The Darkening Spirit: Jung, spirituality, religion

excessive. It is necessary for the structure of personality that contents originally taking the form of transpersonal deities should finally come to be experienced as contents of the human psyche. But this process ceases to be a danger to psychic health only when the psyche is itself regarded suprapersonally, as a numinous world of transpersonal ha

Au fond, Jung entend apporter des réponses à tous ceux qui ne sont plus nourris par les religions traditionnelles, à commencer par le christianisme : « Je ne m’adresse pas du tout d’ailleurs aux bienheureux possesseurs de la foi, mais à tous ces nombreux chercheurs, pour lesquels la lumière est éteinte, le mystère englouti et Dieu mort1. »

Here the faith in creation, the source of all paganism, breaks down. Here this whole philosophy and wisdom is abandoned to folly. Here God is non-God. Here is the triumph of death, the enemy, the non-church, the lawless state, the blasphemer, the soldiers. Here Satan triumphs over God. Our faith begins at the point where atheists suppose that it mu

Many ask: Why do people feel they need religion? Perhaps now we see that the way this question is phrased doesn’t explain the persistence of faith. People believe in God not merely because they feel some emotional need, but because it makes sense of what they see and experience. Indeed, we have seen that many thoughtful people are drawn toward beli