ABSTRACT
Carl Jung's understanding of the religious propensity of the psyche, when understood and engaged, continues to address, to enrage and to con®rm many sides of the contemporary discourse on religion and its role in individual and social life. Obviously the most important of these is the nature and state of religion itself, both in the predominantly Western monotheisms and throughout the world. On the one hand the very credibility of religion continues to diminish in the light of Western liberal secularity whose values inform a now emerging social myth of deeper religious sentiment and moral concern. The profundity and universalism of religious secularity threatens to supersede the more traditional orthodoxies unable to meet the religious needs of a developing humanity increasingly aware of its inner resources and their external deployment in the service of humanity. Democracies in varying hues tend to replace the theism and theocracy with which religion is more comfortable. Human rights base themselves on other than religious grounds such as the natural law puri®ed of a religious referent. The ongoing contest for the separation of church and state and the increasing reluctance of most Western governments and leaders, with the notable exception of the United States, to use language derivative of any identi®able religion are examples of the emergence of an ethical and religious sense that surpasses a commitment to speci®c religions. In all of this a broader, deeper and more inclusive perspective obviates a narrower one.
