What we’re going through at the moment is the crucifixion of Christianity. Christians are saying, help, help, this is not nice, we’re on the cross. We want to fast-forward to the resurrection. You cannot fast-forward to the resurrection. You have to experience the agony of the cross.

David Tacey is a Jungian scholar and interdisciplinary researcher whose teaching and writing encompasses the areas of psychoanalysis, religion, spirituality studies, and literary approaches to psychology. In this episode, David speaks of his analysis with the late James Hillman, and about his former mentor’s disdain towards Christianity and the Jungian Self. He addresses the importance of reading the bible symbolically rather than literally, the necessary death and rebirth of Christianity, and how Jungian individuation needs to be complemented with a Christian social ethos. 

Finally, we discuss Jung’s role as a prophet for the 21th century, in dreaming the Christian story onward.

Biography 

David Tacey is a Professor of English at La Trobe University in Australia and a world renowned authority on Jung and spirituality. He studied under the late James Hillman and is the author of twelve influential books, including The Darkening Spirit: Jung, Spirituality  and Religion (2013), Gods and Diseases: Making Sense of our Physical and Mental Well Being (2011) and How to Read Jung (2006). 

Articles & Books discussed in this episode:

Religion as Myth: beyond literal belief by David Tacey

James Hillman: The unmaking of a psychologist. Part one: his legacy by David Tacey

James Hillman: The unmaking of a psychologist Part two: The problem of the Puer by David Tacey

Answer to Job by C.G Jung

The undiscovered Self by C.G Jung

The Symbolic life by C.G Jung

Revisioning Psychology by James Hillman

Lament of the dead: Psychology after Jung’s Red Book by Sonu Shamdasani and James Hillman

The Dream, the vision of the Night by Max Zeller

Music played in this episode

Licensed under creativecommons.org: ‘Ketsa – No light without darkness’, ‘Siddhartha Corsus – Constellations.’