Carl Jung: It cannot be assumed that everyone possesses the religious genius of Paul.
To Pastor Hans Wegmann
Dear Pastor Wegmann, September 1957For a long time I have been meaning to answer your letter and thank you for your sermon but this summer has been so brimful of work that I simply haven’t got round to it.
I hope you will make allowances for my old age.
I am glad that you pointed out in your sermon how necessary it is to disregard the ego and its will, and that you go back to St. Paulas a great example.
But, by your leave, exactly how do your flock set about distinguishing the ego from the non-ego-especially in such matters of daily importance as those you mention?
It cannot be assumed that everyone possesses the religious genius of Paul.
I, at any rate, know from my medical practice that nothing is more Difficult than to make this subtle distinction.
It cannot be done by extinguishing the ego, and anyone who reflects at all constantly finds himself in the difficult position of having to safeguard his ego and at the same time lend an ear to the non-ego.
It is just in this conflict that he proves his humanity, or so it seems to me.
I am glad you have taken up The Secret of the Golden Flower again.
The East often knows the answer to questions which appear insoluble to us Christians.
Again with thanks and best greetings,
Yours sincerely,
C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 391-392
The religious person enjoys a great advantage
The religious person enjoys a great advantage when it comes to answering the crucial question that hangs over our time like a threat: he has a clear idea of the way his subjective existence is grounded in his relation to “God”.
I put the word “God” in quotes in order to indicate that we are dealing with an anthropomorphic idea whose dynamism and symbolism are filtered through the medium of the unconscious psyche.
Anyone who wants to can at least draw near to the source of such experiences, no matter whether he believes in God or not.
Without this approach it is only in rare cases that we witness those miraculous conversions of which Paul’s Damascus experience is the prototype.
That religious experiences exist no longer needs proof. But it will always remain doubtful whether what metaphysics and theology call God and the gods is the real ground of these experiences.
The question is idle, actually, and answers itself by reason of the subjectively overwhelming numinosity of the experience.
Anyone who has had it is seized by it and therefore not in a position to indulge in fruitless metaphysical or epistemological speculations. Absolute certainty brings its own evidence and has no need of anthropomorphic proofs. ~Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self; Page 64.
A Source of Religious Experience?
This book has the merit of being the first to investigate how the unconscious of Protestants behaves when it has to compensate an intensely religious attitude.
The author examines this question with the help of case material she has collected in her practical work.
She has evidently had the good fortune to come upon some very instructive cases who, moreover, did not object to the publication of their material.
Since we owe our knowledge of unconscious processes primarily to dreams, the author is mainly concerned with the dreams of her patients.
Even for one familiar with this material, the dreams and symbols reported here are remarkable.
As a therapist, she handles the dreams in a very felicitous manner, from the practical side chiefly, so that a reciprocal understanding of the meaning of the dream is gradually built up between her and the patient.
This puts the reader in the advantageous position of listening in on a dialogue, so to speak.
The method is as instructive as it is satisfying, since it is possible to present in this way several fairly long sequences of dreams.
A detailed scientific commentary would take up a disproportionate amount of space without making the dream interpretation any more impressive.
If the interpretation is at times uncertain, or disregards various details, this in no way affects the therapeutic intention to bring the meaning of the dream nearer to consciousness.
In actual practice one can often do full justice to a dream if one simply puts its general tendency, its emotional atmosphere, and its approximate meaning in the right light, having first, of course, assured oneself of the spontaneous approval of the dreamer.
With intelligent persons, this thoughtful feeling of one’s way into the meaning of the dream can soon be left to the patient himself.
The author has been entirely successful in bringing out the religious meaning of the dreams and so demonstrating her thesis.
religious attitude does in fact offer a direct challenge to the unconscious, and the more inimical the conscious attitude is to life, the more forceful and drastic will be this unconscious reaction.
It serves the purpose, firstly, of compensating the extremism of the conscious attitude and, secondly, of individuation, since it re-establishes the approximate wholeness of the personality.
The material which Dr. Froboese-Thiele has made available in her book is of considerable importance for doctors and theologians alike, since both of them have here an opportunity to assure themselves that the unconscious possesses a religious aspect against which no cogent arguments can be mustered.
One is left with a feeling of shame that so little of the empirical case material which would give the layman an adequate idea of these religious processes has been published.
The author deserves our special thanks for having taken the trouble to write up these exacting cases in extenso.
I hope her book will come into the hands of many thoughtful persons whose minds are not stopped up with needless prejudices, and who would be in a position to find a satisfactory answer to religious questions, or at least to come by those experiences which ought to underlie any authentic religious convictions.
~Carl Jung, CW 18, Pages 700-701
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