William Arnott, PhD in Psychology from The Professional Studies Institute, is a twice-retired therapist and professor. After an extensive tour of duty during the Second World War as a radio compass and radio mechanic specialist and high speed code operator, Bill served as a consultant with the Department of Economic Security and supervising psychologist with the Veterans Association Regional Office. Trained in the use of clinical hypnosis, Bill also served as a hospital staff psychologist and senior rehabilitation counselor.

Synopsis of Why Not Do God?: Using Your Spiritual Dimension of Personality from web site

It is a primer, written briefly to review several of the more prominent theories of personality, introducing the reader to the crucial dimension of human personality that is omitted from all of them – the spiritual. I contend that nearly all the theories of personality are closed-end models. I add the omitted dimension to their models rendering them open-ended; then I discuss an inclusive psychotherapeutic treatment based on the open-end theory’s new tenets. Chapter One asks, "What is missing in the theories of personality?" – and then answers it. A subsequent chapter discusses the missing part. Other chapters take up issues regarding the barriers among the various levels of personality, the undeniable implications that will be found in an open-end theory; our learned limitations and our responses and reactions to life's stressful circumstances.

Additional chapters discuss how to cope with life's circumstances (God's way) and how to use relaxation with positive imagery. A chapter contains some thoughts on love of self compared to love of self in God. One chapter discusses the obstacles preventing the use of our spiritual strengths -- the obstacles that prevail against accepting an open-end model to explain human personality. A final chapter discusses another problem I observed in the closed-end theories – their seeming chauvinistic treatment of women. I make some comments regarding this observation. The book is both encouraging and educational – unique.

When I joined the group a long time ago, I did so because I saw in Dr. Ehrenfels's premise the same characteristics I have come to notice over the many years I have practiced in the profession of psychology -- there has been a devolution in the true course of psychology and its neglect of the psyche. In addition to Dr. Ehrenfels's correct observation, I added my personal observation that, even the theories of personality (that deal with the psyche) were short-changing humankind because of their closed-ended characteristics, leaving the essential dimension of spirituality out of the mix or ignoring it all together. I picked that bone pretty clean.

Far beyond what may be usual, I have noticed contributor after conributor who obliquely -- if not directly -- expressed that the art (it is not a science) of psychology is guilty of omitting the spiritual dimension of human personality. This pleases me, of course, since I came to the conclusion a long time ago after being involved (one way or another) with the many theories for years -- noticing their shortcomings often in this regard (with the exception of CG Jung who gives credence to humankind's spirituality, but strangely, to say the least. He appeared to have believed in God, though. For over his home's portal was and on his gravestone in Latin are the words: Bidden or not bidden, God is always present!)

Like Dr. Ehrenfels I do not believe nor will I be brought to believe, that studying even the minutest aspect of the brain's physiology will give any answer to the mind -- the psyche! The brain doesn't give the mind its existence; the mind gives the brain its reason -- its essence. It is true, though, the mind wouldn't exist lacking the brain. I had also concluded that the conscious and the unconscious are but two part of a triad. The third essential part (I call it the sub-unconscious) is the spiritual -- and without it, the human personality is incomplete.

The premise, then, holds: materialism ("the scientific method") has displaced the real goal pf psychology -- to study human behavior as being more than EEG, PET, MRI, etc. records or measurements. Human personality is more than the sum of its parts -- and to understand it, one must study that elusive "energy" outside of consciousness that causes the sum to be greater than the parts.

It is not the hackneyed "iceberg" description that describes personality. I think of personality as being analogous to a living orange: the skin represents the conscious, being less; the segments, pulp and sweet juice represents the unconscious, being greater; however, we have to consider the twig on which the orange hangs, the orange branch of the tree that supports it, the soil in which the tree lives, the earth of which the soil is a part. Further, we have to consider the earth as part of a huge galaxy of which there are billions; we have to consider the universe that contains the galaxies -- plus the Intelligent Designer whose energy gives the orange and everything else life. To appreciate human personality, we have to appreciate the universe -- their energies are identical. We all contain the same molecules, the same atoms, the same sub-atomic particles that make up the universe. We are the same as star dust.

I'd like to live long enough to see the time when this concept is given the greater prominence in understanding who we are; or, perhaps more important, why we are. Humankind is an enigmatic and mosaic creation who has done some remarkable things. Notwithstanding, however much we know of what we have done, we still don't know how we did it -- how our minds conceived or gave birth to what we have done. Trying to define all this prominence in terms of materialistic definitions will never get us any closer to the answer. We are of such prominence that there are no others like us in the universe; yet, though we are witness to all we have accomplished, we continue in ignorance regarding who we are. Worse, we don't appear to be interested enough to understand the subjectivity of ourselves -- understand it before what we also have discovered happens -- how to destroy ourselves -- before we can stop it.