Digesting Jung: Food for the Journey - Inner City Books

96 The Religious Attitude and Soul-Making
goblins and horrors under the bed—“the attitude peculiar to a consciousness
which has been changed by experience of the numinosum”
90 —which is to say, the unknown.
Thus someone in a conflict situation, he said, has to rely on
divine comfort and mediation . . . . an autonomous psychic happening,
a hush that follows the storm, a reconciling light in the darkness
. . . secretly bringing order into the chaos of his soul. 91
Although Jung often used the word “soul” in its traditional theological
sense, he strictly limited its psychological meaning. “By
soul,” he writes, “I understand a clearly demarcated functional
complex that can best be described as ‘personality.’ ” 92 Thus soulmaking,
in this secular sense, can be seen as a natural consequence
of differentiating and assimilating previously unconscious contents,
particularly shadow and anima/animus.
Personally, I experience soul when I stare at the wall in the still
of the night. Soul is there when I am in conflict with myself, when I
struggle for answers. Soul is what I am, as opposed to what I seem
to be. Soul is forged in the interactions between me and my inner
complexes (persona, shadow, anima, etc.), between me and my
outer companions (friends, family, colleagues), and I see abundant
evidence of it daily in my analytic practice.
At times of transition from one stage of life to another, traditional
religious imagery often appears in dreams. A childless
woman in her forties dreams of baptizing her new-born. A man in
his fifties dreams of finding a long-lost baby boy under a pile of
rubble in the basement of a church. People dream of being priests
or nuns, of celebrating Mass, of family seders, of pilgrimages, of
mountainous journeys, fearful descents into black holes, wandering
in the desert. A shopping mall becomes a mosque. Shrines magically
appear in parking lots. Virgin births and divine children—
born walking and speaking—are not rare.
90 “Psychology and Religion,” Psychology and Religion, CW 11, par. 9.
91 “A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity,” ibid., par. 260.
92 “Definitions,” Psychological Types, CW 6, par. 797.