What do you think?
Rate this book
The Postsecular Sacred: Jung, Soul and Meaning in an Age of Change
In The Postsecular Sacred: Jung, Soul and Meaning in an Age of Change, David Tacey presents a unique psychological study of the postsecular, adding a Jungian perspective to a debate shaped by sociology, philosophy and religious studies. In this interdisciplinary exploration, Tacey looks at the unexpected return of the sacred in Western societies, and how the sacred is changing our understanding of humanity and culture.
Beginning with Jung’s belief that the psyche has never been secular, Tacey examines the new desire for spiritual experience and presents a logic of the unconscious to explain it. Tacey argues that what has fuelled the postsecular momentum is the awareness that something is missing, and the idea that this could be buried in the unconscious is dawning on sociologists and philosophers. While the instinct to connect to something greater is returning, Tacey shows that this need not imply that we are regressing to superstitions that science has rejected. The book explores indigenous spirituality in the context of the need to reanimate the world, not by going back to the past but by being inspired by it. There are chapters on ecopsychology and quantum physics, and, using Australia as a case study, the book also examines the resistance of secular societies to becoming postsecular. Approaching postsecularism through a Jungian perspective, Tacey argues that we should understand God in a manner that accords with the time, not go back to archaic, rejected images of divinity. The sacred is returning in an age of terrorism, and this is not without significance in terms of the ‘explosive’ impact of spirituality in our time.
Innovative and relevant to the world we live in, this will be of great interest to academics and scholars of Jungian studies, anthropology, indigenous studies, philosophy, religious studies and sociology due to its transdisciplinary scope. It would also be a useful resource for analytical psychologists, Jungian analysts and psychotherapists.
206 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2019
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 6, 2020
This book goes a long way to help me understand how my faith/theology has moved in the past 30 years. I didn't agree with all of it. As a Christian i would have liked the author to place Jesus into the mix. His view of spirituality seems vert individualistic despite his emphasis upon indigenous practices .Despite these minor criticisms it a valuable contribution to the ongoing search for new ways of living and believing without resorting to the "old wineskins" many of us have grown up with.
May 18, 2025
So much to unpack from this book. I’ll need a little time to reflect and then write an incisive review, if for no other reason than to remind myself of the impact of what the author is saying here.
”This is a return to mystery with a difference: suspicion and critique have not been dismissed or overcome, but subsumed by a new interest in the return of mystery.”
“Religion has morphed into something other than what it was; heaven is not a place in the sky but a metaphor for a transcendence found in creation, God is not a magisterial being out there but the incarnational spirit of the world, the cosmology of religion has been deconstructed, and a mystical vision of the closeness of the sacred has replaced the distant divinity of the past.”
“There can be no sense of belonging without coming to terms with indigenous cultures. There is a generalised anxiety of guilt and a sense of being inauthentic. Aboriginal elders offer the gift of belonging, but guilt and anxiety paralyse the colonisers. They are unable to accept the gift because it is a spiritual endowment, and secular society struggles to understand it.”
“Jung put it this way: 'Eternal truth needs a human language that alters with the spirit of the times'”
These are just samplings of the author’s observations about the post secular, post world war, post 9/11 world. There’s something within us that longs for the sacred, for God, for a deeper root structure that atheism doesn’t acknowledge, and in fact, angrily denies, like a petulant child.
Personally, I think atheism is lazy. Feeling a need to make things concrete instead of being comfortable with the mystery, the sense of uncertainty, which is more truthful.
He spends a good amount of time, as an Australian, discussing the indigenous aboriginal people there and the gifts they wish to offer, but which are ignored by his country. Astute observations about a culture deeply embedded into the land.
In the end, the book tickles the senses about our conclusions about life and consciousness in a manner that is thoughtful and worthy of further exploration.
”This is a return to mystery with a difference: suspicion and critique have not been dismissed or overcome, but subsumed by a new interest in the return of mystery.”
“Religion has morphed into something other than what it was; heaven is not a place in the sky but a metaphor for a transcendence found in creation, God is not a magisterial being out there but the incarnational spirit of the world, the cosmology of religion has been deconstructed, and a mystical vision of the closeness of the sacred has replaced the distant divinity of the past.”
“There can be no sense of belonging without coming to terms with indigenous cultures. There is a generalised anxiety of guilt and a sense of being inauthentic. Aboriginal elders offer the gift of belonging, but guilt and anxiety paralyse the colonisers. They are unable to accept the gift because it is a spiritual endowment, and secular society struggles to understand it.”
“Jung put it this way: 'Eternal truth needs a human language that alters with the spirit of the times'”
These are just samplings of the author’s observations about the post secular, post world war, post 9/11 world. There’s something within us that longs for the sacred, for God, for a deeper root structure that atheism doesn’t acknowledge, and in fact, angrily denies, like a petulant child.
Personally, I think atheism is lazy. Feeling a need to make things concrete instead of being comfortable with the mystery, the sense of uncertainty, which is more truthful.
He spends a good amount of time, as an Australian, discussing the indigenous aboriginal people there and the gifts they wish to offer, but which are ignored by his country. Astute observations about a culture deeply embedded into the land.
In the end, the book tickles the senses about our conclusions about life and consciousness in a manner that is thoughtful and worthy of further exploration.
September 29, 2021
Clear articulation of our current dilemma
This book is likely the clearest articulation of our current crisis as a species. Tracey writes in a way that allows both religious and non-religious readers embrace a thesis that a new form of the spiritual is emerging in our time. Paying deep attention to this phenomenon will serve us well both individually and collectively.
This book is likely the clearest articulation of our current crisis as a species. Tracey writes in a way that allows both religious and non-religious readers embrace a thesis that a new form of the spiritual is emerging in our time. Paying deep attention to this phenomenon will serve us well both individually and collectively.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews