ABSTRACT
An experience will be made legitimate when it is accepted by the patient and the analyst as a truly mysterious phenomenon that has occurred. The importance of Jung's formulation to ascribe legitimacy to a numinous experience is to be understood in the relationship of that experience to ego consciousness. There is philosophical debate as to whether a mystical experience is a pure subjective experience or essentially a cognitive event, where the thinking mind is always engaged. The ego holds two fundamental positions in relation to the unconscious: it consolidates its position where possible to be the dominant structure in the psyche; and it resists any attempt to relinquish its ascendancy. An explanation of the psychoid region and its unknowable material may be needed to bring the psychoanalytic aspect of the experience into situations where it is firmly placed within a religious or mystical tradition.
