a God archetype in our collective unconscious. This primordial image causes
Godlike images to surface in the dreams, folklore, artwork, and experiences
of people everywhere. We can easily conceive of a God, find evidence for His
existence, and experience deep religious feelings because we were born with a
kind of unconscious predisposition for Him. Scholars continue to debate
whether Jung meant by this that God exists only in our collective unconscious
and therefore that the traditional description of God as an external entity is amyth (Bianchi, 1988). Although at times Jung does appear to argue that God
exists only in the human mind, other references suggest he was not ready to
make such a bold statement.
Jung maintained that organized religions often took advantage of power-
ful archetypal symbols in promoting themselves to followers. Indeed, he de-scribed Christ as a symbol, with the four points on the cross representing thegood-versus-bad and the spiritual-versus-material aspects of our being. In ad-
dition to religious art and scripture, Jung said, religious symbols are often
found in our dreams and in the hallucinations of psychotic patients.
According to Jung, many people seek out psychotherapy when their reli-
gion fails to provide reassurance. Thus modern psychotherapy has taken onthe role once reserved for the clergy. Of particular importance for many of
Jung’s patients was the need to resolve the good and evil sides of their person-
alities. Psychologists help these patients through a variety of therapy techni-
ques. However, Jung argued, modern religions have developed their own
Why do people feel deeply about their religious beliefs? This is one of the questions
addressed by Freud and many of the neo-Freudian theorists. Freud declared religion adelusion, whereas Jung pondered the nature of religious experiences throughout hiscareer.116 CHAPTER 5 The Psychoanalyt ic Approach