Religion as a Psychic Function
Modern psychology, particularly analytical psychology, is not content simply to point out the various psychic elements contained in religion.
It is also concerned with the question of what the function of religion is in the individual’s personality, what place it has in man’s psyche as a whole.
Fundamentally, this question is not so far removed from theology, for in practice it too must concern itself with the problem: what does religion mean, and what should it offer, to people in general?
The theologian who indulgesi n apologeticsa nd defendsh is faith against hostile attacks is faced with the somewhat tricky problem of making religion plausible to his fellows.
Protestant theology has been working away at this theme ever since the end of orthodoxy.
The Age of Enlightenment stressed the utility of religion; pietism held out happiness.
Both introduced a eudaemonisticp rinciple into the Christian message.
Today we have given up this view because of its triteness.
But in some way or other we want to make religion and particularly Christianity acceptable, and the most frequently used arguments all aim at showing that religion satisfiesa need.
In theology itself the “need-theory” has taken the form of the so-calledth eory of value: whatevers atisfiesa need is valuable,a nd valuei s the guarantee of truth.
If therefore a religion can satisfy the religious need, its value is thereby proved and at the same time its inner truth.
Appearing in the guise of sermons and edifying literature, this need-theory appeals to man’s sense of imperfection, or, more recently, to his fear of life.
“You have here a way of satisfying your feeling of imperfection; you will be rid of your fear of life if you believe.
Well then, believe-i.e. accept the doctrine we proclaim.”
This appeal is applied with more or less skill and tact, according to the verve of the individual preacher and the educational level of the community he represents.
People are anxious to know what modern psychology has to say on the subject.
On this point-Christianity’s message-theology comes closest in its work to psychology.
We postulate a religious need.
If there really is such a thing, then psychology will assuredly know something about it.
People are therefore anxious to know whether psychology will confirm this argument of theology or whether things are different.
Approaching this question from the point of view of Jung’s psychology, we must say at once that the real situation is in fact different.
There are, of course, psychic facts which can be interpreted as religious need.
There is also a connection between fear of life and religion, but when the two are coupled together as in official Church propaganda (and in that of many sects), all that this short-circuiting procedure reveals is a complete lack of insight into the human soul as it really is.
What, then, is the psychic function of religion?
If we are to answer this question in the Jungian sense as broadly as possible, we must first go back to what we have said already, namely, that religion is inner experience; that it contains a great many experiences of our unconscious psyche; and that in them we are often dealing with supra-personal psychic contents and forces.
We have also stated that all psychic experience is really “pathos”- suffering, letting things happen.
The suprapersonal forces of the soul-the unconscious with all its enigmas and ambiguities-come over us like fate.
They come over us without our being able to say anything about it, without the possibility of our inducing or avoiding it.
We must now modify this view.
Psychic processes can be experienced ‘in two ways-actively or passively.
When a man experiences certain contents of his psyche passively only, they pass over him and influence him, but he is merely pushed about by them.
A man who experiences them actively, however, is able to give them a certain direction; he is not just pushed about in the psychic process, he actively intervenes in it and can, for instance, give it a meaning.
We all know from practical experience, psychology apart, that it is not the same
thing for a man to bury his guilt and remorse in himself or to get it out in a confession.
A man who knows that he has incurred guilt and that it is “biting” him, but who
stops at that, will develop his personality very differently from one who “gets it off his chest” by confessing.
By confessing we are not thinking solely of the Catholic confessional; confession can easily consist in reparation of the wrong before the person wronged, or in any other form of open acknowledgement of the guilt.
At all events, the individual does not remain passive if he experiences guilt and remorse in this way.
He wins to greater self-knowledge than the man who simply lets the experience cripple him.
This possibility of taking an active part in psychic events is given to us fro,m the start.
We can put it figuratively like this: the individual can let himself drift in the river of psychic occurrence, he can even let himself sink in it and take the consequences-or he can maintain a certain direction in mid stream, like a swimmer.
As in genuine rivers, it is difficult to swim against the psychic current, but within certain bounds a man’s activity can intervene decisively.
Though this comparison is simply an image, and ought not to be pressed or interpreted too far, it gives us a tolerably clear idea of the state of affairs we mean.)
This is where religion comes in, for in the last analysis religion consists not in merely experiencing the suprapersonal forces of the soul as such, but in adopting-psychically-an active attitude.
This can happen in various ways, with very different attitudes and distinct ends in view; and the final result will differ accordingly.
But the basic principle is that the complete personality should engage in a living, psychically active encounter with the forces dwelling in the soul, or rather with the forces we meet in our inward experience.
Trying now to explain in detail what we mean, we shall find it best to begin with the religious act itself-the rite.
It is fairly obvious that man wants to exert some kind of influence here. On the face of it the object of this influence is a part of his surroundings.
Among primitive peoples the idea of mana bulks large: mysterious, omnipresent energy.
According to Jung, mana is a projection of libido or psychic energy, and the meaning of the ritual act consists in trying to canalize the libido in a certain direction.
Thus Jung interprets the sacrifice of a horse as a measure designed to suppress backwardslooking libido in favour of forward-looking libido:
Animal sacrifice means the sacrificing of the animalistic, i.e. sexual, libido,’ thus facilitating a turning towards cultural work.
All ritual tries to displace libido when it is no longer desirable that interest should be fastened on a certain object.*
Thus, the initiation of youths tries to draw libido away from the mother.’
Everything connected with this initiation clearly aims at the separation from the mother, and, positively, at the adoption of a new attitude.
The “mysteries,” too, aim at releasing a certain psychic event in man, and they certainly succeed as long as the religion in question is a living one.
The “incest-wish” plays a big part here, that is to say, the wish to return to the mother.
This is not, however, simply a matter of what we would regard as abnormal or perverted sexualityi n the sensein tended by Freud.
The incest-wish undoubtedly existed at one time, as the strict tabooss how that had to be raisedu p againsitt during certain phaseso f man’sd evelopment.
B ut the reasonf or this wish to get back to the womb is that the womb is the symbol of psychic collectivity.
At the back of it is man’s knowledge of the pain involved in developing a consciousness as an ego.
It was far from easyf or prehistoric man to becomea separatep ersonality-as neurotics prove, it is not very easy today either.
The incest-wish appearsa sa reaction that had to be overcomeb y taboos.
Jung supposesth at the EleusinianM ysteries were designed to overcomet his wish.’
The psychic mechanism is as follows:
A fantasy is activated which brings about the detachment of the mother-image from the real mother.
In this way the mother is spiritualized together with the libido attaching to her.
The spiritualized libido can then be carried over into cultural activities! ~Hans Schaer, Religion and the Cure of Souls, Page 96-101
