ABSTRACT
The world still suffers from the illness that emerged in full force in the 20th century, namely ideological possession. It has taken new forms in populist, ethno-nationalist and Identitarian movements as well as in Islamic extremism. For Jung, the ultimate cause of these illnesses is not the most obvious but the deepest: the idea that human beings can be understood and treated as standard units. He would argue that the managerial state, with its focus on economic manipulation and perpetual growth, has become a kind of God—an abstract father figure that people rely on to solve their problems. In his view, the only real bulwark against ideological possession and the political fanaticism that stems from it, is the true individual whose reality is unique, an individual with an inner life that can stand in opposition to outer pressures. This concluding chapter thus turns squarely to the question of whether contemporary Christianity fulfills the expectations Jung had for religion to function as a path to individuation or whether it has conformed too much to the world. Jung’s recommendations for contemporary Christianity shed light on exactly what he thought was needed for religion to become a bulwark for the individual and community against the encroachments of the state and the consumer economy.
