jung's conception of the holy ghost

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Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 33, No. 4, Winter 1994

J u n g s C o n c e p t io no f th e H o l y G h o s tLARRY GATESABSTRACT Carl Jung saw the Holy Ghost as the crowning figure in God's revelation of Him-self. For Jung, the Holy Ghost is that mysterious force which unites opposites and allows thetranscendent to enter space and time. Through a process called continuing incarnation, theHoly Ghost makes it possible for ordinary people to participate in the sonship of God.

Why would a psychotherapist like Carl Jung be concerned with the finepoints of religious dogma? Jun g said the problems of psychoneurosis oftenturn out to be religious problems; he said he was forced, somewhat againsthis will, to examine dogma so he could treat his patients. He came to theconclusion th at th ere are 'ru lin g ideas' which decide our ethical behavio rand ha v e. . , an imp ortant influence on our practical life. They are in the lastresort the principles which, spoken or unspoken, determine the moral deci-sions upon which our existence depends, for weal or woe. '1 These r uli ng ideasare archetypes; they account for worldwide similarities that exist in thestructure of the h uma n imagination.

Jung once said that psychological renewal is always shallow unless it islinked to a significan t spiritua l tradition . Archetyp es need bridges in order toreach consciousness, and the images of religion and m yt h serve as these bridges.When archetypes fall into containers that are too small--or too secular--neuroticism (such as the obsessive and irr ational belief that one has cancer)results. Though he had a life-long love-hate relationship with Christianity--arguing, for example, that it leaves out nature--Jung thought it unwise forwesterners to work outside their own rich heritage of symbols and dogma.For Jung , dogma possesses an impo rtan t psychological function. He tookthe Nicene Creed, for example, to re present psychological reality; it comes asclose as one can come with words to describing the archetypal God-image.Thoug h he did not specifically believe, as Tert ullia n did, th at the soul isChristian, he argued that man is a religious animal whose life becomesmeani ngless and directionless witho ut the symbolic life provided by religion.

Larry Gates is Professor of Psychologyat The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg,Mississippi.3 3 9 1994 Institutes of Religion and He alth


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O n e n e v e r p e r c e i v es r a w a r c h e t y p e s - - t h e b a s ic b u i ld i n g b l o c k s o f t h ep s y c h e - - b u t r a t h e r a r c h e t y p a l i m a g e s . T h e a r c h e t y p e s c o m e d r e s s e d i n t h ec l o t h i n g p r o v i d e d b y o n e 's c u l tu r e . R e l i g i o u s cr e e d s b y t h e i r v e r y n a t u r e a r ep a r a d o x i c a l a n d c o n t r a r y t o lo g ic ; b u t , o n t h e o t h e r h a n d , J u n g s a y s t h e yw o u l d b e u s e l e s s if t h e y w e r e l o g ic a l a n d e m p i r i c a l l y v e r if i a b le . D o g m a e x -p r e s s e s t h e p s y c h e m o r e c o m p l e t e l y t h a n a s c i en t if i c t h e o r y , f o r t h e l a t t e rg i v e s e x p r e s s i o n t o a n d f o r m u l a t e s t h e c o n s c io u s m i n d o n l y . '2 J u n g b e l i e v e sw e s h o u l d n o t w a t e r d o w n d o g m a s , b u t r a t h e r u t il iz e t h e m a s w a y s o f d e m o n -s t r a t i n g t r u t h s p e r m a n e n t l y i n a c ce s s ib l e t o t h e r a ti o n a l m i n d , w h i c h m a k e ss u c h a b r i g h t l i g h t t h a t o n e m u s t f i n d s o m e w a y t o s e n d i t t e m p o r a r i l y i n toe c l ip s e s o t h a t s u b t l e c o n s t e l l a ti o n s o f t h e s t a r i n t h e s p i r it w o r l d c a n b e s e e n .

F o r J u n g t h e t o t a l i t y o f p s y c h o l o g i c al e x p e r i e n c e i s s o m e h o w e x p r e s s e d i nt h e C h r i s t i a n T r i n i t y 2 T r i n i t a r ia n i m a g e s a r e d y n a m i c; th e y i m p l y g ro w t ha n d d e v e l o p m e n t . A c c o r d i n g to J u n g , e v e r y m e n t a l p r o c e s s h a s i t s o p p o s it ep r o c e s s, a n d t h e t w o c a n b e u n i t e d i n a t h i r d p r o c e s s, t h e i r p r o d u c t. T h e r e i sa l s o a n a r c h e t y p a l t e n d e n c y t o o r g a n i z e l i f e -e v e n t s i n a t h r e e f o l d p a t t e r n : ab e g i n n i n g , m i d d l e , a n d e n d . I t i s n o t s u r p r i s in g , t h e n , w h e n o n e d i s c o v e r st h a t t r i n i t i e s a p p e a r i n m a n y o t h e r r e l ig i o n s b e s i d e s C h r i s t i a n i t y .

I n th e t w e l f t h c e n t u r y , J o a c h i m o f F l o r a s u g g e s t e d t h a t t h e r e w e r e t h r e es t a g e s t o b e fo u n d i n t h e h i s t o r y o f m a n ' s r e l a t i o n t o th e d i v in e : t h e s t a g e o ft h e F a t h e r ( O ld T e s t a m e n t t im e s ) , t h e s t a g e o f t h e S o n ( t h e f i rs t t h o u s a n dy e a r s o f C h r i s t i a n i t y ) , a n d t h e s t a g e o f t h e H o l y S p i r it , w h i c h w a s t o b e g i nj u s t a f t e r J o a c h i m ' s l if e t im e .

J o a c h i m ' s i n f l u e n c e o n J u n g w a s g r e a t, I b e l i e ve . T o J u n g t h e s e s t a g e sw e r e t o b e s e e n i n t h e o n t o g e n y o f c u l t u r e a s w e l l a s t h e o n t o g e n y o f t h es p i r i t u a l l if e o f a n i n d i v i d u a l . J u n g s a w t h e s t a g e o f t h e F a t h e r a s a t i m e o fp r i s t i n e o n e n e s s w i t h t h e w h o l e o f n a t u r e . I t w a s a t i m e w i t h o u t c r i t ic a l j u d g -m e n t o r m o r a l c o n f li ct . F o r J u n g , t h e s t a g e o f t h e S o n r e q u i r e d a s a c r if i ce o fc h i l d is h d e p e n d e n c e , a l o n g i n g f o r r e d e m p t i o n , a n d a n a l i e n a t i o n f r o m o n e-n e s s c o u p l e d b y a l o n g i n g t o r e g a i n t h a t o n e n e s s . T h e s t a g e o f t h e S o n c o m e sa s t h e i n e v i t a b l e r e s u l t o f t h e e m e r g e n c e o f c o n s c i o u sn e s s , w h i c h c r e a t e s ac o n f l i c t s i t u a t i o n p a r e x c e l l e n c e i n v o l v i n g a n a c u t e a w a r e n e s s o f o p p o s it e s.N e x t , t h e n , c o m e s t h e s t a g e o f t h e H o l y G h o s t. I t e n t a i ls a r e t u r n o f s o r t s t ot h e f i r s t s t a g e , b u t d i f f e r i n g f r o m t h a t s t a g e i n t h a t i t i s e n r i c h e d w i t h t h er e a s o n a n d r e f l e c ti o n g a i n e d i n t h e s e c o n d s ta g e . T h e t h i r d s t a g e , t h a t o fi n d i v i d u a t i o n , r e q u i r e s t h e s a c ri f ic e o f e x c l u s i v e i n d e p e n d e n c e . O n e ' s e g o -c o n -s c i o u s n e s s i s a r t i c u l a t e d w i t h i n a s u p r a o r d i n a t e t o t a l i t y t h a t i s m o r e c o m p r e -h e n s i v e t h a n t h e I .

M a n y p e o p l e h a v e d i f fi c u l ty e n v i s i o n i n g t h e H o l y G h o s t . I t i s a n a b s t r a c -t io n , h a v i n g n o p e r s o n a l n a m e a n d n o i d e n t i f y i n g c h a r a c t e r i s ti c s ; t o s o m e , i ts e e m s m o r e l ik e a f u n c t i o n o r a n i d e a t h a n a p e r s o n . T h e r e a r e n u m e r o u s s e t so f c l o t h i n g th i s a r c h e t y p e h a s w o r n i n t h e h i s t o r y o f C h r i s t i a n s y m b o l i s m .T h e H o l y G h o s t h a s b e e n e x p e r i e n c e d , f o r e x a m p l e , a s a s w e e t od o r; t h i s h a sm u c h t o d o w i t h t h e u s e o f i n c e n s e i n t h e C a t h o l i c M a s s . M e d i e v a l a l c h e m i s t s


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often contrasted the flower-like redolence of the Holy Ghost with the stenchof graves. Gnosticism, too, spoke of the sweet odor of the Holy Spirit.The Holy Ghost has also been envisioned as a dove, the form in which itdescended at Christ's baptism. This incarna tion as an animal may have greatrelevance at a time in history when man's dubious sense of superiority tonatu re is so destructive to the planet.In the middle ages the Holy Spirit was often envisioned as a unicorn, awild-spirited animal tha t can only be tamed in the lap of a virgin. PerhapsJohn Muir's ecstatic pronouncements about God's wildness, which he expe-rienced in the Sierra Nevadas, refers to the Holy Ghost. Other more orthodoxChristian images for the Holy Ghost are eyes, fire, water, and wind.Jung points out that many historical writers have seen the Holy Ghost assome sort of ligament. The early Fathers of the Church described it as thepower that binds Father and Son. In the middle ages, some alchemists sawthe Holy Ghost as the ligament binding body and soul together. The Astrono-mer Kepler spoke of the sun as the Father, the planets as the Son, and theHoly Ghost as the force tha t holds them together.Christian writers have also treat ed the Holy Ghost as the life activity tha tis common to both the Father and the Son, a flowing out; an old doctrine callsit aspiration. Jung sees problems with this image, because--while the Sonseems to flow logically from the Father--there is no compelling logic in say-

ing the Holy Ghost flows from the other two members of the Trinity.Many early Christian writers equated the Holy Ghost with breath, a pro-cess independent of the physical body, but existing alongside it. In th is line ofthinking the Holy Spirit is seen as the life that resides in the body. It issuper-added, autonomous, unattached to the body. Early Christian theologysuggests the Father creates the Son by breathing; then the Father and theSon both breathe the Holy Spirit in and out. The Holy Spirit, after this, en-gages in passive spiration. St. Thomas said spiration does not proceed fromthe intellect of the Fat her and Son, but from their will. To Jung it seems theHoly Ghost is tacked onto Father and Son as a sort of act of intellectualreflection. This idea is older than Christianity, however. In ancient Egypt iantheology one clearly finds God the Father, God the Son, and Ka the life-spirit, or the animat ing factor of men and gods. Ka is breathed (spirated) byboth Father and Son.Clearly there is Biblical justification for saying that the Holy Ghost isbreath. At Pentecost the spirit descended on the disciples in tongues of fire;God breathed upon them. It is a rich and powerful idea to envision the HolyGhost as the breath t hat heals and makes whole. If prayer work s-- and thereis growing evidence tha t it does- -as described by Lar ry Dossey4 and o ther s--then we need an image for helping patients and the ir families to envision theforce th at does the heal ing. Why not the breath of God ?Jung devotes much att ention to the theology of continuing incarnation af-ter the death, resurrect ion, and ascension of the historical Jesus. In the Gos-


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pel of John Jesus says in no uncertain terms that One will come after Himwho will do even grea ter works; this Comforter or Paracle te is, of course, theHoly Spirit. Christ says the Comforter will procreate in man, bringing worksinspired by Heaven, envisioning his own sacrifice as a necessary prelude tothe coming of the Comforter. He says that the Comforter will be for the disci-ples wha t Christ had been for them, investing them with powers to do workspossibly grea te r th an the works of the Son. 5 It is as if, as Chr ist had been thedeputy of the Father, the Holy Ghost is now the deputy of Christ. On the onehand Matthew says the Holy Ghost is the force tha t caused the Son to comeinto exis tence (1:18), but in John' s conception of the Paraclete, He is the leg-acy left behind by the Son. The Holy Spirit continues the work of redemptionby descending on those who merit divine election. To Jung, the Holy Spirit isthe crowning figure in redemption as well as in God's revelation of Himself.Another interesting possibility that Jung explores is the Holy Spirit asMother. To Jung, Christianity, like everything else in consciousness is one-sided. Why, he asks, are all three persons of the Trinity male? What hap-pened to Sophia, the Wisdom of God, mentioned briefly in the Old Testamentand described at length in some apocryphal texts? Jung suggests that, froman archetypal point of view --a s well as from common sens e-- the Trinity ofFather, Mother, and Holy Child seems a richer and more basic idea thanFather, Son and Holy Ghost (Spiritus), all masculine.

Mary is actua lly given little attention in the Bible, but one must not forgetthat she was the instrument of God's birth. It seemed reasonable to Jung tothi nk of her as the Holy Spirit. This leads to a number of interesting ram-ifications: If the Holy Ghost is a biological mother, for example, then the re isa sense in which all humans participate in the Trinity. In Revelation, onefinds the story of the sun-woman, who gives birth to a child tha t when born isalmost swallowed by a dragon. Jung insists it was an ordinary woman and anordinary child; John's vision, he says, foretells the Incarnation in creatur elyman. '6 The feminine takes us out of the world of forms and brings back con-crete reality, the earth, the huma n tou ch- -making them divine. Through thecontinuing incarnation of the Holy Ghost in ordinary human beings the di-vine enters the world. As much as Jung was attracted to this line of reason-ing he acknowledged it was probably not the intention of the church fathers.For one thing, a mother's natural place is second, not third; and the se-que nc e- Fa th er , Holy Child, Mother--is awkward.Jung cites sources in which the Holy Ghost was envisioned as the bringerof inspiration. Inspiration, he said, is always a gift, one ancient traditionusually attributed to archetypal feminine figur es-- Jung's anima. In fact, theHebrew word for spirit is essentially feminine. Medieval alchemists oftenequated the Holy Spirit with the Gnostic Sophia. In the medieval naturalphilosophers one also finds a conception of an incarnate Sapientia: of Her onetext says, the wisdom of the fathe r lies in the lap of the mother. '7No one who has studied the historical development of the Christi an fa ith


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could deny that it is a religion replete with male images. It is as if materialreality, the body, and the earth were feminine, and one must renounce themif one is to achieve spiritual perfection. Why else monasticism and absti-nence? In this context the Holy Ghost has often been envisioned as a methodof reproduction without women. Because of the Spirit, no woman is necessary.One must not forget tha t Jesus scorns his mother at the wedding in Cana. Inmedieval Christian initiation ceremonies, young men were in effect alienatedfrom their mothers and were reborn as spirits. The celibacy of priesthooddevelops this idea tha t the spirit is the essence of masculine life, tha t one strue identity is not one s body, that during spiritual exercises the Ka or im-mortal soul can detach itself from the body. In this context the Holy Ghostcan be seen as the Spiritual Impregnator who allows the eternal to enter theordinary world of space and time.It would be wise to think of spiritual impregnating as happening to bothmen and women. The Holy Ghost made Mary pregnant, and the birth shegave was a spiritual birth. A medieval picture shows a tube coming fromHeaven and reaching up under Mary s dress. Meister Eckhart wrote tha t ourhea rt is the womb of the Virgin waiting for the spiritual impregnator. He sawhis soul as a woman married to God. Through the Holy Spirit, women, men,and perhaps even animals can become pregnant with God.Jung also sees the Holy Ghost as a uniting symbol, an irrational but unit-ing third thing that resolves the tension between Father and Son. No idea ismore central to Jung s theory than the hope that all psychic tensions can beresolved by some such mysterious, paradoxical third thing. Jung suggeststhat the Holy Ghost is the change that takes place when one moves fromFather to Son; to think of God--or at least one aspect of God--as change orrelationship, rather than substance, can be an enriching and transformingexperience.Ju ng conceived of the Fat her as symbolic of unconscious wholeness and theSon as symbolic of consciousness (which is impossible without doubt). The Sonemerges when doubt appears, when the fallen world is seen as needing re-demption. The Holy Ghost puts an end to the duality (and the doubt) of theSon, resolving the tension between the conscious Son and the unconsciousFather. In this line of reasoning, the Father represents the archetypal, un-differentiated Self, the Oneness, the source of all other archetypes; the Son,the ego that emerges out of this undifferentiated Oneness, brings awarenessof opposites, even His own opposite, the Antichrist. In the Holy Spirit, wefind the ego-self axis, the crowning achievement of Jun gian personalitygrowth, the link that enriches the conscious mind with the unconscious andthe unconscious with the structured differentiation of consciousness. Jungsaw the Holy Ghost as a natural and spontaneous correction that comes upfrom the unconscious to compensate for the limita tions of consciousness. It isthe uniting, paradoxical Symbol tha t makes us whole. The Holy Spirit is thatunexpected gift of the Depths t hat makes possible a union of opposites, the


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most impor tant task of development in the second hal f of life. When we inte-grate opposites such as thinking and feeling, or time and eternity, or maleand female, we become whole.In Jung's late thought there arises the image of God incarnated in ordinaryindividual persons. After the life of Christ, in this speculation, the HolyGhost began to seize individuals. This is a line of thi nking that explodedinto our culture in the Holy-Ghost heresies that appeared in Western Europein the time of Joachim of Flora. It was a new way of thinking that paralleledother changes in Western t hou ght --t he idea of romantic love, the elevationof the ideal of the individual, the Protestant Reformation. Joseph Campbellcalls this change in perspective a genetic mutation . In it we may find some ofthe essence of modernism as well as the signposts t ha t lead away from mod-ernism.The emergence of personal and idiosyncratic experiences of the Holy Ghostcaused man y difficulties for the Church. Many individuals now professed tobreathe this breath which Christ had once breathed; ordinary people weresupposedly participating in the sonship of God. Jung writes: through theHoly Ghost human beings are surreptitiously included in the mystery of theTrin ity. '8Jung sees the descent of the Holy Ghost as the Se lls actualization in man?The Self is the ineffable God-archetype, the creative Void from which all theother archetypes emerge. In Answ er to Job Jung writes, The future indwell-ing of the Holy Ghost in man amounts to a continuing incarnation of God. '1~Jung argued that the Christ archetype existed before Jesus and will existafter Jesus, as the Holy Spirit continues to bring it into the world. He saysfurther that

God.. . wants to become man, and for that purpose he has chosen, through theHoly Ghost, the creaturely man filled with darkness--the natural man who istainted with original sin and who learnt the divine arts and sciences from thefallen angels. The guilty man is eminently suitable and is therefore chosen tobecome the vessel for the continuing incarnation, not the guiltless one who holdsaloof from the world and refuses to pay his tribute to life.1'

Jung speaks of God continually incarnating through the Holy Ghost in theworld of time and space, in the conflict and coming toge ther of opposites in allof us. This is, arguably, t he central idea in Jung's late wr itings on religion.The Unconscious Self, the Ground of All Being, constantly seeks outwardmanifestation; it is consciously experienced first as dua lity and l at er -- in thefullness of life and the attainment of wisdom--as what it was before con-sciousness: unity. In Answer to Job Jung speaks of a Christification of manthrough the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. T One might come to the conclusionthat this simple, bold idea sums up all the complex meanderings, amplifica-tions, and theorizing of the twenty volumes of Jung's Collected Works


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eferences1. Jung, C. G., Collected Works. Trans. R. F. C. Hull, ed. H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, Win.Mcguire. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956, X/, pp. 454-5, par. 738.2. C.W. Vol. 11, p. 46, par. 82.3. , A Psychological Approach to the Trinity. In Collected Works Vol. 11, pp. 107-200.4. Larry Dossey, Healing Words San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1993.5. John 14:12.6 . m

8~ _ _ .9 . _ _1 0 . _ _ .1 1 . _ _ .

1 2 . _ _ .

C.W. Vol. 11, p. 459, par. 744.C.W. Vol. 11, p. 162, par. 240.C.W. Vol. 11, p. 161, par. 239.C.W. Vol. 11, p. 432, par. 693.C.W. Vol. 11, pp. 412-415, pars. 655-8.C.W. Vol. 11, p. 459, par. 746.

. C.W. Vol. 11, p. 470, par. 758.

jung's conception of the holy ghost

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