Abstract
Jung disliked being called a mystic, which was a term of opprobrium often leveled at him by his critics. Nevertheless, Jung was extremely interested in the subjective accounts of mystical experience provided by people such as Meister Eckhart, Mechthild of Magdeburg, and Jacob Boehme. Jung’s basic position is that mystical experience such as they describe is the experience of the archetypal level of the psyche, which produces numinous experience. This material cannot be reductively dismissed. Jung’s approach to numinous experience has not only some similarities but also major differences from the Christian mystical tradition, but can be considered to be a mystical path in its own right.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
By “scientism,” I mean the notion that empirical science is the most reliable worldview, or that the scientific method is the only way to arrive at truth.
- 2.
I should note here that the idea that mystical experience is an experience of the unconscious goes back to von Hartmann (1868), who wrote that the essence of the mystical is the “filling of consciousness” (363) with a content that involuntarily arises from the unconscious. However, von Hartmann did not develop the notion of the dynamic unconscious or the archetypal level of the unconscious.
- 3.
The Cloud of Unknowing is an anonymous fourteenth-century work of Christian mysticism, which teaches that one can only approach God through unknowing, without reference to the intellect.
References
Avila, Teresa. 2004. The Life of Teresa of Avila by Herself. New York: Penguin Books.
Buber, Martin. 1952. Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation Between Religion and Philosophy. New York: Harper and Row.
Corbett, Lionel. 1996. The Religious Function of the Psyche. New York: Routledge.
———. 2006. “Varieties of Numinous Experience.” In The Idea of the Numinous, edited by Ann Casement and David Tacey. New York: Routledge.
Corbett, Lionel, and Leanne Whitney. 2016. “Jung and Non-duality: Some Clinical and Theoretical Implications of the Self as the Totality of the Psyche.” International Journal of Jungian Studies 8 (1): 15–27.
Corbin, Henri. 1972. Mundus Imaginalis or the Imaginary and the Imaginal, 1–9. Dallas, TX: Spring Publications.
Dourley, John. 2014. Jung and His Mystics: In the End It All Comes Down to Nothing. New York: Routledge.
Inge, W. R. 1899. Christian Mysticism. London: Methuen and Co.
Jaffe, Aniela. 1989. Was C. G. Jung a Mystic? Einsiedeln, Switzerland: Daimon Press.
James, William. 1958. The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Mentor Books.
Jung, C. G. 1961. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Edited by Aniela Jaffe. New York: Random House.
———. 1966. The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. The Practice of Psychotherapy. Edited by Gerhard Adler and translated by R. F. C. Hull, vol. 16. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
———. 1967. The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Alchemical Studies. Edited by Gerhard Adler and translated by R. F. C. Hull, vol. 16. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
———. 1968. The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Psychology and Alchemy. Edited by Gerhard Adler and translated by R. F. C. Hull, vol. 12. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
———. 1969. The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Psychology and Religion: West and East. Edited by Gerhard Adler and translated by R. F. C. Hull, vol. 11. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
———. 1970. The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Mysterium Coniunctionis. Edited by Gerhard Adler and translated by R. F. C. Hull, vol. 14. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
———. 1973. Letters: Vol. 1. Edited by Gerhardt Adler and Aniela Jaffe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
———. 1976. The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. The Symbolic Life: Miscellaneous Writings. Edited by Gerhard Adler and translated by R. F. C. Hull, vol. 18. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
———. 2009. The Red Book, Liber Novus. Edited by Sonu Shamdasani. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
Katz, Stephen. 1983. “The ‘Conservative’ Character of Mysticism.” In Mysticism and Religious Traditions, edited by Steven T. Katz. New York: Oxford University Press.
McGinn, Bernard. 1988. The Flowering of Western Mysticism. New York: Crossroad Publishing.
Otto, R. 1917/1958. The Idea of the Holy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Otto, Rudolph. 1932. Mysticism East and West: A Comparative Analysis of the Nature of Mysticism. Translated by Bertha L. Bracey. New York: Macmillan.
Underhill, Evelyn. 1961. Mysticism. New York: E. P. Dutton.
Von Hartmann, Eduard. [1868] 1931. Philosophy of the Unconscious. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.
White, Victor. 1960. Soul and Psyche: An Enquiry into the Relationship of Psychotherapy and Religion. London, UK: Collins.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Corbett, L. (2018). Jung and Mysticism. In: Cattoi, T., Odorisio, D. (eds) Depth Psychology and Mysticism. Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Mysticism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-79096-1_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-79096-1_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-79095-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-79096-1
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)