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ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS AND DR. C.G. JUNG: Christian Mysticism in the Light of Jungian Psychology
Many current attempts to revitalize the life of prayer are inspired by either the writings of St. John of the Cross or the psychology of Dr. C.G. Jung. Both are excellent choices. Even better would be a program of renewal under their joint inspiration.Yet such a program faces three serious theological misgivings about the compatibility of Jung's psychology with Christian belief, long-standing misinterpretations of St. John's doctrine on contemplation, and the need to clarify the relationship between Jung's process of individuation and contemplation.Parts I and II are devoted to resolving these first two problems, while Part III gives a practical demonstration of the relationship between individuation and contemplation in St. John's life and writings and in a variety of contemporary spiritual problems.Let me put it more concretely. I am enthusiastic about the prospect of using Jung and St. John as practical guides in the interior life. But when this enthusiasm begins to run away with me I see Victor White deep in conversation with Jung in the tower at Bollingen and their subsequent estrangement. Or I see Juan Falconi and Antonio Rojas in the Madrid of the late 1620's evoking the name of John of the Cross with the best of intentions to fuel a popular enthusiasm for contemplation, yet paving the road that led to a distrust of mysticism that has lingered to our own day.Although these problems are serious and will force us to take a difficult journey through the thickets of epistemology and the history of spiritual life in the 17th century, I believe they are surmountable and will help lay foundations for a renewal of the life of prayer and a practical science of spiritual direction.
238 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 1986
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April 12, 2019
I stumbled across this gem after a good friend suggested that I might enjoy reading both Jung’s “Man and His Symbols” and the works of St. John of the Cross. Both are authors and subject matter that were a bit outside the scope of familiar reading material for me.
St. John was a Christian mystic who wrote in Spain in the midst of the Spanish Inquisition. While solidly orthodox and Biblically-focused, John of the Cross (and Christian mysticism in general), was new territory, and as such, grasping his vocabulary and approach has been a bit of a leap.
If John of the Cross was simply unfamiliar, Jung was an enigma. Hardly an orthodox Christian, Jung’s theology can probably best be described as neo-Gnostic. While Jung has been used constructively by orthodox Christians from a psychological perspective, his thoughts have also proven quite destructive to orthodox Christianity (especially when the reader’s focus shifts from his psychology to some of his statements of a doctrinal and theological nature), and have contributed to the popularity of New Age spirituality, Christian liberalism, and even the occult (in which Jung himself was involved). As such, those seeking to read Jung purely for his positive contributions to psychology from within Christian orthodoxy should do so carefully and with a Word- and Spirit-inspired filter.
Arraj serves as a stellar guide for the Christian who is seeking to pursue a greater depth to life in Christ via the writings of both St. John of the Cross and Carl Jung. Containing biographical sketches of both St. John and Dr. Jung, a brief history of Christian mysticism, and valuable insight from the author with respect to the contributions of both men and how they’ve been understood (and misunderstood) by Christians who’ve sought to positively apply their insights to the Christian walk, Arraj’s work is a must-read for any Christian who is undertaking a serious study of the writings of both men.
The following excerpt is one of my favourite bits from the work, and is a good example of Arraj’s helpful assessment and application of both St. John of the Cross and Jung to the Christian experience:
“St. John would say that the natural working of the faculties is not adequate to attain to union with God, and the beginner is drawn to spiritual exercises as much by the satisfaction as by any purely spiritual motives. For the psychologist, even while he is refraining from making any judgment about the religious object, is often painfully aware that if interior experiences are viewed as if they had nothing to do with the overall dynamics of the psyche, then their recipient runs the risk of damaging his psychic balance. If temptations must be seen only as the direct working of the devil and inspirations and revelations the direct working of the Holy Spirit, then the totality of the psyche and the flow of its energy will be misunderstood.
“The biggest danger to the beginner experiencing sensible fervor, or any other tangible phenomenon, is that they will equate their experience purely and simply with union with God. The very combination of genuine spiritual gifts and how these graces work through the psyche creates a sense of conviction that this, indeed, is the work of God, but this conviction is often extended to deny the human dimension as if any participation by the psyche is a denial of divine origin. The beginner, then, can become impervious to psychological and spiritual advice. The sense of consolation, the feeling of completion, the visions seen, or the voices heard, the tongue spoken, or the healings witnessed, are all identified with the exclusive direct action of God as if there were no psyche that received and conditioned these inspirations. This same attitude is then carried over into daily life and how God's action is viewed in this world. If God is so immediately present, miracles must be taking place daily. God must be intervening day-by-day, even in the minor mundane affairs of the recipients of His Spirit. This does not mean that genuine miracles do not take place, nor that genuine inspirations do not play a role in daily life, but rather, if we believe that they are conceptually distinguishable from the ordinary working of consciousness, we run the risk of identifying God's action with our own perceptions, feelings and emotions. The initial conversion state, precisely because of the degree of emotional energy it is charged with, is often clung to as if the intensity of this energy is a guarantee of its spiritual character.
“As beginners under the vital force of these tangible experiences we take up an attitude of inner expectancy. We look to a realm beyond the arena of the ego and assume that what transpires there is supernatural. We reach and grasp for interior messages. Thus arises a real danger of misinterpreting what we perceive. What Jung says about the inability to discern between God and the unconscious at the level of empirical experience is verified here. We run the risk of confusing the spiritual with the psychic, our own perceptions with God Himself. An even greater danger is that we will erect this kind of knowledge into a whole theology of the spiritual life, and thus judge our progress by the presence of these phenomena.
“The same problem can arise in a completely different context, which could be called a pseudo-Jungian Christianity. In it the realities of the psyche which Jung described are identified with the Christian faith. Thus, at one stroke a vivid sense of experience, even mysticism, if you will, arises. The numinous experience of the unconscious becomes equivalent to the workings of the Holy Spirit. Dreams and the psychological events that take place during the process of individuation are taken for the stages of the life of prayer and the ascent of the soul to God by faith. But this mysticism is no more to be identified with St. John's than the previous one of visions and revelations.”
St. John was a Christian mystic who wrote in Spain in the midst of the Spanish Inquisition. While solidly orthodox and Biblically-focused, John of the Cross (and Christian mysticism in general), was new territory, and as such, grasping his vocabulary and approach has been a bit of a leap.
If John of the Cross was simply unfamiliar, Jung was an enigma. Hardly an orthodox Christian, Jung’s theology can probably best be described as neo-Gnostic. While Jung has been used constructively by orthodox Christians from a psychological perspective, his thoughts have also proven quite destructive to orthodox Christianity (especially when the reader’s focus shifts from his psychology to some of his statements of a doctrinal and theological nature), and have contributed to the popularity of New Age spirituality, Christian liberalism, and even the occult (in which Jung himself was involved). As such, those seeking to read Jung purely for his positive contributions to psychology from within Christian orthodoxy should do so carefully and with a Word- and Spirit-inspired filter.
Arraj serves as a stellar guide for the Christian who is seeking to pursue a greater depth to life in Christ via the writings of both St. John of the Cross and Carl Jung. Containing biographical sketches of both St. John and Dr. Jung, a brief history of Christian mysticism, and valuable insight from the author with respect to the contributions of both men and how they’ve been understood (and misunderstood) by Christians who’ve sought to positively apply their insights to the Christian walk, Arraj’s work is a must-read for any Christian who is undertaking a serious study of the writings of both men.
The following excerpt is one of my favourite bits from the work, and is a good example of Arraj’s helpful assessment and application of both St. John of the Cross and Jung to the Christian experience:
“St. John would say that the natural working of the faculties is not adequate to attain to union with God, and the beginner is drawn to spiritual exercises as much by the satisfaction as by any purely spiritual motives. For the psychologist, even while he is refraining from making any judgment about the religious object, is often painfully aware that if interior experiences are viewed as if they had nothing to do with the overall dynamics of the psyche, then their recipient runs the risk of damaging his psychic balance. If temptations must be seen only as the direct working of the devil and inspirations and revelations the direct working of the Holy Spirit, then the totality of the psyche and the flow of its energy will be misunderstood.
“The biggest danger to the beginner experiencing sensible fervor, or any other tangible phenomenon, is that they will equate their experience purely and simply with union with God. The very combination of genuine spiritual gifts and how these graces work through the psyche creates a sense of conviction that this, indeed, is the work of God, but this conviction is often extended to deny the human dimension as if any participation by the psyche is a denial of divine origin. The beginner, then, can become impervious to psychological and spiritual advice. The sense of consolation, the feeling of completion, the visions seen, or the voices heard, the tongue spoken, or the healings witnessed, are all identified with the exclusive direct action of God as if there were no psyche that received and conditioned these inspirations. This same attitude is then carried over into daily life and how God's action is viewed in this world. If God is so immediately present, miracles must be taking place daily. God must be intervening day-by-day, even in the minor mundane affairs of the recipients of His Spirit. This does not mean that genuine miracles do not take place, nor that genuine inspirations do not play a role in daily life, but rather, if we believe that they are conceptually distinguishable from the ordinary working of consciousness, we run the risk of identifying God's action with our own perceptions, feelings and emotions. The initial conversion state, precisely because of the degree of emotional energy it is charged with, is often clung to as if the intensity of this energy is a guarantee of its spiritual character.
“As beginners under the vital force of these tangible experiences we take up an attitude of inner expectancy. We look to a realm beyond the arena of the ego and assume that what transpires there is supernatural. We reach and grasp for interior messages. Thus arises a real danger of misinterpreting what we perceive. What Jung says about the inability to discern between God and the unconscious at the level of empirical experience is verified here. We run the risk of confusing the spiritual with the psychic, our own perceptions with God Himself. An even greater danger is that we will erect this kind of knowledge into a whole theology of the spiritual life, and thus judge our progress by the presence of these phenomena.
“The same problem can arise in a completely different context, which could be called a pseudo-Jungian Christianity. In it the realities of the psyche which Jung described are identified with the Christian faith. Thus, at one stroke a vivid sense of experience, even mysticism, if you will, arises. The numinous experience of the unconscious becomes equivalent to the workings of the Holy Spirit. Dreams and the psychological events that take place during the process of individuation are taken for the stages of the life of prayer and the ascent of the soul to God by faith. But this mysticism is no more to be identified with St. John's than the previous one of visions and revelations.”
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