Carl Jung said what most are unwilling to say: that the psyche possesses a religious function. Now, when you hear that, you may think about the Pharisees, but actually, that was what Jung was working against in his psychology. He wanted people to rediscover the wonder of their faith, not the dry religion. And in fact, he held it as a sacred calling.
Today, we are going to look at the contemplative tradition as a way to understand the wonder and awe that come from knowing God in your soul, rather than your intellect. That idea may feel strange, but it’s part of our learning how to disengage from a highly intellectualized faith so that we can swing the pendulum a little closer to a faith that carries awe, the numinous, wonder, curiosity and play. If that sounds like a faith you’d be interested in having, keep with us.
Where We Are in the Journey
The Christian Jung is written by me, Angela Meer, every Sunday. I write deeply rather than shallowly, and I do that through a 10-week deep dive into one of three topics that carry the heart of my work: a systematic theology of psychological wholeness, Christian contemplation, and theological anthropology (or how God acts on the human person). We are now looking at Christian contemplation and its foundations to see how this ancient practice can inform a psychologically grounded faith.
Last week, we looked at God as Spirit and how we need to recover the numinous, or the awe of God in our Christian faith. This week, we will look at the holy through the lives of the Old Testament prophets and what their fiery prophetic statements tell us about living a life before God.
A Psychology Unlike Any Other
I recently spoke to a friend of mine who is a psychiatric nurse. We spoke about the modern methods that are used in psychiatric conditions and I shared with her about Jung’s fascinating difference. When Jung was practicing at a Swiss psychiatric hospital they often listened closely to the patients. And while talk therapy is still utilized to some degree today, the difference is that Jung believed that these patients were participating in the symbolic life, rather than the life of the intellect.
Not too different than some of the Old Testament prophets, who encountered God through visions, dreams, numinous experiences. In our western world we have lost touch with this way of life. We want to intellectualize the spiritual, rather than letting the spiritual (as in God is Spirit, John 4:24) act upon us and transform us. When God spoke to the Old Testament prophets he used symbols and extraordinary visions of the heavenly domain.
Because we have spirits ourselves, psychological truths are necessary for our lives to flourish spiritually. Psychological truths are those that tend to operate as instincts rather than intellect. For example, have you seen the cat videos where the owner places a cucumber behind the cat while it is eating? The cat springs in fear as soon as he sees it because the instinct for survival makes him believe that the cucumber is a snake! We also have inherent spiritual truths that live as instincts within us, prodding us to develop a life before Christ that operates from authentic, vibrant spiritual truths, rather than ones that replicate duty and performance. When we are spiritually being formed at the level of spirit, and not just at truth (the intellectual version), those spiritual instincts will help us survive the attacks that our intellect can’t necessarily touch.
Well Angela, you might say, how in the world do we develop spiritual instincts when we barely understand the life of Truth, the intellect of theology? I would answer by saying that developing Truth and Spirit simultaneously is one way to enrich your spiritual life in the most profound of ways. And we develop in the realm of Spirit by paying attention to the quiet ways God is speaking into our day. This is why contemplative Christianity is a profound synthesis of the spiritual life.
My Own Crisis of Faith
I was 19. This is a dangerous age! I had just graduated high school and had already been a missionary’s kid, gone to seminary, taught 300 kids weekly in Spanish, and almost any other spiritual endeavor you can think of. I did it all. At 19, I was sitting in our church’s amphitheater and a thought bubbled out of me, which I had no control over. It was this thought: Surely there is more to Christianity than this! Now, most kids are taught to ignore such dangerous thoughts, but it only made me curious to know why I had thought that. Over the next year, God began to introduce me to His Holy Spirit, and I began to understand that the inner life of a Christian can be a rich, rewarding place.
I learned that symbols can fascinate you and teach you more about Jesus than an ordinary sermon. Because it is how His sheep hear his voice (John 10:27), just like the OT prophets.
I learned that God could speak through nature, just like Psalm 19.
I learned that dreams can awaken our hearts to hear Him in new and surprising ways, just like Daniel, and Joseph.
And I learned that through the contemplative tradition of slowing down, quieting my heart, and using discernment to the best of my ability to know whether I was hearing God’s voice, or another. The contemplative tradition is one of the finest examples of Jung’s theories on how the psyche works, and why it has a religious function!
Are you awakening to the life of the Holy Spirit and to God’s subtle moves within you to give you a vibrant, awe-inspired life? In the paid subscriber article that accompanies this week’s free article, I cover:
Exactly how to start and enjoy a contemplative Christian practice
Why Jung’s insights give us understanding about how life in the Spirit works
What the OT prophets understood that gives us discernment about our own inner lives
Why Carl Jung reached for Psalm 42 to describe the soul's thirst, and how Jesus names the Living Water
The Watchtower Practice: a 15-minute contemplative prayer you can begin tomorrow, step by step
Four Scripture-rooted tests for discerning what rises in prayer, with journaling questions and a seven-day tracker