How did Jung explain religion? What did he mean by archetype?
Thank you for your question. The overarching goal of Jungian psychology is the reconciliation of the life of the individual with the world of the supra-personal archetypes. Central to this process is the individual’s encounter with the unconscious. The human experiences the unconscious through symbols encountered in all aspects of life: in dreams, art, religion, and the symbolic dramas we enact in our relationships and life pursuits. Essential to the encounter with the unconscious, and the reconciliation of the individual’s consciousness with this broader world, is learning this symbolic language. Only through attention and openness to this world (which is quite foreign to the modern Western mind) is the individual able to harmonize her life with these suprapersonal archetypal forces. His approach to religion is outlined in his book Answer to Job reflecting the influence of Kantian philosophy. In the psychological framework of Carl Jung, archetypes are innate, universal prototypes for
