I am interested in how Jung's understanding contributes to the philosophy of religion and I am asking to what extent his approach is useful for analysis? — Jack Cummins

Jung doesn't really give us much to go on except speculative interpretations. Jung was essentially a mystic (a description he rejected) who coveted the ineffable and the symbolic and filled the void with his own take on Gnosticism. Despite this he thought of himself as an empiricist uncovering spiritual and religious facts - a kind of syncretism where all roads led back to Jung himself.

Fundamental to Jung's project was a preference for mystery and incomprehension over reason. I personally find his work almost entirely without use but I know many people find idea of the collective unconscious beguiling. Jordan B Peterson has certainly done a lot to revive interest in this and in Jung more generally. Curiously Peterson talks about God in similar, indirect ways to Jung. If he could get away with saying, 'I don't need to believe, I know' I'm pretty sure he would.

Jung was not the avuncular, sweet old fellow of so much popular imagination. He could also be pretty strident and probably would have hated the New Age cult of Obi Wan Jung that emerged from the 1970's.

It is common for very infantile people to have a mystical, religious feeling, they enjoy this atmosphere in which they can admire their beautiful feelings, but they are simply indulging their auto-eroticism. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 11Jan1935.

In other words, he was not actually claiming that God exists. He was aware of a force which he felt able to call God but he was unable to say whether this force represented the reality of God beyond his own consciousness. — Jack Cummins

I think this may be looking at it through the wrong end of the telescope. What Jung is rejecting is the function of a Credo where one says something like: "I believe God exists." The problem with it is that the ground of self awareness that such a proposition requires is under investigation.

In his book, On The Nature Of the Psyche, the boundary of what is "his own consciousness" is what is part of the unknown. Consciousness and Unconsciousness play a part in each others processes simultaneously as well as relate to each other as potentials that may or may not happen to connect experiences across stretches of time. The role of archetypes is presented in the context of instincts developed by all animals that emerges through their evolutionary development. To wit:

Although the existence of an instinctual pattern in human biology is probable, it seems very difficult to prove the existence of distinct types empirically. For the organ with which we might apprehend them - consciousness - is not only itself a transformation of the original instinctual image, but also is its transformer. It is therefore not surprising that human mind finds itself it impossible to specify precise types for man similar to those we know in the animal kingdom. I must confess that I can see no direct way to solve this problem. And yet I have succeeded, or so I believe, in finding at least an indirect way of approach to the instinctual image. — Translated by R.F.C. Hull. paragraph 399

This paragraph is followed by a long discussion of how he developed his view through his experience as a clinical doctor and is at least one of the ways he has to be heard as saying "he knows something about the unknown."

From this point of view, I suggest that Victor White doesn't understand the role of the images in Jung's project but does realize that it somehow challenges his understanding of the "image" of God.

I have found Jung's ideas particularly helpful, since I first discovered him at school. However, I am aware that he remains on the fringe, and is probably not taken seriously within psychiatry and probably not within philosophy.

Strangely, I did work with a consultant psychiatrist who took the idea of the collective unconscious seriously. When I mentioned Jung to some of the junior psychiatrists some of them had not even heard of him. I would imagine that is because they come from a medical and sciences background. Even on my mental health nurse training course, his name was not mentioned at all, and Freud's ideas were only mentioned in a very basic way. It does seem that Jung's ideas are given more credibility in the arts.

My main interest in Jung has been for understanding religious and the symbolic dimensions of experience. I found his writing to be a way of being able to overcome the tensions between literal interpretation of religious experience and scientific understanding. I do believe that others are able to do so, and there is a big section on him in the esoteric bookshops I go to in London. Also, it does seem that new books are being written on him continuously.

Yet, I am aware that Jung's particular point of view is probably not seen as important within philosophy circles. I see his understanding of God as a way of overcoming the clear distinction as to whether God exists or not. I don't think Jung's view is identical to an agnostic position because he is not simply saying I don't know. He is saying that we know of the experience of God, but he just gives flexibility as to what that signifies in an absolute sense.

From my reading of Jung, there seems to be a fair amount of ambiguity ranging from that which could be seen as supportive of traditional religious experience and that which is more in line with science. It is hard to disentangle it all because of the sheer amount which he wrote, including the many volumes of the Collected Works, and many other writings.

One writer who seemed to interpret his writings more in line with evolutionary biology, and instincts is Anthony Samuels. I was impressed by that interpretation but I do not think that the ideas of Victor White can be dismissed because White had lengthy correspondence with Jung, which resulted in Victor White's book, 'God and the Unconscious.'

From my reading of Jung, there seems to be a fair amount of ambiguity ranging from that which could be seen as supportive of traditional religious experience and that which is more in line with science. — Jack Cummins

In the passages I was referring to, I read him to be saying that the ambiguity encountered is not a disavowal of instinct in relation to the interactions between the conscious and unconscious as fundamental elements of the Psyche. The line between science and expressions of traditional religious experience is precisely what is being challenged as sources of information about what Jung is always approaching as a matter of phenomena. Is the use of such information a reduction or negation of experience outside of the context of the project? That is a charge that is often leveled against Jung but I don't recall any text where he claimed it to be the case.

To that point, I take issue with your opening statement: "Jung sought to establish a connection between the inner psychic processes of human beings and the idea of God" I don't dismiss either your approach or the challenge Victor White may have confronted Jung with but would like to see them as taking exception with what Jung says in his own words.

As you say, there are so many of them to choose from.

You specify that you 'take issue' with my opening statement about establishing a connection between inner psychic processes and the idea of God, but you have not told me why.

The why is what I meant when I said:

What Jung is rejecting is the function of a Credo where one says something like: "I believe God exists." The problem with it is that the ground of self awareness that such a proposition requires is under investigation.

Framing it as an "idea of God" puts words in Jung's mouth.

I think that it becomes clearer that it becomes clearer that Jung developed his views into an idea or ideas about God is in his book ' Answer to Job' .In this, he explores the development of the God-image from the Old Testament image of Jahweh, and the New Testament figure of God, in Christ. I am sure that many Christians may see this as a reductive analysis. It seems ambiguous to me, because he believes in the reality of the psyche. When I read, 'Answer to Job,' it appears to raise the possibility that God is evolving through human consciousness. It does seem that he doesn't spell out the implications exactly, but leaves that to the readers' own interpretations.

I have been thinking through what I wrote to you an hour ago and wonder if I am stretching Jung's idea too far in suggesting that it could be that God is actually evolving through human consciousness. My actual basis for suggesting that Jung could be interpreted in that way was because I remember when I was reading from his Collected Works that he was interested in the ideas of Bergson on 'creative evolution.' However, I was trying to make the parallel, but there is no reason to say that Jung made this parallel himself.

I am thinking that if one wishes to read Jung's understanding of the development of the ideas of God in line with a Christian perspective, he is seeing the difference from the God-image from the Old Testament to that in the New Testament, it would not mean that God is changing. That is consistent with his emphasis on the inner realisation of God, as the God-image. So, as far as I can see, Jung's understanding of God could be seen as reductive, or in line with one's choice to fit with the possibility of a belief in God, if one chose to. He simply doesn't go as far as to say that the image of God points to the existence of God. That is where he limits his perspective to a psychological level.

I am thinking that if one wishes to read Jung's understanding of the development of the ideas of God in line with a Christian perspective, he is seeing the difference from the God-image from the Old Testament to that in the New Testament, it would not mean that God is changing. That is consistent with his emphasis on the inner realisation of God, as the God-image. So, as far as I can see, Jung's understanding of God could be seen as reductive, or in line with one's choice to fit with the possibility of a belief in God, if one chose to. He simply doesn't go as far as to say that the image of God points to the existence of God. That is where he limits his perspective to a psychological level. — Jack Cummins

I think you are right that he limits his perspective to a psychological level. Establishing what that boundary entails involves considering that Jung has different sorts of models that are used for different kinds of questions. Addressing whether "the image of God points to the existence of God." requires seeing how Jung doesn't turn all his models into a model that rules them all. To consider this, let's start with the Lectori Benevolo that precedes Answer to Job.

555 The fact that religious statements frequently conflict with the observed physical phenomena proves that in contrast to physical perception the spirit is autonomous, and that psychic experience is to a certain extent independent of physical data. The psyche is an autonomous factor, and religious statements are psychic confessions which in the last resort are based on unconscious, i.e., on transcendental, processes. These processes are not accessible to physical perception but demonstrate their existence through the confessions of the psyche. The resultant statements are filtered through the medium of human consciousness: that is to say, they are given visible forms which in their turn are subject to manifold influences from within and without. That is why whenever we speak of religious contents we move in a world of images that point to something ineffable. We do not know how clear or unclear these images, metaphors, and concepts are in respect of their transcendental object. If, for instance, we say “God,” we give expression to an image or verbal concept which has undergone many changes in the course of time. We are, however, unable to say with any degree of certainty—unless it be by faith—whether these changes affect only the images and concepts, or the Unspeakable itself. After all, we can imagine God as an eternally flowing current of vital energy that endlessly changes shape just as easily as we can imagine him as an eternally unmoved, unchangeable essence. Our reason is sure only of one thing: that it manipulates images and ideas which are dependent on human imagination and its temporal and local conditions, and which have therefore changed innumerable times in the course of their long history. There is no doubt that there is something behind these images that transcends consciousness and operates in such a way that the statements do not vary limitlessly and chaotically, but clearly all relate to a few basic principles or archetypes. These, like the psyche itself, or like matter, are unknowable as such. All we can do is to construct models of them which we know to be inadequate, a fact which is confirmed again and again by religious statements.

Jung, C. G.. Answer to Job: 11 (Jung Extracts) . Princeton University Press.

According to the above explanation, the question of the "changeable potential" of God is a part of the possibility of many different conceptions. The only "existential" claim being made here is saying: "There is no doubt that there is something behind these images that transcends consciousness and operates in such a way that the statements do not vary limitlessly and chaotically, but clearly all relate to a few basic principles or archetypes."The lack of doubt" does not concern the outcome of how the images may be understood one way or another. The domain of the psychological is marked out by the conditions the images are understood to be happening within.

To look at it that way returns us to the models where the difference described in The Nature of the Psyche between "conscious" and "unconscious" are not based upon having a clear view of what is personal or not. You would need a story for that. In looking at the instincts, it can't be a matter of reduction because of the observation:

" For the organ with which we might apprehend them - consciousness - is not only itself a transformation of the original instinctual image, but also is its transformer."

The "lack of doubt" seems to start with this as the point of departure.

Yet, I am aware that Jung's particular point of view is probably not seen as important within philosophy circles. — Jack Cummins

I'm not sure it matters much who venerates him. The question is: Are Jung's ideas more than one man's subjective experiment? The fact that some people get things from Jung does not shift his status. The fact that Jung is seen as a scientist who flirted with occult and religious matters makes him very attractive to a certain cohort. I guess I am wondering if I am being unfair to his ideas.

I'd be interested Jack, and if you are willing, what it is you think you have gained from Jung? Is there a specific insight you can point to? Just in a sentence or two.

For the record I don't think Jung believed in God - not as we would describe belief in standard terms. I knew a man who worked closely with Jung for many years. He said that Jung thought God was a necessary idea that provided the compass points to human behaviour and had to be believed in as a functional necessity.

I seem to remember that Jung greatly disliked Nietzsche (perhaps because Freud venerated N as a great psychologist) but he may have taken a similar view of God as that dramatised in The Gay Science. If secularism has killed God, look out! All of human history has been built on this idea (archetype) and with it suddenly gone we are missing our compass points and may be truly lost. Hence Hitler, Stalin, Mao and... pop art. (sorry that last was a poor joke).

I think again this is Jordan B Peterson's crusade. The archetypes are not necessarily 'true' and God is not a real entity. But the divine is built in or hard wired into human experience over time and therefore may as well be real. Like the hunting instinct, it is simply there.

Which leads many to Dostoyevsky's little gem - without God anything is permissible. If we remove God, we lose ourselves. I have always felt this was the wrong interpretation. In truth it is with God that anything is permissible - suicide bombers, holy wars, terror, throwing acid in the face of a young girl for daring to learn to read. But that's another story.

I'm not sure it matters much who venerates him. The question is: Are Jung's ideas more than one man's subjective experiment? The fact that people get things from Jung does not shift his status. Plenty of dodgy ideas have devotees. The fact that Jung is seen as a scientist who flirted with occult and religious matters makes him a kind of hero amongst the Theosophy set. The fact he wrote about symbolism and dreams and archetypes makes him attractive to a very broad cohort. — Tom Storm

I don't understand how the "status" you report relates to comprehending what was proposed by Jung. You have dismissed him as a kook and are asking someone to talk you out of that conclusion. If it is so unimportant, why bother challenging others about it?

You have dismissed him as a kook and are asking someone to talk you out of that conclusion — Valentinus

You make this sound like a bad thing...

I have dismissed him for me - I am genuinely interested in what others get from him as I am with many ideas. I am also, unlike some, open to changing my mind. I actually enjoy hearing that I should have considered X or Y. I also think the notion fo God not existing but being a 'necessary' construct in some way (for want of better wording) is interesting and wonder if others read Jung in this way.

I have edited my earlier post to tone it down. Thanks for the feedback.

:up:

As far as Jung goes, both the philosophical symbolism of Ernst Cassirer / Susanne Langer and theological noncognitivism of Don Cupitt (or Paul Tillich) are far less nonsensical and traffic in far less woo-woo than stuff like "archetypes" & "collective unconsciousness". What Jung "understands" ... has always been unintelligible to me. (vide Feuerbach)

Hi, all. I read a decent chunk of Jung in my 20s, having first checked out Freud, and as a somewhat newly confirmed atheist who didn't like woo-woo but still found good stuff in Jung. I wasn't sure how his work would seem to me now, years later, so I checked out an online text and found this quote:

Just as primitive man was able, with the aid of religious and philosophical symbol, to free himself from his original state, so, too, the neurotic can shake off his illness in a similar way. It is hardly necessary for me to say, that I do not mean by this, that the belief in a religious or philosophical dogma should be thrust upon the patient; I mean simply that he has to reassume that psychological attitude which, in an earlier civilisation, was characterised by the living belief in a religious or philosophical dogma. But the religious-philosophical attitude does not necessarily correspond to the belief in a dogma. A dogma is a transitory intellectual formulation; it is the result of the religious-philosophical attitude, and is dependent upon time and circumstances. This attitude is itself an achievement of civilization; it is a function that is exceedingly valuable from a biological point of view, for it gives rise to the incentives that force human beings to do creative work for the benefit of a future age, and, if necessary, to sacrifice themselves for the welfare of the species.

Thus the human being attains the same sense of unity and totality, the same confidence, the same capacity for self-sacrifice in his conscious existence that belongs unconsciously and instinctively to wild animals. Every reduction, every digression from the course that has been laid down for the development of civilisation does nothing more than turn the human being into a crippled animal; it never makes a so-called natural man of him. My numerous successes and failures in the course of my analytic practice have convinced me of the invariable correctness of this psychological orientation. We do not help the neurotic patient by freeing him from the demand made by civilisation; we can only help him[225] by inducing him to take an active part in the strenuous task of carrying on the development of civilisation. The suffering which he undergoes in performing this duty takes the place of his neurosis. But, whereas the neurosis and the complaints that accompany it are never followed by the delicious feeling of good work well done, of duty fearlessly performed, the suffering that comes from useful work, and from victory over real difficulties, brings with it those moments of peace and satisfaction which give the human being the priceless feeling that he has really lived his life. — Jung

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48225/48225-h/48225-h.htm

You can find this kind of talk in Freud too. I like such passages for offering a glimpse into the big-picture stance of a thinker on existence and society. I added emphasis to some words that stuck out for me. That 'religious-philosophical' attitude is IMO related somehow to getting over our default infantile egoism ('negative narcissism',etc.) I think Jung is correct in looking behind dogma (mere surface phenomena) to something vaguer but more alive.

We do not help the neurotic patient by freeing him from the demand made by civilisation; we can only help him[225] by inducing him to take an active part in the strenuous task of carrying on the development of civilisation. — Jung

Nice quote. Or as Jordan Peterson might frame it - 'first clean up your room.'

Nice quote. Or as Jordan Peterson might frame it - 'first clean up your room.' — Tom Storm

Yes, that would be something like the very first step. I also recall J P talking about a craving for responsibility in alienated young men, which seems even more to the point. The 'attitude' that Jung mentions seems flexibly vague and hints perhaps at connection with something bigger than one's boring little self (called 'God' or 'the right side of history' or 'scientific progress' or ...)

I've spent many years managing and delivering services for people experiencing addiction and mental ill health, along with complex trauma and a host of other challenges and what often seems to shift a person's trajectory is when they stop talking about their problems and start doing something meaningful. Often in helping animals or other people (for instance) they start to find a new, happier and more resilient version of themselves. The journey may be slow and painful and it is difficult to describe this process without sounding reductive.

That sounds like a tough but meaningful job. I have some personal experience with addiction and mental illness (a troubled in-law, who didn't make it.) I like the phrase 'stop talking about their problems and start doing something meaningful.' And I suppose they have to feel its meaning, whatever it is. I also get the caution about sounding reductive. It's too easy to talk about people as if they were lab rats or puzzles.

And I suppose they have to feel its meaning, whatever it is. — T H E

Yes, although there is an element of 'fake it till you make it'. Meaning can have a funny way of arriving when you are not expecting it. Sometimes it sits with you for a while before you recognise you have been transformed.

I found another nice Jung quote which I think fits with the OP, at least thematically. It's Jung paraphrasing/assimilating James

If this is so, one may certainly expect to meet the same[290] contrast between psychological temperaments outside the sphere of pathology. It is moreover easy to cull from literature numerous examples which bear witness to the actual existence of these two opposite types of mentality. Without pretending to exhaust the subject, I will give a few striking examples.

In my opinion, we owe the best observations on this subject to the philosophy of William James.[185] He lays down the principle that no matter what may be the temperament of a "professional philosopher," it is this temperament which he feels himself forced to express and to justify in his philosophy. And starting from this idea, which is altogether in accord with the spirit of psychoanalysis, divides philosophers into two classes: the "tender-minded," who are only interested in the inner life and spiritual things; and the "tough-minded," who lay most stress on material things and objective reality. We see that these two classes are actuated by exactly opposite tendencies of the libido: the "tender-minded" represent introversion, the "tough-minded" extroversion.

James says that the tender-minded are characterised by rationalism; they are men of principles and of systems, they aspire to dominate experience and to transcend it by abstract reasoning, by their logical deductions, and purely rational conceptions. They care little for facts, and the multiplicity of phenomena hardly embarrasses them at all: they forcibly fit data into their ideal constructions, and reduce everything to their a priori premises. This was the method of Hegel in settling beforehand the number of the planets. In the domain of mental pathology we again meet this kind of philosopher in paranoiacs, who, without being disquieted by the flat contradictions presented by experience, impose their delirious conceptions on the universe, and find means of interpreting everything, and according to Adler "arranging" everything, in conformity with their morbidly preconceived system.

The other traits which James depicts in this type follow[291] naturally from its fundamental character. The tender-minded man, he says, is intellectual, idealist, optimist, religious, partisan of free-will, a monist, and a dogmatist. All these qualities betray the almost exclusive concentration of the libido upon the intellectual life. This concentration upon the inner world of thought is nothing else than introversion. In so far as experience plays a rôle with these philosophers, it serves only as an allurement or fillip to abstraction, in response to the imperative need to fit forcibly all the chaos of the universe within well-defined limits, which are, in the last resort, the creation of a spirit obedient to its subjective values.

The tough-minded man is positivist and empiricist. He regards only matters of fact. Experience is his master, his exclusive guide and inspiration. It is only empirical phenomena demonstrable in the outside world which count. Thought is merely a reaction to external experience. In the eyes of these philosophers principles are never of such value as facts; they can only reflect and describe the sequence of phenomena and cannot construct a system. Thus their theories are exposed to contradiction under the overwhelming accumulation of empirical material. Psychic reality for the positivist limits itself to the observation and experience of pleasure and pain; he does not go beyond that, nor does he recognise the rights of philosophical thought. Remaining on the ever-changing surface of the phenomenal world, he partakes himself of its instability; carried away in the chaotic tumult of the universe, he sees all its aspects, all its theoretical and practical possibilities, but he never arrives at the unity or the fixity of a settled system, which alone could satisfy the idealist or tender-minded. The positivist depreciates all values in reducing them to elements lower than themselves; he explains the higher by the lower, and dethrones it, by showing that it is "nothing but such another thing," which has no value in itself.

From these general characteristics, the others which James points out logically follow. The positivist is a sensualist, giving greater value to the specific realm of the[292] senses than to reflection which transcends it. He is a materialist and a pessimist, for he knows only too well the hopeless uncertainty of the course of things. He is irreligious, not being in a state to hold firmly to the realities of the inner world as opposed to the pressure of external facts; he is a determinist and fatalist, only able to show resignation; a pluralist, incapable of all synthesis; and finally a sceptic, as a last and inevitable consequence of all the rest.

The expressions, therefore, used by James, show clearly that the diversity of types is the result of a different localisation of the libido; this libido is the magic power in the depth of our being, which, following the personality, carries it sometimes towards internal life, and sometimes towards the objective world. James compares, for example, the religious subjectivism of the idealist, and the quasi-religious attitude of the contemporary empiricist: "Our esteem for facts has not neutralised in us all religiousness. It is itself almost religious. Our scientific temper is devout."[186]

A second parallel is furnished by Wilhelm Ostwald,[187] who divides "savants" and men of genius into classics and romantics. The latter are distinguished by their rapid reactions, their extremely prompt and abundant production of ideas and projects, some of which are badly digested and of doubtful value. They are admirable and brilliant masters, loving to teach, of a contagious ardour and enthusiasm, which attracts many pupils, and makes them founders of schools, exercising great personal influence. Herein our type of extroversion is easily recognised. The classics of Ostwald are, on the contrary, slow to react; they produce with much difficulty, are little capable of teaching or of exercising direct personal influence, and lacking enthusiasm are paralysed by their own severe criticism, living apart and absorbed in themselves, making scarcely any disciples, but[293] producing works of finished perfection which often bring them posthumous fame. All these characteristics correspond to introversion. — Jung

I find this to be a rich passage. The recognition that 'our scientific temper is devout' stands out for me. It's also hard not to think of this forum as one reads the passage.

Yes, although there is an element of 'fake it till you make it'. Meaning can have a funny way of arriving when you are not expecting it. Sometimes it sits with you for a while before you recognise you have been transformed. — Tom Storm

That also makes sense. I think it was William James who said we are sad because we cry (and not the reverse.) Also the hands of the clock come to mind. Or you see and old photo and are surprised at how you used to look.

He was particularly interested in the religious experience, but his ideas have come under some criticism, especially by the theologian Victor White, who maintained that we cannot reduce God to images in the human psyche. I am interested in how Jung's understanding contributes to the philosophy of religion and I am asking to what extent his approach is useful for analysis? — Jack Cummins

I was reading a criticism yesterday which said that Jung was a greater enemy of religion that Freud.

Jung proves to be far more lethal to Christianity than Freud: for whereas Freud rejects religion per se as an infantile superstition, Jung claims to have discovered its rationale in his doctrine of what he terms the “collective unconscious.” What he offers, I maintained, as the enlightened or “scientific” religion proves in the end to be an Ersatz, a pseudo-religion based precisely on a false identification—the most perilous of all!

— In Quest of Catholicity: Malachi Martin Responds to Wolfgang Smith by Malachi Martin, Wolfgang Smith

https://amzn.asia/7S9QFIf

Which is an interesting comment - Catholicism finds Jung a greater threat because he’s ‘subtly mistaken’ rather than just ‘bluntly atheistic’ - which I think would be typical of Catholic critics of Jung.

Great passage with many acute observations.

I’ve always thought of Jung as part of the broader Gnostic tradition in Western culture - a modern gnostic, in fact (another example being Edward Conze, a slightly younger contemporary who was a noted Buddhist scholar and translator). From the first time I read Jung I saw a parallel between his archetypes and the ‘domain of forms’ - his ‘archetypes’ being a type of form (or ‘formal type’ which is almost an exact translation.)

incidentally comparisons are often made between Jung’s ‘collective unconscious’ and a Buddhist principle called the ālāyavijñāna which is the ‘storehouse consciousness’ of Yogācāra Buddhism, one of the principle sects of Mahāyāna (see here).

Don’t forget Jung’s elliptical re-telling of the legend that he might - or might not! - have been the grandson of Faust (per the introduction to Memories Dreams and Reflections. Another striking image from the same source is the one involving the dream about the Cathedral....)

Your extract from Jung's 'Answer to Job' contains some particularly relevant points which he makes and they do really raise the question of whether the God which human nature are having a relationship is changing. The statement, 'we can imagine God as an eternally flowing current of vital energy that endlessly changes shape just as we can imagine him as an eternally unmoved, unchangeable essence' is extremely important and I am not sure really to what extent theologians or philosophers have discussed this generally.

I have also found a quote in 'Answer to Job' which suggests that Jahweh changed as a result of interaction with Job. He argued that Jahweh 'raises himself above his earlier primitive level of consciousness by indirectly acknowledging that Job is morally superior to him and that therefore he has to catch up and become human himself'. In holding this belief, Jung is maintaining that human beings are necessary for God's consciousness. The idea of Jahweh being dependent on humanity for his own development leads to the question: if God is dependent on human beings is God simply a product of the human mind?

However, he does go on to query if there is some underlying force involved in the drama between God and humanity as revealed in the drama between Job and Jahweh, by saying, ' the miracle of reflecting consciousness is so great that one cannot help suspecting an element of meaning to be concealed somewhere within all the biological turmoil.' Here, he does appear to be going beyond an anthropomorphic picture and suggesting that there is some ultimate reality, God, behind the scenes of the drama. But, it does seem that humanity is central to the development of God, which is an extremely radical view.

Really, as far as I can see, what Jung is saying is of central importance to theological and philosophical debate. The book may not have been given as much attention as it should have done, because it is so radical, or perhaps, the issues arising from it were seen as too contentious.

You asked me what specific insight I gained from Jung. I think that is that there is some underlying source from which our ideas and images come from. Some have called it the collective unconscious and religious people have referred to as God or the divine. It may be that spark which triggered the big bang, the process of evolution and consciousness.

Since Jung uses his concept of the collective unconscious to encompass many unexplained aspects, I can see why some regard him as a mystic. I do wonder if the idea of the collective unconscious is too fuzzy, however, and I do believe that the concept does need a lot more analysis within philosophy. I don't know whether that will ever happen. In saying that it needs more analysis, I am not saying that this would mean analysing whether the term means but trying to become more conscious of what remains unconscious, which may involve depth psychology. This probably involves some of the insights of the transpersonal school of psychology and philosophy.

I wonder if the way we are drawn to certain writing is to do with how we shape our ideas autobiographically and with language. I began reading Jung during adolescence, so his ideas, such as archetypes and the shadow, are at the core of my thinking. If I had discovered a different writer at the time I my whole architecture of thinking might have been different. I would like to read Cassirer at some point, and I definitely wish to make interconnections between the various perspectives.

Yes, it does seem that the scientific pursuit of knowledge can be seen as 'devout' and it is probably because that has become the main paradigm of 'truth'. It is a whole different model for seeing reality, but as a structure it has as much of a hold on people for directing meaning. Perhaps, really, the main difference is language in concepts used for understanding reality.

No doubt you're right about formative influences (e.g. readings, music, etc). I read both Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus & Russell's The ABC of Relativity the summer before I was a high school junior and, I think, as a consequence had realized that I'd had no "faith" to lose (so when I came out of the closet an "apostate" later during the school year in my New Testament class – which was taught by a brilliant Jesuit priest – it was a mere matter of fact admission, which nonetheless had caused a ruckus (IIRC, my very Catholic, single mom, an ICU & psychiatric nurse, was not pleased!)) under the influence of two Alberts & a Bertrand. And by the end of that year (1979-80), my apostasy had turned into (weak) atheism, and an abiding passion for both philosophy and, oddly enough, comparative religion (the latter of which evenually giving way to (cognitive, then (briefly) evolutionary, then moral) psychology throughout the 1980s & 90s). All because, I guess, I'd naively dared to "pursue a beam of light" and "imagine Sisyphus happy".

I read Jung before Plato, but I also see a parallel between the idea of archetypes and forms.

I think that in many ways, Jung's ideas on religion are far more challenging potentially to religion. I see that being related to how his critique is far more detailed. It is easy to interpret Jung's ideas to a reductive analysis of God. However, I think that if one reads his writing and steps back and reflects, it becomes possible to see that he is not really dismissing the idea of God , and related ideas.

Also, Jung does incorporate Eastern metaphysical ideas and, in doing so, when he speaks of God as being in the psyche, he is seeing psyche a bit differently to most thinkers within Western philosophy.

I like 19th century philosophy, and again and again I find talk of something like 'spiritual 'maturity manifested through participation in intellectual and technical progress. I found it, for instance, in Hegel and Lange (the otherwise quite different 'History of Materialism' guy.) I think those were more optimistic times. Now there's as much fear about technology as there is hope, perhaps. Of course the need to transcend petty egoism is also found in religion.

On this religious front, it's been argued that personal immortality is antithetical to this as the supreme expression of egoism (in Feuerbach and Nietzsche.) We can understand this IMO in terms of a another quote:

From this standpoint, the conscious personality seems to be a more or less arbitrary excerpt of the collective psyche. It appears to consist of a number of universal basic human qualities of which it is à priori unconscious, and further of a series of impulses and forms which might just as well have been conscious, but were more or less arbitrarily repressed, in order to attain that excerpt of the collective psyche, which we call personality. The term persona is really an excellent one, for persona was originally the mask which an actor wore, that served to indicate the character in which he appeared. For if we really venture to undertake to decide what psychic material must be accounted personal and what impersonal, we shall soon reach a state of great perplexity; for, in truth, we must make the same assertion regarding the contents of the personality as we have already made with respect to the impersonal unconscious, that is to say that it is collective, whereas we can only concede individuality to the bounds of the persona, that is to the particular choice of personal elements, and that only to a very limited extent. — Jung

In other words, the self that's supposed to be immortal is mere persona or mask. It's the species that's (relatively) immortal, precisely through the generation and destruction of individuals (which can be viewed as cells in a larger organism.)