My soul was never meant to handle Christianity as a series of data points along a theological route and yet this is what I often feel we’ve downgraded our Christianity to. Carl Jung once suggested that our psyche has a “religious function,” not because we were meant to be Pharisees, but because we were designed for the awe and majesty, and likewise, nearness of an awesome God. Jung spoke about religion as essential to your soul—and it isn’t about following a set of rules—but about responding to a holy stirring.
In our modern world, we often treat our faith like a textbook to be memorized. But there is a part of you that doesn’t want another lecture; it wants an encounter. Today, we are exploring how the inner wrestling of the human psyche mirrors the strange, fiery world of the Old Testament prophets. These weren’t just ancient figures in a book; they were people gripped by something much greater than themselves. They were people whose souls had been set on fire.
The Empirical Soul: Understanding How the Holy Spirit “Speaks”
I’m Angela Meer, and I have spent my life standing at the crossroads where the deep, symbolic well of Jungian psychology meets the Holy Spirit of the Christian faith. After years of PhD research, I’ve drawn from thousands of years of saints, monastics, and contemplatives to understand the Spirit of our Christian walk.
I study Jung because he built his psychology differently. He didn’t start with dry theories; he started with the “empirical” reality of the human soul—the things people actually saw, felt, and lived in their dreams and visions. He didn’t ask, “Is this objectively real?” He asked, “What does this mean to the soul?”
When a symbol rises within you, it isn’t an accident. Consider the “cat and cucumber” videos—a cat sees a cucumber and jumps sky-high because it’s wired to respond to the symbol of a snake to save its life. In the same way, our souls respond to psychological truths and symbols every day. Jung honored these inner movements, recognizing that they were often the starting point for a vital spiritual experience.
The Well in the Desert: Christ as Living Water
There is a story in Jung’s work about a man who was utterly hollow, deeply depressed, and ready to commit suicide. He had lived a religious life, logically and dutifully, but his soul was starving. Then, he had a dream: he was walking through a desert and found a deep, ancient well. From the darkness, a voice called out: “Your soul is down here.”
We may be shocked to hear Jung’s response. I have heard testimonies of people all over whose spiritual leader tells them to ignore the “soul-shaking” dreams that they can’t shake. Jung, however, didn’t do this. He told him, “You must go down into that well.” This is the essence of Spiritus contra spiritum—the idea that the only thing powerful enough to displace a soul-crushing despair (a “spirit”) is an encounter with the Living Spirit. By listening to his dreams and honoring the symbols rising within him, that man rebuilt his life from the soul upward. The testimony shared in Jung’s book (Jung’s Collected Works Volume 9) was that the man found the “abundant life” after this: the life that Jesus said He came for: “I have come to give life, and life more abundantly.” John 10:10.
The Thirst for the Real: A Personal “Nabi”
My own journey began with a similar “bubbling up.” At age 19, I had already been a missionary, a teacher, and done everything that was available to me in the church. But one summer day, after I had returned from a missionary trip, I was sitting in a church amphitheater, and something erupted from my consciousness that I hadn’t planned to say:
“There has to be more than this to Christianity.”
I had a strong faith in Jesus, but I was so thirsty—not for more theology, but for a touch. I needed the Holy Spirit that could water the aching places of my heart. I needed to know that the “truth” of the Word and the “Spirit” of God were not opposites, but necessary components of an abundant Christian walk.
In Hebrew, the word for prophet is nabi, which means “to bubble up.” Prophets like Jeremiah weren’t calm scholars, teaching theological facts on a podcast; they were gripped by a fire they couldn’t hold in: “His word is in my heart like a fire... I am weary of holding it in” (Jeremiah 20:9). That is the psyche on fire with the voice of the Holy Spirit. And that was what I experienced that fateful Sunday.
This “eruption” from my soul began my journey away from “religious duty” and toward the “abundant” inward life that Jesus promised. To this day, I am grateful that I did not ignore that eruption, but instead, I let Christ form His abundant life in and through me.
An Invitation to the Inner Room
Often, when these “bubbles” of insight or dreams happen, we don’t know how to name them. We feel the fire, but we don’t know how to steward the flame. In my paid subscription at Substack I have created a space where we can learn the art of spiritual discernment together.
As a shared traveler on this path, your membership unlocks:
Monthly “Biblical Symbolism” Workshops: Join me live on the 4th Sunday of the month at 5pm PST as we dive into the living language of God, exploring how ancient biblical symbols are surfacing in our modern dreams today.
The Gift of Discernment Training: Through weekly in-depth “how-to” articles I drop every Sunday, I’ll share the “inner room” of my own spiritual journey, teaching you how to move past mere interpretation to truly hearing what the Spirit is saying to your heart.
Finding Your Earthly Mandate: We use the symbolic language of God to reveal your unique role. This is about moving from “understanding a dream” to “understanding your calling.” These articles are occasional throughout the month.
The Symbolic Community: A dedicated space to share your encounters and dreams with a community that isn’t afraid of the deep water.
The “Daniel’s Table” Founding Membership
For those called to be the pillars of this vision, the Daniel’s Table tier offers a consecrated space for quarterly small-group mentorship, invitations to real-life pilgrimages to holy places like Greece and Ireland, and the opportunity to start a “Hub” in your own home to meet with others in Spirit and in truth and impact your local community with love and Spirit.
Devotional Pause
Before you go, I invite you to a moment of “dreaming breath”:
Recall: Has something ever “bubbled up” from inside you? A dream, a vision, or a phrase you didn’t expect to say?
Reflect: How can you honor that moment as a holy whisper rather than just a random thought?
Be Still: Give yourself three minutes of silence. Don’t pray words. Ruminate over what God is bubbling up in your soul at this moment.
As St. Catherine of Siena once prayed: “Be who God meant you to be… and you will set the world on fire.”
The Sacred Threshold
“For God speaks again and again—though people do not recognize it. He speaks in dreams, in visions of the night...” (Job 33:14-15)
We’ve explored the definitions of the numinous and how Jung’s psychology mirrors the prophetic fire. But the Bible reminds us that God is not a subject to be studied; He is a Father who actively speaks. He gives the dream, and He invites us into the holy work of discernment.
For my paid subscribers, I am opening the “inner room” of this encounter. I’m sharing how I personally move from a “bubbling up” thought to a confirmed word from the Lord, and how you can begin to distinguish between your own ego and the “fire” of the Holy Spirit.
Step beyond the logic of the mind and into the “secret place” (Psalm 91:1). Join our paid community as we learn to steward the “dreaming breath” God is stirring within you.
Community Discussion Prompts
The “Bubbling Up”: Have you ever had a thought or a phrase “burst” into your mind that felt like it didn’t come from you? What did it say?
The Well in the Desert: If your soul were a landscape right now, would it be a desert, a garden, or a deep well? What is the “voice” at the bottom saying?
The Nabi Fire: Why do you think we are often afraid of the “fiery” side of the Holy Spirit, preferring a Christianity that stays safely within the lines of logic?
This line—“Jung spoke about religion as essential to your soul—and it isn’t about following a set of rules—but about responding to a holy stirring.”—made me rethink our standard saying “It’s not a religion but a relationship.” That no longer feels specific enough. Is there a way to better communicate that we mean a first-love relationship that comes with a soul-level stirring?