ABSTRACT
In its youthful vigour the New Psychology is not afraid of invading the sanctities, for it is unrestrained by any feeling of reverence or decorum from "stepping in where angels fear to tread" and exploring or analysing "what angels have longed to see." It should be said, however, that in this matter the disciples are more adventurous and daring than the masters, for apart from Jung the leaders have given little attention to Christianity as such. Freud has definitely ruled out religion from his method of treatment and kept himself clear of all contact with the Christian facts. We can therefore only discover his attitude to Christianity by a consideration of the implications of his basal assumptions, and here we shall find him definitely opposed to most of the primary Christian positions. Leuba, in his treatment of The Psychology of Religious Mysticism, had of necessity to consider Christian mysticism, but he does so in abstracto as it were, and without facing up to any extent to the realities of the Christian faith. In fact he appears to be definitely opposed to Christianity. Jung, on the other hand, makes great use of religion and of the Christian facts and principles in his treatment of his patients, and his writings are full of references to Christ and Christianity, references that sometimes reveal a profound grasp of the essentials of the faith, and are suggestive of a real understanding of the main Christian positions. On the other hand, we shall also find that his chief principle of interpretation of Christ is quite untenable, and that, for that reason, his position as a whole is vitiated and unsound. Some of the disciples, greatly daring, have entered the sanctuary, and one has sought to apply the principles of the New Psychology to the Life of Christ. 1 Professor Berguer of Geneva has written on Some Aspects of the Life of Jesus, and his treatment is on the whole reverent and suggestive, although in some parts it is trivial and irritating in the extreme. He regards the Life of Jesus (chap. i) as an affirmation and demonstration of the sublimation of the human instincts towards the divine, and whilst he recognizes that this effort at sublimation introduces new values into the world, this is done, as all sublimation is thought to be done, without any reference to any force or power outside the person sublimating. All the power and inspiration necessary are to be found within the personality and no new or supernatural element is demanded. In Part II be approaches the Christian facts. The Birth of Jesus (chap. i) is but another instance of the "Hero Myth," and he seeks to show that the chief factors of that myth, as these are expounded by Rank, are reproduced in the story of the early Life of Jesus. It is thus but an instance of a familiar myth very much on the same level as the legends that surround such heroes as Sargon, Perseus, Cyrus, and Lohengrin. In accordance with the principles of the Schools, he proceeds to show that what happened to Jesus in the Temple as a boy was of the nature of a conversion (chap. ii). Conversion is the sublimation of the libido, a passage of vital energy from an instinctive level to a reflective level. It is really the personality turning back on itself, and this is what takes place in the consciousness of Jesus, There does not seem to be any appreciation of the fact that, according to the narrative, it was His "Father's business" that was foremost in the mind of Jesus and not any turning back on Himself. The Baptism of Jesus is simply a case of introversion; the movement of a return on the self which, in every great and consecrated life, precedes the productive extraversion. There is connected with this movement a strong element of sex, as may be seen by the opening cloud, and the Temptation is but the continuation of this process of introversion. At the Baptism Jesus realizes a perfect harmony of all His psychic energies, and the Temptation is the test of this harmony, and it again corresponds to the three possible ways of solving a crisis of introversion. As Silberer has shown, these three ways are magic, dementia praecox, and mysticism, and Berguer strains the narrative of the Gospels in a futile effort to bring the temptations of Jesus under these three heads. The Spirit of God who is said to have driven Jesus to the wilderness to be tempted is nothing but the libido, the élan vital which comes from above and reaches man by seizing him inwardly. In chapter vii Berguer deals with the "Personality of Jesus," and here the inevitable Oedipus Complex is brought in to explain some of His profoundest experiences. Thus His consciousness of Sonship and the realization of God as His "Father" is nothing but the consciousness of the libido as the plenitude of life. The realization of Sonship is thus due to an influx of life. This vital influx, this inner urge of energy which the Psychoanalysts call "libido" and Schopenhauer calls "the will to live" and Bergson élan vital, Jesus felt, differently no doubt, but in the same sense, as "the Father." "So He could hail as 'Father' this life force that sprang up within Him." It was Jesus alone who caught the full view of this force in the world which creates life and moulds persons, and He gave it the one name "Father." At its basis this fact is related to the Oedipus Complex.
