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The Religious Mammal
Carl G. Jung’s perspective
The Human Being as Religious
Human beings reveal religious behavior as far back as we find recorded human history.
Religion is a universal aspect of human culture. It is seen in all human groupings.
Early religious signs
Neanderthals
100,000 years ago carefully buried their dead with grave goods
Built small altars of bear bones in caves
A Psychological Perspective
Carl G. Jung’s Structure of the Human Psyche
Psyche—the totality of all psychic processes, conscious as well as unconscious.
Psychic processes: thinking, feeling, intuition, attitudes, instincts
The Structure of the Human Psyche According to Jung
It is from the psyche that religious experience arises.
It is interpreted in terms of spirits, demons, gods, forces and powers.
Images and energies within the psyche can grip us in such a way that we insist there is a power greater than ourselves.
A simple diagram of the psyche
The unconscious mind is capable of assuming an intelligence and purposiveness superior to actual conscious insight. This is a religious phenomenon.
Within the psyche
Ego and Self
The goal of psychic maturity
Ego coming to realize it is not the center of the known and that it must relate to a deeper center, the Self, in order to become fully functional and healthy.
Experiences that reveal the existence of the Self we would refer to as religious experience Jung calls the numinosum.
Psyche (cont’d)
The numinosum
The cause is scientifically unknown
Is an experience of the person independent of the will
Feels to the person like something dynamic and overwhelming that is separate from the person. (Encounters of the soul, pg. 38)
Maturing process
The ego gets stronger and stronger over time as it deals with the realities of life until it is strong enough to begin to relate to the Self.
An experience of the Self is often referred to by human beings as an experience of God or gods.
Experiences of the Self
Jung posits the existence within us of something called "the religious need."
A longing for psychic wholeness—a sense of well-being and inner unity.
In the Self:
Our fullest potential; draws us like a magnet toward that destiny.
It appears we have within the image of God which desires to become fully realized.
More on the Self
Symbols reflecting the Self carry the authority of the God image. They often possess a numinosity giving them transcendent priority.
The Self demands to be recognized, integrated and realized and does so through dreams, through our "shadow", and more.
Example of the Self in a Dream
Karen’s dream [*The Religious Mammal pg. 6]
Karen’s day vision [The Religious Mammal pg. 7]
Robert A. Johnson’s, The Golden World
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The Religious Mammal may be accessed by clicking on "Religious Studies" then on "The Religious Mammal"The Loss of the Numinous in Modern Religious Experience
Because the numinosum of divine experience is lacking in many religious contexts here in the U.S., we can say that a religion has lost the living mystery and therefore cannot give much help or have much of a moral effect.
Nevertheless
Teilhard de Chardin, A French Jesuit Priest and archeologist (1881-1955)
"Throughout my whole life, during every moment I have lived, the world has gradually been taking on light and fire for me, until it has come to envelop me in one mass of luminosity, glowing from within…the purple flush of matter fading imperceptibly into the gold of spirit, to be lost finally in the incandescence of a personal universe."