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		Jung’s 
		Modern Man in Search of a Soul: 
		Implications for philosophy, psychology, politics and religion Presentation, Section-1 Presentation, Section-2 Presentation, Section-3 Q&A, Section-1 Q&A, Section-2 Larapinta Trail Pictures 
		The intense power and clarity of Jung’s 
		healing vision for the human psyche is expressed in the eleven short 
		essays published in English translation in 1933 as 
		Modern Man in Search of a Soul. 
		Written as Europe grappled with the 
		trauma and sorrow of the First World War, in the context of the rise of 
		demagogic politics of the 1930s and the broad confusion around cultural 
		identity, these essays have a classic lucidity and enduring relevance, 
		revealing aspects of Jung’s thought with great potential to disrupt our 
		prevailing thinking today. 
		 
		In this talk I will discuss ideas that 
		Jung expressed about philosophy, psychology, politics and religion, 
		aiming to draw out implications about the place of soul in our modern 
		cultural world. 
		My method in preparing this essay was 
		firstly to read the book, underlining significant statements, and then 
		while walking the Larapinta Trail in Central Australia to write the 
		underlined ideas into my journal, hopefully drawing something from the 
		deep silent spirituality of the desert. 
		Then I copied these lines as the first 
		draft of this essay and attempted to edit into a coherent argument, 
		mostly reflecting Jung’s ideas but also mixed with my selection and 
		interpretation. 
		
		The overall theme of 
		Modern Man in Search of a Soul, 
		perhaps most strongly expressed in the essay on 
		Spiritual Problems of Modern Man, 
		is that rational science must combine with spiritual identity to provide 
		meaning for life. Jung sees renewal of religious sentiment, reconciled 
		with reason, as the way to overcome the deep neurosis, even psychosis, 
		of prevailing modern life. 
		Published just as Hitler came to power, 
		the sense of demonic unconscious forces driving the psychotic mentality 
		of mass politics pervades Jung’s analysis. 
		 
		
		A starting point is the scale of deception in 
		modern life, with honest confession far harder than deceptive illusion. 
		And as a result, half formed ideas 
		acquire a popular certainty, in the form of myth. 
		The unconscious power of myth is seen 
		most vividly for Jung in the violent opposition to Freud, from those who 
		believe illusions on principle. 
		
		A first theme, philosophy, displays the stark 
		polarisation between tradition and modernity that emerged in the 
		nineteenth century and continues to strongly influence us now. 
		In the essay 
		Basic Postulates of Analytic Psychology 
		Jung explains that soul was viewed as a substance until the nineteenth 
		century. The emerging modern philosophy of scientific materialism 
		entirely rejected spiritual traditions and laughed at everything that 
		could not be measured. 
		The modern negation of metaphysics 
		produced a radical change of view, a change which Jung saw as long 
		prepared by the spiritual catastrophe of the Reformation. 
		Modern thought, with its close 
		association to the European conquest of the world since the Age of 
		Discovery, had grown in empirical breadth but not in spiritual depth. 
		The shallow psychology of modernity is 
		illustrated for Jung by the new imperial domination of the philosophy of 
		empirical materialism, with its automatic assumption that mind is 
		dependent on matter. Continuing his summary history of ideas, Jung says 
		resistance was futile against the irrational and emotional surrender to 
		the physical world as all-important. 
		 
		
		A philosophical question arising here is 
		whether we should base our views on the primacy of matter or of spirit. 
		The problem as Jung sees it is that 
		naturalistic values destroy spiritual development, while a spiritual 
		focus can ignore biology. 
		The conflict between nature and mind 
		has both material and spiritual aspects. 
		Our sense of reality combines physical 
		and mental sources, meaning we need to integrate the description of 
		material facts with the construction of spiritual values. 
		 
		
		Jung’s argument, linking psychology to the 
		epistemological problem of how we know anything, is that mind and matter 
		are not simply self-evident and objective features of an objective 
		reality, but emerge as concepts as part of a world view, as symbols 
		dictated by the spirit of the age. 
		The modern world is still largely in 
		the grip of the metaphysical assertion that only matter is real. 
		We can find Jung’s challenge to our 
		dominant epistemology hard to grasp, making it valuable to see how he 
		discusses these themes. 
		He says the scientific revolution of 
		the modern enlightenment did not actually do away with metaphysics as 
		some philosophers have claimed, but rather introduced a new metaphysics 
		that supplanted mind with matter. 
		 
		
		Rejecting the intangible and obscure elements 
		of mind by grounding values in facts elevated common sense as the 
		absolute measure of truth. 
		In an inversion of older religious 
		dogma, Jung suggests modernity views dissent from the new materialism as 
		socially dangerous blasphemy. 
		This new metaphysics asserts the purely 
		material cause of the psyche, rejecting old ideas of the soul as a 
		repugnant heresy. 
		Old presumptions of immortality, divine 
		healing energy and the existence of a spiritual world beyond the 
		physical are similarly deemed obsolete and wrong. 
		However, there is a basic problem with 
		seeing the mind in material terms in this way. 
		Mind constructs our world in terms of 
		culture and values and subjective experience. 
		These psychological realities have only 
		partial connection to the scientific assumption that we discover our 
		world through empirical description rather than cultural imagination. 
		 
		
		Jung presents an interesting commentary on 
		evolution, noting that the modern discovery that apes evolved into 
		humans brings philosophical assumptions into a mechanistic worldview, 
		seeing matter as displacing the universal creative God. 
		This modern soulless attitude reflects 
		the economic and political power derived from a purely materialist 
		philosophy, where evidence is the sole criterion of truth, leaving no 
		place for intuition or imagination. 
		Jung’s underlying point here is that 
		spiritual identity of human psyche seen in language and culture is 
		qualitatively different from merely animal existence, but materialist 
		thinking tends to deprecate this central role of spiritual identity. 
		
		The historical achievement of scientific 
		analysis of matter is seen in the spatial growth of European power 
		through the conquest of the world. 
		Against this empirical might of 
		science, Jung asks about the cultural identity that emerges from a sense 
		of history. 
		The temporal reach of a living sense of 
		history connects us with the past and the future. 
		 If 
		we see both space and time as constituting reality, Jung’s concern is 
		that science focuses too much on space and not enough on time, at least 
		within the historical scale of human existence.   
		
		By asserting that only matter is real we 
		forget how our minds enable us to retain continuity with the past. 
		Our ability to see similar cultural 
		changes in past philosophy generates our understanding of the soul as 
		our underlying character. 
		Such a sense of continuity is entirely 
		different from the scientific reduction of ideas to their material 
		substrate. 
		This soulless reduction of ideas to 
		matter is the method Jung critiques in philosophy, and also in 
		psychology, seen in the assertion of the primacy of neuroscience and 
		analysis of instincts and drives rather than an integrated theory of 
		soul. 
		 
		
		The materialist philosophy of modern secular 
		logic dominates what Jung calls the uncanny power of the zeitgeist. The 
		physical empiricism in the scientific world is irresistible, but has a 
		deep prejudice against the old vertical vision of God as a transcendent 
		and eternal source of order. 
		This secular prejudice emerges in both 
		conscious and unconscious ways. 
		The zeitgeist is the spirit of the age, 
		reflected in dominant assumptions of cultural values, evolving by the 
		dialectical process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis described by 
		Hegel. 
		Jung notes that evolution in the 
		history of ideas always involves an unconscious dialectical reaction 
		against past bias, making the present equally at risk of over-reach and 
		bias. 
		Over-estimation of the role of physical 
		causation in life is the unbalanced metaphysical delusion that Jung 
		blames for the modern loss of soul, resulting in a lack of interpersonal 
		spiritual connection.  
		 Primacy of the physical is an ideology 
		that makes soul dependent on body, creating a psychology without the 
		psyche. 
		As a result we have a consciously 
		constructed world that ignores and rejects the existence of unconscious 
		life. 
		 
		
		Jung accepted that illusions are actual for 
		the psyche, including in common stories of the real. 
		This mythological attitude stands in 
		tension with the modern view that there must be a discoverable physical 
		line of material connection between an action and its causes. 
		In critiquing this materialist outlook, 
		Jung’s point is that human action is primarily caused by cultural ideas 
		and beliefs rather than anything material. 
		He therefore sees the suggestion that 
		ideas and beliefs can be reduced to physical causes as itself a 
		metaphysical assertion of faith. 
		To say that in principle spiritual 
		identity can be explained by physics, the philosophy of logical 
		positivism, is more a way of asserting the cultural value of physics and 
		denigrating spirituality and the soul. 
		The gulf between subjective identity 
		and its material substrate cannot be bridged in any imaginable science, 
		so Jung insists on the psychological autonomy of spiritual identity. The 
		idea of autonomy of the spirit is unpopular in modern thought, but the 
		underlying problem is that mind is as much a creation of our imagination 
		as is matter. 
		 
		
		Jung sees spirit as a timeless life force that 
		rejects biochemical reduction, yet this reduction is the dominant 
		tendency of empirical science of measurement. 
		Ego, from this spiritual perspective, 
		must be understood psychologically as growing from the unconscious 
		springs of life in the depths of the soul, from spirit as a non-spatial, 
		non-located identity grounded in the subliminal interior. 
		 
		
		To be modern is to assert a secular 
		materialist philosophy, denying that the psyche could arise from an 
		inaccessible spiritual principle. 
		We have no idea how psyche can arise 
		from the physical, but modern science insists the idea of a spiritual 
		life-force is an illusion. 
		This gulf between science and 
		spirituality is where Jung locates the breeding ground for neurosis and 
		psychosis. 
		The gap between psyche and 
		consciousness, between soul and ego, requires cultural and spiritual 
		analysis of how human identity can be made whole, a task that is quite 
		separate from any scientific causal analysis. 
		The springs of life arise not from our 
		biology but from the depths of the soul. 
		Even dreams can serve as sources of 
		information. 
		The materialist methods of science are 
		only capable of measuring factors that are spatial, but the soul is not 
		spatial. 
		 
		
		Jung says we can personify the collective 
		unconscious as the designer of age-old dreams from a hundred 
		generations, with a living sense of the rhythm of growth, flowering and 
		decay. 
		The collective unconscious is a stream 
		or ocean of images flowing into the mind, a valuable source of knowledge 
		that resides not just with the individual but with the broader society. 
		Consciousness therefore derives from 
		the unconscious, not the other way around. 
		Soul depends on a world system of 
		spirit, assuming God as a being with will and mind. 
		Such language is difficult for 
		practical psychology, where the goal is outcomes for patient, but Jung’s 
		objective here is not just clinical treatment but societal diagnosis. 
		 
		
		These divisions about the purpose of 
		psychology emerge in the essay Freud 
		and Jung – Contrasts, where
		Jung argues that Freud’s focus on 
		causal reduction of psychology overemphasises the pathological and 
		negative aspects of life. As a result, he says Freud is unable to 
		understand religious experience. Jung prefers to look at humanity in 
		light of what is healthy and sound, building a psychology of the healthy 
		mind integrated with philosophy, seeking rigorous critique of all 
		assumptions. 
		 
		
		The underlying problem is that instinct and 
		spirit are powerful forces whose nature we do not know. 
		They are not reducible to drives for 
		sex and power as Freud and Adler argued. 
		In Jung’s view, the psychological 
		phenomena of human spirituality deserve respect in their own terms. 
		He says all religion therefore has some 
		positive value. For Jung, the greatest spiritual value is in Gnostic 
		religion drawing knowledge of the cosmos from within the human soul. 
		Human existence stands between equally 
		vast inner and outer realms, serving as a connecting bridge between 
		them.   
		
		Freud’s emphasis on scientific materialist 
		reduction of psychological phenomena therefore renders him blind to the 
		wholistic dimensions of the soul. 
		As an example of how to treat the soul 
		as a whole, Jung argues that Saint Paul’s teaching that the children of 
		God know freedom conflicts with Freud’s denial of God as Father. Jung is 
		saying here that true freedom requires an intuition of how human 
		identity connects with an eternal divine reality, but that Freud rejects 
		this on principle, forbidding the idea that faith could be a mystical 
		gift of grace. 
		Jung simply finds it unreal for 
		psychology to explain away the mystical religious sense in this way, 
		saying the irony is how Freud became a father figure to his disciples 
		with the superego as a furtive Jehovah. 
		
		In Jung’s view, the psyche is a whole, and the 
		ego becomes ill when it is cut off from the whole, losing connection 
		both with the world and with the spirit. 
		The penalty of misunderstanding is 
		decay, embitterment, atrophy and sterility. 
		Jung looks to a return to a cultural 
		respect for elders, with the central teaching handed on through 
		initiation that God is our Father, through constant renewal of the 
		spirit. 
		Unfortunately such an ideal struggles 
		to be realized by established religions, due to the corrupted inability 
		to recognise that the real meaning of traditional teachings is primarily 
		symbolic rather than literal. 
		
		In his essay 
		Problems of Modern Psychotherapy, 
		Jung develops his idea of the centrality of spiritual identity to 
		psychic healing with a discussion of catharsis, the transformation 
		emerging from realization of the unknown. 
		Catharsis requires meditative mystery 
		practice to regain contact with true identity as soul. 
		Finding out what we have repressed 
		enables us to gain self-awareness, which in turn is essential for the 
		creative freedom for accomplishment needed to overcome neurosis. 
		True confession can bring the repressed 
		to light, enabling us to bridge the abyss covered by deceptive illusion. 
		And yet honesty is rare, against the 
		power of ideology as a key element of loss of soul in the modern world. 
		Who we really are is hidden and 
		forgotten as a festering unconscious secret. 
		 
		
		Jung recognised that the Freudian method, 
		despite the criticisms mentioned above, has the virtue of uncovering the 
		shadow side of systemic psychological concealment, provoking reaction 
		from those who reject such deconstruction of their beliefs. 
		Jung has sympathy for this conservative 
		reaction in defence of traditional beliefs, ascribing it to a valuable 
		focus on the radiant power of myth. 
		The problem he sees with Freud’s 
		efforts at a scientific psychology is that uncovering information does 
		not explain the meaning of myth but only shows its causal aspects.
		  
		
		Jung thought Freud’s mistake was to assume 
		reduction was an adequate explanation for mythology, without recognising 
		either the place of the myth within the cultural whole or its ethical 
		function. 
		Modernity criticises traditional 
		cultures for petty and meaningless beliefs and practices. 
		And yet exposing the pettiness of 
		prevailing culture leads to cultural relativism, the hollowing out of 
		tradition, leading to a loss of social identity and direction. 
		 Modernity 
		is highly relativistic through its emphasis on evidence and logic as the 
		basis of social values. 
		Jung was concerned that this tolerant 
		liberal culture holds the risk of inability to see how our ideas mould 
		us unawares. 
		 
		
		In The Aims 
		of Pyschotherapy, Jung argues that the 
		chaotic status of psychology as a science shows the lack of consensus on 
		method, especially in the range of views about imagination and will, and 
		on the principles of therapy for neurosis. 
		I wonder how much this assessment of 
		psychology holds true today nearly a century later. 
		Jung points to the profound difference 
		between psychology as an academic discipline and the settled material 
		sciences, a difference seen in the vast diversity of psychological 
		opinion. 
		 
		
		He therefore considers that psychology has 
		more in common with philosophy than with empirical science, in that 
		neither psychology nor philosophy is really amenable to empirical 
		methods, but rather must rely on speculative opinion. The shared bond of 
		psychology and philosophy is that psychology studies the soul while 
		philosophy studies the world, and soul and world are intimately 
		inter-related through their shared method of systematic speculation.   
		 
		
		Jung calls for respect and tolerance for 
		divergent opinions about psychology, saying they only arise in response 
		to a prevalent experience, rather like different religions. For example, 
		he says Freud’s reduction of psychology to sexual factors is itself a 
		spiritual current in modern life, a manifestation of the collective 
		psyche. 
		This sense that intellectual movements 
		represent a cultural attitude with unconscious drivers shows how 
		contradictory opinions can be equally valid in applied psychology. 
		 
		
		The biggest dichotomy that Jung sees in human 
		personality is between spiritual and material attitudes, reflecting 
		ingrained conflicting passions about tradition and modernity. 
		 The 
		value of traditional spiritual perspectives is shown in religious 
		mythology, which Jung finds a source of priceless analogies. 
		Respect for mythology is a basis to 
		find meaning from fantasy, at the creative tap root of instinct. 
		 
		
		The loss of soul in the modern materialist 
		mentality with its rejection of the power of myth is reflected in the 
		rise of neurosis, due often to overly rational assumptions that blind us 
		to religion. 
		By contrast an openness to symbols can 
		free us by giving form to inner experience. 
		Such artistic symbolic creativity is 
		the language of the soul, with ability to help integrate self and ego. 
		Creativity arises from archaic symbols, 
		seeing how to integrate mind and heart by interpreting and understanding 
		art. 
		 
		
		In The 
		Stages of Life, Jung describes the 
		dilemma arising from the perception of consciousness as the turn away 
		from instinct to control by reason. 
		The conscious civilizing force of 
		rejection of instinctive habits has the tendency, in Jung’s assessment, 
		to belittle and suppress behaviour that forms the durable stable base of 
		character that we identify with soul, generating a cultural clash 
		between mind and soul. 
		The problem here is that modern 
		thinking assumes the rational conscious ego is the source of progress, 
		growth and morality, but this framework excludes the soul with its 
		instinctive basis. 
		Jung therefore seeks the reconciliation 
		of reason and instinct, integrating conscious reason and unconscious 
		intuition, for example through respect for religious worship due to its 
		ability to meet unconscious instinctive needs. 
		Jung sees character as largely 
		unconscious. 
		This means character cannot be replaced 
		by what he calls rational Promethean conquest. 
		Here he refers to the old Greek myth of 
		Prometheus, the Titan who gave fire to man and suffered eternal torment 
		as a result, a story that remains a powerful warning about the dangers 
		of reliance on technology.   
		
		Character, as the defining indicator of soul, 
		refers to our entire identity rather than just our conscious self-image. 
		Character comes into operation in making decisions and generating 
		creative work. 
		Religion is a key element of this 
		process of the construction of ethical identity. 
		Christian symbols of the power of 
		spirit to control nature have an ambiguous place in relation to human 
		character. 
		Jung notes that symbols are deeply 
		grounded in the natural archetypes of the collective unconscious and yet 
		are used to construct a supposedly rational superstructure.   
		
		Here we see some profound metaphysical 
		conflicts between spirit and nature. 
		Jung cites the theological stance 
		against the fall of man, placing reason as the sun, creating a taboo 
		against obscurity in favour of clarity. 
		Jung’s call for a revival of soul 
		therefore asks us to embed our constructed world with its clear vision 
		within a deeper intuition of a reality that we cannot explain. 
		
		Many would criticise Jung for suggesting 
		obscurity has value. 
		The dilemma 
		here is that the identity of the soul 
		is 
		actually obscure, not amenable to description by clear evidence. 
		If we restrict our theory of the real 
		to what is clear, we automatically exclude most of reality, and also 
		exclude the wellsprings of creativity in the unconscious.   
		
		Psychology of the soul must penetrate dark 
		secrets of denied problems, what Jung calls the fateful fruit of the 
		tree of knowledge of good and evil. So we see the problem that the 
		subjective ego imagines it has a clear understanding of personal 
		character when it is only a fraction of the real self. 
		He notes that this problem of the 
		relation between self and ego is a key factor in the growth of 
		personality, seen in how a child confronts limits through stages 
		including anarchy, monarchy and duality. 
		As this process of individuation 
		continues into maturity, we inevitably generate inner psychic 
		disturbance when we dig to illusions that contradict reality. 
		The aim of uncovering our illusions and 
		seeking the truth to live by is to create a higher vision of social 
		being, and this means coming to an understanding of who we really are. 
		 
		
		Jung’s dilemma, between modern consciousness 
		and instinctive soul, appears in the Faustian bargain whereby 
		achievements which society rewards are won at the cost of diminution of 
		personality, creating depression, neurosis and rigid intolerance. 
		He is suggesting that religion could 
		have some potential to heal the mental illness produced by conformity, 
		serving as school for older people, enabling us to look within in order 
		to make longevity worthwhile, as an individuating process of integrating 
		soul and ego. 
		He therefore identifies an evolutionary 
		purpose of religious practice among elders, to cultivate culture as 
		guardians of mystery. 
		Here we see intimations of the ancient 
		social structure that respected knowledge as power, handed on through 
		sacred secret memory and initiation in stone age times, before the 
		gradual collapse of these archaic systems under the weight of the 
		emerging imperial forces of agriculture, metal and writing. 
		In fact, the loss of soul that Jung 
		sees in modernity has ancient roots, reflected in profound archetypal 
		conflicts such as between Christ and Pilate, and in stories such as the 
		fall from grace. 
		
		There is no doubt that the modern world has 
		taken the loss of soul to extremes, for example in American cultural 
		worship of youth, which already in the 1930s Jung saw as a wrong 
		conclusion. Our material empires repress artistic creativity, except in 
		controlled forms, and so generate a world without soul. Science for its 
		part rejects belief and interiority. 
		Against this barren tendency of 
		modernity, Jung observes that a directed life is always more rich and 
		fulfilling and healthy than an aimless life. A directed life is grounded 
		in a sense of higher purpose and meaning, suggesting to Jung that 
		teaching of the afterlife is part of psychic hygiene, as necessary as 
		salt even though we do not know why. 
		 
		
		Reflecting his psychology of the archetypes of 
		the collective unconscious, Jung sees primordial images older than 
		history as the groundwork of the psyche. The fullest life requires 
		harmony with symbols as the basis of wisdom. 
		Such spiritual vision of the 
		psychological power of symbols points to factors of imagination that are 
		outside scientific measurement. Considering archetypes of collective 
		unconscious as psychic organs in this way means our social metabolism is 
		healthy when our idea of God is in harmony with our life. 
		 
		
		The essay 
		Archaic Man describes how the modern 
		world displays throwbacks at deep reptilian levels to the prelogical 
		magical mindset of the archaic world, conflicting with modern causal 
		reason. Magical thinking is seen when accidents are interpreted as 
		omens. 
		Stone age people did not dream of 
		regarding themselves as lords of nature, but instead felt dominated by 
		magical powers. The exclusion of magical beliefs is a dominant 
		assumption of modernity. 
		The modern view of human secular power 
		in the world is seen as beneath dispute, despite its clash with basic 
		tenets of theology. With magic relegated to amusing rituals like Easter 
		eggs and Christmas trees, Jung sees these as modern examples of 
		primitive ritual that could equally be the object of anthropological 
		analysis as any study of remote tribes. 
		
		In the essay 
		Psychology and Literature, 
		Jung explores the German story of Faust, a modern intellectual who 
		exchanges moral integrity for the devil’s gifts of power and pleasure, 
		but only for a short time. 
		Jung says the Faust myth shows how 
		literature compensates for what is missing in the conscious culture, 
		putting the unsayable social reality into fictional form. 
		By questioning the spiritual basis of 
		modernisation, Faust draws from the social context in a way that touches 
		every soul in the epoch, tearing the curtain of the ordered world to 
		expose the abyss. Its immense popularity is a statement of how Faust 
		describes unconscious themes in German national identity. 
		The Faustian theme of modern man 
		selling his soul to the devil raises deep questions about the scientific 
		materialist worldview, as a cautionary tale of the emotional and 
		political dangers of reliance on reason alone. 
		 
		
		A contemporary example of the Faustian pact is 
		seen in climate change. 
		The short-term benefits of reliance on 
		fossil fuels and using the air as our sewer allow contemporary society 
		to discount the looming risks of dangerous warming and a phase shift 
		into a hothouse earth. 
		This economic ability to discount the 
		future illustrates that soul is all about a deep appreciation of time 
		and consequence, recognising that eternity surrounds us and the future 
		and past are as real as the present. 
		But the modern attitude only sees the 
		current moment as real, generating a morally bereft philosophy without 
		soul, selling our souls to the devil like Faust. 
		
		The emotional and cultural resonance of Faust 
		is used by Jung as an example of how psychology is more complex than 
		science, in view of the amazing intricacy of the mind. 
		He says that subjectively speaking, 
		psychic phenomena such as gods and demons can be as real as physical 
		events. 
		Silence shields our interior worlds 
		from view, leaving our shared conversation focused on superficial 
		material interests rather than the deep eternal problems of the soul.
		  
		
		Faust is a parable of the psychic reality of 
		demonic forces, exposing how the modern belief that we command our soul 
		is an arrogant delusion. 
		Rather than such assertion of rational 
		control, Jung suggests the soul opens a door from a world beyond our 
		perception, from the night side of life that is the source of artistic 
		creativity of seers, prophets, leaders and enlighteners. The underlying 
		meaning of the parable of Faust is that creativity has been repudiated 
		by modern reason due to fear of superstition and metaphysics. 
		Instead, modern humanity falsely 
		construe our consciously constructed world as safe and manageable in 
		line with natural law, treating power and pleasure as the highest goods. 
		The problem with these modern soulless 
		values is that they ignore what Jung calls any presentiment of the 
		pleroma, the incomprehensible and mysterious sense of unity with the 
		whole cosmos, living under the eye of eternity.  
		 
		This vision of cosmic unity leads Jung to discuss the Christian cross as 
		a symbol of the psyche. He sees the cross as emerging from a highly 
		developed secret ancient vital teaching handed on through rites of 
		initiation. The cross thereby becomes an archetype of the collective 
		unconscious emerging in our psychic dispositions, shaped by the forces 
		of heredity, reflecting our unconscious shared desires for the 
		redemption of our souls. The kingdom of God among and within us has both 
		a horizontal meaning, connecting people to each other, and a vertical 
		meaning, connecting earth to heaven, with these two meanings combined in 
		the cross. 
		Just as the cross is a symbol concealing unconscious meaning, so too 
		Jung also sees unexpressed desire of the times guiding political 
		leaders, for good or ill. We can well imagine him watching the dark 
		unfolding events in Germany with all their foreboding of war and hatred 
		as the basis of this remark.  
		
		The loss of creative insight in the modern 
		worldview leads Jung to see a prophetic role in poetry, with poets 
		foretelling the change in conscious outlook. 
		In this discussion of poetry, he says 
		personal neurosis does not explain creative art, which rather rises far 
		above the personal to speak to the spirit of the age, as an innate drive 
		with poet as instrument, channel of higher purpose with ruthless passion 
		for creation. 
		The artist pays dearly for the divine 
		gift, with the ego swept along on a subterranean current. The poet’s 
		work is his fate. And therefore Jung sees in poetry the image of wisdom, 
		the saviour and redeemer, awakened when times are out of joint to 
		prevent serious error of society, responding with instinctive 
		activation. 
		The poet corrects conscious false 
		attitudes to restore psychic equilibrium of the epoch, drawing upon 
		healing forces to find the common rhythm of existence. 
		
		The Spiritual Problems of Modern Man is a key 
		essay on Jung’s theory of the soul. 
		Here he defines what he means by 
		modern, saying the mere fact of living in the present does not make a 
		person modern. 
		Rather, modernity in its pure form 
		means a life fully conscious of the present, a solitary rational 
		intellect removed from mystical participation with the popular myths of 
		mass society and the common unconsciousness. 
		This fully conscious modernity is the 
		highest stratum, seeking atonement by creative ability and proficiency, 
		but is largely hidden by pseudo-moderns. 
		Yet the good done by modern rational 
		power has its shadow side, with Jung saying nothing that is good can 
		come into the world without producing a corresponding evil, seen in the 
		destitute illusion that we are the culmination of the history of 
		mankind. 
		The problem of soul is for Jung 
		revealed in the catastrophe of war, which has still not produced the 
		required humility. 
		 
		
		The problem of modernity is therefore the loss 
		of living religion of ritual and spirit, where the psyche is shared in 
		the community as a way to resolve spiritual problems. 
		The pathology of modernity with its 
		distorted human identity as separate individuals has generated the 
		spiritual need for psychoanalysis, as a symptom of a profound cultural 
		convulsion. 
		Our war with ourselves was seen by 
		Freud in the pervasive presence of perverse fantasies that are 
		incompatible with civility. 
		 
		
		The First World War shattered faith, not only 
		in secular progress but also in the religious possibility of the 
		millennium as the rational organisation of the world in peace and 
		harmony, grounded in the hope of the return of Christ to rule the world 
		in love. 
		Jung’s world had lost all metaphysical 
		certainty, replaced by the secular goals of material security and humane 
		welfare. Reliance on material progress as a metaphysical goal only adds 
		force to the vaguely perceived threat of stupendous catastrophe. 
		In a prophetic remark about World War 
		Two, Jung observes that our internal demons are fated to use their 
		accumulated materials of destruction. 
		The same problem of a pathological 
		mistake about the basis of security in weapons and walls still exists 
		today. 
		
		The psychological damage of the scientific 
		world view, in Jung’s opinion, is how it has destroyed the refuge of the 
		inner life supplied by the religious life of worship and prayer. Without 
		an inner life of the soul, modern life is intensely vulnerable to the 
		seduction by superficial understanding. 
		With some irony, Jung asks if knowledge 
		of the unconscious means no one could be deceived by a demagogue. 
		Of course, his observation that popular 
		society is thoroughly mythological in its psychological structure means 
		this absence of deep psychological engagement renders us highly exposed 
		to dangerous social movements. 
		Such lack of knowledge of unconscious 
		forces can readily be exploited by a leader like Hitler. 
		
		If we think of the rise of Hitler as the 
		context for this problem of the modern loss of soul, we can see the 
		political pertinence of Jung’s remark that belief in control of psyche 
		is an illusion. 
		He points out that evil in the world is 
		due to the fact that man in general is hopelessly unconscious, lacking 
		the insight needed to combat this evil at source. 
		
		While popular interest in psychology shows the 
		yearning for religion in modern life, the problem is that religion no 
		longer comes from within the heart but is classed with things of the 
		outer world. 
		Jung is here critiquing the emptiness 
		of the dogmatic faith of Christendom, how the long subordination of the 
		altar to the throne has led to a broad social rejection of the spiritual 
		meaning and emotional power in the Christian story. 
		And so he contrasts the hollow 
		teachings of the church to authentic spiritual currents, in which he 
		sees deep affinity with the early Gnostic movement, displaying religious 
		character while seeking reconciliation of faith and reason. 
		 
		
		Jung’s constant interest is psychic energy as 
		a real phenomenon. In line with physical conservation of energy, psychic 
		energy will emerge somewhere else if suppressed at one point. 
		Passionate interest in spiritual 
		identity reflects the enduring strength of psychic energy, which cannot 
		be invested in obsolete forms but demands living meaning. 
		And therefore modern thinking abhors 
		dogmatic faith as a blockage to wholeness, and instead demands a 
		spiritual vision grounded in lived experience. 
		
		The modern world needs to shift from the 
		mentality of the former age of discovery with its outward focus, and 
		must instead now look within, to discover the unconscious. This is a 
		difficult process of confession, with Jung saying Freudian 
		psychoanalysis throws light on the dirt, dark and evil of our psychic 
		hinterland as refuse and slag. 
		 
		
		An example of the unseen power of the 
		unconscious in culture is for Jung seen in the enthronement of the 
		Goddess of Reason in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris during the French 
		revolution, an event whose symbolic meaning he compares to the hewing of 
		Wotan’s Oak by Christian missionaries. 
		In another example of his psychology of 
		the conservation of energy, Jung proposes a psychological law of 
		compensation, that no psychic value can disappear without being replaced 
		by another of equal intensity. He reflects on the European discovery of 
		eastern spirituality in the Upanishads as a sort of replacement of the 
		spiritual energy deflected by the rise of atheism. 
		
		Spiritually, Jung saw the Western world as in 
		a precarious situation, with the danger worsened by illusions, seen 
		especially in the denial of impact of colonial exterminations. Here in 
		Australia both victors and vanquished are traumatised by the legacy of 
		genocide, with the intergenerational traumas of Aboriginal society 
		reflected in the bleak silence of white society. 
		Calling to dethrone the false Gods of 
		the idolised values of the modern world, Jung therefore asks us to lay 
		bare the foundations of our lauded cultural virtues as whited 
		sepulchres. 
		This reference is to the Biblical 
		critique of religious hypocrisy, where institutions are outwardly 
		beautiful but inwardly corrupt. 
		
		Jung remarks that indigenous people think 
		westerners are all crazy, greedy and cruel. 
		This uninviting picture of shabby 
		spiritual undercurrents is a psychological insight that meets resistance 
		and denial.  Jung 
		respects that resistance to some extent, calling it a healthy reaction 
		to destructive relativism, but of course this statement of respect for 
		conservative opinion needs to be balanced by his primary concerns for 
		knowledge and authenticity. 
		
		Looking to the example of how the Roman world 
		abandoned its ancestral Gods in favour of mystery cults, including with 
		the rise of Christianity, Jung suggests there is potential that the 
		recovery of soul in the modern world will come from western respect for 
		indigenous cultures, leading to recognition and reconciliation. The 
		modern mentality has eyes only for gross material connection, yet there 
		is hope in the widely observed process of conquering empires becoming 
		like their vanquished, as the myths of the conquered society at first 
		seem to be destroyed but then return in subordinate position. 
		Here in Australia we can imagine this 
		process in terms of an indigenous liberation theology, seeing the 
		relation of Jesus in Palestine to the Roman Empire as equivalent to the 
		relation between indigenous culture and the English invasion, with Jesus 
		Christ as an Aborigine. 
		 
		
		This call for cultural dialogue and renewal of 
		mythology is not a destructive agenda, but rather in Jung’s terms, it 
		reflects the positive message that the unconscious is attractive for 
		healthy constructive minds as well as for the sick. 
		Jung observes that the psyche 
		constantly produces equivalent values to those destroyed by relativism. 
		This appears to mean that reform of 
		Christianity may be an effective way to create a meaningful modern story 
		reflecting emerging values of reconciliation between black and white, 
		between faith and reason, and between science and religion. 
		 
		
		As the yearning for peace and security breeds 
		new forms of life, Jung’s perspective is to search for significant 
		psychology below the conscious horizon. 
		In view of his discussion of the 
		prophetic power of poetry, he mentions a line from the German poet 
		Friedrich Holderlin, that danger fosters the rescuing power. 
		The meaning is that a crisis is needed 
		to force attention on a problem that has been growing for some time. 
		
		The final essay in 
		Modern Man in Search of a Soul 
		is called Psychotherapists or the 
		Clergy? 
		
		Here Jung investigates the gulf between 
		neuroscience and psychotherapy due to the division between medical and 
		psychic methods of treatment. 
		Psyche is a neglected causal factor in 
		disease, against the scientific medical focus on material causation, 
		with its assumption that psyche did not exist. 
		Jung sees mind as the crux of neurosis 
		as a pathogenic factor, with the psychological challenge to construct a 
		wholistic vision, in contrast to the reductive effort of Freud and Adler 
		to explain neurosis by instinct. 
		 
		
		Modern scientific method with its sole focus 
		on material causation ignores the fictional and imaginative processes 
		that give meaning in life, disregarding the religious view that only 
		spiritual meaning sets us free. 
		Science provides excellent common 
		sense, but has no answer to spiritual suffering and inner meaning. 
		The therapeutic challenge is to provide 
		a patient with meaning and form to answer the confusion of the neurotic 
		mind. 
		At this point, the doctor must hand 
		over to the clergy or the philosopher, or abandon the patient to 
		unsolvable perplexity. 
		The deep message Jung suggests for the 
		treatment of neurosis is that illness arises from lack of love, faith, 
		hope and insight, problems that can only be solved by great and wise 
		teachers who grasp the meaning of life and the world. 
		Such high achievements are gifts of 
		grace, requiring total commitment of our whole being to liberating 
		experience and self knowledge, but how? 
		
		The collapse of religion means clergy are 
		incapable of providing psychological therapy, but instead in Jung’s view 
		can provide only empty words rather than conversation about the ultimate 
		questions of the soul. 
		Jung sees the popular exodus from 
		church as proof that admonitions to believe are inadequate. 
		Meanwhile he finds it astonishing that 
		clergy seek help in Freud and Adler theories that are hostile to 
		spiritual values, hindering realization of meaningful experience. 
		The majority stand in spiritual 
		alienation, looking to psychology rather than the church, seeing 
		theology as irrelevant to treatment of human problems. 
		Indifference to religion grows side by 
		side with growth of neuroses. 
		The modern world has an ineradicable 
		aversion for inherited truths. 
		Jung’s outlook is that spiritual 
		standards have lost validity, leading to the broad need to experiment in 
		face of feeling that dogma has grown empty. 
		He says modern people no longer feel 
		redeemed by death of Christ, as the story has lost its meaning and 
		promise. 
		This pervasive meaningless mood causes 
		disturbance of unconscious, generating neurosis. 
		
		While doctors can admit religious doubt, 
		clergy cannot, making sincere conversation about religion difficult. 
		Jung’s view is that unprejudiced 
		objectivity can sense a universal unseen presence of divine will, but 
		this is quite different from traditional religious dogma. 
		The challenge in talking about religion 
		is that discussion requires acceptance rather than condemnation. 
		The seemingly simple things are the 
		most difficult, for example the central teachings of Christian faith 
		call us to feed the hungry, forgive insults, and treat the least as 
		Christ. 
		The deepest archetypal message of the 
		Gospels is that living truly to fulfil destiny will lead to being 
		misjudged, derided, tortured and crucified. 
		Against that prospect, Jung finds it 
		unsurprising that Christians prefer the imitation of Christ as a life of 
		monastic holiness rather than political engagement.   Neurosis is a war within the self, arising from a disassociation of personality between ego and shadow. Overcoming this incoherence means healing is a religious problem. The modern loss of soul makes it impossible to accept the shadow side of life, meaning we are still reaping the bitter fruit of the nineteenth century contradiction between the church emphasis on blind faith and the academic teaching of intellectual rationalism. In the midst of this warfare of opinion we need spiritual help to withstand the powers of darkness. For Jung the First World War was an eruption of madness, showing the thin barrier between our supposedly ordered rational world and the actual lurking chaos. He says our constructed reason has done violence to natural forces that seek revenge. Only revelation of a greater wisdom can lift us out of distress, with Jung calling for rescue as coming from the psychic depths of the archetypes of collective unconscious as a spiritual guide. 
				
				Robert Tulip 
				has Bachelors and Masters Honours Degrees in philosophy from 
				Macquarie University.  After thirty years working for the 
				federal government, he is now returning to focus on these 
				intellectual interests, especially the philosophical problems of 
				psychology and religion.  |