Jung comments on how the psyche is noticed more often and acutely by modern men: p 201 "There has never, of course, been a time when the psyche did not manifest itself, but formerly it attracted no attention--no one noticed it. But today we cab no longer get along unless we give our best attention to the ways of the psyche." This again is great context for the emergence of psychological man. The psyche became man's problem. Man's existence became his chief problem. How was man to explain himself to himself?
p 202. Jung maintains that the church is essential to protecting man's spiritual life: "But as soon as he has outgrown whatever local form of religion he was born to--as soon as this religion can no longer embrace his life in all its fulness--then the psyche becomes something in its own right which cannot be dealt with by the measure of the Church alone. It is for this reason that we of today have a psychology founded on experience, and not upon articles of faith of the postulates of any philosophical system. The very fact that we have such a psychology is to me symptomatic of a profound convulsion of spiritual life. Disruption of spiritual life of an age shows the same pattern as radical change in an individual..." What makes this any different from the various spiritual crises occurring throughout the ages? The simple answer is there is no difference but rather continuity: to be modern is to be in perpetual spiritual crisis. The two are one and the same. This spiritual convulsion gains it's energy in the process of secularization. In a sense, Maslow was trying to adopt spirituality without having faith in creed or word. The only clear evidence of Maslow having a spiritual experience came in the form of a confrontation with death. After he collapsed from a major heart-attack he writes to his friend and fellow psychologist Rollo May that this near death experience had [fill in details].
There is something new about the age Maslow lived in, some alteration of the spiritual currents in society that his cadre of psychologists were reacting to. In the most basic form they all sought salvation in a secular faith of psychotherapy. Sin became neurosis, grace became cure, savior became therapist.
p 203 Jung points to World War I as the event that lead many to recognize the dark strain in the unconscious.
pp 206-207 Jung supplies some context for the decline of old systems of religion and the rise of other forms of organizing psychic phenomenon. Humanistic Psychology would fit into this context. His chief point is that the psychic energy previously attached to religious strivings now attaches to other movements: spiritualism, Theosophy, astrology, and above all else Gnosticism. These movements evoke the changing spirit of faith and religious practice in the modern era. They pre-date the psychological imaginations of later writers.
Jung sums up the will to knowledge of the psychological type: "Our age is apparently bent on discovering what exists in the psyche outside of consciousness"
p211 Jung makes the connection between social and psychic upheaval: "The upheaval of our world and the upheaval in consciousness is one and the same." - This makes me think of Berger and the secularization of consciousness he mentions. Necessarily this would entail confusion and chaos of mind. I am also coming under the spell of dialectical thinking when considering Berger's approach.
p217 Jung addresses the idea he does not wish to be called a prophet. He then turns to the crux of the spiritual problem. Re-read this section when writing about Jung.
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