Psy-religion Meeting, 11 February 2012

1. Carl Jung and
Christianity
Psy-religion Meeting, 11 February 2012

2. Who is Jung?

3. Family Background
Born in Kesswil, Swiss on 26 Jul 1875
8 maternal uncles and 2 paternal uncles were
parsons
Father: Paul Achilles Jung
rural pastor in Swiss Reformed Church
Mother: Emilie Prieswork
youngest daughter of Samuel Preiswerk
(devoted theologian on Hebrew study)

4. Childhood
love of nature, direct relationship with plants, animals,
earth, rock, mountains, river, lake
liked playing alone
“I played alone, and in my own way... did not want to
be disturbed. I was so absorbed in my games and
could not endure being watched...” -- MDR
“I had just never run across such an asocial monster ...
he was all by himself” -- Albert Oeri, a childhood
friend of Jung
1 younger sister born when Jung was 9 years old, too late
for a companion

5. Childhood
a home environment that Jung described as “unbreathable”
oppressed with a pervasive sense of death, melancholy, unease, and with
“dim intimations of trouble”
father slept with child Jung, whereas mother suffered nervous
breakdown when Jung was 3, requiring hospitalisation
suffocated in religious environment that is also prone to disappointment
while in constant resistance
“In the cemetery nearby, the sexton would dig a hole ... Black, solemn
man... would bring a black box... My father would be... in his clerical
gown... I was told that someone was being buried in this hole... but
when I heard that Lord Jesus ‘took’ other people to himself... was the
same as putting them in a hole in the ground... He lost the aspect of a
big, comforting, benevolent bird and become associated with the gloomy
black men in frock coats, top hats... who busied themselves with the
black box”

6. Childhood
Jung’s earliest remembered dream:
“In the dream I was in this meadow. Suddenly I discovered a dark, rectangular,
stone-lined hole in the ground.. I ran forward curiously and peered down into it.
Then I saw a stone stairway leading down. Hesitantly and fearfully, I descended.
At the bottom was a doorway with a round arch, closed off by a green curtain. It
was a big, heavy curtain of worked stuff like brocade, and it looked very
sumptuous. Curious to see what might be hidden behind, I pushed it aside. I saw
before me in the dim light a rectangular chamber about thirty feet long. The
ceiling was arched and of hewn stone. The floor was laid with flagstones, and in
the center a red carpet ran from the entrance to a low platform. On this platform
stood a wonderfully rich golden throne. I am not certain, but perhaps a red
cushion lay on the seat. It was a magnificent throne, a real king's throne in a fairy
tale. Something was standing on it which I thought at first was a tree trunk twelve
to fifteen feet high and about one and a half to two feet thick. It was a huge thing,
reaching almost to the ceiling. But it was of a curious composition: it was made of
skin and naked flesh, and on top there was something like a rounded head with
no face and no hair. On the very top of the head was a single eye, gazing
motionlessly upward...

7. Childhood
Jung’s earliest remembered dream:
(con’d)
... It was fairly light in the room,
although there were no windows
and no apparent source of light.
Above the head, however, was an
aura of brightness. The thing did
not move, yet I had the feeling that
it might at any moment crawl off
the throne like a worm and creep
toward me. I was paralyzed with
terror. At that moment I heard from
outside and above me my mother's
voice. She called out, "Yes, just look
at him. That is the man-eater!" That
intensified my terror still more, and
I awoke sweating and scared to
death.”

8. Childhood
Dream interpretation?
“The phallus... a subterranean god ‘not to be named’” ... “a ritual
phallus” ... “an initiation into the secrets of the earth” ... “that
fearful tree of my childhood dream” ... “revealed as ‘the breath of
life’ the creative impulse”
in line with the powerful phallic deities of the Celtic, German,
Greek, Egyptian, Middle and Far Eastern peoples, gods that are
the embodiment of creative life-bestowing power
expecting Jesus enthroned in glory vs monstrous phallus, a
subterranean god, “therefore Jesus never became quite real for
me, never quite acceptable, never quite lovable, for again and
again I would think of his underground counterpart, a frightful
revelation which had been accorded me without seeking it”

9. Student Years
enrolled as student at Basel University in 1895
natural science, then switched to medicine
why entered Psychiatry?
witnessed Seances of his cousin Helen Preiswerk: in trance state,
she lost her Basel accent and spoke in high German, and claimed
to be controlled by a variety of spirits
alerted Jung of ‘dissociated unconscious parts’?
read Krafft-Ebing’s Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie (1890) with intense
excitement, “in a flash of illumination, that for me the only
possible goal was psychiatry”
under the apprenticeship of Eugen Bleuler, outstanding psychiatrist
of the time, who replaced the term “Dementia Praecox” to
Schizophrenia

10. Jung and Freud
Jung read Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams in
1900, identifying delayed response in ‘Word
association test’ could be related to ‘repressed
wishes’ and ‘traumatic memories’
sent a copy of his book Studies in Word-Association
to Freud in 1906, and Freud encouraged Jung to
meet him in Vienna
first meeting with Freud in Mar 1907 in Vienna,
where they got on so well that they talked
without interruption for 13 hours

11. Jung and Freud
Freud, for fear of death within 12 years out of superstition, was
keen to secure Jung as his successor in Psychoanalysis
however, as time goes on, Jung was unable to conceal his
difference from Freud:
that human motivation is exclusively sexual
the unconscious mind is entirely personal and peculiar to
the individual
finally withdrew from the Psychoanalytic movement in 1913
in 2-part publication of Symbols of Transformation, Jung
deliberately repudiates Freud’s theory of libido, which he
did so in fear that “would cost me my friendship with
Freud”

12. Jungian
Psychology

13. Jungian Psychology
The Psyche
Archetype
Collective unconsciousness
Individuation

14. The Psyche
could be a confusion in term, as both
‘psyche’ and ‘soul’ are ‘Seele’
3 levels
consciousness
directly assessable to
individual
contains his/her attitudes to
adjustment to outside world
personal consciousness
all psychic material not yet
reaching the threshold of
consciousness
collective unconsciousness

15. The Psyche
The Collective Unconsciousness
deepest and most extensive stratum of the
psyche
impersonal and transpersonal foundation of
the psyche
reservoir of unconscious content that had
never reached consciousness
primordial images common to all humanity

16. The Psyche
Archetypes
‘identical psychic structure common to all’
‘the archaic heritage of humanity’
a proposed fundamental concept in Psychology similar
to genetics in Biology and Quantum theory to Physics
fundamental duality of ‘spirit’ and ‘matter’, hence a
bridge from psychic entity to matter in general
mediators of Unus Mundus, organizing ideas and
images in the psyche and governs fundamental
principles of matter and energy

17. The Psyche
Archetypes
Persona
a mask, how we codify ourselves to prove acceptance by
others
Shadow
side of an individual that s/he prefers not to reveal
disowned subpersonality that is ignored most of the time
gives rise to distrust, anger, fear, etc
Anima and Animus
the contrasexual feminine / masculine nature of a person

18. The Psyche
Complexes
personification of archetypes
linked to each particular archetype
Ego
orbiting round the system like the earth
round the sun
the centre of consciousness, “I” or “me”

19. The Psyche
Self
at the centre of the psyche, permeating entire system
with its influence
architect and builder of the dynamic structure which
supports our psychic existence through life
transcends ego, inheres the age-old capacities of species
goal: wholeness, realization of blueprint for human
existence within individual context
seeks fulfillment of spiritual achievements
manifestation of the God within?

20. Individuation
the process by which the individual integrates the conscious and
unconscious parts of the personality
a living and dynamic process, spontaneous and natural within the
psyche, hence ‘destined’ to individuate
goal: realization of the Self
2 stages in life
1st half
adaptation of the psyche to the demands of the environment
separation of ego and Self
2nd half
initiation into inner reality, psychological transformation into the
quest of self-exploration
reuniting ego and Self

21. Synchronicity
“a coincidence in time of two or more causally
unrelated events which have the same or
similar meaning”
‘acausal connection principle’, based on
Chinese I Ching that anything happens is
related to everything else that happens at the
same time

22. Jung on Religion

23. Jung on Religion
Freud and Jung on Religion, by Michael Palmer
God as archetypal form
God is a manifestation of the deepest level of the unconscious mind,
the collective unconscious
a priori structural component of the psyche
a ‘psychic reality’, something intrinsic to the individual, an active
dimension within psychic life, impersonal, timeless and
autonomous
God as archetypal content
psychic experience of God e.g. demons, angels, spirits, God Himself
can only be expressed symbolically
Christ figure: overpowering, all-embracing, complete, perfect being
a man of heroic proportions

24. Jung on Religion
Freud and Jung on Religion, by Michael Palmer (con’t)
nature of religious experiences
defining religion
‘peculiar attitude of the human mind’ in which ‘certain
dynamic factors’ are observed and considered ‘beautiful
and meaningful enough to be devoutly adored and loved’
does not rest upon tradition and faith but originates with
the archetypes
religious attitude is an essential component of the psyche
‘dynamic activity’, in which value attributed to the numinosum
involves a psychological condition of great ‘psychic intensity’
‘numinosum’: termed by Rudolf Otto, a dynamic agency or
effect, not caused by arbitrary act of will

25. Jung on Religion
Freud and Jung on Religion, by Michael Palmer (con’t)
God and Individuation
Individuation: God and the Self
is the process of individuation a religious process?
individuation may be defined as religious because it is an archetypal
process, any such orientation towards archetypes is religious
God = Self?
“How on earth did you get the idea that I could replace God - and
with a concept at that?... I can establish the existence of psychological
wholeness to which our consciousness is subordinate... but this ‘self’
can never take the place of God, although it may... be a receptacle for
divine grace”
“I could say that the ‘self’ is somehow equivalent to God... when (as a
psychologist) speak of ‘God’ I am speaking of a psychological image...
similarly the ‘self’ is a psychological image of human wholeness,...
something transcendental and incomprehensible”

26. Jung on Religion
Freud and Jung on Religion, by Michael Palmer (con’t)
God and Individuation
Individuation and images of God
Father Stage
earlier stage of consciousness when one was still a child
produces God-images of primitive religion
“man, world and God form a whole, a unity unclouded by
ciriticism”
Son Stage
“in opposition to the still-existing earlier state... contains many latent
possibilities of dissociation... a conflict situation par excellence”
more differentiated images, e.g. Satan as regarded as shadow-side of
Yahweh, divine pairs of Adonis and Aphrodite, Yahweh’s feminine
counterpart the divine Sophia (Old Testament Book of Wisdom)

27. Jung on Religion
Freud and Jung on Religion, by Michael Palmer (con’t)
God and Individuation
Individuation and images of God
Holy Ghost Stage
a stage that genuine adulthood is achieved, final phase of
individuation process (not exclusive to Christianity, but paradigm of
final stage paralleled in symbolisms of other religions and cultures
the original unity is re-established, but in higher and more elevated
condition
all images of God are psychic products of an essentially unconscious
origin, evoking inner experience
e.g. interest in spiritualism, astrology, theosophy, even UFOs...
became symbols (not substitutes) of deity
if no new symbols created, individual becomes neurotic, as he loses
psychic balance to integrate the conscious and unconscious

28. Jung and
Religion

29. Jung and the
Christian Way
quoting Jung’s BBC interview with John Freeman in 1961, “I don’t need
to believe, I know”
“all his life was concerned with knowing God, with the immediate
intuitive awareness of God (in contrast to intellectual faith), wholly
committed to God”
“a profoundly religious man that was able to shed light on religious
psychology”
“went through an agnostic phase when he was heavily criticized by
theologians and psychologists, hence maintained agnostic attitude to
maintain scientific integrity”
“what I offer is an impressionistic sketch of those elements of his
teachings which have helped me... I cannot suppose that Jung would
have agreed with written, but I believe he would heartily approved my
attempt to follow up his ideas” -- author, Christopher Rex Bryant

30. Jung and Buddhism
Jung, Christianity, and Buddhism, James W. Heisig
theoretically, Jungian psychology enables inter-religion
dialogue
Reality: has not attracted Christians and Buddhists for some
reasons (broad academic background of Jung, study takes
time)
Jung and the Christian Way, by Christopher Rex Bryant
“William Johnston has interestingly described a dialogue
between Christians and Buddhists in Japan: ‘We found that
dialogue based on theology and philosophy did not achieve
much; but when we talked from experience we suddenly
discovered how closely united we really were.”

31. Jung and New Age
Flying Saucers : A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies, by C. G. Jung, R. F. C.
Hull
concerned not on reality or not, but the psychic aspect; “about 12 years ... I
cannot even say whether they exist or not”
"In the threatening situation of the world today, when people are beginning to
see that everything is at stake, the projection-creating fantasy soars beyond the
realm of earthly organizations and powers into the heavens, into interstellar
space, where the rulers of human fate, the gods, once had their abode in the
planets.... Even people who would never have thought that a religious problem
could be a serious matter that concerned them personally are beginning to ask
themselves fundamental questions. Under these circumstances it would not be
at all surprising if those sections of the community who ask themselves
nothing were visited by ‘visions,' by a widespread myth seriously believed in
by some and rejected as absurd by others."
acknowledged UFO is not a purely psychological problem in an interview in
New York Herald Tribune in 1958

32. Jung and New Age
Jung as the proponent of the concept of the Age
Aquarius
“This is the fateful year for which I have waited
more than 25 years... This year reminds me of the
enormous earthquake in 26 B.C. that shook down
the great temple of Karnak. It was the prelude to the
destruction of all temples, because a new time had
begun. 1940 is the year when we approach the
meridian of the first star inAquarius. It is the
premonitory earthquake of the New Age...” -- Jung’s
letter to Peter Bayne in 1940

33. Jung and New Age
Jung and the New Age : A Study in Contrasts, article by David Tacey
Jung's name associated with New Age for about three decades
Jung died in 1961, some years before the New Age has gained international
momentum... he has foreseen the rise of paganism in the Western psyche...
identified this resurgent paganism as the archetypal source for 21 century
fascism and national socialism
On religious matters, Jung was both Christian and New Age... Jung could
see that the one-sidedness of patriarchal religion and culture would
necessarily constellate the awakening of compensatory matriarchal and
feminine archetypal figures, but his response to these figures was
ambivalent
By contrast, Jung discovers spirituality in and through our human
pathologies, not by transcending them... “the Gods have become diseases”
Jung’s well-known preoccupation with unity, mandalas, and the Self as the
“archetype of wholeness.”

34. The Jung Cult
The Jung Cult : Origins of a Charismatic Movement, by Richard Noll
Richard Noll: clinical psychologist in DeSales University in Pennsylvania, not
orthodox Christian
Best Book in Psychology published in the United States in 1994
Jung shaped most the contemporary New Age movement
Jung was accepted by professing Christians (e.g. J. Gordon Melton, Morton Kesley, John
Sanford)
To prove his theory of a collective unconscious Jung cited the recurring independent
appearances of the same archetypes in mythological traditions and in the delusions of his
psychiatric patients
ancient mysteries and their pagan gods no longer as satanic and taboo to the average
Christian
Noll’s interpretation on MDR
a very well packaged content
falsely passed off as his autobiography
not historically reliable, but well-crafted image of a cultic leader preserved by his cult

35. The Gnostic Jung
Gnosticism (Gnostikos, Gk: knowledge): antithetical dualism of
immaterality (good) and matter (evil)
Jung considered Gnosticism and alchemy as evidence of the collective
unconscious
Gnostic creation myths described development not of the world but also
the human psyche
the androgynous godhead’s bearing of a son symbolizes the emergence
of the ego out of primordial unconscious
Jungian therapeutic aim vs Gnostic aim
Jungian: making as fully conscious possible the constellated
unconscious content, and synthesizing them with consciousness
through act of recognition
Gnostic: reversion to the incipient state of both humanity and
cosmos, not transformation

36. The Gnostic Jung
Jung’s own Gnostic myth: 7 Sermons to the Dead
“Around five o’clock in the afternoon on Sunday the
front doorbell began ringing frantically. It was a bright
summer day; the two maids were in the kitchen, from
which the open square outside the front door could be
seen. Everyone immediately looked to see who was
there, but there was no one in sight. ... Then I knew that
something had to happen. The whole house was filled as
if there were a crowd present, crammed full of spirits. ...
Then they cried out in chorus, ‘We have come back from
Jerusalem where we found not what we sought.’ That is
the beginning of the Septum Sermones.” -- MDR

37. The Gnostic Jung
Jung’s own Gnostic myth: 7 Sermons to the Dead
Jung’s confrontation with the collective unconscious
“all my works, all my creative activity, has come from those initial fantasies
and dreams which began in 1912” (1912: after break with Freud)
psychological vs parapsychological?
a continuing dialogue with ‘Philemon’ (an imaginary Alexandrian
Gnostic), most important personifications of the unconscious
the dead symbolizes Jung’s collective unconscious (ancestor’s
inadequacy of mainstream doctrine), living the ego conscious, so it is
the unconscious seeking revelation from ego consciousness
attributed to Basilides (2nd century Alenxandrian Gnostic), channeling
Basilides or used the channeled Basilides to address to the dead
contrary to popular opinion, the dead are not ‘possessors of great
knowledge’

38. Memories,
Dreams,
Reflection

39. BBC Interview
“When I say that I don’t need to believe in God because I ‘know’,
I mean I know the existence of God-images in general and in
particular. I know it is matter of a universal experience and, in so
far as I am no exception, I know I have such experience also,
which I call God. It is the experience of my will over against
another and very often stronger will, crossing my path often
with seemingly disastrous results, putting strange ideas into my
head and maneuvering my fate sometimes into most
undesirable corners or giving it unexpected favorable twists,
outside my knowledge and my intention. The strange force
against or for my conscious tendencies is well known to me. So I
say, ‘I know him’. But why should you call this something
‘God’? I would ask, ‘Why not’? It has always been called God.”

40. Memories, Dreams,
Reflections
456 instances of ‘God’ in MDR
“Slowly I came to understand that this communion had been a fatal experience for me. It had
proved hollow; more than that, it had proved to be a total loss. I knew that I would never
again be able to participate in this ceremony. ‘Why, that is not religion at all’, I thought. ‘It is
an absence of God; the Church is a place I should not go to. It is not life which is there, but
death.’
I was seized with the most vehement pity for my father. All at once I understood the tragedy
of his profession and his life. He was struggling with a death whose existence he could not
admit.”
“My sense of union with the Church and with the human world, so far as I knew it, was
shattered.”
“I began to ponder, what must one think of God? I had not invented that thought about God
and the cathedral, still less the dream that had befallen me at the age of three. A stronger will
than mine had imposed both on me. Had nature been responsible? But nature was nothing
other than the will of the creator. Nor did it help to accuse the devil, for he too was a creature
of God. God alone was real - an annihilating fire and an indescribable grace.”
“I had prepared it [the communion] in all earnestness, had hoped for an experience of
grace and illumination, and nothing had happened.”

41. Memories, Dreams,
Reflections
“How had I arrived at m certainty about God? I was told all sorts of
things about Him, yet I could believe nothing. None of it convinced me.
That was not where my idea came from... For example, all that about
Lord Jesus was always suspect to me and I never really believed it,
although it was impressed upon me far more than God, who was
usually only hinted at in the background.
Suddenly I understood that God was, for me at least, one of the most
certain and immediate experiences, it was forced on me and I was
compelled... I had no control over these things”
“Once I heard him [Jung’s father] praying. He struggled desperately to
keep his faith... I saw how hopeless he was entrapped by the Church and
its theological teaching... Now I understood the deepest meaning of my
earlier experiences: God disavowed theology and the Church founded
upon it. On the other hand God condoned this theology, as he condoned
so much else.”

42. Memories, Dreams,
Reflections
“At home, I had the welcome opportunity to talk with
a theologian who had been my father’s vicar... The
theological students with whom I had discussions in
the fraternity all seemed quite content with the theory
of the historical effect produced by Christ’s life... To me
this absolutely belied Christ’s own view that the Holy
Ghost, who had begotten him, would take his place
among men after his death. For me the Holy Ghost was
a manifestation of the inconceivable God... Lord Jesus
was to me unquestionably a man and therefore a
fallable figure, or else a mouthpiece of the Holy Ghost.”

43. Memories, Dreams,
Reflections
“The intensity of my emotion showed that the hill of Sanchi meant something
central to me. A new side of Buddhism was revealed to me there... Buddha
saw and grasped the cosmogonic dignity of human consciousness...
Christ, like Buddha, is an embodiment of the self, but in an altogether
different sense. Both stood for an overcoming of the world: Buddha out of
rational insight; Christ as a foredoomed sacrifice. In Christianity, more is
suffered, in Buddhism, more is seen and done. Both paths are right, but in the
Indian sense Buddha is the more complete human being. He is a historical
personality, and therefore easier for men to understand. Christ is at once a
historical man and God, and therefore much more difficult to comprehend.
At bottom he was not comprehensible even to himself; he knew only that he
had to sacrifice himself, that this course was imposed upon him from within.
His sacrifice happened to him like an act of destiny. Buddha lived out his life
and died at an advanced age, whereas Christ's activity as Christ probably
lasted no more than a year.”

44. Memories, Dreams,
Reflections
“We know that something unknown, alien, does come our way, just as we
know that we do not ourselves make a dream or an inspiration, but that it
somehow arises of its own accord. What does happen to us in this manner
can be said to emanate from mana, a daimon, a god, or the unconscious. The
first three terms have the great merit of including and evoking the emotional
quality of numinosity, whereas the latter - the unconscious - is banal and
therefore closer to reality... The unconscious is too neutral and rational a term
to give much impetus to the imagination. The term, after all, was coined for
scientific purposes, and is far better suited to dispassionate observation
which makes no metaphysical claims than are the transcendental concepts,
which are controversial and therefore tend to breed fanaticism.
Hence I prefer the term ‘the unconscious’, knowing that I might equally well
speak of ‘God’ or daimon if I wish to express myself in mythical language. I
am aware that ‘mana’, ‘daimon’, and ‘God’ are synonyms for the
unconscious”

45. Memories, Dreams,
Reflections
“The need for mythical statements is satisfied when we frame
a view of the world which adequately explains the meaning of
human existence in the cosmos, a view which springs from our
psychic wholeness, from the co-operation between conscious
and unconscious. Meaninglessness inhibits fullness of life and
is therefore equivalent to illness. Meaning makes a great many
things endurable - perhaps everything. No science will ever
replace myth, and a myth cannot be made out of any science.
For it is not that ‘God’ is a myth, but that myth is the revelation
of a divine life in man. It is not we who invent myth, rather it
speaks to us as a Word of God. The Word of God comes to us,
and we have no way of distinguishing whether and to what
extent it is different from God.”

46. Is Jung
Christian??