On Mystery: explorations on the experience of the numinous.

The article proposes that the ultimate purpose of Jungian analysis is the manifestation of 'Mystery', a term encompassing experiences of the numinous, synchronicity, and the Self. Drawing on Erich Neumann's 'Homo Mysticus', Rudolf Otto's 'Numinous', and Carl Jung's 'Synchronicity' and 'Self', it distinguishes between violent and subtle mystical experiences. The authors argue that analytical psychology provides a framework for understanding a transcendent, immaterial realm linked to psychic reality. They explore whether such experiences occur in contemporary culture by examining dreams, imaginations, and synchronicities within modern Jungian analysis.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The present work aims to present ideas about the notion of 'Mystery', based on the contributions of various thinkers from different areas of knowledge. It will focus especially on the experience itself, that is, on the human possibility of generating the mystical experience and conceptualizing the dimension from contact with it. Concepts such as 'Homo Mysticus' (Erich Neumann), 'Numinous' (Rudolf Otto), 'Synchronicity' and 'Self' (Carl G. Jung) will be developed, approaching them from a psychological perspective. A distinction between two different categories of contact is proposed in the article: violent experiences and subtle experiences. The referential framework of analytical psychology enables the possibility of a transcendent and immaterial realm creatively linked to psychic reality, as well as an attempt to understand it. The conceptualization of the symbolic from the Jungian worldview allows us to understand the experience of Mystery from a psychological point of view in relation to the surrounding world. The idea is even raised that the ultimate (and implicit) purpose of the analysis is the manifestation of Mystery, a general name that could encompass the different phenomenological experiences. Is it possible that such experiences occur in the cultural circumstances of the present? What place does Mystery occupy in these times? What forms could it take? By observing dreams, imaginations and synchronicities, experiences of the mysterious will be explored in the context of contemporary Jungian analysis.