THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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Jung's thoughts on Christianity and the archetypal significance of Satan in Western
spirituality.
11.1 Jung's definition of religious experience
Despite his serious consideration of man's universal religious dimension, Jung was not
concerned with the metaphysical issue of whether or not gods exist as transcendent
external realities. Indeed, speaking of religious experiences, he says: "It will always
remain doubtful whether what metaphysics and theology call God and the gods is the
real ground of these experiences" (Jung, 1957a, p. 293). Jung's perspective is a
phenomenological one insofar as subjective experience is regarded as primary,
regardless ofwhether or not it corresponds with some objective reality. God, from this
perspective, is thus "a psychic fact of immediate experience" (Jung, 1926, p. 328).
Jung's definition of religious experience is vague, and he articulates it in terms of
contact with a numinous dimension of existence. By numinous he means a
compelling, enigmatic quality of experience, independent of one's will, which disrupts
and transforms everyday waking consciousness:
It seizes and controls the human subject, who is always rather its victim
than its creator ..... The numinosum is either a quality belonging to a visible
object or the influence of an invisible presence that causes a particular
alteration ofconsciousness (Jung, 1940a, p. 7).
In terms ofthis definition, any object or presence which awes or moves us deeply, and
over which we have no conscious control, may be termed nurninous. Furthermore, one
need not believe in any metaphysical entity called God, or subscribe to any type of
religious dogma in order to experience this state ofreligious awareness. Jung is careful
to distinguish between religion and creed, the latter which he defines as a "definite
collective belief' (1957a, p. 257), and elsewhere as "codified and dogmatized forms of
original religious experience" (1940, p. 9). His use ofthe word "victim" to denote the
individual under sway of the nurninosum indicates that religious experience need not
necessarily be ecstatic or benign, it may be frightening, intrusive and unwelcome. The
significance ofthis is that the experience ofevil is not ruled out ofthis interpretation of
nurninosity. Another ofJung's definitions ofreligion supports this claim: