Dreams of Dogma

"… a dogma is the very thing that precludes immediate experience…. Dogma is like a dream, reflecting the spontaneous and autonomous activity of the objective psyche, the unconscious. Such an expression of the unconscious is a much more efficient means of defense against further immediate experiences than any scientific theory."

“Psychology and Religion: Psychology and Religion: West,” CW 11, ¶81

            Jung was the son of a Protestant pastor but as an adult he almost never went to church (weddings and funerals were possible exceptions). While not religious, in the sense of belonging to an organized religion, Jung was deeply spiritual, his spirituality being rooted in multiple personal experiences of the Divine.

            In this essay in Collected Works, volume 11, Jung explains how organized religions serve to protect their followers from having personal experiences of the Divine: through the use of dogma, i.e. creeds, rites, rituals, statements of belief etc. All the standing up, sitting down, kneeling, singing, reciting is very “efficient” in holding the mysterium tremendum  at bay.

            Why would religions want to do this? In part because a personal experience of the mysterium—the Great Mysterious (Wanka Tanka in the Lakota language)—is tremendum, i.e. something that forces us to tremble, in its overwhelming power, force and majesty. It is truly awe-ful and can be overwhelming. Few indeed were those persons 2,000 years ago who could cope with such experiences. So the early church fathers created dogmas and rituals to formalize worship in place of the Gnostics’ stress on personal gnosis, or knowledge of God.

            Another, more practical reason for creating dogma is that people who have come to know God through their personal experience are hard to control. When a person has had such experiences they know the love, the acceptance, the creativity and the freedom that the Divine gives us. The concepts of sin, guilt, shame, judgment—all this stuff is seen for what it is: elements of the old view of the Divine that our world is slowly outgrowing.

            Jung postulated a “new dispensation” that is aborning all around the world, as more people refuse to be controlled and seek to have personal experiences of the Divine. Then they recognize the barriers that dogma throws up to such experiences. The spreading phenomenon of empty pews reflects the shift from religiosity to spirituality, from contentment with dogma to an insistence on knowing God."

-- jungiancenter dot org