ABSTRACT
C. G. Jung outlines his approach to religion in his long article 'Psychology and Religion'. The foremost contradiction is his conceptualization of the relation of the human subject to the object world. Jung is on record as stating not only that he believes in God's existence but that he knows that God exists. His perception of the numinosum is of a being that 'seizes and controls the human subject'. Jung infers that the numinosum, the outer reality, is identical with the consentium gentium, which in its turn is an objective reality. Neither Freud nor Jung understood that there is a religion of a more mature kind; the difference between the two is that Freud condemns primitive religion uncompromisingly, whereas Jung gives it his support. The core values which were preached by the great religious teachers – the Buddha, Jesus and Socrates – were a radical challenge to the mentality of primitive religion.
