Individuation is not Mysticism, Shamanism, Alchemy, or Gnosticism.
Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East
Psychology, like every empirical science, cannot get along without auxiliary concepts, hypotheses, and models. But the theologian as well as the philosopher is apt to make the mistake of taking them for metaphysical postulates. The atom of which the physicist speaks is not an hypostasis, it is a model.
Similarly, my concept of the archetype or of psychic energy is only an auxiliary idea which can be exchanged at any time for a better formula. From a philosophical standpoint my empirical concepts would be logical monsters, and as a philosopher I should cut a very sorry figure.
Looked at theologically, my concept of the anima, for instance, is pure Gnosticism; hence I am often classed among the Gnostics. On top of that, the individuation process develops a symbolism whose nearest affinities are to be found in folklore, in Gnostic, alchemical, and such like “mystical” conceptions, not to mention shamanism.
When material of this kind is adduced for comparison, the exposition fairly swarms with “exotic” and “far-fetched” proofs, and anyone who merely skims through a book instead of reading it can easily succumb to the illusion that he is confronted with a Gnostic system. In reality, however, individuation is an expression of that biological process simple or complicated as the case may be by which every living thing becomes what it was destined to become from the beginning.
This process naturally expresses itself in man as much psychically as somatically. On the psychic side it produces those well-known quaternity symbols, for instance, whose parallels are found in mental asylums as well as in Gnosticism and other exoticisms, and last but not least in Christian allegory.
Hence it is by no means a case of mystical speculations, but of clinical observations and their interpretation through comparison with analogous phenomena in other fields. It is not the daring fantasy of the anatomist that can be held responsible when he discovers the nearest analogies to the human skeleton in certain African anthropoids of which the layman has never heard.
It is certainly remarkable that my critics, with few exceptions, ignore the fact that, as a doctor and scientist, I proceed from facts which everyone is at liberty to verify. Instead, they criticize me as if I were a philosopher, or a Gnostic with pretensions to supernatural knowledge.
As a philosopher and speculating heretic I am, of course, easy prey. That is probably the reason why people prefer to ignore the facts I have discovered, or to deny them without scruple. But it is the facts that are of prime importance to me and not a provisional terminology or attempts at theoretical reflections.
The fact that archetypes exist is not spirited away by saying that there are no inborn ideas. I have never maintained that the archetype “an sich” is an idea, but have expressly pointed out that I regard it as a form without definite content. ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, Forward to White’s “God and the Unconscious,” Pages 306-307, Paragraphs 460-461.
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Blog
Freud and Psychoanalysis (Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 4)
From Dr. Jung 28 January 1913
With regard to your question concerning the applicability of the cathartic procedure, I can say that I adopt the following standpoint: every procedure is good if it helps.
I therefore acknowledge every method of suggestion including Christian Science, mental healing, etc. “A truth is a truth, when it works.”
It is another question, though, whether a scientifically trained doctor can square it with his conscience to sell little bottles of Lourdes water because this suggestion is at times very helpful.
Even the so-called highly scientific suggestion therapy employs the wares of the medicine-man and the exorcising shaman.
And why not?
The public is not much more advanced either and continues to expect miraculous cures from the doctor.
And indeed, we must rate those doctors wise—worldly-wise in every sense—who know how to surround themselves with the aura of a medicine-man.
They have not only the biggest practices but also get the best results.
This is because, apart from the neuroses, countless physical illnesses are tainted and complicated with psychic material to an unsuspected degree.
The medical exorcist betrays by his whole demeanour his full appreciation of that psychic component when he gives the patient the opportunity of fixing his faith firmly on the mysterious personality of the doctor.
In this way he wins the sick man’s mind, which from then on helps him to restore his body to health.
The cure works best when the doctor himself believes in his own formulae, otherwise he may be overcome by scientific doubt and so lose the proper convincing tone. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Pages 255-256