Book Reviews Dark Religion: Fundamentalism from the Perspective of Jungian Psychology. (2018). By Vladislav Solc and George J. Didier. Chiron Publications

Reviewed by Gerald A. Weiner

In the time of Trump, in the time of troubles, there is a great need to understand how we got
there. The writings of Vladislav Solc and George Didier, take us beyond a narcissistic sociopath into the
religious space that supports him.
Didier and Solc analyze and explain how the dark side of the Shadow, what they call “Dark
Religion” has shaped radical fundamentalism. They take this one step further and tell us that we should
oppose all forms of moral absolutism. For them, individuation is both a psychological and a religious
process. The two are inseparable. The authors are continuing C.G. Jung’s quest to understand the
numinosum. To them, extreme religion threatens our very existence.
In their introduction, the authors pose questions that should be important to all of us. How
does one recognize Dark Religion? Who are the most vulnerable to its seduction and alluring energy?
What happens when a person becomes possessed by the energies of the Self that are not made
conscious? Why is it that spirituality remains part of human nature and one of our most essential needs?
Throughout the book they answer these questions from a Jungian perspective. They also provide us with
interesting examples of client cases, all of which furthers our knowledge of Dark Religion.
According to the authors, Dark Religion obscures the true nature of spirituality and cripples
one’s relationship to numinosity. The fundamentalist believes he/she has established one-to one
correspondence of identity with God. By doing this they confuse their own will and actions with the will
and actions of God. In extreme cases it becomes easy for them to justify murder in the name of God.
Solc and Didier provide us with many insight into this thought process. As they explain, the
fundamentalist hides behind the image of God and assumes God’s authority as their own. Only they
know the will of God. (...)

Read more here.

Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2: A God’s or Devil’s gift?

I must emphasize, however, that the grand plan on which the unconscious life of the psyche is constructed is so inaccessible to our understanding that we can never know what evil may not be necessary in order to produce good by enantiodromia, and what good may very possibly lead to evil. Sometimes the probate spiritus recommended by John cannot, with the best will in the world, be anything other than a cautious and patient waiting to see how things will finally turn out.

C. G. Jung, CW9, Part 1

The COVID-19 pandemic has swept the world. And it has caught humanity unprepared despite all past experiences. What is happening to society, to everyone at this special time? “Big questions come from a small virus,” says Vladislav Šolc, a Jungian Analyst living and practicing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Eva Bobůrková Interviewed Vlado Šolc.

What are we experiencing today, can you describe it?

About 100 years have passed since the last major pandemic of the so-called Spanish Flu, which broke out in 1918 and claimed 50 million victims worldwide. Despite its disastrous impact, it took the WHO 30 years after that pandemic to establish a coordinated system of prevention and detection of global epidemics. Early intervention apparently prevented major spread of later respiratory epidemics such as Singapore (1957), Hong Kong Flu (1968) and later H1N1 (2009). Coordinated cooperation between governments and non-government organizations has been able to prevent the spread of Ebola, and to significantly mitigate the effects of classic influenza, malaria, or the Zika virus. However, the COVID-19 epidemic shows that mankind is not prepared for a virus that has a relatively long incubation time (5 days – 2 weeks), is highly infectious and shows a low symptom rate of the infected (95%). Again, nature has shown that even a virus whose mortality is – compared to the Black Death plague (1347-1351) which exterminated more than half of Europe’s then population) – is relatively low, yet it can disrupt even stable economies. Only with a few exceptions in the Pacific (Taiwan, New Zealand, or South Korea) the highly developed countries that boast of their advancement of science and technology have been surprised, or we should say humbled. This crisis has shown the importance of preparing for a possible global pandemic and how dangerous it is when science is not taken seriously!  All of a sudden we woke up from big “Hollywood” fantasies of our readiness for biological warfare or alien invasions. Pandemic COVID-19 has brought about an inevitable confrontation with reality.

How do you see this confrontation as a Jungian Analyst?

From a psychological point of view, we are talking about confrontation with the shadow. We can say that the virus itself represents our collective shadow. It was there waiting in “pleroma,” scientists have been warning us about its potential for a long time, but we were paying little attention. Maybe we were even willingly ignoring it. The shadow, or what is part of us, but what we are not aware of, what we do not want to admit, we reject or minimize, does not cease to exist, but it causes unwanted and unexpected changes in our lives. And these have the ability to not only surprise, but also wake us up. The party is over, the waiter has brought a bill. All that what we had neglected and overlooked suddenly is now, in the face of loss and in the face of death so real… The ancient Greeks taught that pride (hubris) is followed by shame (aischyne), an encounter with suffering that naturally splits off the pain to protect ego. Hubris was taught to be punished by Nemesis, the goddess of righteous distribution. The one-sidedness, the adherence to the fantasies that everything is under control is now being quickly compensated by the sobering realization of our limits. SARS-CoV-2 set the mirror to our narcissistic belief that we are the masters of Nature to show us that we are actually a part of it.  Compensation is a natural process purpose of which is to establish equilibrium by supplementing or replacing the loss of opposing energy. We observe it at both the micro and macro levels; for example in the water cycles in nature, or with the immune system, where infection by a pathogen causes a fever and the like. Carl Jung understands compensation as a fundamental tool of psychological growth. Humanity as a whole experiences a phenomenon of compensation, when it has no choice but to react creatively to the new state at the general, objective, level, as well as at the subjective, emotional level. We are willy-nilly forced into introversion – that is, turning our attention inward. For Asian countries, where meditation is part of daily life it is easier than for us westerners.

How does the current situation affect the psyche in general?

Every major loss inevitably brings about confusion, anxiety and dissolution of consciousness, the intensity is distributed over the whole spectrum, depending on the strength of ego organization and social support that he or she has available. Initially, shock ensues when a person loses the ability to think rationally and basically does not feel anything specific, s/he is paralyzed by physical manifestations of panic states, fatigue, loss of appetite, diarrhea. One may experience an emotional flatness, or conversely uncontrollable fluctuations of emotions and sleep problems. When you add a sense of abandonment to physical and social isolation, some people may feel as if their world was falling apart. In this period, we observe a post-traumatic reaction even with some healthy people. Emergency lines are flooded with phone calls from people panicking.

What happens next?

In the next stage, the psyche’s defense system is mobilized and ego-consciousness begins to cope with the startling reality. It is as if the ego sets to create its own, alternative, reality that gives the new experience a new meaning. The first impulse usually goes back to the past, where we have already dealt with something similar, we speak of regression. Often we see denial, rationalization, that is, an expounding without the presence of affect, banalizing, negotiation and other psychological maneuvers designed to avoid stress. But affect cannot be suppressed in the long run without being compensated by unconscious energies. The built-up pressure must be manifested in some way. Thus rage, anger and frustration arise. And anger as a rule seeks an object. One is looking for the culprit “responsible” for the situation by projecting his or her anger outward; at the same time regulating their own confusion to establish a sense of control through the process of projection. Or, conversely, one can turn his anger against him/hers self, which is then manifested as feelings of shame, or even deserved punishment (sinfulness).

Tragedies and disasters are nothing new for humanity..

Yes. Wars, pandemics and famines have been decimating societies since the beginning of the anthropocene era. Great tragedies also gave birth to ideas of divine vengeance. The supernatural beings had their own justice, and thus, to some extent, the weight of human control is removed from their shoulders. You see, the gods or God now holds the scale of judgement in their hands. I do not want to be misunderstood and reduce religious faith as a spiritual process to something merely profane. I am talking here about the process of projection and its return to the self as spiritual process par excellence. Jung calls it individuation. In relation to the supernatural being, humans become self-conscious and a moral mirror is thus established. Individual emotions are differentiated and given a unique, subjective meaning. It is our individual chance to come to terms with the world and its reality.

Now, thanks to coronavirus, more people are asking ontological and existential questions. We are going deeper, the pain is gently turning us into philosophers because we encounter an awe: Who am I? Where am I? What is my quest? Can I be better, should I be better? Many of us wonder if our relationship with Mother Earth can be healthier, holier. We have the opportunity to expand our consciousness, which occurs during tense situations. The Greek word apocalypse means revelation, revealing, uncovering, thus coming the Self into ego-consciousness. Through this process the Self reveals what had been hidden, the dark aspects of the unconscious.

So the parts of the Self are being revealed to us?

If we can look at the new reality with open eyes and accept it, we are actually recollecting ourselves and integrating “dark parts” of the Self into our ego via conscious relation and change of attitude. We are creating a new, more whole view of the world. A new imago dei. We write about this process in depth in our book: Dark Religion, Fundamentalism from the Jungian Perspective.

If we can hold our fears and anxieties present in consciousness, we can develop compassion. We can understand and develop the need to help others, to focus on solutions rather than on worries. We can start acting more rationally, asking ourselves what realistic options we have available, how to utilize positives and the like. If our consciousness embraces reality, reintegrates dark aspects of the Self and creates new meaning we are talking about the spiritual process of transformation. It is the acceptance of the fuller reality and mindful adaptation to it that is the goal of psychotherapy and analysis. If the ego is unable to do so, it can get stuck in primitive escape-fantasies cut-off from reality, then we are talking about lingering in a regression state. At the broader, social level, this is reflected in an increase in fundamentalistic, “apotropaic” coping approaches that we have termed Dark Religion (theocalypsis). These include calls for mass prayer similar to those in the Middle Ages for the defeat of the virus, the rise of conspiracy theories and other superstitions detached from reality.

President Trump was claiming until recently that covid-19 is a hoax…

Yes, the “hoax devised by the Democrats to deprive him of power.” Unfortunately, many of his followers truly believe this and refuse to follow the protective measures recommendations or orders. Donald Trump called the investigation of the Russian interference into elections a witch hunt, and he succeeded to avoid consequences because he countered every statement by a new lie. Victims of coronavirus cannot be concealed and their loved ones cannot be fooled. Thus, one of the unexpected side effects of a pandemic may be general awakening, sobering from the lies Trump has bet on, lies that have worked for him until recently. The reality of death cannot be avoided, lied away and that is why this pandemic will perhaps contribute to the rise of consciousness.

So are there any possible positive effects of the pandemic?

In the United States, where up to a third of the population deny or dispute science or where third of the population believe in bizarre conspiracy theories, an outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic may re-awaken the importance of science. In a country where a week of treatment on respirator could cost $70,000, the demand for health insurance, paid sick leave, and preventative care will undoubtedly become main topics of the upcoming elections. We began to understand more and more that homelessness is a health risk for the society as a whole.

I believe that many people will try to live more healthy, quit smoking and will cease eating meat. The field ecopsychology, which studies the relationship between humans and environment, will gain even more importance. We will study more in depth the zoonotic diseases and how human activity contributes to them. Questions of income inequality, international cooperation, climate change and the health of our planet in general are becoming the number one topics during the elections.

Plagues can change religious beliefs and behavior, but also reveal the need for social stability, interconnectedness of society, fair arrangement between rulers and workers. Pandemics have led to the development of hygiene, medicine and the industrial revolution in general. All epidemics have shifted society towards cooperation and improved the quality of life of the community. Even in this epidemic we can expect changes in this direction. Here I would like to quote Carl Sagan:

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”

What challenges is the pandemic presenting us with?

The pandemic showed differences in the efficiencies of the solutions various systems have utilized. Totalitarian regimes that were able to impose an immediate curfew, separated children from their parents, or even let whole families starve, got the virus spread under control more quickly… So called free, western countries are up against the challenges of their own way of being… It looks like the freedoms that we enjoy in democratic countries are a disadvantage in this case, so we will have to reach a compromise between security and some of the freedoms losses if we want to win over the virus. We can expect greater interconnection of technologies and electronic monitoring such as smart quarantines and the like. But in the US, people are already afraid of government monitoring, reluctant to provide their phone number or address. So we are facing a big unknown in this direction, no one really knows what the future will bring. The world will change, for sure, but whether better or for worse cannot be said at this time, because history is a process that flows beyond good and evil.

But it is certain that delusional beliefs, conspiracy theories, or misleading religious ideas sometimes complicate the course of convalescence more than the virus itself. 

For manipulations who use various -isms, mass solutions, or fundamentalist religious ideologies epidemics are a psychological breeding ground. Emphasis on education, self-knowledge are the most important antidotes against the decline of humanity. Carl Jung’s words have not lost their validity today:

“We need more understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself. He is the great danger. And we are pitifully unaware of it. We know nothing of man … far too little. His psyche should be studied — because we are the origin of all coming evil.”

“Thanks to” the pandemic, scientists, doctors and economists have regained their respect. But new conspiracy theories emerged too. What makes people still want to create those and follow them even more passionately?

The human desire to understand reality and to attach meaning to it is instinctive and related to consciousness. Mythologies and ritual behavior tell of an ancient effort to understand the meaning of life. Conspiracy theories could be considered as attempts to decipher the hidden laws of reality. They typically arise when a force of reality begins to deviate from the ideas we hold about the world.

In times of crisis, dark imago dei, cruel images of reality emerge, with it an urge to produce some acceptable explanations. Conspiracy theories, like religions, satisfy the desire for meaning, order, and express the will to control that order. From a psychological perspective, we can understand conspiracy theories as religious theories of sui generis, through which the ego copes with the painful or inexplicable vicissitudes of life. The less I am willing and able to be conscious of negative emotions and relate to them, the more power the conspiracy fantasies gain. Conspiracy theories are defensive fantasy constructs that falsify reality through which ego can experience a sense of relief from anxiety and other otherwise dissociating affects. They give conspirators a sense of personal power and control over reality. In a way they allow redirection of aggression, hatred and other socially censored emotions into the “theory,” enabling them thus to better manage the heaviness of life. It is the disintegration of traditional religious systems in secular societies that created a new realm for their emergence. You can read more on this topic in the article Dark Religion and Conspiracy Theories, An Analytical Viewpoint.

How do the Americans, or specifically Wisconsinites, react to Trump’s initial denial of the now harsh reality? 

The majority of the people respect the government orders. People have reduced their work and business, working from home if possible. But even here, America’s ideological divisions are manifested and many Trump followers do not trust the media and still believe his statements when he completely underestimated the seriousness of the epidemic. Trump has so far spread fictional quasi-scientific theories, refusing to wear a face mask, and encourages people to form their own opinions based on “gut feelings.” However, with the rise of the sick and dead, Trump’s popularity gradually declines. There is no doubt that his narcissistic approach does not help in a crisis, quite the contrary. He is internally divided and projects his internal conflict to the nation. He does not wish to unite Americans, he speaks only to his loyal part of the population – the part that mirrors him and that embodies the nostalgic vision of a Christian-fundamental, white, self-centered, fearful, nationalist and patriarchal country. Now he exploits pandemic and he is using it to further his sociopathic agenda of division and conflict. By its very nature, the United States will never be truly united politically and ideologically. The tough dialectical dialogue of opposites so typical for America is a source of progress and prevents one-sidedness, but Trump legitimizes irrational attitudes that divide opposites to the brink of dangerous conflict. By promoting the opening of the economy, lockdown, opposed the governors who ordered the proven social distance, he opened Pandora’s box, which most likely would not be closed by a rational dialogue.

But you are saying that Trump’s popularity is declining as the number of deaths increases…

In the article Donald Trump in the Mirror that I wrote for Vesmir, I expressed the opinion that Trump managed to appeal to his followers through rather “primitive” emotions of fear, anger and the feelings of entitlement. These emotions are now being projected onto “enemies,” such as migrants, foreigners, Hispanics, African-Americans, Democrats, environmentalists…you name it. Trump managed to awaken an authoritarian and nationalist instinct: on the one hand he puts himself in the role of savior and on the other hand he diverts attention from reality. Republicans have feared “socialism,” since McCarthy’s post-war era, and therefore remain stuck in magical thinking that Trump’s medicine will miraculously get them out of the crisis. Trump did not invent the division of society, but he is awakening old skeletons in the closets. He was able to evoke and legitimize “forbidden” emotions, which gave many people a sense of relief and an illusion of power. At the same time, they have trapped them like in a cult. Sticking to a leader can be compared to drug addiction, it is a variation of Stockholm’s abused person’s syndrome. Thus, his popularity may decline in proportion to the decline of power that Trump is now able to convey to Americans. The qualities that have brought him to power can turn into a catalyst of a fall in a crisis. In therapy of addictions, we commonly observe this enantiodromia brought about by exhaustion and crisis.

Thus far, we count mainly direct victims of coronavirus, sick, dead. Unexpected dramas also take place in isolation, in quarantine, behind closed doors. Will there be an unexpected amount of divorce, or a babyboom, or both when the pandemic subsides?

It depends on the entrance conditions. The crisis can have a very positive effect on relatively stable families. After the initial phase, an adaptation can take place, where people learn how to utilize neglected resources. This is a desirable aspect of the introversion mentioned earlier. Those families may now have more time to communicate, they are forced to solve problems without running away, now they have to focus more on themselves. They can use that unexpected time and space to develop creativity and tame their inferior cognitive functions. It is most important right now to accept one’s own emotions and feelings, whether it is fear, anger, hopelessness, and so on and to form a conscious relationship with them. And it’s happening, I’m already seeing it with my clients. Creative activity, the observation and relation to our dreams, the humor, the daily routine connected with physical movement, keeping the mindfulness of each other in a strained conditions, those are proven to be very beneficial attitudes these days.

Unfortunately, not all relationships, families are stable…

In families with unstable, predisposed individuals, or in families where there is domestic violence, trauma, the situation is quite the contrary. The crisis and forced isolation increase aggression in some people, and abused partners, especially in socially and economically impacted families, are even more dependent on the tyrant. We are seeing an increase of incest, suicide, bipolar disorders, but also psychotic breakdowns in people with predispositions and lose inner organization. For many people the situation during a pandemic is deteriorating.

And with respect to the baby boom: in times of economic instability, fertility usually declines, on the other hand, during crisis, sexual instinct increases with aggression. The resulting figures will probably be broken down by economic and social status. In any rate, all the effects will be felt later, for example the unemployment is a strong risk factor for depression and suicide. On the other hand, to mention something positive, the work related accidents and the number of car accidents have dropped significantly.

Are we now a part of an unplanned social experiment, as Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari put it?

Harari is a very intuitive thinker. He is probably right that in times of uncertainty and fear, the powerful will try to consolidate their positions and gain additional tools of manipulation. But the Homo Sapiens experiment has been happening continuously. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Europe was ruled by religious fanatics, during a great crisis Hitler seized power, after the war the Communists… We must not fall for naiveté and, even in difficult times, we must carry the torch of the Greek ideals of democracy and freedom of human spirit. But we must not succumb to paranoia either, because that is precisely the way to losing our freedoms. The cure for paranoia is individuation, i.e. self-knowledge and at the same time acceptance of reality, with everything that it entails!

How is the current situation manifested in your practice? Do you have cases that are directly related to the pandemic?

Clinics have been experiencing an enormous increase in new patients interest in therapy. This is related not only to physical and social isolation and to the anxiety from the unknown, but it is also related also to the loss of work, or fear of impending childbirth but also the death of loved ones. The crisis affects all my existing clients. We are all going through the change. It depends on our conscious attitude how much we will benefit from this change, and whether SARS-CoV-2 will be a gift or a curse.


This interview originally appeared in Vesmír Magazine. It was translated from Czech to English by Vladislav Šolc.

Vladislav Šolc, MS, ICS is a Licensed Professional Psychotherapist who provides individual, group, couples and family therapy (counseling and psychotherapy) in Whitefish Bay (Milwaukee and Glendale, Wisconsin, WI 53217). Vlado accepts clients speaking English, Czech, Polish or Slovak language. He holds advanced training credentials as a Diplomate Jungian Psychoanalyst, Clinical Substance Abuse Counselor and Independent Clinical Supervisor. Vlado received his training in Europe and US: Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, Czech Association for Analytical Psychology, Brno, Czech Republic, University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago. The therapeutic process is a true art, and Vlado’s therapeutic approach begins where the client is at, and he incorporates an integrative and holistic approach to help attain the client’s potentials. He weaves together different therapeutic approaches, depending on the unique needs of the client. Always with the goal of respecting the dignity of the client, and providing a comfortable and confidential setting in which healing can occur. Vlado specializes on the treatment of depression, anxiety, sleep problems,  interpersonal  conflicts. His focus includes psycho-spiritual crisis and spirituality (loss of life’s meaning and direction), mind-body connection (psychosomatic issues), immigration and cultural issues (displacement from home country and grief), women empowerment and emancipation. His specialties also include treatment of addictions and marital psychotherapy with adult, and youth populations. Vlado is also involved in art and creative process and is author of several depth psychology-oriented books: Psyche, Matrix, Reality; Father’s ArchetypeIn the Name of God: Psychological Roots of Fanaticism, and most recently Dark Religion: Fundamentalism from the Perspective of Jungian Psychology.


Links: Vlado Solc’s Website | Vlado Solc’s Lectures Available on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website


Literature:

  • Jung, C., G., The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales, CW 9i, (1945/1948), Princeton University Press.
  • Jung, C. G., 1969. Psychology and Religion: West and East. Volume 11. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  • Merritt, D,: The Dairy Farmers Guide to the Universe: Jung, Hermes, and Ecopsychology, (2012), Sheridan, Wyoming: Fisher King Press.
  • Sagan, C., Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, (1994), Ballantines Books.
  • Šolc, V., and George J. D., (2018), Dark Religion: Fundamentalism from the Perspective of Jungian Psychology. Ashville, NC: Chiron Publications
  • Šolc, V., Dark Religion and Conspiracy Theories, An Analytical Viewpoint, (2020), Taylor & Francis.

Ode to COVID-19

Sit Covid bonus aut malus: quaestiō

Oh, you mighty and yet invisible, you weightless and yet so powerful.
You oh came to gently remind us all that there’s no one who can control your will.
Your gentle yet deathly stroke became the mankind’s school,
Teaching us all how to feel, how to love, and also how to chill.

You slowed the time and made us be with those whom we always felt most free,
You showed us “now,” you showed us “here,” all we always craved
Unconsciously...
Gratitude, humility, what matters and how our souls are to be saved!

Perhaps by showing you know no borders, have no race nor gender,
By your mortal tap making rich and poor even,
You could take more, but you’re generous and tender...
Our pride took the Earth for granted, we asked no “what” but only “when!”

We thought the health insurance was a privilege that protects us from those who cannot have it,
We thought some of us had special right just due to a special religion,
You’ve gently shown us how silly it was to think that some of us are immune from your hit.
Now, when powerless and in your prison, we acknowledge yours is timing, the scope and region!

You teach us that nature is us indeed; no, we are not her masters, but tiny children... that all we are just dust in the wind.
Your mighty wisdom has conveyed that truth matters because there’s no talking out the losses away.
Waking up this way... remembering the lessons... seeing connections... and inevitably getting your hint.
Now we see we lost the respect for animals and waters, and plants. The power of action rather than that of prayer.

Oh, how you teach us to appreciate a touch, a smell, a hug, sitting by the table with friends, sharing a meal.
You tenderly show us ourselves in the mirror of our own loneliness
Oh you reveal to us the power of togetherness, so missed... now, when alone we kneel.
You brought ourselves back to us, inside our own temples, our holiness.

Who knew you would unite us all, call us back to the human race?
In this collective introversion now we see the light of truth and mean darkness of lies.
Yes, to contemplate, to ponder the meaning, to find those those treasures you gave us space.
We even stopped smoking, and got global warming, many of us just opened our eyes.

Some say you are evil, some say you just are, some are trying to blame you for all that we’ve done.
From pain comes revival, wisdom from cry, it is only the dark night that gives meaning to the Sun.
Your tiny omnipresence, your intelligent law enforcement puzzles everyone.
Is this your way of showing where right and wrong are bound?
Is this how you reveal how the universe is run?

Vlado Solc

Online Therapy

Hereby I would like to announce that during the time of social distancing due to coronavirus (COVID -19) I have not ceased providing therapy. I am offering individual and couples' therapy online or by phone. I am also offering study groups and discussions via Zoom.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions.

Thank you and sincerely, Vlado

Coronavirus COVID 19 Psychology

These are good insights that may come out of corona virus infections. People may realize:

- Health insurance for all protects us ALL
- Rich people cannot be rich without everybody being well
- Paid sick leave is a noble idea that keeps societies healthy
- Smoking is not a good idea, keep your lungs strong.
- Air pollution is a problem
- Taking care of our planet has to be a humanity, team effort
- Science is not a hoax, rationality and reason are bedrocks of survival
- Dividing nation based on politics makes virus spread faster
- Lying and blaming corona virus on other political (like Trump does) party helps the virus
- Eating meat and treating animals without love increases chances for getting infected with viruses
- Love and compassion are supreme tools in the times of anxiety
- Love trumps hate and true religion is based on truth
- A deep value of friendship and sacrifice

The Feminine as Savior of the World: My Experience of the film Terminator: Dark Fate

Sex and God seem to be themes I see everywhere these days. The reconciliation of these seeming opposites happens to be the focus of my research in fact. I look forward to telling you more about that soon as I complete the final work to secure my PhD, say Deborah Lukovich: The Feminine as Savior of the World: My Experience of the film Terminator: Dark Fate

Dark Religion and Conspiracy Theories - an Analytical Viewpoint (sample)

Abstract

Conspiracy theories have occupied increasingly larger domains of cultural and political life. Conspiracism seems to replace or supplement fundamentalist religious beliefs while it supplies material that is in turn used for endorsing political and ideological agendae. Similarities between conspiratorial thinking and fundamentalist creed can be explained by the dynamics of inferiority of consciousness and the subsequent inflation of the ego by the ‘contents’ of the Self. Inadequate and non-credible representations of numinous energies in consciousness unwittingly contribute to the creation of structures with notable mythological parallels. This phenomenon that Jung referred to as an ‘axiom of psychology’ can explain both the archetypal nature of conspiracism and its resistance against rational correction. (Jung 1951, para. 277) Conspiratorial thinking is free from the unconscious influence of the Self only to the extent that it is able to recognize and to relate to the numinous contents on one hand and to withdraw projections from the object on the other. A symbolic perspective offers a non-dismissive understanding of the reasons for strong adherence to conspiracy theories. Exploring conspiracy theories as symbols rather than rational constructs offers more fruitful solutions to given problem.


Definition

The Oxford English Dictionary defines conspiracy theory as ‘the theory that an event or phenomenon occurs as a result of a conspiracy between interested parties; specifically, a belief that some covert but influential agency (typically political in motivation and oppressive in intent) is responsible for an unexplained event’ (Oxford University Press, 2009, s.v. 4, p.1).

Conspiracy theory is a strongly held persuasion that secret, often illegal and detrimental plots are carried out by humans, superhumans, or extraterrestrial powerful beings (aliens) with the aim to acquire a certain advantage over other humans typically by exploiting their money, resources or other forms of physical or psychological energy. Most conspiracy theories are concerned with harmful ‘enemies’ but there are also not-so-prevalent beliefs in ‘angelical’ forces who intend to undo adversary conspiracies. (Walker, 2013, p. 17)[1] The first use of the terminology appears in journals in 1871, however I propose that the psychological phenomenon might correlate with the development of consciousness.[2]

Etymology

 The word ‘conspiracy’ derives from the Latin con- (‘with, together’) and spirare (‘to breathe’) and suggests a secret plotting amongst individuals to do something harmful or unlawful. The word theory derives from Greek theoria, ‘contemplation, speculation, a looking at, things looked at’, from theorein ‘to consider, speculate, look at’, from theoros ‘spectator’, from thea ‘a view’ + horan “’o see”. (Merriam-Webster online, n.d., p.1) Theory is an abstract speculation or a system of ideas intended to explain a phenomenon or phenomena based on general principles independent of obvious facts to be explained. Conspiracy theory thus combines two aspects of a psychological operation: belief and its rationale. Conspiracy theories, as a rule, always attribute some ideas to aspects of reality that are not evidently verifiable.

(...)

[1] Walker J., A United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory, HarperCollins, 2013.

[2] Part IV. Psychological News, The Journal of Mental Science, Volume 16, publ. Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts, 1871.

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Foreword to Dark Religion

"These are the times that try men’s souls"

Thomas Paine, December 1776.

We live in an era in which extremism dominates political discourse, religious life, the news cycle, and our personal lives. For centuries under the banner of God, human societies have amassed countless rounds of ethnic cleansing, deaths, and untold human suffering. We are left wondering how it is that the religious impulse, in which deep calls to deep, is so frequently perverted into a war cry that justifies murder, torture, rape, and other atrocities. The anthropologist, Ruth Benedict, wrote, “A culture, like an individual, is a more or less consistent pattern of thought and action.”(46)[1] Because of this, the inquiries into the psychology of the individual or the collective are likely to cross pollinate. The last few centuries have witnessed breathtaking scientific advances, and yet we have more reason than ever to be concerned that the destructive capacity of homo sapiens might in a moment cause extinction of our species and multitudes of other species.

George Didier and Vladislav Šolc have entered this morass of unfathomable horrors and possibilities, to bring insightful, psychologically well-informed explorations to the field of religion and religious extremism. They begin by reminding us that the religious impulse is inherent to the psyche of modern man and woman and that this mysterious encounter with the numinous transcends cultures, epochs, and historical figures. This book explores the roots of this impulse from a depth psychological perspective that is heavily informed by the writings of Carl Gustav Jung, the founder of Analytical Psychology. Dark Religion From the Perspective of Jungian Psychology is perhaps intended to be a double entendre because not only do the shaping forces of our religious experience have their roots in the dark, unseen realms of the unconscious, but it happens that when we remain in the dark about the roots of our religiosity there is enormous opportunity for misunderstanding, perversion, manipulation, and exploitation of this innate hunger for an encounter with something transcendent. Precisely because the religious impulse—in its essence an encounter with the holy (and wholly) other—is elusive yet axiomatic to the human experience, it can overtake a person with such fervor that horrifically destructive actions appear sensible and justifiable to the believer. How are any of us supposed to distinguish passionate belief of a healthy sort from passionate belief that goes awry and becomes destructive?

Many different wisdom traditions converge in providing an answer to this question. Concerning how a Jew should treat the stranger, Deuteronomy 10:19 directs:

You shall love the stranger (foreigner, resident alien), for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Furthermore, the prophets of Israel (Isaiah and Micah) call the nation to this ideal:

And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. (Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3)

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus of Nazareth instructs his followers:

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:15-16)

The Quran offers guidance regarding how a Muslim should regard people of other faiths and specifically names Jews, Christians, and Sabians whose modern descendants, Mandaeans, have virtually been expelled from Iraq.

Verily, those who have attained to faith [in this divine writ], as well as those who follow the Jewish faith, and the Christians, and the Sabians – all who believe in God and the Last Day and do righteous deeds-shall have their reward with their Sustainer; and no fear need they have, and neither shall they grieve. (Quran 2:62)

The Buddhist teaching of the Noble Eightfold path is suffused with ideals that make clear that our actions (including our intentions, speech, views, conduct, livelihood, and concentration) have consequences. In the Karaniya Metta Sutta on loving kindness we find the following guidance.

And never let them wish each other ill
Through provocation or resentful thought.
And just as might a mother with her life
Protect the son that was her only child,
So let him then for every living thing.
[2]

The common denominator that I see is that the actions one takes in the world, particularly the actions one takes toward others, is the measure of one’s faith. Faith in action, religion that is manifest through one’s impact on the world and others seems to be a reasonable basis for determining when the dark forces of the religious impulse are being perverted.

Dark Religion is a thoughtful, penetrating examination of man’s encounter with the universal, transcendent mystery that is most commonly spoken of as God. It stands on its merits as a scholarly investigation of religion, and it is especially timely given the extremism that continues to flare up around the world.

If these are the times that try men’s (and women’s) souls as Thomas Paine announced, these are also the times that grow men’s (and women’s) souls. James Hillman, a beloved and influential American Jungian analyst titled one of his books, We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy-And the World is Getting Worse. Therefore, why should anyone hope that another psychology book will make things better? My answer to this question is flatly, “It will not!” Unless of course you, the reader, take seriously the invitation that Didier and Šolc have outlined.

They propose that psychology, especially depth psychology, offers a remedy for the affliction of dark religion. Quite simply, any serious seeker of the truth must bring light to bear upon the dark recesses of our psychology of religion. For Jungians, this means illuminating the individual recesses and the collective ones as well.

First, Didier and Šolc point out that a genuine encounter with the numinous realms is so powerful that it overtakes us. It is the wholly other quality of such moments that imparts a holy dimension; how such lived experiences are integrated and worked out constitutes the bedrock of the history of religion movements through centuries of recorded history.

Next, they establish that psyche’s natural tendency to dichotomize experience and thereby create polarities initiates a process whereby one aspect of the polarity may be driven into the unconscious while the other aspect attracts to itself greater psychological energy and constellates in what might be referred to as a complex. It is this complexification, or the coalescence of energy, images, symbols, ideals, and beliefs around only one pole of a polarity that in my opinion is a first cause of religion gone awry. As the conscious identification with one aspect of a polarity intensifies, the other is not annihilated; it simply gathers strength in the invisible, unconscious domains of psychic life.

We puzzle over moments of sudden, brutal violence eruptions like the Rwandan genocide of Tutsis by Hutus. We ask ourselves how people, who had peacefully coexisted, as neighbors and friends, were capable of unleashing such destruction. The answer can be found in this process that this book describes. The unconscious, split-off other gathers strength at the individual and collective level. It becomes like dry kindling that can be ignited by a well-timed spark. In this conflagration we see how symbols help coalesce the unconscious energy of large groups of individuals who become over-identified with the beliefs that are reduced and subsumed by the symbol. Modern examples abound.

The Nazis co-opted the ancient symbol of the swastika to rally the Germanic tribes around Hitler’s megalomaniacal drive. Devoted fans of professional sports teams become so identified with their team and its symbols that they are willing to go to battle if a symbol is defaced. During the 2016 presidential election, a red Make America Great Again ball cap became a symbol that identified followers of candidate Trump and perhaps fueled the sharp divisions between Trumps supporters and the rest of the nation. There are many dangers that result when our encounters with something greater than us, something transcendent, numinous, or religious are permitted to remain unconscious. What remains unconscious is frequently projected onto other people and other peoples and serves to justify our violence toward the other.

Time and again we have seen such movements rise and consume countless human beings in the pyre. The Native Americans who died during the settlement of the western United States, the tens of millions killed during the Holocaust, the nearly two million Cambodians killed by the Khmer Rouge, the one million Rwandans slaughtered in the genocide, the ten thousand of Yazidis who were killed or kidnapped by ISIS, and even the twenty to fifty thousand Palestinians who have died since the formation of the state of Israel cry out to those of us, the living to end the madness of mass killing, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. The fact that a website exists that compiles the death tolls for man-made multicides www.necrometrics.com attests to our urgent need to hear what Didier and Šolc have to say about dark religion.

There is good news for the reader who perseveres with Dark Religion and takes to heart its underlying message. We are each called to an encounter with the numinous realms. How we respond, what we do, and what we are led to believe and defend is profoundly important to our individual and collective development. Dark Religion lays bare the underlying causes of religious extremism and fanaticism. It reminds the reader that each one of us is called to the mysterious task of shedding light upon our own encounter with something that is greater than or beyond ourselves. This mysterious realm beyond ourselves that is extraordinary, elusive, ineffable, and transports us is what the theologian Rudolf Otto called numinous.

 In the Jungian tradition, the encounter with the numinous is like a seed that can take shape as an Imago Die, an image of God. This is a sort of organizing symbol for the awe-inspiring and often frightening energy that accompanies an encounter with the numinous. Jungians also speak of the Self, an archetypal element of psychic life that is like a guiding light for the process of individuation. Craig Chalquist defines individuation as “the process by which a person integrates unconscious contents into consciousness, thereby becoming a psychologically whole individual.”[3] The path of individuation is inevitably shaped by our biology, our inborn temperament, the family into which we are born, and the culture into which we must enter. A tremendous amount of this shaping influence ends up relegated to the unconscious. This phenomenon, whereby so much of our makeup dwells in the unconscious, accounts for many of the extreme manifestations of the religious impulse that appear in different epochs and in different cultures.

Each of us faces a challenge to illuminate the unconscious domains of our psychological and religious life and then recover what we have projected onto others. When we do this, we may retain a bit of the original spark of the religious, numinous encounter. If this spark is nourished and properly groomed, it can flower as compassionate, soul-building action in the world. Those who do this arduous psychological work of recovering projections are less likely to cast their burdens on the other and less likely to perpetrate violence upon them. The Sermon on the Mount captures this sentiment nicely, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God.”

Dr. Len Cruz

 

 

 

[1] Benedict, Ruth. (1934) Patterns of Culture. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.

[2] “Sn 1.8: Karaniya Metta Sutta — The Buddha's Words on Loving-Kindness/The Hymn of Universal Love/Loving-Kindness/The Discourse on Loving-Kindness/Good Will.” Pali Canon Online, 2018, www.palicanon.org/index.php/sutta-pitaka/khuddaka-nikaya/102-sutta-nipata/954-sn-1-8-karaniya-metta-sutta-the-buddha-s-words-on-loving-kindness-the-hymn-of-universal-love-loving-kindness-the-discourse-on-loving-kindness-good-will.

[3] Chalquist, C. “A Glossary of Jungian Terms.” TerraPsych.com. 10 June 2018. http://www.terrapsych.com/jungdefs.html

Dark Religion Fundamentalism from Perspective of Jungian Psychology

Before Introduction

There has never been a greater urgency in our world today to expand and deepen, from a depth psychological perspective, our understanding of fanatical religion and fundamentalism. The phenomenon of extreme religion threatens our culture and, at times, our very existence. We have termed this phenomenon: Dark Religion. Almost everyone in one-way or another is affected by this development in our world: from the consulting room, to our families, to our churches, mosques and temples, not to mention the public arenas and political platforms. What is it that makes religion so potentially dangerous and dark?

Our argument is that religion is not only a connection to the numinous as a source of life and renewal, but also a source of extreme power that can lead to radically perverted states of mind and nefarious creeds that kill the soul’s relationship to the Transpersonal. The so called radicalized religions and movements masquerade as if they are enlightening and religious but, in their fundamentalism and one-sidedness they have a flawed core and, in the end, are the opposite of religion that in its healthy essence identical with spirituality. This book offers an in-depth-psychological analysis of what happens when a person becomes possessed by the unconscious energies of the Self. We coin the term “dark religion” to describe all forms of fanatical, radical and unhealthy religions.

Analytical psychology offers one of the most extraordinary and penetrating analyses of the dynamics of religion and the religious function of the human psyche. As a relatively newcomer to the conversation on fundamentalism, analytical psychology’s telescopic view of the interior life of one’s religious beliefs and creeds, offers a unique vision that provides unparalleled insight and understanding of what is happening in the psyche of fundamentalists. Dark Religion offers new insights and a fresh perspective on how religion is used in the mind of the individual to hide behind their image of God. In Dark Religion, we explore and explicate these dynamics of religion, whether embodied by the radical extremist or by the fundamentalist next door, by submitting them to a critical analysis and review using the tools and knowledge of depth psychology. Supported by numerous examples in the world today and in our own clinical practices, our study reveals how dark religion leads to profound conflicts on both the personal, interpersonal and cultural level; including terrorism and war.

On the other side, our study reveals that spirituality, besides being an inherent dimension of our human nature, is one of our most essential needs. Religion only becomes “dark,” we argue, when we ignore, deny or separate it from its own living roots in the unconscious. In the attempt to deepen and understand radical creed and fundamentalism, Dark Religion surveys the contemporary religious and spiritual landscape, while discovering the emergent forms of spiritual praxis in light of postmodernism and the rise of fundamentalism.

How does one recognize dark religion? What are its psychological and religious signs? Who are most vulnerable to its seduction and alluring energy? What can one do about it?  Is it as close as your local church or synagogue or mosque? This book begins to answer these and other compelling questions on the nature of dark religion.

Indeed, man is completely modern only when he has come to the very edge of the world, leaving behind him all that has been discarded and outgrown, and acknowledging that he stands before the Nothing out of which All may grow (Jung, 1931, [CW 10, para. 151]).

Religion is one of the most significant determinants of human actions. Religious practices, such as the ritualized burial of the dead, creation of sacred places, and the fashioning of symbolic artifacts can be traced back more than 100,000 years.[1] Early humans were mostly driven by instinct; in all likelihood, their religion reflected this developmental need. Religion and religious practices can be seen as an evolutionary and creative force, without which man would have remained a non-symbolic animal and might never have evolved to the current cognitive and cultural levels of development.[2] Religion is a faculty that forms culture and the mind. The appearance of religion coincides with the mind’s ability to relate to a transcendent aspect of being that exists beyond immediate, palpable sense reality. Religion depends upon the imaginative and symbol-forming ability of the human psyche.

Aristotle (as cited in Field, 1931/1932) states that “the soul never thinks without an image” (p. 46). We might also say that the soul never thinks without religion. According to, Jung, religion “is incontestably one of the earliest and most universal expressions of the human mind …” (Jung, 1940 [CW 11, para. 1]). During Jung’s descent into the underworld of his unconscious he proclaimed that: “The wealth of the soul exists in images” (Jung, 2009, 232). Such premises apply to the varieties of religious experience. For example, Islamic scholar Henry Corbin[3] asserts that the imaginal world (mundus imaginalis) is an order of reality all its own. According to him, this order of reality is an intermediary world of image having an ontological foundation that accords with the sensate world and the world of thought and intellect. We believe that human beings are naturally religious; we are homo religiosus, a term used by Hegel, James, Otto, Eliade, Tillich and others.

A fundamental question presents itself immediately. Is religion a function of our relationship to something transcendent or is it simply a psychological aspect of being without reference to anything beyond the psyche? The varieties of questions pertaining to what are religious experiences are shaped by how those questions are answered.

We intend to adopt a fairly narrow set of parameters pertaining to the fundamental operational definition of religion. The psyche is incapable of breaking out if its own subjectivity: when the psyche considers itself, it is simultaneously being experienced and is the subject of experience. The phenomena of religion, like the phenomena of mind, can become the object of scientific exploration. As theologian John Hick (1990) pointed out, religion can be viewed as an attempt to represent and comprehend the emergence of various phenomena that are responses to the experience of the God—the experience of God is available for study, but never God himself. Any attempt to study God, or the numinosum (a quality associated with archetypes that inspires fear, mystery, and awe), directly falls squarely in the domain of metaphysics. It is important to stress that this book is not a theological inquiry, and the study of metaphysics or theology is not its purpose. Furthermore, this book does not provide an exhaustive answer to the question “what is religion?” Instead, it explores various possibilities of how this question may be answered and ultimately hopes to more inquiry.

Jungian psychology’s unique, in-depth perspective has far-reaching implications for the study and practice of religion. Jung’s approach to religion was empirical and phenomenological, though he did not avoid occasional philosophical cogitations or metaphysical speculation. Again and again, he claimed that all the conclusions he arrived at were based on careful observation and documentation of his lived experience, including the observations of the contents produced by the conscious and unconscious mind. He believed any observer could repeat those observations “all the time and everywhere” (Mathison, 2001). He pointed out that the language of the psyche is universal, because the “organs” of the psyche are common to all humanity (Jung, 1990).[4]

 Functions of Religion

This book explores the function of religion from various angles and explores how the religious function of the psyche manifests itself to use Corbett’s (1996) language. It is an investigation from a Jungian perspective of the nature of various psychological phenomena and the dynamics underlying the extreme religious creeds (i.e., fundamentalism) that make their appearance in radical religions. It is an exploration of how archetypes influence the way a person clings to and uses religious creeds and what constitutes radical, excessive, or unhealthy adherence to a system of belief. An even broader, underlying goal of this book is to shed light on the possible causes and phenomenology of strong, radical, and fanatical religious persuasions. To a great extent, it hopes to show how archetypes influence action and cognition also in ways that might not necessarily be religious.

 Religious Extremism is Potentially Dangerous

During the twentieth century the three Abrahamic religions experienced a surge of fundamentalism. The rise of Christian fundamentalism can be traced to the publication of The Fundamentals: A Testimony To The Truth, a set of 90 essays published from 1910 to 1915 by the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. This was followed by the rise of the Christian evangelical right in the United States from 1940 through the 1970s. In the later part of the twentieth century, figures like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson galvanized a renewed vigor to the Christian fundamentalist movement in America.  The rise of Islamic fundamentalism corresponds roughly with the Iranian Revolution (1979).[5] The substantial financial support provided by Saudi Arabia to madrasa’s teaching a fundamentalist doctrine of Islam known as Wahhabism is thought to have played a critical role in the worldwide spread of Islamic fundamentalism.  Modern Jewish fundamentalism began to claim attention with the beginning of the State of Israel, and gained momentum as ultra-orthodox groups increasingly gained power in the Israeli parliament.

Recently, religious fundamentalism sought to combine political and religious goals. The implications of such a conflation of goals provoked concerns in Europe and the Unites States. The past thirty years witnessed the rise of Christian fundamentalism in America under various monikers like Religious Right, the Moral Majority, and the Tea Party movement as well as the rise of many religiously-inspired jihadist movements across Europe and the Middle East. History teaches that when politics and extreme religion combine a potential for mass hysteria come into sight. What drives such movements can be understood to be archetypal energy, or also known as numinous energy. These forces can be curative or poisonous; they can create or destroy. The archetypal, numinous undercurrents that propel fundamentalist movements may become tools for coming to terms with the most important human questions of meaning and value, but they can also become tools of self-deception and can provide the necessary substrata for mass manipulation. It depends on how wisely the archetypal energy is used.

The fact that extreme religious fervor fuels so many of the current political and social developments makes the question of religions’ role in this phenomenon a pressing question. Above C. G. Jung’s door of his home in Küsnacht is an inscription that states VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS DEUS ADERIT, “Called or not called God is present.” We are all called to make a deeply responsible decision regarding how we allow religion to guide our actions or rule them.

I.1 Other topics to consider

Numinosum and the Development of Religion are intertwined

Jung discovered that the sources of religious experience are the powerful, numinous effects produced in the archetypal dimension. Certain aspects of an archetype are religious, and conversely, certain aspects of the religious experience are archetypal. Religion comes about where there is an attempt to come to terms with a primary archetypal experience. That is not to say that encounters with archetypes and their energies always produce faith or belief in supernatural reality or in God, however God may be conceived. What does commonly occur as a result of an encounter with archetypes is a change of consciousness, whether or not it results in a theistic or atheistic stance.

Symbolic and Mythopoetic

The symbolic and mythopoetic dimensions of the psyche provide a structure-forming fabric for development. Psyche comes alive through this symbol-creating function. We benefit from this symbol-making function only to the extent that we become willing to consciously recognize myths and symbols. Failure to acknowledge the symbol-creating function of the unconscious does not annihilate it; the function remains operative. In fact, the symbol-creating function intensifies the more it is overlooked. This can even lead to the development of symptoms that are symbolic of unresolved and conflicted intrapsychic forces.  To a great extent, one’s level of conscious awareness of the symbol-making function, archetypal energies, and collective unconscious forces determines the way one’s religiosity manifests.

The Jungian approach is about seeking, not about certitude

Can we view Jungian theory as a form of natural religion?[6] Yes and no! Jung himself remained mostly agnostic in his professional writings.[7] He left his followers unsure about the specifics of his private faith even though he spoke occasionally about his personal relationship to God. For example, he wrote in 1952:

"I find that all my thoughts circle around God like the planets around the sun, and are as irresistibly attracted by Him. I would feel it to be the grossest sin if I were to oppose any resistance to this force" Jung, MDR, 1963, p. 42).

The conclusions reached in this book do not require faith in any specific doctrine or dogma.  Instead, they are intended to be operationalized psychological principles. The validity of our conclusions rests on empirical evidence. The difference between science and theology mirrors the difference between phenomenon and noumenon, i.e., between the perceived world of our senses and the world beyond the senses. Gravity is real despite the physicists’ inability to confirm the existence of the graviton; likewise, the representations and effects of the Self are real despite its “immaterial” nature. Because the Self belongs to the noumenon, we can speculate about its nature and like Jung, confirm our impressions empirically.

Jungian psychology is foremost a tool for approaching the numinosum in such a way that it provides a fuller, deeper, and healthier response to life—it is also a teaching that promotes spiritual growth. Reading between the lines of Jung’s work reveals a sense of mystery pointing to a higher level of being. As Jung (1940, [CW 11 para. 2]) stated: “…it does not conflict with the principles of scientific empiricism if one occasionally makes certain reflections which go beyond mere accumulation and classification of experience.” Jung was a Kantian at heart; he believed that any conceivable transcendental object has to remain a Ding an sich (German: unknowable as thing-in-itself)—this is true of archetypes, gods, or God. For Jung, the archetypes were real and they were congruent with the Platonic forms (see also Platonic Jung, Chiron 2017). Archetypes possess emergent properties similar to those that appear in nonlinear, dynamical systems described by Complexity Theory,.[8],[9] Jung never attempted to prove or postulate any ethical, transcendent being of a monotheistic or a dualistic nature; instead he spoke about the effect of various forces operating upon the human psyche. In Jung’s teaching, ethics emerges as a result of the relationships between the subjective and objective realms of the psyche, or more specifically between the ego and the Self. Let us follow Jung’s example and refrain from postulating metaphysical, eschatological, or eternal purposes to the experience of religion.

 Psyche is real

Most Jungian scholars and psychoanalysts do not consider the unconscious to simply be a derivative of consciousness; they understand it to be ontologically real and a priori—existing before consciousness. This is Jung’s axiomatic foundation, his sine qua non for psychic life. The unconscious is vastly more than the residue of psychic life that is barred from conscious awareness; it is like a deep, life-sustaining aquifer. This distinguishes Jung from many other psychologists. Religion is more than a psychological phenomenon. Jung recognizes the autonomous and transcendent nature of archetypes, but assigns to human beings moral responsibility for how they to respond to the archetype. Jung’s spirituality returns the gods to the psyche. He says:

But since the development of consciousness requires the withdrawal of all projections we can lay our hands on, it is not possible to maintain any nonpsychological doctrine about the gods. If the historical process of world despiritualization continues as hitherto, then everything of a divine or daemonic character outside us must return to the psyche, to the inside of the unknown man, whence it apparently originated (Jung, 1940, [CW 11, para. 141]).

Jung neither tries to prove nor disprove the existence of God. Making the psyche the object of sincere examination does not go against religion. After all, as Jung wrote in his letter to Pastor Damour (1941), “God has never spoken to man except in and through the psyche.”

If researchers confine themselves to observable psychological processes, no leap of faith is necessary.

Jung recognized that archetypes have the ability to influence, move, and change things within a person and this can produce change in the material world. For Jung, this is one source of evidence that archetypes are real. Wirklichkeit ist, was wirkt. [10] Thus, for Jung, the real is anything that has an ability to cause an effect on something else. Therefore, archetypes must be real. Speaking of religion, Jung (1931, [CW 13, para. 73]) stated: “To understand metaphysically is impossible; it can only be done psychologically. I therefore strip things of their metaphysical wrappings in order to make them objects of psychology” (Jung, Wilhelm, 1970, The Secret of the Golden Flower).

 Individuation is both a psychological and a religious process. The “organic unity” of psychological and religious experiences, described by Dourly (1984), elevates everyday existence in ways that makes the flesh holy and brings the divine close to the human.

Jung recognized a risk of unconscious material overtaking an individual (1940, [CW 11, para. 141]), “Wherever [the] unconscious reigns, there is bondage and possession.” It is imperative that a reciprocal, mutual relationship and dialogue exist between the conscious and unconscious realms. It is the fine and fragile balance of both that protects us from fanatic entrapment on one hand and a feeling of spiritual desertion on the other.

What constitutes unhealthy?

This book should not be viewed as an attempt to pathologize religion. Pathology produces suffering (pathos) and sometimes, excess. Of course, religion can fall prey to pathological influences. When certain forces are not sufficiently contained by religion, the mind can become sick, but religion does not necessarily cause sickness in the mind. Radical religions and creeds are the expressions of inadequate, non-credible, or poorly contained numinous archetypal energy by the ego. This does not say anything about the nature of the energies themselves which are ineffable.  The Jungian perspective does not pathologize or moralize archetypal processes, nor does it reduce them to anything fully knowable. It does provide a means for recognizing that seemingly evil phenomena also possess elements of their opposites that are good and unhealthy psychological elements.

Questions

A host of questions emerge from the inquiry into the archetypal level of religion. Are all “isms” with religious overtones rooted in archetypal possession? Can archetypal experiences be considered in the same time religious? Is the psyche essentially religious, and if it is, can we assume a degree of religiosity is present anytime we deal with the psycho-symbolic process? If not, what specific features distinguishes something as religious? Are archetypal influences always at play when dealing with human passions? And finally, what distinguishes religious fanaticism from other forms of fanaticism? According to Jung, (Jung, 1954d, [CW 9i, para. 129]):

The archetype behind a religious idea has, like every instinctive force, its specific energy, which it does not lose even if the conscious mind ignores it. Just as it can be assumed with the greatest probability that every man possesses all the average human functions and qualities, so we may expect the presence of normal religious factors, the archetypes, and this expectation does not prove fallacious.

In this sense, we don’t really have an option to be religious or irreligious. For all we know, ancient man may have lived in a state of ever-present anxiety about retributive justice from the gods.

It is evident nobody can afford to ignore archetypal energies without expecting consequences. Here we are not talking about the belief in God, but about the conscious awareness of the reach of archetypal power. Either there is a conscious effort to integrate archetypal energies, or the archetypes take the lead, and our possession by the archetypal forces becomes our fate. Jung stressed over and over that the greatest danger to humanity are humans themselves.

Reality

In his Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot (1916) speaks of human nature as that which “cannot bear much reality” (CPP. 172). Religion provides a tool for “framing” reality. It is a force that can hold the world together; without religion the world may appear chaotic, meaningless, and unintelligible.

Religion, like fire is a good servant, but a bad master. Without any religion a person may become lost, but with too much religion a person may become trapped. As Stein (1985) reiterates, regarding spiritual endeavors, humans have to hold the imaginary rod neither too tight nor too loose. Our clinical experiences suggests that people holding strong religious convictions are often prone to magical thinking, selective morality, and denial—none of these are surely to equip a person to solve the great problems facing mankind.

Deed

Religious conviction by itself does not make us good, though good deeds do make a difference. The Bible says: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits” (Matt 7:15-17, English Standard Version). The task of individuation rests in part on the ability to resist the destructive lure of divine archetypal powers that can foster depravity and instead strive to make mundane affairs sacramental through these powers. In this respect, individuation is more than an exercise of the imagination, it is moral quest. Too often archetypal energies are viewed as goals and not the means for fostering spirituality. Such an approach permits the same influences that are capable of freeing a person to also entrap them.

Paradox is a constituent of reality

Jung’s approach does not ask for devoted faith. It opens a way of living in the world that embraces paradox instead of opposing it. The path of individuation is a life lived in the midst doubt and moral conflict. There may be paths with more certainty but they may be more painful. Jung pointed out (Jung, CW 13, 1967, p. 265X) “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” His was not a nihilistic, resigned message; what shines through this observation is a genuine gnosis. Jungian psychology recognizes that phenomena present themselves to the psyche as polarities existing in a dynamic tension. Jung (1951e) believed that when the individual remains unconscious about his or her inner tensions, one aspect of the polarity will inevitably be acted out in the form of fate. We termed this specific fate (i.e., consequence of unconsciousness) theonemesis, a topic we explore at the end of this book.

Theodicy

We come to the problem of evil. Theodicy is defined as the vindication of divine goodness in light of the existence of evil. This theological question penetrates everyday life for those aspiring to live morally.[11] Whether or not the transcendent reality is supremely good, Summum Bonum, and therefore worthy to be worshiped, may not function as a moral imperative for those committed to right action and right being-in-the-world. Philosophical concepts like the Trinity, Sunyata, Brahman, Absolute Spirit, Divine Will, or Omega Point remain rational abstractions unless they have a meaningful connection to action. Jung’s teaching offers a framework for understanding the connection between spirit and matter. The path of individuation involves a sincere and open relationship to symbols radiating out of the Self and fosters a progressive, constructive morality anchored in conscious deeds. The opposite of this process is a regressive movement leading to detachment and the disintegration of wholeness. A central tenet of Jungian psychology proposes that whatever is split off and disconnected from the original unity appears in the form of re-enactment and compulsion that will confront us again and again no matter how big our pitchfork is.[12] Jung stated that compulsion is one of the great mysteries of life. (1955, par. 151) The compulsive urge to seek (desire) is ingrained in living organisms. Whether this involves a plant seeking the sun or a creature seeking to procreate, seeking is a basic principle of evolution. For human beings seeking can become locked in its attachment to one specific object or thought structure. Excessive attachment is likely to drive other, incompatible elements into the unconscious. The ego that becomes disconnected from the original unity is apt to become more vigorous in its compulsions and attachments. We are called to respond to Socrates’ proclamation that the unexamined life is not worth living. (Plato, Apology, 38A)

Jung’s thought was anchored in Platonic forms and ideology. It reflected Enlightenment ideals, and sought to combine Romantic discourse with medieval philosophy and mystical teaching. Though theists and atheists criticized Jung, they both found refuge in the wisdom and the theory he offered.

The main goals of this book are to determine what constitutes a religion from a depth psychological perspective and what can be learned from a depth psychological examination about the domain of radical, excessive, maladaptive, or extreme forms of religious worship and belief.  We begin with a brief outline of the development of religion over the last several centuries with a special emphasis on major features leading to our present crisis. This outline includes a survey of Jung’s prophetic vision (1934) and the foreshadowing of a new dispensation. In this review we will survey the contemporary religious and spiritual landscape, the new emergent forms of spiritual praxis in light of modernism, and the rise of fundamentalism in the new millennium.

The transition to the New Dispensation, Fundamentalism and the Third Millennium Spiritual

No matter what the world thinks about religious experience, the one who has it possesses a great treasure, a thing that has become for him a source of life, meaning, and beauty, and that has given a new splendor to the world and to mankind.

C. G. Jung, Psychology and Religion, (1940, [CW 11, para. 167])

Divinity is an Underground river that no one can stop and no one can dam up.”

(Meister Eckhart[13])

We are witnessing a radical change in religious life and culture throughout the modern and post-modern world, particularly among the three monotheistic Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Various figures have approached these changes differently. Goethe dramatized it. Nietzsche distilled its essence with Zarathustra’s utterance, “God is dead.” While Freud characterized religion as an illusion. The God Image of earlier dispensations—most particularly the narration of the divine as existing out there, distant, external to human beings, one-sidedly patriarchal, and mediated through traditional religious hierarchy is changing as Western religious consciousness evolves. As mainline traditional Christianity loses its foothold in the world, depth psychology[14] has been extending its provenience in the realm of religion and soul.

Religion plays a vital and indispensable role in our personal lives, in our communities, and in the larger political world we inhabit. We are witnessing the reengagement of the U.S. military in Syria and Iraq as it attempts to counter the extreme fundamentalist group ISIS. Uncontained and unrecognized religious impulses are undergoing major transformations that defy neat categorizations. Contrary to what several modern and postmodern scholars predicted regarding religion’s demise (e.g., Nietzsche, Freud, Weber, Durkheim, Dawkins, Karl Marx, etc.), religion is not in danger of extinction.

The task of the postmodern world

Since the 18th century, science has challenged religion and claimed a pre-eminent position as arbiter of truth. As these challenges to conventional religion become conscious, we may anticipate a reduction in reckless and violent acting-out. This may be an answer to the fundamentalist’s response to modernity that has lost touch with the sacred. The task, in the postmodern world, is to find the path between the Scylla of withdrawing all projections (returning the gods to their source) and Charybdis that involves the ego being overwhelmed by numinous energy (Nietzsche’s Ubermenschen). The challenge involves the inherent need to examine and then retrieve one’s projections (gods, demons, etc.) restoring them to their source in the inner recesses of one’s own psyche.

As people lose their raison d’etre through a loss of faith in traditional religion, they often transfer their needs to culturally relevant phenomena like material success, status symbols, power, and other outer achievements. However, these cultural objects no longer satisfy as they once did, nor can they provide meaning nor will they supply an individual’s deed for an individual’s deeper desires. Jung, among other scholars, like Derrida and Foucault, recognized that we are living in a period that has lost its way, its orienting myth.

There is a deep unrest and thirst for experiences of the sacred that institutional and traditional religions may no longer provide. There is an exodus from mainline Protestant denominations and increasing numbers of Catholics are becoming more indifferent to the notion that Catholicism is the only path to salvation.[15] Meanwhile, those who claim no particular faith identity are increasing their numbers at such an alarming pace that worldwide “unbelief” now represents the “world’s third largest religion.”[16] Collective religious symbols and forms like cathedrals, spires, churches, rituals, liturgies, the book of hours, and sacraments no longer serve the religious function of the psyche (soul) for many people today. These religious images and forms of spirituality no longer lead one to, or remind one of the living spirits.

Ironically, institutional religion appears to be losing its influence in American culture[17] while spirituality is on the ascendancy in many sectors. Spirituality has become highly marketable as attested to by publishers, bookstores, public speakers, and celebrities. It has even gained credibility as an independent research discipline in academia.[18] These broad cultural shifts and movements, from institutional membership to individual seekers and from believers to spiritual nonbelievers, are indicative of the changing landscape of our religious imagination. It reflects the loss of meaning in our traditional institutional religions and the heralding of new spiritual forms and practices. Indeed, the Western world is undergoing an evolutionary mythic transition to a new dispensation—a time of uncertainty, liminality, and anxiety.

 Spiritual but not religious

In the West we are witnessing different responses to this situation. There is a simultaneous rise of fundamentalism on one hand and a rise of what researchers have termed the “spiritual but not religious” attitude on the other (S.B.N.R.s; Bender, 2010; Mercadante, 2014; Heelas and Woodhead, 2005.).[19] According to the most recent Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life survey, (PEW, 2014) there appears to be a dramatic rise of those claiming to be “spiritual” but “not religious.” The “spiritual but not religious” (S.B.N.Rs) comprise a unique population that seek spiritual alternatives by looking to develop their own spirituality apart from traditional religious structures and institutions.[20] This term is relatively new but is popular in the United States, where one study reports that as many as 33% of people identify as spiritual but not religious.[21] According to Robert Wuthnow, we have become a nation of “seekers” of the esoteric rather than “dwellers” in traditional religious structures.[22]

 Spirituality and its commercialization

Critics have denounced the commercialization and marketing of spirituality. For example, the shadow side of one of the most popular and newest religious movements, “The McMindfulness Craze,”[23] has been heavily criticized for its image and commercialized packaging. Mindfulness is presented as a panacea with miraculous efficacy. From changing one’s brain to alleviating all stress to promising enlightenment, advocates of mindfulness has promised quick cures. Though mindfulness and meditation can have tremendous transformative effects, their limitations are often overlooked. Most particularly, as we have noted in our clinical practices and documented by authors Rubin, Kornfield, Brown and Wilber, are the ongoing issues that depth psychology addresses that are entirely left untouched by meditation (e.g., early childhood wounds, unconscious conflicts and fears, difficulties with intimacy and what is most important to our present work is the fact that “meditation neglects meaning.” One might ask: Did Osama Bin Laden meditate?

Nonetheless, researchers are also clarifying some of the misconceptions of this burgeoning (S.B.N.R.) phenomenon. For example, Courtney Bender, a professor of religion at Columbia, went into the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she studied the S.B.N.R. folks in their own environment and discovered that they were not solitary seekers at all, but involved in an assortment of diverse groups.[24] This fact alone conflicts with the stereotype of S.B.N.R.’s as anti-institutional loners. The S.B.N.R. phenomenon and its many “forms of spirituality” appear to be, from a Jungian perspective, a movement toward direct and immediate experience that are not mediated through institutional religion or its priests with the forces and energies of the numinous unconscious. For it is precisely this energetic (spiritual) dimension that traditional institutional churches and fundamentalism have cut themselves off from— the source of numinous life-sustaining and renewing energy.

In the consulting room when inquiring about a patient’s religious affiliations, often the response is “I’m spiritual but not religious.” At that moment, one is likely to hear that traditional religion is viewed as authoritarian and limiting, while spirituality is viewed as personal and liberating. Is this response simply an expression of the patient’s deep interest in the spiritual or does it reflect the patient’s alienation from traditional institutional religion? Is it a justification? Is it a narcissistic preoccupation? Is there such a thing as a generic, commoditized spirituality: McSpirituality? To be spiritual but not religious may be symptomatic of what is happening in our culturally to religious life.

The nature of this shift is complex and it is directly related to the fact that religious symbols have lost their capacity to contain and mediate access to the numinous and to the unconscious. Furthermore, Jungian theory and scholarship can make a major contribution in understanding and responding to these newly emerging religious phenomena of and the S.B.N.R.

The best-selling author and former Catholic Monk Thomas Moore offers guidance for developing a “custom spirituality” or “a religion of one’s own” in A Religion of One’s Own.[25] He writes:

“Every day I add another piece to the religion that is my own. It’s built on years of meditation, chanting, theological study and the practice of therapy – to me a sacred activity.”[26]

Fundamentalism is one maladaptive and aberrant response to these cultural changes. It is an attempt to keep alive the spirit of the previous dispensation by returning to a literal rendition of faith traditions. While fundamentalism clings to a literal interpretation to avoid the anxiety of change and the unknown, the S.B.N.R. tend toward the other extreme by avoiding any trappings of traditional institutional religions in order to assert the greatest personal freedom in determining their spirituality. The S.B.N.R. tend to easily cross over and freely borrow fascinating (numinous) religious practices or objects that resonate with their own personal spiritual sensibilities.

Fundamentalism across all disciplines

According to Anthony Gibbons, director the London School of Economics, fundamentalism poses one of the greatest threats to individual liberty and freedom:

The rise of fundamentalism of all kinds. Contrary to the received wisdom of the moment, I believe we should oppose all forms of moral absolutism. The simplest way to define fundamentalism is as a refusal of dialogue – the assertion that only one way of life is authentic or valid. Dialogue is the very condition of a successful pluralistic order.[27]

William Lafleur, professor of religion, reiterates this idea.

Much of what we recognize as “fundamentalism” in any religious tradition is, at least in its hermeneutic posture, a wholesale rejection of all modern critical approaches and a professed return to a given scripture as authoritative in this sense. It tries to be premodern.[28] (Lafleur, 1998 pp. 75-89).

The religious experience is being dichotomized throughout the world such that a tension arises between fundamentalism and personally meaningful spiritual paths. In After God, Mark Taylor, a contemporary philosopher, states “You cannot understand the world today if you do not understand religion. Never before has religion been so powerful and so dangerous.” He attempts to redefine religion through a theology of culture and his work resonates with Jungian psychology’s understanding of the dynamics of the (religious) psyche.

Despite widespread rejection of religion we are left asking, “What makes religion so powerful and dangerous today?”

Beginning with the age of the Enlightenment and continuing through the age of Modernism, many scholars have characterized religion as a product of infantile projections, superstition, and archaic beliefs. The slogan has been “God is dead!” However, even Nietzche’s madman in The science of joy foresees a dialectical coincidentia oppositorum when he first declares that he seeks God only to later pronounce God is dead. Nietzsche’s Übermensch become a sort of archetype that calls to both the fundamentalist and the S.B.N.R. types. In the breakdown of traditional religious structures and beliefs—in its liminal transformative realm—the religious impulse becomes either creative or dangerous. To paraphrase the American humorist Mark Twain, The news of God’s death has been greatly exaggerated. In many quarters religion flourishes and it still exerts deep and profound effect on our culture. Taylor points out that scholars’ undue focus on the microanalysis of religion overlooked the foundational questions like “What religion is?” and therefore miss religion’s ubiquitous nature and its pervasive cultural influence. [29]  For example, Mark Taylor cites the 1966 Easter cover story of Time magazine, asking the question: “Is God Dead?”—citing philosophers, theologians and historians.

For many, that time has arrived, nearly one of every two men on earth lives in thralldom to a brand of totalitarianism that condemns religion as the opiate of the masses – which has stirred some to heroic defense of their faith but has also driven millions from any sense of God’s existence. Millions more, in Africa, Asia, and South America, seem destined to be born without any expectation of being summoned to the knowledge of the one God.

Ironically, not more than a decade later, Taylor cites Newsweek’s article declaring “‘the most significant – and overlooked – religious phenomenon of the ’70s was ‘the emergence of evangelical Christianity into a position of respect and power.’ Today evangelicalism is alive and well in this country, and Pentecostal Protestantism is the fastest-growing religion in Africa, Asia, and South America.”[30] Hence, Taylor asks the poignant questions, “Why did this apparent reversal occur in such a short span of time?” The 1960s heralded the death of God, but it eventually gave birth to the Moral Majority and New Religious Right. Both academics and non-academics suffer with a narrow, limited perception and understanding of the influence, dynamics, and workings of religion. At the same time as the number of individuals who identify with the decline of religion increases, a space is left into which fundamentalism enters and thrives. We concur with Taylor’s analysis.

Religion as native to human life

Similar to Jung, Taylor sees religion as being innate to human life. Without understanding the nature, origin, and ground of religion, both lay and scholarly religious writers can easily become preoccupied with their own idiosyncratic ideas, whether consciously or unconsciously. These idiosyncrasies may emphasize myriad aspects of religion such as: inerrancy of scriptures, doctrine, belief, dogma, etc., thereby failing to recognize the universality of religion (the larger picture) and its pervasive presence in culture. Because it is so easy to lose sight of the forces that create, develop, and shape the contemporary religious, Taylor offers the following foundational definition of religion:

Religion is an emergent, complex, adaptive network of myths, symbols, rituals and concepts that simultaneously figure patterns of feeling, thinking, and acting and disrupt stable structures of meaning and purpose. When understood in that way, religion not only involves ideas and practices that are manifestly religious but also include a broad range of cultural phenomenon not ordinarily associated with religion.[31]

Taylor devotes himself to establishing religion as native to human life; that is, the divine is the “groundless ground” of both religion and culture. In a similar manner, Jung discovered the native religious function of the psyche and began to conceptualize how that dynamic is played out, not only in history, but in the lives of individuals and culture. For Taylor the “Groundless ground” allows one to view the inherent dialectical relationship in religion as both a stabilizing and destabilizing force in culture and in one’s personal life. Taylor arrives at this position by understanding religion as uniting the opposites of transcendence and immanence; thus religion is a dialectical relationship of “immanent transcendence.”[32] The immanent nature of religion provides a stabilizing force by furnishing a sacred ground for human existence. Religious expression rests on immanent concretization that transcends its immediate incarnation. It is this very interplay of religion’s immanent nature that leads to transcendence that makes immediate, concrete manifestations. Therefore, religion stabilizes when it gives the numinous concrete form and destabilizes by providing the means to transcend that form. The present concrete form that the sacred takes on will also prove to be destabilizing since it ultimately cannot fully satisfy the religious impulse and leads to transcendence. In its dialectical nature and tension, even the present concretization of the sacred (e.g., sacramental and iconoclastic) are also the destabilizing forces. This is similar to Jung’s view of the evolution of archetypal consciousness, both personal and collective. As Jung writes, unconscious fantasy is a cauldron: “Formation, transformation, Eternal Mind’s eternal recreation. . .”[33] Jung’s archetypal unconscious forever transcends its incarnations, thus denying any historical and particular incarnation’s ultimate supremacy.

Taylor’s definition and appreciation of religion as an emergent, creative, relational, and encompassing force allows him to appreciate the deconstructive chaotic aspects of religion. This permits him to enter fully into the postmodern conversation. Unlike fundamentalists who are timid or afraid of the implications of postmodernism, Taylor’s embrace of the dialectical nature of religion proves to be well suited to contemporary society. In fact, the destabilizing nature of contemporary religion brings about a new stabilizing incarnation. The traditional structures and forms of religion deteriorate when the renewing energies of the religious imagination are being extinguished by oppressive attitudes toward the unconscious. For both Taylor and Jung, this provides an opportunity for religious and cultural transformation. We are on the cusp of an epochal change, what Jungian scholar Edward Edinger has termed a “new dispensation.”[34]

 

Find full book here: Dark Religion

Vlado Šolc and George J. Didier, October, 10, 2017, Whitefish Bay, WI and Rockford, IL.

[1]                  D. Bruce Dickson, The Dawn of Belief: Religion in the Upper Paleolithic of Southwestern Europe (1990)

[2]                  When we use the term “man” we use it in the sense Jung and others used, i.e., human being. (For example: Man and His Symbols)

[3]                  Henry Corbin, (1972) “Mundus Imaginalis: or The Imaginary and the Imaginal”, Spring.

[4]                  Jung, C.G. (1990). The archetypes of the collective unconscious. Hull, R. F. C. (Trans.). Bollingen Series XX. The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, 9 i. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. First published in 1959.

[5]                  “Indeed the Islamic revolution in Iran was perhaps the most important factor in the rise of contemporary Islamic fundamentalism.” (Martin E. Marty, R. Scott Appleby, Religion, ethnicity, and self-identity: nations in turmoil; University Press of New England, 1997, p. 40).

[6]                  Natural religion is naturally and universally human; it can be defended and identified through the use of reason as opposed to revelation; it is not in conflict with natural laws. Its object is a part of nature, not “above” it. Natural religion does not exclude a “Supreme Being” that commands and inspires humans towards piety and good conduct (Tyler, 2009, p. 97).

[7]           ". . . The idea of God is an absolutely necessary psychological function of an irrational nature, which has nothing whatever to do with the question of God's existence. The human intellect can never answer this question, still less give any proof of God. Moreover such proof is superfluous, for the idea of an all-powerful divine Being is present everywhere, unconsciously if not consciously, because it is an archetype. There is in the psyche some superior power, and if it is not consciously a god, it is the "belly" at least, in St. Paul's words. I therefore consider it wiser to acknowledge the idea of God consciously; for, if we do not, something else is made God, usually something quite inappropriate and stupid such as only an "enlightened" intellect could hatch forth. Our intellect has long known that we can form no proper idea of God, much less picture to ourselves in what manner he really exists, if at all. The existence of God is once and for all an unanswerable question." Carl Jung, CW 7, par.110

[8]                  See: Cambray, J., Carter, L., Analytical Psychology, Contemporary Perspectives in Jungian Analysis, Chap. Archetypes: Emergence and psyche’s Deep Structure, Hogenson, G., p. 32-82, Routledge, London and NY, 2004.

[9]           See Cruz, Leonard. “Fellowship of the Word: On Complexes, Chaos, and Attractors.” The Unconscious Roots of Creativity, Chiron Publications, 2016.

[10]                German: The real is what works.

[11]                We are using here the term “morality” in accordance with teaching of Immanuel Kant as used in the theory of C. G. Jung. The term morality is used here not as moral conventions, but as a conscious decision to act responsibly with respect to knowledge and conscience. Kant says: “An action from duty has its moral worth not in the aim that is supposed to be attained by it, but rather in the maxim in accordance with which it is resolved upon; thus that worth depends not on the actuality of the object of the action, but merely on the principle of the volition, in accordance with which the action is done, without regard to any object of the faculty of desire. It is clear from the preceding that the aims we may have in actions, and their effects, as ends and incentives of the will, can impart to the actions no unconditioned and moral worth. In what, then, can this worth lie, if it is not supposed to exist in the will, in the relation of the actions to the effect hoped for? It can lie nowhere else than in the principle of the will, without regard to the ends that can be effected through such action; for the will is at a crossroads, as it were, between its principle a priori, which is formal, and its incentive a posteriori, which is material, and since it must somehow be determined by something, it must be determined through the formal principle in general of the volition if it does an action from duty, since every material principle has been withdrawn from it.” Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Edited by Allen W. Wood, Yale University Press, p.15.

[12]                Horace said: “Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.” You can drive nature out with a pitchfork, but she always comes back. (About 20 B.C.)

[13]                Quoted from One River, Many Wells, Fox, p. 5, (2000).

[14]                The term, depth psychology, from the German Tiefenpsychologie, was first coined by psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler and later used by Freud (1914) to refer to the practice and research of the science of the unconscious, both psychoanalysis and analytical psychology. This approach to consciousness recognizes that the psyche is a complex process involving levels that are partly conscious, partly unconscious, and still other parts that remain completely unconscious.

[15]                See: National Catholic Reporter 36, October, 1999, pp.11-20.

[16]                See; Belief without Borders, Mercadante, L. 2014.

[17]                Mercadante, L. Belief without Borders, 2014.

[18]                See: APA Handbook of Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality.

[19]                See The New Metaphysicals: Spirituality and the American Religious Imagination, Bender, 2010; Mercadante, Belief without Borders, 2014.

[20]                See Mercadante, L. Belief without Borders, Oxford University Press, 2014. (pp. 50-67)

[21]                See “American Spiritual Searches Turn Inward,” Gallup.com Retrieved 2014-10-10

[22]                Robert Wuthnow, After Heaven: Spirituality in America since 1950s (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998).

[23]                For example see Jeffrey Rubin’s article, The McMindfulness Craze: The Shadow Side of the Mindfulness Revolution, http://www.truthout.org.

[24]                Bender, C. The New Metaphysicals: Spirituality and the American Religious Imagination, Chicago, 2010.

[25]                More, 2014 A Religion of One’s Own. New York: Gotham Books.

[26]                Ibid., p. 26

[27]                Giddens, 1997 p. 82

[28]                Lafleur, 1998 pp. 75-89.

[29]                Taylor, Mark, After God, 2007. p. 11

[30]                Taylor, Mark, After God, p. 1. 2007

[31]                Mark C. Taylor, After God, 2007 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

[32]                Ibid., 41.

[33]                Jung, CW 5, para. 400.

[34]                See Edinger, 1981