Christopher Rogers Doggett

Track: Mystical Spirituality as a Link between World Religions

From Perv to Shamaness: An Autoethnography of Gay Mysticism

While the field of gay mysticism is relatively new, there are many examples from around the world that include the indigenous people of the Dagara in Africa (Malidoma Somé, 1993), Native North and South Americans (Dollarhide, 2008; Roscoe, 2000, Horswell, 2005), historical and mythical gay mystics (Harvey, 1997), and post Jungian gay archetypal theory (Walker, 1980).  My research is most directly focused on my autobiographical journey and those sources that speak to the dance of my sixty plus years of life as both a gay male and a spiritual seeker, the struggle to integrate the two, and compares my journey with how other gay men have done the same. Holding this paper as an alchemical vessel its aim is to allow the sources—gay mystics and my own experience—to interact and inform one another. Continued attention is paid to the imaginal realm of dreams to honor the transformative nature of a phenomenological inquiry that opens the habitual structures of consciousness (Bosnak, 2007). What has been revealed in my life is that—rather than the internalized homophobia I have lived with for these six plus decades—that actually what is within me is a gift and purpose that is aligned with Spirit and my nature as a gay man.  This paper weaves together my journey from perv to drag queen performance artist shamaness with this research, my teachers, my dreams and a preliminary study of the dreams of gay men incubated for the possibility of innate gifts and purpose.

PhD East West Psychology/MA in Integral Counseling Psychology - California Institute of Integral Studies,  San Francisco, CA, 2013- present
Clinical internship at New Perspectives Counseling Center - San Francisco, CA - January 2017- Present
Integral Teaching Fellowship - California Institute of Integral Studies - Summer 2015
Embodied Imagination / Dream Work training – Robert Bosnak             2010- 2013
Shamanic training with Dagara elder Malidoma Somé - 2012-present
Art as Moral Necessity and Social Responsibility – Peter Sellars – UCLA 19902010
Tim Miller’s Gay Men’s Performance Art Workshop – HIGHWAYS, Santa Monica, CA             1990-1996
PSYCHOANALYTIC TRAINING
Freud Seminar - Fernando Castrillon - September 2014 - present
JOUISSANCE, DESIRE AND THE LAW: A CLOSE READING OF LACAN’S ‘KANT WITH SADE’ - Dany Nobus - November 2015
Presentation at the American Academy of Religion Western Region Conference - March 2017
Moderator on The Red Book - with C.G. Jung and Robert Bosnak at The Depth Psychology Alliance. 1/2013-10/2013