C. G. Jung's Analysis of Religious Experience
Keywords:
C. G. Jung, Religion and Consciousness, Experience of Duality, Role of Ritual, Numinosum, God and the Devil, Ego and SelfAbstract
The amount of creative work produced today in the field of psychology, the eagerness with which an ever larger number of Westerners' resort to psychotherapy 'in order to alleviate their mental discomfort, if not anguish, yes, even the widespread fascination with the so-caned esoteric doctrines - whether they ate formulated as 'theosophy, yoga, occultism or in other ways - are all indications that psychology has become the new instrument for understanding and defining the human situation This no doubt is largely due to the failure of the traditional religious and theological ways to provide man with a key to meaningful life. One could hypothesize almost ad infinitum about the reasons for such a momentous breakdown. Since, however, in this paper we propose to explore C.G. jung's concept of religion, it is only proper to cite at the very outset what he considers as the major cause of the languid state of religion in the West.
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