Jungian analyst Steven Herrmann has gifted us with significant books on topics such as Spiritual Democracy, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Jung and William James, Jung and Swami Vivekananda, Jung and Meister Eckhart, Vocational Dreams, and much more.*
Now he kicks off the new series on Neo-Jungian studies with a book on Murray Stein, subtitled “Individuation, Transformation, and the Ways to the Self in Jungian Psychology.” Stein, an internationally renowned Jungian analyst, combined theology and Jung through 50 years of influential work, which has even included playwriting in his later years. After many years in Chicago, he moved to Zurich 20 years ago.
As a spiritual theologian, I respect Jung’s contributions on many levels to understanding religious consciousness, the most recent example being where I share his thoughts on the antichrist archetype in my recent book on Trump and the MAGA Movement as Antichrist.
I remain curious how Jung’s work, updated by Stein and Herrmann, can assist the Christian movement as it evolves from the Age of Pisces, where it has been nestled for 2000 years, to the Age of Aquarius and post-modernism that now beckons us.
Herrmann’s in-depth treatment of Murray Stein’s significant achievements, bringing Jung into a post-modern mindset, contributes substantially to this evolution. First, there is the interfaith or deep ecumenical dimension that Stein recognizes—what he calls a “plural consciousness.” In 2013, as co-president of a conference on world religions in Taiwan, he brought together speakers from Japan, Korea, and China to explore Taoism and Jungian studies.
Says Stein: “Jung needed to have experience. What is your experience of God? This was Jung’s approach to religion.” As a spiritual theologian, those are my primary questions too: “How do we experience the divine?” And, “How do those of other cultures and religions do the same?” Stein “unites Eastern and Western spiritual traditions,” says Herrmann, bringing “a message of hope, healing, and visionary consciousness to a global audience.” Interdependence is key to the future.
Stein believes we have paid a heavy price for the modern era, which promoted a certain “disease” that cut off a connection to the “religious function and to the symbols that bring the ego into a more conscious relationship to the Self.” He recognizes how, in Herrmann’s words, “one serves the Self via the humble human vehicle of one’s vocation, whether that calling involves marriage, parenthood, science, or art.”
Stein has listened to many dreams of people who speak to these realities. One captures glimpses of Infinity during moments when the Self awakens within us, evoking a sense of mystery and wonder. We enter into this realm whenever we open ourselves to transcendence, and these are “at least potentially Christ-like openings into Oneness.” Dreams often guide the dreamer “toward individuation through a calling to compassion.”
Stein recognizes our post-modern times as being infected by a “virus of superficiality.” He warns that “triviality” can infect Jungian institutes and training programs:
We live in postmodern times. The changes brought about in world culture…since the introduction of the computer and the internet into common usage worldwide, have profoundly affected all cultures, and this has had an impact also on our profession of psychotherapy. Everything goes faster, speed and efficiency are paramount, and superficiality as the signature of the times is a result…
He is concerned about how the postmodern world has been infected with the virus of superficiality.… Perhaps now is the time to listen more intently to the spirit of the depths.**
For me, the “spirit of the depths” means the mystical traditions of the world, which must come alive, and for the West, this constitutes a paradigm shift in theological education and church life, including Liturgy. After all, it was Jung himself who said, “it is to the mystics we owe what is best in humanity” and “only the mystics bring what is creative to religion itself.”
In other words, there will be no renewal of religion and spirituality until we understand the mystical dimension of ourselves and our traditions more deeply. Clearly, the Cosmic Christ archetype is on the rise.
I thank Murray Stein and Steven Herrmann for carrying the Jungian genius into a new era in this groundbreaking study.
* To see all of Steven Herrmann’s books, see Matthew Fox’s Creation Spirituality bookstore HERE.
**Steven Herrmann, Murray Stein: Individuation, Transformation, and the Ways to the Self in Jungian Psychology, pp. 23, 13, 36f.
Banner Image: The Cosmic Mass at the Parliament of World Religions, 2023, with wildlife lanterns sculpted by University of Creation Spirituality graduate Mary Plaster, D.Min. Photo by Mary Plaster, published with permission.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you recognize a “virus of superficiality” in our times? Do you experience a taste of the Infinite and an opening to transcendence through experiences of mystery and wonder? Do you entertain the mystic in yourself and learn from mystic-prophets who inspire you?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance
Stations of the Cosmic Christ
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faith Tradition
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations
Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint For Our Times: Unleashing Her Power in the 21st Century
Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Prophet For Our Time
Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic—and Beyond
A Way To God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey
Trump and the MAGA Movement as Antichrist
4 thoughts on “Carl Jung, Murray Stein, Steven Herrmann & Christianity’s Future”
As I was reading this apology of deep personal experience of the Divine as opposed to the superficiality that mesmerizes our culture as an iridescent film of oil over water, I was reminded of the brief encounter of Hesse’s Siddhartha with the enlightened Buddha: “I think, O Illustrious One, that nobody finds salvation through teachings. To nobody, O Illustrious One, can you communicate in words and teachings what happened to you in the hour of your enlightenment.” Then, walking away with the look and smile (and teachings!) of the Buddha imprinted in his memory, Siddhartha dives into a journey of authenticity that, after much plodding through the human condition, leads him to the mystical experience of the “great song of a thousand voices [that] consisted of one word: Om—perfection.”
Yes! Yes! Yes! Thank you Matthew for introducing or re-introducing Jungian psychology to your readers, and specifically the recommendation of Steve Herrmann’s new book on Jungian analyst Murray Stein, subtitled “Individuation, Transformation, and the Ways to the Self in Jungian Psychology.” As a retired psychotherapist, I was very much influenced by Jung’s psychology and his love of mystical spiritual traditions that led to my entering and practicing this career. Before my MSW graduate studies, I studied for one year as an auditor at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. I’m looking forward to reading Herrmann’s new book and understanding further the integration of my personal and communal spiritual journey with others.
Matthew Fox came up to me at the 1983 Tekakwitha Conference and asked if I would have a “talk” with him. I said yes! I was a long haired hippie at the time. During our talk Matthew told me that Thomas Merton had asked him to reach out to the hippies. I then told Matthew about my hippie counterculture, one world mission, with a worldview around the Indigenous world wahkon (holy). During one of Matthew’s Tekakwitha Conference lectures a missionary priest spoke to the people gathered there and said “There is a whole worldview behind the word wahkon.” Matthew said he remembered hearing this. I also told Matthew that I was promoting the lyrics in Van Morrison’s song “Into the Mystic,” wherein he sings “unanimously we will flow into the mystic.” Matthew then said “those are some good lyrics.” Decades after our meeting, Matthew gave his support for my Indigenous advocacy mission to change a badly named river in Minnesota. I am still a hippie and I am still working to accomplish my one world mission. A recent article of mine is titled “My Hippie Counterculture, One World Mission.” It is located at: https://www.towahkon.org/GlobalHippieMission.html.
Thanks for another cogent and enlightening DM. Yes, the superficiality is staggering and, to me, it is intimately connected to the increasing “fakeness” of society with the pressure even among regular people to have plastic surgery or other personal enhancements; what used to be confined to Hollywood, is now common, and people with limited means go to Mexico or Central or South American places to get cheap face lifts, tummy tuck, implants for various parts of the body, etc. The idolization of appearance is driven, of course, by advertising agencies, who have no limits to their greed IMO. The message of our society has devolved to superficiality in everything, and we are becoming soul-less; I think that you or one of your sources talk about soul carnage, which is a perfect description.