For Carl Jung, the aim of human existence, beyond any psychological treatment, is to achieve psychological harmony and ultimate wisdom. Individuation is the process through which an individual taps into his/her spiritual self and finds a new dimension to his everyday life. Jung has an optimistic approach of religion and, unlike Freud, he refuses to discard it as an essentially negative factor preventing an individual from accepting the non-spiritual reality of life. For the Swiss self-styled ‘analytical psychologist’ (to distinguish himself from Freudian ‘psychoanalysts’), the success of individuation depends upon the person’s ‘religious outlook on life.’ You will never find yourself without a certain degree of spirituality as the Self has to look for (the) God inside. Jung does not hesitate to speak of God as a “psychological image”, not as an existing, physical Being, exerting an overpowering influence over submissive believers – the way that Freud sees religion as synonymous for superstition, illusion and neurotic obsession.
Jung writes: ‘The question whether God does exist at all or not is futile. I am sufficiently convinced of the effects man has always attributed to God … The psyche cannot leap beyond itself. It cannot set up any absolute truths. He is convinced that human beings have a psychological capacity to experience God, a view shared by William James. Jung defines religion as ‘a peculiar attitude of the human mind’, in which ‘certain dynamic factors’ are observed and considered ‘beautiful and meaningful enough to be devoutly adored and loved.’ Such an approach echoes Rudolph Otto’s interpretation as the numinous as a transcendent experience independent of the subject’s will. Psychology cannot conclusively demonstrate the existence of God but in suggesting the presence of this universal archetypal image of God, it can confirm religion as a fundamental activity of the human psyche. Jung famously remarked ‘I don’t need to believe, I know.’

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