This lecture will describe some of the ways in which Jung’s approach to spirituality and religion differs from traditional Judeo-Christian approaches. Jung believes that the individual's direct experience of the sacred or the holy is more important than belief, doctrine or dogma. Jung thinks that these experiences emerge from a transpersonal or spiritual dimension of the psyche. The direct experience of the deep level of the psyche produces sacred experiences that may take an entirely novel form. They are recognizable by their emotional power. In this talk I will describe some of the ways in which the transpersonal psyche manifests itself, with a range of examples.
Dr. Lionel Corbett trained in medicine and psychiatry in England and as a Jungian Analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago. He is a professor of depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute, in Santa Barbara, California, currently serving as core faculty in the Integrative Therapy and Healing Practices specialization. He is the author of six books: Psyche and the Sacred: The Religious Function of the Psyche; The Sacred Cauldron: Psychotherapy as a Spiritual Practice; The Soul in Anguish: Psychotherapeutic Approaches to Suffering; Understanding Evil: A guide for Psychotherapists, and The God-image: From Antiquity to Jung. He is the co-editor of four volumes of collected papers: Psyche's Stories; Depth psychology, Meditations in the Field; Psychology at the Threshold; and Jung and Aging.
