I invited a few of scholars partaking in C.G Jung: Face to Face with Christianity to share a personal reflection after reading the book. Third out is Jungian analyst and scholar Murray Stein. 

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Siddharta Corsus - Constellations

I invited a few of scholars partaking in C.G Jung: Face to Face with Christianity to share a personal reflection after reading the book. Second out is Jungian scholar and Orthodox Christian Pia Chaudhari.

Here is a link to an earlier conversation we had which is also to be found in edited form in the book.

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Siddharta Corsus - Constellations

The Christian teaching is that we are not yet human. We are on the way towards humanity. Humanity is still to come. 

- Sean J McGrath and Jakob Lusensky go seeking for the seeds of Secular Christianity.

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK - RAINBOW

Sean J McGrath together with Jungian Analyst Jakob Lusensky go seeking for the seeds of Secular Christianity.

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK - RAINBOW

I am delighted to announce that the upcoming publication C.G Jung: Face to Face with Christianity - Conversations on Dreaming the Myth Onward published by Chiron Publications is now available for pre-order.

The book can now be pre-ordered on Amazon or for a 20% discount for followers of the podcast using the discount code facetoface2024! on Chiron’s website. 

With the conversations from the podcast as a starting point this book explores C.G. Jung's lifelong wrestling with Christianity and its importance for us today. Can Jungian psychology be understood as Jung's attempt to recover a genuine experience of being Christian? If so, was it successful?

The book contains some of the most vital conversations from the podcast with scholars such as Murray Stein, Paul Bishop, Sean McGrath, Pia Chaudhari, Jason Smith and David Tacey. The introduction and epilogue of the book is an attempt to distill the insights from the conversations of the last years, and work as an introduction to Jung’s relationship to Christianity and its relevance for today.

Special thank you to my editor Christina Galego who helped translate my broken written English into a pleasant reading experience. 🌸 🙏

The Secret of the Golden Flower is a Taoist text on inner alchemy that landed in Jung's hands in the late 1920s. It was the sinologist and Christian missionary in China, Richard Wilhelm who sent the text to Jung for a commentary.

It's hard to overestimate the importance this text had on Jung and his work. Reading this text made him abandon his work on the Red Book and shift his focus outside to the comparative studies of the individuation process. Especially interesting for this podcast is that it's in Jung's commentary of the text that he most clearly outlines his rendering of the Imitatio Christi.

I invited Jason Smith, host of the podcast Digital Jung, and author of Religious But Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life, back to the podcast to discuss this important work of literature, Jung's comments on it, and what we can learn from it today. 

Music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: "Hard Sell" by Ketsa.

Hans Trüb is one of the unsung heroes of the early movement of Analytical Psychology. He was a pioneer of relational psychoanalysis or intersubjective psychotherapy years before any such terms were coined. Trüb (which means 'cloudy' or ‘gloomy’ in German) had a personal friendship and later conflict with Jung and an ongoing correspondence with philosopher Martin Buber.

Trüb's psychological theory is an attempt of synthesising Analytical Psychology with Buber's dialogue-based philosophy. His vision was an analysis at eye level, a powershift between analyst and analysand, as well as an analysis as focused on the inner as the outer world. 

I invited my favorite scholar Paul Bishop again to the podcast to help shed some light on Trüb's thinking, his contributions, and their importance for us today. 

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - No light without darkness, Aimless and Mind 2.

In this episode, I speak to Jonah C. Evans about the ideas of Austrian social reformer, architect, and Christian esotericist Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) and how they relate to Jung's psychology.

Jonah is a priest and director of the seminary of the Christian Community in North America based in Toronto. The Christian Community is an international Christian movement inspired by Rudolf Steiner and still very active today. 

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - Mind 2

In our third season of Secular Christ with Sean J. McGrath we go searching for the seeds of Secular Christianity. The series will go live in early 2024.

In this episode, I speak to Pia Chaudhari about her book Dynamis of Healing: Patristic Theology and the Psyche published by Fordham University Press. 

Pia holds a doctorate in theology from the Department of Psychiatry & Religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Her research interests include theological anthropology, depth psychology, processes of healing, and the engagement with aestetics and beauty. She is a founding co-chair of the Analytical Psychology and Orthodox Christianity Consultation (APOCC). 

Thank you for listening in on our conversation. 

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - Dawn’s Dew.

A letter from Carl Gustav Jung to Sabina Spielrein (1885-1942), 4th of December 1908.

My Dear,

I regret so much; I regret my weakness and curse the fate that is threatening me. I fear for my work, for my life's task, for all the lofty perspectives that are being revealed to me by this new Weltanschauung as It evolves. How shall I with my sensitive soul, free myself from all these questions? 

You will laugh when I tell you that recently earlier surfacing, from a time (3-4 year) when I often hurt myself badly, and when, for example, I was once only just rescued from certain death by a maid. « My mind is torn to its very depths. I, who had to be a tower of strength for many weak people, am the weakest of all. Will you forgive me for being as I am? For offending you by being like this, and forgetting my duties as a doctor towards you? Will you understand that I am one of the weakest and most unstable of human beings? 

And will you never take revenge on me for that, either in words, or in thoughts or feelings? I am looking for someone who understands how to love, without punishing the other person, imprisoning him or sucking him dry; I am seeking this as yet unrealized person who will manage to separate love from social advantage and disadvantage, so that love may always be an end in itself, and not just a means to an end. 

It is my misfortune that I can not live without the joy of love, of tempestuous, ever-changing love. This daemon stands as an unholy contradiction to my compassion and my sensitivity. When love for a woman awakens within me, the first thing I feel is regret, pity for the poor woman who dreams of eternal faithfulness and other impossibilities, and is destined for a painful awakening out of all these dreams. Therefore if one is already married it is better to engage in this lie and do penance for it immediately than to repeat the experiment again and again, lying repeatedly, and repeatedly disappointing." What on earth is to be done for the best?

I do not know and dare not say, because I do not know what you will make of my words and feelings. Since the last upset I have completely lost my sense of security with regard to you. That weighs heavily on me. You must clear up this uncertainty once and for all. I should like to talk to you again at greater length. For example, I could speak with you next Tuesday morning between 9.15 and 12.00. Since you are perhaps less inhibited in your apartment, I am willing to come to you. Should Tuesday morning not suit you, write and tell me, otherwise I will come in the hope of getting some clarity. 

I should like definite assurances so that my mind can be at rest over your intentions. Otherwise my work suffers, and that seems to me more important than the passing problems and sufferings of the present. Give me back now something of the love and patience and unselfishness which I was able to give you at the time of your illness. Now am ill...

In this episode, I am joined by Sarah Larkin to discuss the life and work of Christian depth psychologist Fritz Künkel (1889-1956). Sarah has a background in religious studies and a Master's in Theology. She is a poet and has created an online archive of Künkels writing online accessible on fritzkunkel.com

Künkel was a giant in psychology in the 1920s and 1930s corresponded with Jung and studied under Alfred Adler. He lived in Berlin but emigrated to California in 1939 and developed a religiously informed depth psychology that he named “We-Psychology”. 
 
Künkel's psychology differs from C.G Jung’s in its broader emphasis on the concept of individuation and by emphasizing the importance of the collective. He also corrects Jung on matters related to evil. In my opinion, Künkel has a lot to offer depth psychology as it helps to bridge the “me” with the “we”, individuation with a social conscience, and a Christian vision for the world.

If you want to go deeper into Künkel the place to start is John A. Sanford’s book Fritz Kunkel: Selected Writings

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - Between Each.

I invited a few of scholars partaking in C.G Jung: Face to Face with Christianity to share a personal reflection after reading the book. First out is Paul Bishop.

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Siddharta Corsus - Constellations

In this episode, I speak with Martin Liebscher from the Philemon Foundation. Martin is a Research Fellow in the German Department and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Centre for the History of Psychological Disciplines at University College London. We discuss the recently published book by Philemon, "Jung on Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises," which includes lectures that Jung delivered at ETH in Zurich between June 1939 and November 1940.

Martin begins by contextualizing these lectures in Jung's life and theory-building and gives an overview of Jung's activities in the 1930s. We discuss why Jung turned towards Western and European spirituality during this time and then dive into the vision of Saint Loyola, along with Jung's interpretation of it. We also discuss the work of Jesuit priest, philosopher, and theologian Erich Przywara, whose writings on the exercises served as a foundation for much of Jung's lectures.

Additionally, we delve into two of the most important visions of Jung: the first being from Christmas Day of 1913, where Jung identified with being Christ on the Cross, and the second is a vision of Christ on the Cross that he had while writing on the spiritual exercises of Saint Loyola in the late 1930s.

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - Golden Teacher.

This is an edited version of an old interview with Jungian Analyst and Episcopal priest John A Sanford (1929-2005). Sanford begins by defining his own understanding of Christianity as a religion "where the mind is free to explore". He then turns to clarify some of Jung's confusing statements about evil and to defend the Privatio Boni. Sanford does not seem evil as an integral part of God but as something allowed for by the higher purposes of God.

Sanford inhabits the position of his mentor and analyst Fritz Künkel (1889-1956), who launched the today mostly forgotten idea of a "we-psychology". Künkel places evil not within the self but within the ego(-centricity) of man. Sanford ends the interview by broadening the definition of individuation from an individual and narrowly psychological process to more of a spiritual and inclusive definition that includes life itself.

Recommended reading:

Fritz Kunkel: Selected Writings edited by John Sanford.
The Kingdom Within: A Study of the Inner Meaning of Jesus’ Sayings

For the full video visit the following link. The interviews were filmed and recorded by James Arraj and there are other interesting dialogues in the same series available on youtube.
 

Eighty years ago this month the Berlin-born Jewish German cabaret singer and actress of silent movies Dora Gerson (1899-1943) was murdered with her family in Auschwitz. This episode is done in her memory and includes two of her most famous songs Vorbei and Die Welt ist Klein Geworden.

The story is read by Katharina Albrecht.

Sources:

Jacques Klöters Facebook post in Dutsch, 16 Nov. 2020
http://www.musiques-regenerees.fr/GhettosCamps/Camps/GersonDora.html

"We never know what comes forward in a soul when the worst of the worst happens."   

Episode description:

Ever since I first read the diaries of Etty Hillesum (1914-1943) I wanted to understand better her relation to the psychology of C.G Jung. A few episodes ago I had a conversation about Jungian Analyst and hand-reader Julius Spier, who was Etty's analyst. In this episode, we shift the attention to Etty Hillesum and as our guide, we have Barbara Morrill.

Barbara Morrill is a clinical psychologist in private practice and an Associate Professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She will help us look at the life and individuation of Etty Hillesum through a lens inspired by Jung’s psychology, and to help us better understand his psychology's influence on her thinking and writing.

Interweaved into this conversation are read excerpts from the diaries of Etty’s Hillesum beautifully brought to life by Katharina Albrecht.

Music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - Reborn.

In February 1961, four months before his death, C.G Jung was interviewed at his home in Küsnacht by Kaarle Nordenstreng, a freelance journalist for the Finnish Broadcasting Company. This is an edited version of a rather comical interview in which the two discuss Jung's late book 'The undiscovered Self' (Gegenwart und Zukunft), National Socialism, Jung's legacy in the public domain as well as his distrust of modern machines.

Musical interpretation and Finish tango selection by The Psychiatry

Photo taken by Kaarle Nordenstreng

Read more about the interview and access a full version here

A read excerpt from chapter XIV, "Divine Folly" of Jung's Red Book, Liber Secundus. In this chapter, Jung picks up Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471) book The Imitation of Christ. He starts his working through of this fundamental concept of Christianity and presents a radical rendering of it.

Text and picture sources: The Internet Archive 

Are you interested in a more intimate and in-depth exploration of the intersection of Jungian psychology and Christianity? Maybe you should consider joining the online course starting on January 10th? We will meet online for four weekly learning sessions and lectures related to Jung and Christianity.

There will also be room to discuss what we have learned between the sessions and an exchange of ideas. For more information about the course and early-bird registration go to this link.

This online course will cover: 

Session 1: Following the footsteps of a Protestant. In our first learning session, we go in-depth into Jung’s childhood experiences and the Christian tradition he grew up in and how it informed his psychological project. 

Date: 10 Jan 2023 8:00-9:15pm CET (Central European Time)

Session 2: Jung's Red Book & rendering of the Imitation of Christ. An in-depth study of Jung’s wrestle with Christ in the Red Book and his radical reformulation of the Christian concept of the imitation of Christ. 

Date: 17 Jan 2023 8:00-9:15pm CET

Session 3: Christianity’s repression of the unconscious. With C.G Jung’s 1923 Cornwall seminars as a starting point we learn how Jung viewed Christianity's effect on the unconscious. 
Date: 24 Jan 2023 8:00-9:15pm CET

Session 4: Jung’s vision of dreaming the myth onward. In our last session, we will discuss Jung’s later writings on Christianity with an emphasis on Aion and Answer to Job. 

Date: 31 Jan 2023 8:00-9:15pm CET

"The opposite of sin is faith in which one responds, you might say, appropriately to the call that comes to one. So faith is a kind of response. Faith is a passion. It requires grace. It requires divine assistance."

Episode description:

If there would be a Christian type of depth psychology, a part of its foundation would most likely be founded on the insights about the human self articulated by Danish Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). Our guest in this episode, Professor C. Stephen Evans, has not only imagined but also articulated important parts of the foundations of such a Christian psychology of depth in his book Søren Kierkegaard’s Christian psychology - Insights for counseling and pastoral care. 

In this episode, Dr. Evans helps us outline Kierkegaard’s view of the human self and his understanding of anxiety, despair, and self-deception's role in psychological development. He helps us understand how conscience and sin relate to individual psychology in Kierkegaard's psychology. Perhaps most importantly, he shows us how love and forgiveness are the foundations of a Kierkegaardian practice of depth psychology.  

Dr. Evans is a world-leading expert on Søren Kierkegaard. He is a Professor of University Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Baylor University, Waco, Texas. A professorial research fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Society at the University of Notre Dame in Sydney, Australia. He has also published extensively on subjects including philosophy of religion and the relationship of psychology and Christianity. His latest book is Kierkegaard and spirituality: Accountability as the Meaning of Human Existence (Kierkegaard as a Christian thinker).

Music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - No light without darkness, Essence and Reborn.

"The six million dollar question is, what is this God that Jung is talking about? What is Yahweh? In effect, he's putting Yahweh on the couch.  That's the entire genius of what Jung's doing, is putting God on the couch. As also if one were to look at it from a faith perspective, that's the entire problem is, you don't put God on the couch."

Episode Description:

The key questions examined in the Biblical Story of Job are: How can the suffering and injustice in the world be reconciled with the image of God that was taught to us? If God is good, where does evil come from? These questions and more Jung took on to examine in his provocative and much-debated work Answer to Job. To help us understand and unpack this work of Jung, I have invited again Jungian scholar Paul Bishop. Paul has written the most extensive commentary on the book, released in 2002 by Routledge as Answer to Job - A commentary. 

Through this conversation, Paul helps us to contextualize this book in Jung’s overall psychological oeuvre and to understand the main arguments Jung raises in defense of Job. We discuss the reception of the work and Martin Buber's critique of Jung as a Gnostic and his powerful reaction to this “accusation”. We discuss how to understand Answer to Job in view of the publication of Jung’s Red Book. 

Music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - Dawn's dew & Enough.

Ps. I highly recommend you to seek out the latest publication by Paul Bishop, it’s entitled, Nietzsche's the Anti-Christ: A Critical Introduction and Guide (Edinburgh Critical Guides to Nietzsche) which was released by Edinburgh University Press earlier this year.

Church music 2029. A musical interlude by The Psychia†ry.

1. Move into our own - Nicole Mitchell 
2. This and that and the other - African Head Charge 
3. The carnival of the Animals R.125 The Swan - Camille Saint-Saens 
4. Helgmalsrigning - The Psychiatry 
5. Coconut - Mango 
6. Sickness unto Death - The Psychiatry 
7. Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten Arvo Pärt 
8. Vorbei - Dora Gerson
9. Inat - Impérieux 
10. Delicado - Rudi Lakatos 
11. Awakening - The Psychiatry

Today the book C.G Jung: Face to Face with Christianity - Conversations on dreaming the Myth onward is finally released. For this episode I decided to swap seats and have Sean McGrath interview myself. Thank you for listening and feel free to support this podcast by purchasing a copy of the book. 

This is a sample of a video recording with Jungian Analyst Robert A. Johnson (May 26, 1921 – September 12, 2018) author of books such as Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche. The interview was conducted by J. Pittman McGehee in San Diego in 2002. 

For the full three-hour video visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=M0raXj8AM6M

Edited recording of live Q&A and summary of season 2 of Secular Christ with Sean J McGrath. 

What's the point of a Christian community? Why is community important for a contemporary contemplative Christian? In the final episode of the second season of Secular Christ, Sean McGrath turns to the question of community. We discuss its importance in the contemplative tradition and its absence within psychoanalysis and Analytical Psychology. We discuss the necessity also for a communal symbolic life, Christian eschatology, reaching the razor's edge of contemplative Christianity with the question: what is our attitude to be in a world that is passing away?

For those of you who enjoyed this season, we would like to invite you to a live Q&A and summary with McGrath. The date is set to Sunday 13th of November at 5 pm CET and we will meet on Zoom first for a lecture and then for questions and discussions. Please RSVP to j.lusensky@gmail.com

Music in this episode by Xylo-Ziko - Eventide & Peril. Licensed by Creative Commons.

Sean McGrath received an email from a young person who has been listening to Secular Christ asking: How can I keep growing spiritually through the Christ image, any words of wisdom that helped you along your path of living the contemplative life? This was Sean's reply.

In the third episode, McGrath takes on the self-help industry and how its ideological spokespersons such as Jordan B. Peterson misses the point of grace and self-transformation through self-surrendering. He discusses how to understand the Lord's Prayer (previously discussed with Donald Carveth) and how contemplative Christianity offers a different path of shadow integration and individuation through the kenotic and Buddhistic orientation of self-emptying.

Share your feedback and subscribe on Youtube

Contact: feedback@cross.center

Music in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org. Artist. Ketsa - Brook.

In the second episode of Secular Christ, McGrath explores the symbolic structures that underlie our search for truth and meaning. He contrasts the "going east" with a return to the "western symbolic" in order to connect with our spiritual and religious mother tongue.

He examines how 2000 years of Christianity is a part of the problem and is accelerating a perversion as well as the possible political and personal remedy, by finding back to a more authentic and contemplative Christianity.

Share your comments and subscribe on Youtube

Music in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org. Artist. Ketsa - Brook.

In the second season of Secular Christ, Dr. Sean J. McGrath continues his conversation with Jungian Analyst Jakob Lusensky about the contemplative life in a Secular Age.

In this episode McGrath introduces the concept of "Christ nature" and contrasts it with Buddha Nature before he turns to Paul and the Colossians and the Gospel of John to ground it in scripture.

Share your comments and subscribe on Youtube

Music in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org. Artist. Ketsa - Brook.

An audio clip from C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, in which he explains Rudolf Otto’s classic work, The Idea of the Holy and the numinous. 

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlhBcsgIylA&t=6s

In this extra material for episode 13 of Psychology & The Cross Donald Carveth and Sean McGrath discusses:

* How it's possible to believe in God although he does not exist
* Examines the Buddhist concept of provisional names
* Offers a critique of religious hubris
* Agrees that mystical or numinous psychedelic experiences are necessarily not what is needed in order for religion to become a sustainable "Erfahrung" (not "Erlebnis") and pattern in ones life.

#Erfahrung #Religion #Psychoanalysis

“Somewhere Jung says that the only evil is unconsciousness  and this, I think touches to your work Don, that this growth in consciousness, which psychoanalysis aims towards, has to be understood as a moral drive towards  the good.”

Episode description:

What’s the role of conscience, ethics, and morals in psychological development and individuation? To investigate this question we invited again the Toronto-based psychoanalyst Donald Carveth (Episode 12) and Philosophy & Theology professor Sean McGrath (Episode 3) for a conversation. As a base for our discussion, we have read the important 1958 Jung essay ‘A psychological view of conscience’. 

You can access it through our new Substack page. 

Donald Carveth is the author of the book "The still small voice: Psychoanalytic reflections on guilt and conscience” (Routledge, 2013). He runs a popular Youtube channel on psychoanalysis and also make some of his readings available on his website https://www.doncarveth.com/

Sean McGrath is a  Canadian philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He is known for his published work in the history of philosophy and the philosophy of religion. Major single-authored works includes for example 'The Dark Ground of Spirit: Schelling and the unconscious'. There is also a separate podcast series, Secular Christ where Jakob Lusensky discusses questions related to Christianity today.

Jakob Lusensky is a Jungian psychoanalyst with a private practice in Berlin and the host of this podcast.

Music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: "Falling Angels" and "Golden teacher" by Ketsa.

I had a conversation with Freudian psychoanalyst Don Carveth on his excellent youtube channel "Psychoanalytic thinking". The conversation takes as a starting point the upcoming book C.G Jung: Face to Face with Christianity, but also discussed Ernest Beckers book Denial of Death and the importance of further Freudian/Jungian dialogues. 

For those of you who listened to the last episode of Psychology & The Cross and got interested in learning more about Julius Spier and Etty Hillesum, we’re now making a previously unreleased essay by Alexandra Nagel available on our new Substack account. 

The essay is titled Julius Spier read the Bible for guidance (Etty Hillesum followed him) and outlines how reading the Bible and Christian writers influenced the spirituality of Spier and then of course also Etty Hillesum. 

In addition, here are two letters were written between Julius Spier and Etty Hillesum, the first one from Spier, sent on the 12th of August 1941.

Thank you to Wolfgang Heine and Barbara Morrill for the readings of the letters.

Music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - Crystal life.

“Julius Spier is a hand reader, and hand reading in itself is looked down upon, dismissed, forgotten, ignored by regular science. Jungians have not paid attention to Julius Spier.” 

Episode description:

This episode is dedicated to the Jungian hand reader Julius Spier (1887-1942). Until now Spier is most known for being the analyst and lover of brilliant Jewish diarist Etty Hillesum, whose writings before being sent to Auschwitz continue to inspire religious seekers around the world. 

Few people know of Spier’s relationship to C.G Jung, how he developed a psychological study of inquiry combining Jungian psychology with hand reading, and how there were Jungians trained in his technique and practicing it until the late 1900s (Albert Einstein had his hands read by Spier).

Our guest for this episode is Alexandra Nagel (PhD), a Dutch historian of western esotericism and the scholar who singlehandedly is bringing Julius Spier’s important contributions and fascinating life story to public attention. A few years ago she finished her dissertation on Spier at the Institute of Philosophy at Leiden University.

For more information about Julius Spier, I recommend the following papers by Alexandra Nagel.

Jung, Julius Spier, and Palmistry (Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche 14. No. 1 (2020): 65–81.)

Etty Hillesum, A Devoted Student of Julius Spier

The Hands of Albert Einstein: Einstein's Involvement with Hand Readers and a Dutch Psychic

Another must-read are the diaries of Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life the Diaries, 1941-1943

Thank you to Barbara Morrill for the beautiful reading of Etty Hillesum’s letter to Julius Spier. 

Music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - Crystal life.

A bit more than a year into this podcast series, it felt like a good time to stop and reflect more deeply on Jung’s wrestle with Christianity, and how it is still relevant for us today. For this reflection, I invited back three Jungian scholars with whom I had spoken individually on previous episodes. Our discussion together was an opening both of insights and questions:

* When we speak of dreaming the Christian myth forward, as Jung did, whose dream do we mean? Who's doing the dreaming?

* Is Jung’s psychological project an attempt to transcend or reform Christianity?

* What might Jung's psychologizing of Christian tradition mean for those within and outside it?

 
* In Jungian discourse, where is the body of Christ? Where are the poor?

About the participants:

Murray Stein is a renowned Jungian psychoanalyst and the author of important books such as Jung's Treatment of Christianity and Map of the Soul.

Ann Conrad Lammers is coeditor of The Jung–White Letters, The Jung–Kirsch Letters, as well as editor and co-translator of Erich Neumann’s two-volume work The Roots of Jewish Consciousness.

Paul Bishop is a renowned British scholar who has spent the last twenty-five years researching and writing on the foundational relationship between C.G. Jung and Friedrich Nietzsche and Johann Wolfgang Goethe.

Moderating the discussion is Jakob Lusensky, a Jungian psychoanalyst with a private practice in Berlin. He is the host of the podcast and a founder of the non-profit organization Center of the Cross, working within the intersection of psychology and religion with the mission of individual and social transformation.

Read excerpts from the letter correspondence between C.G Jung and Protestant theologian and Pastoral psychologist Adolf Keller (1872-1963). An important conversation when trying to understand the difficulties and possibilities in bridging Christianity and Jungian psychology.

Recommended reading: C. G. Jung – Adolf Keller:  On Theology and Psychology, edited by Marianne Jehle-Wildberger and published by the Philemon Foundation.

"I think that individuation should be in service to the community. It should lead to one's living within the larger. It's about me bringing my individuality, not my individualism, but the uniqueness of myself into the community. And in some ways, the community helps me to individuate."

Episode description:

In this episode, I speak to the pastor, theologian, and Jungian analyst in-training Kenneth Kovacs. The conversation circles around the correspondence between C.G Jung and Protestant theologian and Pastoral psychologist Adolf Keller (1872-1963). 

This exchange of letters, researched by Kenneth, leads us into a conversation about the relationship between individuation and community, the dialectical theology of Karl Barth, the dark side of the numinous, the possible dangers of imitating Christ, and what the fields of psychology and theology can learn from each other. Interspersed throughout the conversation are read excerpts from Jung and Keller's letters.

Recommended reading: C. G. Jung – Adolf Keller:  On Theology and Psychology, edited by Marianne Jehle-Wildberger and published by the Philemon Foundation.

Kenneth Kovacs, Ph.D., is pastor of Catonsville Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, MD (USA) and a Diploma candidate at the C.G. Jung Institut-Zurich. He is a graduate of Rutgers University, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the University of St. Andrews, Scotland (UK). Ken is the author of The Relational Theology of James E. Loder: Encounter and Conviction (New York/Bern: Peter Lang Press, 2009) and Out of the Depths: Sermons and Essays (Parson's Porch, 2016). He also serves on the board of directors of the Jung Society of Washington.

Music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - Between each, Essence & Blue violets.

A letter from Carl Gustav Jung to Sigmund Freud. Küsnacht 11th of February, 1910

"Dear Professor Freud,

The ethical problem of sexual freedom really is enormous and worth the sweat of all noble souls. But 2000 years of Christianity have to be replaced bv something equivalent. An ethical fraternitv, with its mythical Nothing, not infused by any archaic-infantile driving force, is a pure vacuum and can never evoke in man the slightest trace of that age-old animal power which drives the migrating bird across the sea and without which no irresistible mass movement can come into being. I imagine a far finer and more comprehensive task for psychoanalysis than alliance with an ethical fraternity.

I think we must give it time to infiltrate into people from many centres, to revivify among intellectuals a feeling for svmbol and myth, ever so gently to transform Christ back into the soothsaying god of the vine, which he was, and in this way absorb those ecstatic instinctual forces of Christianity for the one purpose of making the cult and the sacred myth what they once were— a drunken feast of joy where man regained the ethos and holiness of an animal.

That indeed was the beauty and purpose of classical religion, which from God knows what temporary biological needs has turned into a Misery Institute. Yet how infinitelv much rapture and wantonness lie dormant in our religion, waiting to be led back to their true destination!

A genuine and proper ethical development cannot abandon Christianity but must grow up within it, must bring to fruition its hymn of love, the agony and ecstasy over the dying and resurgent god, the mystic power of the wine, the awesome   of the Last Supper— only this ethical development can serve the vital forces of religion. But a syndicate of interests dies out after 10 years.

Very sincerely yours,

Jung

* Fifty years later one of Jung’s pupils wrote him a letter quoting the above remarks about Christianity. In a letter of 9 Apr. 59 Jung replied: 

Best thanks for the quotation from that accursed correspondence. For me it is an unfortunately inexpungable reminder of the incredible folly that filled the days of my youth. The journey from cloud-cuckoo-land back to reality lasted a long time. In my case Pilgrim’s Progress consisted in my having to climb down a thousand ladders until I could reach out my hand to the little clod of earth that I am."

“Jesus was the first psychoanalyst. The most brilliant psychoanalyst of all time. The whole theory of projection is right there.  Why do you complain about a mote in your neighbor's eye when there's a beam in your eye, he says. So much of psychoanalytic insight is there in the New Testament, especially in the words of Jesus and in St. Paul. So I became increasingly struck by these parallels.”

Episode description:

In this episode I speak to Toronto-based psychoanalyst Donald Carveth. We discuss how Don converted from Jung to Freud, his writing on the importance of differentiating conscience from the superego, and what we can learn from Jesus and the bible about psychoanalysis.

Donald Carveth is the author of the book "The still small voice: Psychoanalytic reflections on guilt and conscience” (Karnac, 2013). He runs a popular Youtube channel on psychoanalysis and also make some of his readings available on his website https://www.doncarveth.com/

Music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: "Reborn", "Essence", "Blue violets", "Enough" by Ketsa.

Episode description:

In this episode, I speak to Jungian analyst Jason E. Smith, author of the book Religious But Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life. We discuss Jason’s background as an actor, the difference between a religious attitude and religious belief, how he himself has navigated Jung's psychology and Christian faith, individuation's relationship to the collective, and Jung's relationship to Jesus.

For those of you interested in continuing to follow Sean McGrath’s search for secular Christ, you need to subscribe to that podcast separately. Alternatively, subscribe to our Youtube channel.

Biography:

Jason E. Smith is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. He is a past president of the C.G. Jung Institute of Boston, and currently serves as a training analyst and faculty member for the New England Institute. Jason is host of the podcast Digital Jung, and author of Religious But Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life, published by Chiron.

Music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: “No Light Without Darkness,” “Blue Violets,” and “Hard Sell,” by Ketsa.

In this last episode of the first season, Sean McGrath continues his conversation with Jungian Analyst Jakob Lusensky, in seeking the secular Christ. A conversation that leads back to the question of antichrist and how social media and consumerism feed a life of the imaginary at the cost of the real. McGrath discusses climate change, 'Friday's for future' and Greta Thunberg and the question of saving not our planet but our civilization.

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Music in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org. Artist. Xylo-Ziko - First light, Songbird and Light.

"What we're talking about in the Christ is something that actually doesn't naturally belong in this world. It is experienced as infection in a certain way, but it's the infection that brings life and hope and new forms of community."

In this episode, Sean McGrath returns to some of the questions we initially asked in this podcast. In what way is Christ a secular figure? What is the Church in the secular age? What can anti-Christ teach us when seeking Christ in the secular world? This leads us to a closer look at how consumerism is twisting our longings for faith, hope, and love into its opposite.

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McGrath discusses these themes together with Berlin-based psychoanalyst Jakob Lusensky.

Music in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org. Artist. Xylo-Ziko - Unguja.

In the final episode of this season of searching for the seeds of Secular Christianity, we travel to the 20th century to learn from the German Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

We explore his concept of religionless Christianity which developed as he sat imprisoned in Berlin by the Nazi regime for his resistance, and before his execution. McGrath continues to link back to Augustines idea of the invisible church and coins the term invisible Christianity.
 

How to practice contemplative Christianity? In this episode of Secular Christ, McGrath makes it clear that there are no (Jordan B Peterson) rules for life needed, but what's necessary is to carve out a space in our everyday life for contemplation, meditation, and prayer. He discusses further the importance of coming to terms with our own psychological impotence and the move from the necessary solitude to a different way of being together.

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Music in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org. Artist. Xylo-Ziko, 'Eventide, First Light'.

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In the fifth episode of Secular Christ, Philosophy and Theology professor, Sean J McGrath continues his seeking for Christ in the Secular Age. His starting point this time is the work of the American Franciscan priest and writer Richard Rohr, who through his many books and public lectures has led to a rediscovery of the cosmic christ and contemplative Christianity.

McGrath aligns with Rohr in arguing that contemplative Christianity is the answer to the spiritual “movement east”, and to a rediscovery of the sacredness of our secular lives. As a former Catholic monk himself, McGrath shares a definition of what contemplative Christianity is and how it can be practiced in everyday life. McGrath discusses these themes together with Berlin-based psychoanalyst Jakob Lusensky.

Music in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org. Artist.Xylo-Ziko, 'First light', 'Dark water' and 'Songbird'. 

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In this final trailer for the podcast Secular Christ, Sean McGrath continues his seeking for Christ in the Secular Age. This time his "case study" is the Slovenian philosopher and Lacanian, Slavoj Žižek. McGrath views Žižek as one of today's intellectuals who best understands Christianity but also as a representative of the philosophy of (unredeemed) human poverty. A tragic philosophy without hope or redemption and which he also contrasts with the philosophy of human potentiality.

 Music in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org. Artist. Xylo-Ziko Titles: Rainbow, Brook, First Light.

In this episode Philosophy and Theology professor, Sean McGrath offers a critique of Jordan B Peterson’s archetypal take on Christianity. McGrath sees his fellow Canadian as a representative of the philosophy of human potentiality which he contrasts with a Paulian philosophy of redeemed human poverty.

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Music in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org. Artist. Xylo-Ziko Titles: Dark Water, Perile, Locomotive and First Light.