JUNG ON MEANING AND SYMBOLS IN RELIGION

Author(s): Allan Carlsson

Source: The Journal of General Education , APRIL 1970, Vol. 22, No. 1 (APRIL 1970), pp.
29-40
Published by: Penn State University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27796196

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JUNG ON MEANING AND SYMBOLS IN RELIGION

Allan Carlsson

One of the best known quotations from C. G. Jung's writings is

an excerpt from a lecture first given before the Alsatian Pastoral
Conference at Strasbourg in May 1932.

During the past 30 years, people from all the civilized coun
tries of the earth have consulted me. Many hundreds of
patients have passed through my hands . . . Among all my
patients in the second half of life?that is to say, over thirty
five?there has not been one whose problem in the last re
sort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is
safe to say that everyone of them fell ill because he had lost
what the living religions of every age had given to their
followers, and none of them was really healed who did not
regain his religious outlook.1
Jung goes on to indicate that this is a problem of meaning
in the sense of this question: "What is the meaning of my life,
or of life in general?"2 Jung's use of "meaning" is different from
most philosophical use. "Meaning" for him consists of something
more than our knowing what a word means if the definition is
known to us or our knowing what a proposition means if we
know whether it is true or false. Synonyms for "meaning" in his
sense would include significance, design, essence, or purpose.
Modern man is in search of his soul because in our age the
rational aspect of man has been so overemphasized as to ex
clude the irrational. Modern man by trying to live only in the
realms of science and reason has lost meaning for his life. Jung
holds that life just doesn't fit into this "rational" scheme. In the
treatment of his patients, Jung attempted to help them acknowl
edge the irrational side of life. The conscious side of the indi
vidual is the rational side, but this is only a very small aspect of
the total individual. The unconscious side of the individual is
the irrational, the mysterious side. The unconscious aspect of
man does not reject religion as does the conscious aspect.
It should be pointed out that, while Jung has often been
considered as more friendly toward religious ideas than the
JGE: THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL EDUCATION. Vol. XXII, No. 1.
Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,
University Park and London.

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THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL EDUCATION

other depth psychologists, he is not in conformity with the ideas

of the traditional Western religions. God is recognized as a
psychic fact of the human personality, and whether or not He
is a transcendental being is left open. Charles B. Hanna in his
attempt to discuss the religious ideas of Jung has this comment
on the conception of God.

God, for him, is perhaps best described by what he liked

to call "the powers." He felt himself to be in the midst of
"powers," and he was convinced that everyone must neces
sarily take account of "the powers" beyond consciousness
that bind the life of the individual. He did not think of
them as only impersonal powers. They were deeply per
sonal and deeply involved with the individual life, though
they were far more than just personal aspects of our [his
emphasis] lives. God, for him, was a power who could show
himself in the events of our lives.3

It seems to me that one should be cautious in considering

Jung an ally of any traditional meaning of religion, although his
thought seems compatible with some forms of mysticism and
pantheism. While the preceding quotation points out that God
is more than a part of our personal unconscious, Jung is not
explicit regarding the relationship of God to the collective un
conscious. At this point it seem appropriate to recall some of
Jung's basic theory.
According to Jung, modern man's predicament may be ex
plained to a considerable extent by reference to his type theory.
He is generally given the credit (or discredit depending upon
one's point of view) for introducing the terms "introversion"
and "extroversion" into the everyday vocabulary. The popular
understanding of an introvert as a person basically turned in on
himself and an extrovert as an outgoing individual are rather
close to Jung's ideas. These two "general attitude types" are in
nate and not acquired.
In addition to these two general attitude types, Jung dis
tinguishes four function types, which describe the basic means an
individual uses to orient himself to life. When the general at
titude types are combined with the function types, eight basically
different kinds of people may be recognized. The feeling type
seeks an ordered scheme of life dependent upon the perceived

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 MEANING AND SYMBOLS IN RELIGION

value of things and events. The sensation type is the individual

who accepts the strength and the pleasure of the moment with
out reflection or evaluation. The intuition type has an uncon
scious vision of truth and/or reality and attempts to alter the
situation to fit his vision, generally by inspiration.
The thinking type we have put at the end of the list because
it is the most important for our purposes. This type adapts to
life by principles intellectually considered. Even as he is attracted
to logic and order, he fears and dislikes the irrational. Jung's
point, you will recall, is that in our age the rational aspect of
man has been emphasized practically to the exclusion of the
irrational. In the individual himself the thinking function has
been emphasized to the exclusion of the other functions. As the
thinking function excludes the irrational, the possibility of the
conscious side of the individual experiencing God is eliminated.
It is well to remember that Jung's theory is based on his
clinical practice. He continually came into contact with men
and women who consciously had given up all consideration of
God, but whose dreams Jung interpreted as an effort by the
unconscious to assert what the conscious had eliminated. The
symbolic expression of these dreams pointed toward the divine.
In fact, Jung turns this around to use the fact of dreams as
well as fantasies as the best indication that there is something
more to the individual man than his conscious life, the uncon
scious, i.e., the hidden and unknown aspects. This acceptance
of the unconscious characterizes all of the depth psychologists,
but Jung is distinguished from the others by his theory of a
collective unconscious which is in addition to the personal un
conscious of each individual. As his ideas on religion are related
to his theory of the unconscious, an attempt will be made to ex
plain this concept.
At birth, the individual comes pre-equipped with certain
tendencies "that enable a child to react in a human manner."4
These "patterns of functioning" are common to all men and make
the creature a human being. As adaptations must be made to
the external world, the ego (the center of consciousness) begins
to emerge from this inherited material, the collective uncon
scious. As the ego adapts to its environment (the external world
of persons, things, and situations ) which presses in upon the ego,

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THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL EDUCATION

a protective shell develops known as the persona, the mask that

shields the individual from his environment. The conscious part
of the self develops out of the unconscious; gradually a basic
distinction forms between the conscious and the unconscious
areas.

The personal part of the self that emerges contains both the
personal conscious and the personal unconscious. Jung's con
cept of the personal unconscious is similar to Freud's. As the
ego forms the persona, choices must be made concerning what
material is to be included. The excluded elements are repressed
and become part of the personal unconscious. "The personal
unconscious contains lost memories, painful ideas that are re
pressed (i.e., forgotten on purpose), subliminal perceptions, by
which are meant sense-perceptions that were not strong enough
to reach consciousness, and finally, contents that are not yet ripe
for consciousness."5 Here is where Jung differs from Freud on
the contents of the personal unconscious; Jung includes material
which was not obtained from the conscious side of man.
Before we examine the concept of the collective unconscious,
we should note Jung's summary of the relation between the per
sonal and the collective unconscious:

A more or less superficial layer of the unconscious is un

doubtedly personal. I call it the "personal unconscious."
But this personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer,
which does not derive from personal experience and is not
a personal acquisition but is inborn. This deeper layer I
call the "collective unconscious." I have chosen the term
"collective" because this part of the unconscious is not
individual but universal; in contrast to the personal psyche,
it has contents and modes of behavior that are more or less
the same everywhere and in all individuals. It is, in other
words, identical in all men and thus constitutes a common
psychic substrate of a suprapersonal nature which is present
in every one of us.6
In the collective unconscious, that great unknown shared
by all humanity, are the archetypes, the inherited forms of psy
chic behavior common to all men. It has often been referred to
as the inherited cumulation of the racial wisdom and experience
of the past. Hanna's comments on archetypes are helpful.

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 MEANING AND SYMBOLS IN RELIGION

An archetype is like an instinct, it is a certain form or

pattern of behaviour that one learns to expect. But while
instincts refer more to our physical existence, archetypes
might be described as the instincts of the mind, or the
psyche. It may help to explain what he meant by an arche
type to name, let us say, four different myths, all of which
have a common factor or pattern. That which is common
to all four is the archetype: David and Goliath, Hercules
and the Lion, Theseus and the Minotaur, and St. George
and the Dragon. This common factor, of course, is the hero
who overcomes his adversary in mighty battle. The arche
type is the single pattern that lies behind each of these
accounts, and the accounts are expressions of the archetype.7

Jung has relatively little to say regarding myth, but what

he does say fits neatly into his general theory. The appearance
of similar myths around a central theme in different cultural
traditions is, of course, interpreted as an argument in favor of
the collective unconscious; these mythological themes arise out
of the common racial inheritance. Myths are accepted as psychic
reality which cannot be explained away; they portray patterns
of life that may be observed again and again. The heroes of
mythology are classic expressions of the basic psychological pat
terns which each man is living. Myths (and Jung also considers
religious dogmas in the same light) are classic expressions of
truth about life rooted in the unconscious. In fact, in "The Re
ligious and Psychological Problems of Alchemy"8 Jung attempts
to show that all known religious dogma corresponds to arche
types of the collective unconscious.
The relationship which Jung saw between God and the
unconscious seems to be of primary importance for understand
ing his ideas on religion. Again I turn to Charles B. Hanna's
The Face of the Deep. After his seminary training, Hanna stud
ied at the Jung Institute in Zurich and his manuscript was
read and commented upon by members of that Institute. His
work, therefore, would be in line with orthodox Jungian inter
pretation. You will recall that it was pointed out that what Jung
meant by "God" is "the powers."

There is in us an archetypal predisposition toward the in

finite, toward taking account of "the powers" beyond us.

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THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL EDUCATION

By the archetype of wholeness he meant that there was an

inherent tendency in life to look beyond conscious aware
ness to that which is greater and more powerful. Wholeness
for Jung meant being in tune with these powers . . . This
archetype of wholeness tends to produce in the mind,
through dreams, a symbolism that has across the ages been
associated with God.9

In Psychology and Religion, Jung defines religion as "a

peculiar attitude of the human mind, which could be formulated
in accordance with the original use of the term religio'; that is,
a careful consideration and observation of certain dynamic
factors, understood to be powers,' spirits, gods, laws, ideas, ideals
or whatever name man has given to such factors as he has found
in his world powerful, dangerous or helpful enough to be taken
into careful consideration, or grand, beautiful and meaningful
enough to be devoutly adored and loved."10 So wholeness would
be a state of being in tune with whatever "powers" an individual
recognizes. Jung is able to cite cases from his practice in which
an individual achieves wholeness by giving a religious inter
pretation to the symbolism of his dream.
Is it then correct to say that for Jung God is an archetype
of the collective unconscious? Yes. But is that all that God is?
After checking carefully a passage which seems to bear directly
on this question, the answer will probably be "who knows"?

It is only through the psyche that we can establish that

God acts upon us, but we are unable to distinguish whether
these actions come from God or from the unconscious. We
cannot tell whether God and the unconscious are two dif
ferent entities. Both are border-line concepts. . . . But em
pirically it can be established, with a sufficient degree of
probability, that there is in the unconscious an archetype
of wholeness which manifests itself spontaneously in dreams,
etc., and a tendency, independent of the conscious will, to
relate other archetypes to this center. Consequently, it does
not seem improbable that the archetype of wholeness occu
pies as such a central position which approximates it to the
God-image.11
It can be inferred from this passage that at least God is an
archetype, but is that God? The passage continues:

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 MEANING AND SYMBOLS IN RELIGION

The similarity is further borne out by the peculiar fact that

the archetype produces a symbolism which has always
characterized and expressed the Deity. These facts make
possible a certain qualification of our above thesis concern
ing the indistinguishableness of God and the unconscious.
Strictly speaking, the God-image does not coincide with the
unconscious as such but with a special content of it, namely
the archetype of the Self. It is this archetype from which
we can no longer distinguish the God-image empirically. We
can arbitrarily postulate a difference between these two
entities, but that does not help us at all. On the contrary,
it only helps us to separate man from God, and prevents
God from becoming man. Faith is certainly right when it
impresses on man s mind and heart how infinitely far away
and inaccessible God is; but it also teaches his nearness,
His immediate presence, and it is just this nearness which
has to be empirically real if it is not to lose all significance.
Only that which acts upon me do I recognize as real and
actual. But that which has no effect upon me might as well
not exist. The religious need longs for wholeness, and
therefore lays hold of the images of wholeness offered by
the unconscious, which, independently of the conscious
mind, rise up from the depths of our psychic nature.
The God-image referred to in the above passage is not
God. The God-image is the symbol through which God appears
in the unconscious, for example, Wotan or Yahweh. God in the
last analysis is undefinable; the God-image is a symbol tied to
a particular culture. The archetype "God" supplies only the
form; the content is furnished by the individual and his situa
tion. The God-image is not only closely related to the notion of
wholeness, which we all supposedly seek, but also is closely
related to the archetype of the self. These notions, of course,
are the ones which tie Jung so closely to the mystical tradition.
At least it can be said that God is an archetype of the col
lective unconscious, but it does not seem we are any closer to
answering whether that is all that God is. An appropriate in
quiry would seem to be, what is the origin of the archetypes,
this inherited wisdom of the human race? Jung replies that "we
simply do not know the ultimate derivation of the archetype.
. . . Nothing positive or negative has been asserted about the
possible existence of God. . . . the religious minded man is free

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THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL EDUCATION

to accept whatever metaphysical explanations he pleases about

the origin."12

Symbols
In Chapter XI of Psychological Types Jung devotes several
pages to definitions. Definition 51 is "symbol," and it runs for
ten pages; I will attempt to pull the main ideas together.13
"The symbol always presupposes that the chosen expression
is the best possible description, or formula, of a relatively un
known fact; a fact, however, which is none the less recognized
or postulated as existing." The symbol, as such, refers to an "un
known entity whose nature cannot be differently or better ex
pressed" than by that particular symbol; it is not an analogous
or abbreviated expression of a known thing. Symbols have a
life span; "in so far as a symbol is a living thing, it is the ex
pression of a thing not to be characterized in any other or better
way. ... If that expression should be found which formulates
the sought, expected, or divined thing still better than the
hitherto accepted symbol, then the symbol is dead; i.e., it pos
sesses only a historical significance." The thrust seems to be
that a symbol is the best possible expression at that moment of
something unknown; however, if what is expressed is unknown
it seems a bit dubious that you will be able to judge whether
or not it is a "good" symbol.
Following this attempt to define "symbol," it might be ad
vantageous to look into the question of the origin of a symbol.
This same passage also discusses this question.

Whether a thing is a symbol or not depends chiefly upon

the attitude of the consciousness considering it; as for in
stance, a mind that regards the given fact not merely as
such but also as an expression of the yet unknown. Hence it
is quite possible for a man to produce a fact which does not
appear in the least symbolic to himself, although profoundly
so to another. . . .

This attitude that conceives the given phenomenon as

symbolic may be briefly described as the symbolical attitude.
It is only partially justified by the behaviour of things; for
the rest, it is the outcome of a definite view of life endow

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 MEANING AND SYMBOLS IN RELIGION

ing the occurrence, whether great or small, with a meaning

to which a certain deeper value is given than to pure ac
tuality. This view of things stands opposed to another view,
which lays the accent upon pure actuality, and subordinates
meaning to facts. For this latter attitude there can be no
symbol at all, wherever the symbolism depends exclusively
upon the manner of consideration. But even for such an
attitude symbols also exist: namely, those that prompt the
observer to the conjecture of a hidden meaning.
I understand this to mean that a person fitting a certain
type in Jung's typology may have this symbolical attitude to
greater extent than another. However, it seems that all men
have the ability to perceive a symbol, at least to some minimal
extent.
After this discussion of the definition of a symbol and who
is able to recognize one, I turn now to the task of eliciting the
nature of the symbol from this same passage.

The symbol is always a creation of an extremely com

plex nature, since data proceeding from every psychic func
tion have entered into its composition. Hence its nature
is neither rational nor irrational. It certainly has one side
that accords with reason; for not only the data of reason,
but also the irrational data of pure inner and outer percep
tion, have entered into its nature. The prospective meaning
and pregnant significance of the symbol appeals just as
strongly to thinking as to feeling, while its peculiar plastic
imagery when shaped into sensuous form stimulates sensa
tion just as much as intuition [which for Jung is the func
tion which deals with perceptions in an unconscious way.]
The living symbol cannot come to birth in an inert or poorly
developed mind, for such a man will rest content with the
already existing symbols offered by established tradition.
Only the passionate yearning of a highly developed mind,
for whom the dictated symbol no longer contains the high
est reconciliation in one expression, can create a new sym
bol. But inasmuch as the symbol proceeds from his highest
and latest mental achievement and must also include the
deepest roots of his being, it cannot be a one-sided product
of the most highly differentiated mental functions, but
must at least have an equal source, in the lowest and most
primitive notions of his psyche.

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THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL EDUCATION

In Jung's theory, as well as in those of the other depth

psychologists, symbols are most important in dream analysis, and
the relation to the above discussion is readily seen. The images
in which a person relates his dreams are symbols of something
beyond the conscious life of the individual. The referent of the
symbol is not known to the individual. While it seems that the
symbols themselves may be very numerous, the unconscious ideas
represented through the symbols are rather limited in number
and are directly related to the archetypes.
In interpreting dreams Jung laid considerable emphasis on
the conscious personality.
Dream symbolism demands that we take into account the
dreamer's philosophical, religious and moral convictions. It
is far wiser in practice not to regard the dream-symbols as
signs or symptoms of a fixed character. We should rather
take them as true symbols?that is to say, as expressions of
something not yet consciously recognized or conceptually
formulated. In addition to this, they must be considered
in relation to the dreamer's immediate state of conscious
ness. I emphasize that this way of treating the dream
symbols is advisable in practice because theoretically there
do exist relatively fixed symbols whose meaning must on
no account be referred to anything whose content is known,
or to anything that can be formulated in concepts. If there
were no relatively fixed symbols, it would be impossible to
determine the structure of the unconscious. There would be
nothing in it which could be in any way laid hold of or
described.14
For Jung, then, the relatively fixed symbol stands for an
indefinite content in the sense that the referent is unknown. A
sign is something which stands for something else which is known
such as a red winged horse for a certain brand of gasoline. In
cidentally, Jung thinks that Freud confuses the two.
The difficulty of interpreting a symbol is clearly pointed out
in the following example. A man dreams about a snake, and in
Jungian theory the snake is a symbol for something the uncon
scious is trying to say to the individual. What the unconscious
wishes to communicate depends upon the state of the indi
vidual's inner condition. The thousands of possible meanings
for this symbol can be divided into four classes: (1) Darkness,

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 MEANING AND SYMBOLS IN RELIGION

earthiness and evil [snake in the Garden of Eden]; (2) the

spirit of light and wisdom [Aaron s rod which became a serpent
when thrown at the feet of Pharoah]; (3) healing and renewal
[the wand of Mercury which has become the symbol of the
medical profession]; and (4) Christ and God [as Moses lifted up
the serpent in the wilderness].

Of the innumerable meanings connected with any one of

these, which one speaks to you? Ultimately, only you can
know. For even with the help of an analyst, the ultimate
validity of the interpretation of a dream is that it "clicks"
in the soul of the one analyzed. The meaning of the dream
lies within the dreamer.15

As it has been shown, a symbol stands for something un

known to the individual using the symbol. But when a symbol
is used, according to Jung, it is an "acknowledgement that there
are things in life which cannot be rationally explained, but
which nevertheless need a language by which they may be
communicated."16 Jung assumes that the source of meaning for
the individual man lies hidden in his unconscious, his non
rational side. Symbols stand for something meaningful which
the unconscious is attempting to communicate. Or to put this
in clinical terms, the unconscious is the source of mental health.
Jung concluded a BBC telecast in 1959 with the words
"man cannot stand a meaningless life."17 This is the problem
of mankind as diagnosed by him: modern man has lost his soul;
life has lost its symbolic meaning. Charles Hanna summarizes:

We need to return to the deep levels of our being where

these symbolic contents eternally await our coming?a re
turn from the proud over-confidence of our too conscious
and rational thinking to those basic attitudes of awe, mys
tery and terror which stand at the portals and at the exits
of this life but are so easily forgotten in between. To re
cover this sense is in very truth a rebirth, a spiritual re
newal. It is into the mysterious realm of dreams, symbols,
and myths that we must enter if we are to recover the loss
of soul we are experiencing in our time.18

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THE JOUBNAL OF GENERAL EDUCATION

NOTES
1 "Psychotherapists or the Clergy," The Collected Works of C. G.
Jung, trans, by R.F.C. Hull (New York: Pantheon Books, 1958), Vol. 11,
p. 334.
2 Ibid., p. 336.
3Charles B. Hanna, The Face of the Deep (Philadelphia: The
Westminster Press, Copyright ? MCMLXVII, Used by permission), p. 21.
4 "Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype," Collected Works,
Vol. 9, p. 78.
5 "The Psychology of the Unconscious," Collected Works, Vol. 7,
p. 65.
6 "Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious," Collected Works, Vol.
9, p. 3.
7 Hanna, op. cit., p. 22.
8 Collected Works, Vol. 12.
9 Hanna, op. cit., pp. 22-23.
10 CG. Jung, Psychology and Religion (New Haven: Yale Univer
sity Press, 1938), p. 5.
n "Answer to Job," Collected Works, Vol. 11, pp. 468-9.
12 "The Religious and Psychological Problems of Alchemy," Collected
Works, Vol. 12, p. 14.
13 C. G. Jung, Psychological Types, trans, by H.G. Baynes (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1923) pp.
601 if. Rights now held by Princeton University Press.
14 C.G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul (New York: Har
court, Brace & Co., 1933), p. 21.
15 Hanna, op. cit., pp. 106-7.
leifcid., p. 107.
17 Ibid., p. 108.
is Ibid., p. 109.

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