Articles by Maurice Turmel

Dr. Maurice Turmel (aka Dr. Moe) has been involved with Spiritual and Personal Growth programs all of his adult life. While doing so he picked up a few degrees (BA, MA & PhD in Psychology) and worked as a therapist for 25 years providing services to individuals, families and major corporations. Over the years he has absorbed hundreds of Self-Help and New Age books and has written several books of his own including Breaking the Spell of Religion & Healing the Trauma, The Voice - A Metaphor for Personal Development and Mythical Times: Exploring Life, Love & Purpose.

Maurice has led seminars in the areas of Creativity, Self-Development, Spiritual & Psychological Awareness, Passion and Purpose, and Grief & Loss.

In addition, Dr. Moe is a Performing Songwriter with a number of inspirational CDs to his credit. In both his writing and music creations, Maurice enjoys bringing messages of hope, inspiration, and self-awareness to individuals and audiences eager for life-affirming and uplifting content.

Creativity, he believes, is everyone’s potential, having learned this lesson himself as an academic/professional turned artist. “For some of us,” he acknowledges, “creativity comes along later in life. But what an opportunity to give of one’s Self, and further define that Self as we grow older. Simply put, creativity is fun and good for the Soul. It makes you feel better all over more than any place else!

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Articles on Trans4mind...

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From the Author...

My new book Breaking the Spell of Religion & Healing the Trauma is for anyone who has suffered trauma at the hands of religious authorities by either being born into that environment and/or having suffered the consequences of a religious indoctrination. This includes being branded a sinner, then guilted and shamed for whatever thoughts and behaviours their religion has chosen to condemn. All of these traumatic experiences would typically lead to low self-esteem, depression and negative self-worth as examples of negative consequences, outcomes many have endured for a lifetime in some cases, until help and recovery processes would be sought out and applied along the way.

This material represents a lifetime of personal experience working through my own religious trauma, which was then followed by decades of professional training and experience helping survivors of religious abuse overcome their accumulated pain. From there it has taken more than a dozen years of writing and rewriting to put together this comprehensive program of religious abuse understanding and trauma recovery.

In this book I take into account some of the historical perspectives that have underlined the Catholic Religion to begin with. Like many of today’s Christian religions, Catholicism sets it roots squarely in the person of Jesus and his contributions to the times he lived in. But what you shall see is how most of his pronouncements were co-opted and adapted to the motives of those who were intending to establish a new form of religion. You will see how Jesus’ beautiful message, filled with love and positive inferences, was transmuted into a system of control. This process, in turn, was based on sin and other powerful measures, for the simple purpose of bending individuals to this new religion’s will. Many of the existing churches of today, claiming a Christian tradition, have done so as well. These derivative churches who broke away from Catholicism, set their own Christian traditions to differentiate themselves from that particular model.

The overall view is that Catholicism is a business enterprise designed to collect adherents and control them while keeping the church’s coffers full, with a main product being “Redemption.” The majority of their ideas are largely based on sin, including “Original Sin,” one of their prime inventions. What is happening today is that market share for most religions is steadily shrinking with many former adherents now simply drifting away. The biggest tragedy they have to deal with, and now readily being exposed, is the psychological and physical trauma they have inflicted on so many adherents who just wanted a place of community and safety.

What keeps people engaged with such a system? For many individuals, not having their basic needs met for acceptance and approval in childhood, the church stands as a parental figure dispensing “conditional approval” as long as their rules are followed, and as long as you live your life by their rigid standards. That is religious trauma at its core, harmful to millions to this day, from an institution only in business to keep itself afloat.

Given the above, how does one proceed? Back in the 80’s we had an explosion of information on dysfunctional family dynamics. Professionals are now looking more closely at the dysfunction of religions, with the Catholic brand being most prominent, but certainly not alone. The way forward through the minefields of consistent double-binds is similar to what was learned about dealing with our families of origin. And that involves dealing with feelings and the innate sense of self, something we duly have to trust again. The path forward, as with any psychological model, is to get in touch with our feelings and heal those wounds. Then, we can learn to trust our heart again, including our innate spiritual direction, as well as our connection to the life energy that informs us all. Feeling is Healing, and that's what leads us back to Love!