The is in the unconscious an archetype of wholeness that manifests itself spontaneously in dreams.
[T]here is in the unconscious an archetype of wholeness that manifests itself spontaneously in dreams, etc., and a tendency, independent of the conscious will, to relate other archetypes to this center. . . .
Consequently, it does not seem improbable that the archetype of wholeness occupies, as such, a central position, which approximates it to the God-image. . . .
Strictly speaking, the God-image does not coincide with the unconscious as such, but with a special content of it, namely, the archetype of the self. It is this archetype from which we can no longer distinguish the God-image empirically.
We can arbitrarily postulate a difference between these two entities, but that does not help us at all.
On the contrary, it only helps us to separate man from God, and prevents God from becoming [hu]man.
Faith is certainly right when it impresses on [our] mind and heart how infinitely far away and inaccessible God is; but it also teaches [God’s] nearness, [God’s] immediate presence, and it is just this nearness that has to be empirically real if it is not to lose all significance.
Only that which acts upon me do I recognize as real and actual. But that which has no effect upon me might as well not exist.
The religious need longs for wholeness, and therefore lays hold of the images of wholeness offered by the unconscious, which independently of the conscious mind, rise up from the depths of our psychic nature ~Carl Jung; “Answer to Job”; CW 11, par. 757.
The symbols aiming at wholeness . . . are the remedy with whose help [illness] can be repaired by restoring to the conscious mind a spirit and an attitude which from time immemorial have been felt as solving and healing in their effects.
They are “représentations collectives” [collective images] that facilitate the much needed union of conscious and unconscious.
This union cannot be accomplished either intellectually or in a purely practical sense because in the former case the instincts rebel and in the latter case reason and morality. . . .
[T]he conflict can only be resolved through the symbol. . . .
The synthesis of conscious and unconscious can only be implemented by a conscious confrontation with the latter, and this is not possible unless one understands what the unconscious is saying.
During this process we come upon the symbols . . . , and in coming to terms with them we reestablish the lost connection with ideas and feelings that make a synthesis of the personality possible. ~Carl Jung; “A Psychological Approach to the Trinity” in CW 11, par. 285