ABSTRACT
The argument I have presented in this book hinges on the fundamental thesis that Jung’s psychology of individuation is driven to engage profoundly with philosophical and theological issues because it has as its central theme the mystery of the person. At the heart of the human person lies a spiritual dimension which cannot be entirely encompassed by depth psychology but transcends its limits. The reason for this is that the category of the person is, in the last analysis, a religious (or spiritual) one. Jung’s psychology is therefore constantly pushed beyond the limits of psychology as such. This movement beyond the limits of psychology takes in Jung’s thought the form of the creation of a psychological myth. By taking on this mythopoeic character, his psychology ends up ‘sublating’ philosophy and theology. To Jung’s mind we live in a time when ‘we are coming to something which Nietzsche foresaw – the rise of psychology in its own right, so much so that it is even threatening to swallow philosophy’ (Jung 1931: para. 659) and, we may add, theology. Jung’s psychological myth, which takes shape before this background, takes the conceptual form of his Kant-based psychological idealism.
