Long the sole Gentile among Sigmund Freud’s disciples, Carl Jung eventually came to believe that religion had an irreplaceable role to play in the life of the psychologically healthy individual, as Andrew Ladd writes:

Religious readers will appreciate the general ideas of Jung’s psychology that inspire a personal spiritual awareness. . . . Unlike Freud, who explained religious belief as a holdover from infant experience, Jung explored psychology with an unshakable conviction in the existence of God. . . .

We find in numerous passages that Jung recognized the therapeutic value of faith. The path of knowing oneself in a psychological sense must accompany an understanding of one’s relation to God. . . .

Because Jung wrote about myth and considered all religions worthy of study and respect, many have wrongly assumed that he interpreted religion as myth in the sense that it is deluded belief, something childish and meant only for the unthinking masses. Just the reverse is true. Not only did Jung stress the importance of belief; he thought religion held the truths that made belief possible.

Indeed, Jung thought that the worst condition for the modern man was his abandonment of [organized religion]. . . . According to Jung, one cannot simply conjure up one’s own religion, as we see so often in the narcissistic culture of our day. On the contrary, religion curbs that very impulse.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.