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Author Topic:   On Carl Jung
Damien Mackey 
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Message 1 of 2 (415913)
08-12-2007 9:50 PM


I've heard of Jim Ward, but who is this Jung character?
WHY SHOULD WE TRUST THESE MEN?
[The first, in Brother Ward’s triple set on
Jung, de Chardin and Rahner]
Most of us like to believe well of others, especially of people who have gained some fame or notoriety in whatever field of action they engage in. Such, I believe, would be true of our attitude towards the men whose claim to trustworthiness I am about to question.
I speak of Carl Jung and Teilhard de Chardin.
Let us begin with Carl Jung.
Born July 26, 1875, Jung has become a world authority as a psycho-analyst with his work on the subconscious/religious level. His prestige might be said too be so great that it behoves us not to question any of his ideas or theories and practices that issue from those ideas. Some have done just that and I propose to offer their criticisms for consideration.
My chief authorities are:
1. Richard Noll, a clinical psychologist and a post doctoral fellow in the history of science at Harvard University. I use quotes from his 1994 book, ”The Jung Cult: Origins of a Charismatic Movement’ and from an interview with Noll, both of which were published in ”The Wanderer’, Dec. 24, 1994.
2. Fr. Mitch Pacwa, S.J., whose Jungian studies he found to be adverse to Catholic faith and on which he elaborates in his book, ”Catholics and the New Age’.
3. Jeffrey B. Satinover, M.D., a practising psychiatrist, graduate of the C.J. Jung Institute of Zurich, former president of the C.J. Jung Foundation of New York, and a one time Jungian analyst whose near 4000 world letter was published in ”The Wanderer’, July 27, 1995.
4. Mike Cyrus, a Colorado convert to the faith who, as a non-Catholic “enthusiastically began studying Jung, purchasing his complete works and those of his major disciples”. His contribution can be found in ”The Wanderer’, January 5, 1995.
The criticisms I have are mainly directed at Jung’s religious ideas and their consequences. Regarding his psychological insights - which, to my limited reading of same, would seem to be unanchored without the interlacing of his religious views - I offer Jeffrey Satinover’s assessment:
“A solid familiarity with clinical psychiatry and psychoanalysis leads
one to accept but a subset of his work”.
So much for Jung’s professionalism as assessed by the one time president of the C.J. Jung Foundation of New York!
It may surprise some to learn that Jung as steeped in the occult, that his ideas about God and Christ were downright blasphemous, that he believed that he was part of God, that his own life was scandalously immoral on account of his sexual excesses and that he formally repudiated belief in Christianity despite his father’s being a minister of religion. He saw the Catholic Church, with its dogmas and moral teachings as the source of all the neuroses which afflicted Western man; Christianity was the great inhibiter preventing man’s returning to his true psychological roots in the pre-Christian world. Noll ”establishes in his groundbreaking study that Jung’s entire life and work were motivated by a desire to overthrow the Catholic Church’. (Paul Likoudis: ”The Wanderer’).
For some of the consequences of such an influential man’s ideas being adopted widely by Catholic scholars and innovators we turn to Mike Cyrus, whose observations and conclusions find sound basis in all other sources listed above:
· Christ is “the prototypical example of human evolution, a man discovering his own Godhead, ”growing in wisdom’ and unsure of who he was as he was growing up.”
· The Trinity: “Jungians view the Father, Son, Holy Spirit as a ”surface manifestation’ of a ”deeper reality.’ They argue the traditional notion of God is flawed - patriarchal in origin and designed to oppress women and we need to move beyond historically and culturally conditioned notions of God which are limited because they are prescientific”.
· “All creation is part of God. It comes from ”God stuff’. Trees, planets, seasons, animals are on the same plane of life as ”humankind’. Eco-feminism, eco-spirituality and Gaia worship are significant subsets of Jungian spirituality”.
· Liturgy: “Liturgy means ”people’s work’, made divine by the gathering of God’s people; almost anything goes: Aztec rituals are on the same plane as the Roman liturgy. Jungians will substitute readings of Teilhard de Chardin for the Gospels. We can dance, sit, stand, co-consecrate the Eucharist, and anyone can be the presider of the liturgy”.
· Sacraments: “Jungians essentially have two sacraments - baptism and Eucharist. Baptism, to them, is a welcoming into a community of a new, innocent life, a life having no sin of any kind on it whatsoever. The sacrament depends for its efficacy on the faith of the faith community.”
· “The Eucharistic assembly, or more properly the gathering of the holy Eucharistic people is, likewise, a celebration of the faith community. Some deny the Real Presence . There is no place for the tabernacle because God is ”with us’ and dwells in the community.”
· “Marriage . is not a sacrament: homosexuals and co-habiting couples are morally right because they are in loving, committed relationships.”
· Heaven: “A state of mind everyone achieves after death.”
· Hell: “Most Jungians do not believe in hell or, if they do, hell is not permanent.”
· Original sin: “This... refers generically to our tendency to be selfish, which leads to sexism, racism, homophobia and anti-community tendencies.”
· Sin: “This is known to Jungians as ”missing the mark’. No one can ”miss the mark’ indefinitely, because we will all meet our ”higher self’ which is God.”
· Divine Revelation: “This is understood as the living experience of the universe through all religions, peoples, animals, plants etc., which constitutes God’s continuing self-revelation. Discerning God’s plan for your own life relies mostly on dream worka fully, journaling, active imagination, and personality typing, such as the enneagram, I Ching, tarot cards and other methods of divination.”
· Spirituality: “Spirituality is the driving force of the Jungian church. For a Jungian, spirituality is your personal experience of the divine, whatever it is, together with the actions you take as a result of your experience . For those more advanced on their ”journey’, traditional Catholics are ”locked in the past’, and must not be allowed to interfere with the ”work of the Spirit’.
To be a truly spiritual Jungian, one must have an ”enlightened’ view of sexuality, because that is necessary to be ”fully alive’, or fully sexual. That is why sex education is so important to the Jungian church.
Therefore the ”perpetual virginity’ of Mary is ludicrous. Likewise a priest or nun is ”more fully spiritual’ if he or she is ”in touch with his or her sexuality’.
This also explains why Jungians embrace contraception, homosexuality and abortion, because these are part of people’s ”lived experiences’.”
· Scripture: “The Scriptures...are just one “story” from one culture . Only those with a deep understanding of the unconscious can explain their meaning. ”Scripture is no more ”holy’ than other stories’.”
· Resurrection: “Jesus rose spiritually from the dead in the minds of his disciples.”
· Mass: “The Mass, to Jungians, is the time we celebrate our community and ourselves. We break bread, drink wine, and ritualise our joy. Because the Mass is a humanly developed ritual celebration of community, no one should be excluded or denied participation in the Eucharist”.
· Conscience: “To Jungians, conscience is the source of an individual’s understanding of the truth, and the primary guide to holiness. In this model there can be no guiding Magisterium, because this is outside the individual”.
Cyrus concludes that Jungians are extremely proud. They claim a spiritual superiority that will not brook direction from mere men; eg., the Magisterium, but that they form a spiritual elite, led by the ”Spirit’. “Jungians,” says Cyrus, “are invariably totalitarian in practice. While professing to be ”open’, they are the most dogmatic, and while claiming to be spiritually pure and close to God, their moral and spiritual lives are a mess.”
Having seen something of the diabolical outcome of the influence of Jung, let us look briefly at the man and his theories.
Jung was much influenced by the German physician and psychoanalyst, Otto Gross. As Noll points out, “From him, Jung picked up his ideas on “the life-enhancing value of eroticism” which, wrote Gross, “is so great that it must remain free from extraneous consideration in laws, and above all, from any integration into everyday life”. Sexual licence was the ideal. Gross and Jung were very close, at times analysing each other for 12 hour stints. Noll asserts that Gross was very much Jung’s mentor and quotes Jung’s approving of Gross’s use of sex orgies to promote pagan spirituality. Jung writes:
“The existence of phallic or orgiastic cult does not indicate eo ipso a particularly lascivious life any more than the ascetic symbolism of Christianity means an especially moral life.”
It was Gross, writes Noll, “who unlocked these mysteries for Jung and paved the way for the formation of Jung’s own mystery cult of redemption.” Jung took up Gross’s hatred of family and patriarchy for the cause of matriarchy and its symbol, goddess worship and the cult of mother earth but, as Noll observed, Jung “reframed the practice to make it seem less occultic and more scientific . by repackaging arcane or occultist ideas to make them congruent with the psychiatric and scientific ideas of his day.”
As Paul Likoudis, in paraphrasing Noll, then adds: “What Jung was increasingly concerned with was justifying his sexual libertinism, and his efforts extended not merely to reviving the lost gods of paganism, but in transforming Christ and Christianity. In a letter to Freud, from whom Jung would eventually be estranged because of the latter’s infatuation with matriarchy and sexual libertinism, Jung reflected:
“The ethical problem of sexual freedom really is enormous and worth the sweat of all noble souls. But 200 years of Christianity can only be replaced by something equivalent . an irresistible mass movement . I imagine a far finer and more comprehensive task for psychoanalysis than alliance with an ethical fraternity. I think we must give it time to infiltrate into people from many centres, to revivify among intellectuals a feeling for symbol and myth, ever so gently to transform Christ back into the soothsayer god of the vine, which he was, and in this way absorb those ecstatic instinctual forces of Christianity for the one purpose of making the cult and the sacred myth what they once were - a drunken feast of joy where men regained the ethos of holiness of an animal. That was the beauty and purpose of ancient religion and from which, God knows what temporary biological needs have turned into a Misery Institute. Yet what infinite rapture and wantonness lie dormant in our religion, waiting to be led back to their true destination. A genuine and proper ethical development cannot abandon Christianity but must grow up within it, the agony and ecstasy of the dying and resurgent god, the mystic power of the wine, the awesome anthropology of the Last Supper - only this ethical development can serve the vital forces of religion.”
(Heavy type mine).
Thus speaks psychoanalyst supreme, Carl Jung. Need more evidence be added?
Noll notes: “Dr. John Kerr. In his book, A most Dangerous Method: The Story of Jung, Freud, and Sabrina Spielrein, Jung’s drive to formulate a new religion was the result of trying to justify his own sins: the betrayal of his wife and seduction of his patient, Sabrina Spielrein.”
There can be no doubt that Jung was, indeed, ”formulating a new religion’ - whatever his motives - and its stated purpose was that it should supplant Christianity.
My sources offer an abundance of evidence to support all that has been said by Jung, his critics and myself. For a Catholic, more than enough has been offered to justify my title question; however, I offer the following support for what has been said.
Noll, in likening Jung to Julian the Apostate, says: “Jung is a very similar figure; he was a polytheist. He was a pagan in the old sense of the word. He believed in the multitude of gods and spirits, and he believed that what made modern man diseased was essentially Judeo-Christianity - that you had to believe in only one God and believe in dogma.
In his way of viewing the world, that was the great trauma of world history - the imposition of monotheism on the people of Europe.”
Jeffrey Satinover says: “From his student days until the end of his life, Jung’s consistent goal has been to present gnosticism as an improved version of Christianity (by Jung’s own admission and description). That so many sincere searching Christians confuse Jungian Christianity with the genuine article should be unsurprising; the confusion is ancient and ever-recurring. The words of Irenaeus are as fitting today with regard to Jung and Jungianism as they were with regard to Simon Magus and gnosticism 1800 years ago:
“A clever imitiation of glass that casts contempt as it were on that precious jewel, the emerald, unless it comes under the eye of one able to test and expose the counterfeit.”
Again from J. Satinover: “ . even critics of the Jungian scheme have had the evidence before their eyes for decades, but have failed to see that however decent, sincere, and relatively conventional may have been (and are) most of Jung’s followers, Jung himself (and a small number of his closest disciples) had found a way to live out not only symbolically but explicitly the core practices of occultism.” And “This pretence of elitism forms another striking contrast to Christianity; it is a pretence fueled by Jung’s exaggerated and, often unscholarly, erudition. It is a testimony to his genius that he was able to do so without rousing nearly so much suspicion as he should have.”
Satinover cites Murray Stein as one of the most eminent of American analysts, and a convinced follower of Jung:
“What Jung foresaw as a possible future for Christianity . would in many ways be continuous with Christian tradition, but also be very different from it. Jung’s concept of Christianity’s transformation is on this order: (that) . Christianity and its authoritative source book, the New Testament, would become for the transformed version of the tradition what Judaism and the Old Testament became for Christianity, a prefiguration and forerunner of the new revelation.”
Fr Mitch Pacwa’s book, ”Catholics and the New Age’, has, on the cover, the following words: “How Good People Are Being Drawn into Jungian Psychology, the Enneagram, and the Age of Aquarius”. I strongly recommend this book as a record of one man’s first hand experience and most perceptive analysis of the theories of Jung. The following are various quotations from Jung given by Fr. Pacwa:
“The arch sin of faith, it seemed to me, was that it forestalled experience.”
“Since I knew from experience that God was not offended by blasphemy, that on the contrary he could even encourage it, because he wished to evoke not only man’s bright and positive side but also his darkness and ungodliness . ”
“Like every other being I am a splinter of the infinite deity, but I cannot contrast myself with any animal, any plant or any stone.”
“God in his omniscience had arranged everything so that the first parents would have to sin. Therefore it was God’s intention that they should sin.”
“You don’t know that God wants to force me to do wrong, that he forces me to think abominations in order to experience grace.”
“At the birth of Christ, Saturn the maleficent god and Jupiter the beneficent god were so near to each other that they were almost one star, that is, the star of Bethlehem, when the new self, Christ, good and evil, was born.”
Can a man who believes that Christ is good and evil and that he is Son of a Father who is good and evil be expected to teach us anything related to faith?
Jim Ward.

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by AdminPhat, posted 08-12-2007 9:58 PM Damien Mackey has not replied

AdminPhat
Inactive Member


Message 2 of 2 (415915)
08-12-2007 9:58 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Damien Mackey
08-12-2007 9:50 PM


Rule 1
Welcome to EvC. You seem to be eager to post a new topic here, but I am unable to promote this one because you have not followed our Forum Guidelines.
While I welcome you to EvC and appreciate your enthusiasm to start some debate/discussion topics, I want you to present them in your own words and not the copy/paste words of others. You may bring up quotes from Brother Ward, but unless your topic is on Brother Ward himself, I would rather that you avoid lengthy cut and pastes.


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