Carl Jung’s Embrace of Religion https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/history-ideas/2016/02/carl-jungs-embrace-of-religion/

February 9, 2016 | Andrew Ladd
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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.

Read more on First Things: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/02/the-quotable-jung