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How does one reduce the idea of God and the Devil to scientific terms? In Jung's view, they are manifestations of age-old archetypes present in the more obscure layers of the human mind since the earliest times. Jung's discovery of these archetypes dates from before 1912 when, as an associate of Freud, he noted that myths, fairy tales and religious visions were similar in many ways to dreams, and could, like dreams, be interpreted as emanations from the unconscious mind. Jung also noted that the myths and religious symbols of widely differing peoples and epochs had certain marked similarities, and were apt to include the same cast of characters. Among these characters he discerned a primordial image called "the shadow," which was usually embodied in figures like Satan. Others were the "anima" (the "woman in man," i.e., the female component of the masculine psyche, represented concretely in images ranging from Helen of Troy to the modern pin-up girl), the "animus" (corresponding male image, in the female psyche), the "great earth mother" (representing the material aspects of nature), the "wise old man" (personification of the spiritual principle, i.e., God). If all mankind dreamed more or less alike in its legends and religious symbols, it was reasonable to suppose the existence of a universal unconscious mind—a vast reservoir of wisdom from which these dreams arose. Jung termed this reservoir the "collective unconscious," thereby adding a new dimension to the Freudian psyche. The goal of Jung's therapy, unlike that of Freud, lay in what he called "individuation," a process by which the archetypes and other disturbing elements of the unconscious were brought to full consciousness. It was essentially a religious experience, and a way of life.
THE religious, esthetic and anthropological ramifications of Jung's ideas have tinged an astounding amount of contemporary thinking. Religious men, ranging from Hindu yogis to Christian theologians, have studied Jung, though the latter have found his dream world of primordial archetypes to be a pagan rather than a strictly Christian one. Orthodox Freudians have denounced his ideas as pure mysticism. Artists, poets and dancers have found in them a new vein of poetic inspiration.
Jung himself is inclined to agree with both his admirers and his critics. His own conception of religion is so eclectic, that it embraces everything from Catholicism to Hinduism, Taoism and Zen Buddhism, and finds truth of some sort in nearly every form of dogma and ritual. "His principal weakness, aside from overeating," a close associate recently remarked, "is his habit of seeing all points of view and agreeing with practically everybody." "The idea an an all powerful being," says Jung himself, "is present everywhere, if not consciously recognized, then unconsciously accepted...I consider it wiser to recognize the idea of God consciously; otherwise, something else becomes God, as a rule something quite inappropriate and stupid, such as only an 'enlightened' consciousness can devise."