Catholic Church that was able to elucidate this problem. I much later had to leave the Church because I was unable to find a solution within it so I turned to psychoanalysis but later realized that there was only a partial solution within this system also. I had finally to construct my own personal synthesis to transform the inner state from one of madness into sanity. My whole life has been dedicated to this project. … My own personal vocation in life has been to overcome the impulse to flee emotional challenge.’