God and Individuation
Michael H. Palmer
July 26, 2022 DOI: 10.4324/9781003266785-11 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that religion is an obsessional neurosis that has failed to make people happy, reconcile them with sexual impulses, or foster individual growth, while contending that religious experience is a numinous encounter with archetypal foundations and that individuation itself is religious because it is an archetypal process. |
Abstract
Religion, it is true, has performed the valuable service of providing rules and regulations for the taming of our asocial instincts, but it has done little else. It has not made us happy, it has not allowed us to come to terms with our sexual impulses, and, above all, it has not fostered any process of individual growth. Religion is an obsessional neurosis, and to be religious is thus to be locked into a childish and illusory form of life. The religious experience is a numinous experience of the archetypal and eternal foundations of humanity itself, and to that extent it enables the individual to lift himself above his personal problems and to relate instead to the indestructible and primordial dimension of his own psychic being. Individuation may be defined as religious because it is an archetypal process, and because any such orientation towards archetypes is religious.