Sue Mehrtens is the author of this and all the other blog essays on this site. The opinions expressed in these essays are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of other Jungian Center faculty or Board members. Honesty, as well as professional courtesy, require that you give proper attribution to the author if you post this essay elsewhere.
Jung on Prayer
“… “prayer,” that is, a wish addressed to God, a concentration of libido on the God-image.”
Jung (1956),[1]
“… “prayer” is conceived as “the upward-striving will of man towards the holy, the divine.”
Jung (1971)[2]
“…it is the most universal form of religious or philosophical concentration of the mind and thus not only one of the most original but also the most frequent means to change the condition of mind.”
Jung (1950)[3]
“My nightly prayer did, of course, grant me a ritual protection since it concluded the day properly and just as properly ushered in night and sleep.”
Jung (1965), [4]
“I have thought much about prayer. It – prayer – is very necessary because it makes the Beyond we conjecture and think about an immediate reality, and transposes us into the duality of the ego and the dark Other. One hears oneself speaking and can no longer deny that one has addressed ‘That”.”
Jung (1943)[5]
“… prayer is not only of great importance but has also a great effect upon human psychology. If this psychological method had been inefficient, it would have been extinguished long ago, but nobody with a certain amount of human experience could deny its efficacy.”
Jung (1950)[6]
“It only needs an emergency, a serious emergency, and then these religious utterances burst out again. Thus, when one is greatly astonished or surprised, everyone, even if he doesn’t believe in God, says ‘Oh God’ or ‘By God,’ and these are involuntary exclamations of a religious nature, because they use the name of God.” Jung (1960)[7]
As has been the process with multiple essays on this blog space, the topic for this essay arose from a question a student posed. What did Jung think of prayer? I knew he surely had some background in relation to this word, as the son of a Swiss parson, and I was sure he had occasion (especially after the brouhaha raised by his Answer to Job)[8] to explain his stance on prayer. In this essay I will examine Jung’s definitions of “prayer,” the features and functions that prayer exhibited in his psychology, his personal experience of prayer, and his opinion of prayer in the context of modern times.
Definitions of Prayer
The dictionary defines “prayer” as “the act of praying,” “the thing prayed for,” “a form of words to be used in praying,” “a form of worship,” and “an earnest or humble request.”[9] Jung also had multiple definitions, from regarding prayer as a “symbol”[10] to considering it as a “wish,”[11] the act of “upward striving,”[12] and a “psychological method.”[13] Jung also recognized that we pray more than we perhaps realize, e.g. when we stub our toe on the bedpost and hurl an imprecation (e.g. “God damn it!”), or when we are surprised or astonished (e.g. “Oh God!).[14]
To designate prayer as a “symbol” was not to minimize or lessen its value: to Jung symbols were extremely powerful in their mystery[15] and “over-determined”[16] in their nature. Since symbols can be interpreted on multiple levels, Jung knew the meaning of prayer would depend on the individual doing it, but also could be investigated on the scientific, collective and archetypal levels (more on these below).
As wishes, prayers reflect our desires, what we hope will happen, or not happen, as the case may be. Often in forming and expressing our request, we are not consciously aware of the energy we are putting into the process, but Jung recognized how, by addressing God, we are investing psychic energy (aka “libido”)[17] in our “God-image,”[18] i.e. our inner conception of the Divine. Hence, Jung could define “prayer” as “a wish…a concentration on the God-image.”[19]
Jung often got ideas from the etymology of a word,[20] and in his definition of “prayer,” he noted that “The word derives from barh (cf. Latin farcire), “to swell,” and from this root, Jung saw prayer as “the upward-striving will of man towards the holy, the divine.”[21] Jung regarded the praying person as being in “a particular psychological state,”[22] in which there is a “specific concentration of libido, which through overflowing innervations produces a general state of tension associated with the feeling of swelling.”[23] Such prayerful moments may seem to the praying person as overflowing with feeling.
By calling prayer a “psychological method,”[24] Jung drew on his many decades as a psychiatrist dealing with people whose mental health was fraught. In his medical practice he saw how helpful prayer could be as “one of the most original but also the most frequent means to change the condition of mind.,”[25] and in creating the “frame” within which Jung worked with his patients, he regarded their meeting space as a temenos, a sacred space similar to the protected grounds around temples in the ancient world.[26] As “the most universal form of religious or philosophical concentration of the mind,”[27] prayer was as efficient as it was effective, which is why it has had a role in all cultures for thousands of years.
The Features, Functions and Purposes of Prayer
The above definitions speak of prayer production and changes, reflecting a key feature of prayers that many overlook. The act of praying is a two-part process: we speak or think, but then we need to wait and listen, pay attention and observe, much as we do in a conversation with a friend. Filling your mind with imprecations or appeals and then failing to listen is like mailing a letter with no return address. Jung knew that prayers come with responses.[28]
Efficacy–the effectiveness of prayer “to produce a desired effect or result”[29]–is a feature of these responses. Jung was not alone in his awareness of the power of prayer: the scientist Charles Tart and the physician Larry Dossey both recognize the positive impact of the “psychic component to healing,”[30] encourage the “prayer part,”[31] have evaluated the efficacy of prayer,[32] and offer numerous examples of healing via prayer.[33]
As a type of spiritual exercise, prayer may “evoke visualizations of conscious contents,”[34] when images spontaneously appear in our mind’s eye, as if to focus our attention on some aspect of our life, or what/who was the concern in our prayer. Jung felt that “most spiritual exercises have this effect,”[35] as does “prescribed meditation.”[36]
Images that come to us in response to prayers might be symbols, and these are another feature of some prayers. Jung had a lot to say about symbols– seven columns worth of citations in the Index to his Collected Works,[37]–and he taught his patients to value symbols and handle them thoroughly. “Thorough,” in this context, means considering all four levels on which the symbol can be interpreted. As always, Jung would start with the individual, asking his patient what the image or word meant personally, as the symbol came as a response to his/her prayer. In this step all sorts of associations the patient had would be discussed.
In the second step of the amplification,[38] Jung would inquire about the “natural” meanings, i.e. what science knows about the image or what etymologists know about the root of the word. In our own work with prayers and dreams, this step might send us to the library (or now, the internet) to find out what modern research can tell us that might help with filling out the meaning of the image or word. The final level of symbol work is the archetypal, and here Jung often had to teach his patient, as few people then and now are familiar with archetypes. This is unfortunate, as archetypes have transformative power,[39] and part of the efficacy of prayer might lie in the archetypes that come to us during prayer.
Jung also recognized that prayer can have a “creative significance.”[40] I have often experienced this when, during prayer, a helpful idea, a spontaneous solution to a problem, or a useful insight or image comes to mind. How does this happen? Jung hypothesized that prayer might be regarded as an “attempt to conjure up or reawaken those deeper layers of the psyche which the light of reason and the power of the will can never reach,”[41] and the act of praying serves “to bring them [these layers] back to memory.”[42] The “deeper layers of the psyche” contain “archetypal ideas which express the unconscious,”[43] and the prayer, by touching into the limitless storehouse of creativity in the psyche, sometimes functions as a creative resource we can draw upon.
Then there are those times–when we are bereft, confused, in mental and emotional turmoil–when we can use prayer for the purpose of help and relief. Jung would prescribe prayer in such moments for its ability to direct the libido inwards.[44] Steps: express an explicit expectation “that God will speak”[45] by making an invocation (e.g. “Help me, please!”). Then note how this plea serves to empty “the conscious mind of activity and transfers it to the divine being constellated by the invocation.”[46] Jung regarded this “divine being” as an archetype,[47] and, as such, it has “a certain autonomy, since they [archetypes] appear spontaneously and can often exercise an overwhelming compulsion.”[48] This being so, Jung felt there was “nothing intrinsically absurd about the expectation that ‘God’ will take over the activity and spontaneity of the conscious mind, for the primordial images are quite capable of doing precisely this.”[49]
I have had some amazing miracles illustrating this power of the invocation of the Divine archetype. One example occurred during the process of cleaning out my mother’s house to sell it after her death. I had moving men get a large refrigerator out of her basement and set on the county line for the sanitation men to haul away. But after the movers had left I noticed the refrig was a few inches on the sidewalk. Foolishly I tried to move it, realized it was going to fall on me, and I cried out to God for help. Instantaneously a huge man appeared, grabbed the machine, set it on the grass off the sidewalk and, when I went to thank him, he had disappeared! Invocations really work!
Jung’s Personal Experience of Prayer
In his Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung related how his mother taught him to pray every evening. Jung was a sensitive child, and needed “a sense of comfort in face of the vague uncertainties of the night.”[50] His prayer was:
“Spread out thy wings, Lord Jesus mild.
And take to thee thy chick, thy child.
If Satan should devour it,
No harm shall overpower it,
So let the angels sing.”[51]
and Jung adds that “My nightly prayer did, of course, grant me a ritual protection since it concluded the day properly and just as properly ushered in night and sleep.”[52]
As he got older, around age 11, Jung outgrew his prayer from childhood and instead began to take an interest in God, to the point of “praying to God, and this somehow satisfied me because it was a prayer without contradictions. God was not complicated by my distrust…. he was a unique being of whom, so I heard, it was impossible to form any correct conception.”[53]
Over time, of course, Jung’s attitudes matured, as he came to differentiate “God” from his “image of God.” He still recognized that no human could correctly conceive of “God” as an absolute: the most we can attempt is to formulate an image of God, as influenced by our personal development and life experience.[54]
Jung’s Opinions around Prayer
In a letter to an anonymous correspondent, written during World War II, Jung stated that
“… I have thought much about prayer. It – prayer – is very necessary because it makes the Beyond we conjecture and think about an immediate reality, and transposes us into the duality of the ego and the dark Other. One hears oneself speaking and can no longer deny that one has addressed “That.”[55]
and Jung then added how important our role is in the cosmic order, with prayer being a vital activity: “Then only, so I feel, is God’s will made perfect.”[56]
Jung also valued prayer for its capacity to put us humans in the proper frame of mind: ”
“Since according to the Pauline view we do not rightly know what we should pray for, the prayer is no more than a “groaning in travail” (Romans 8:22) which expresses our impotence. This enjoins on us an attitude that compensates the superstitious belief in man’s will and ability.”[57]
The “compensation” here refers to the arrogance we have in thinking, for example, that we can control Nature. Perhaps, if prayers do not change our arrogant attitude, global warming will remind us of our impotence.
To Philip Magor, who wrote to Jung in 1950 for his views on prayer, Jung admitted that a full answer would require “a whole treatise,” which he had no time to create. So he replied with a pithy paragraph:
“I have thought a long time over your request, because I don’t know exactly what I could tell you. You were sure to know the home-truth that prayer is not only of great importance but has also a great effect upon human psychology. If you take the concept of prayer in its widest sense and if you include also Buddhist contemplation and Hindu meditation (as being equivalent to prayer), one can say that it is the most universal form of religious or philosophical concentration of the mind and thus not only one of the most original but also the most frequent means to change the condition of mind. If this psychological method had been inefficient, it would have been extinguished long ago, but nobody with a certain amount of human experience could deny its efficacy.”[58]
Jung knew that labels–Christian, Buddhist, Hindu–mean nothing in the context of prayer. All the world’s spiritual traditions recognize prayer in its various forms as an effective and efficient way to change “the condition of mind,” and–ever the student of history–Jung could point to the thousands of years of human experience with prayer’s efficacy.
Bibliography
Dossey, Larry (1993), Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine. San Francisco: HarperCollins.
Jung, C.G. (1960), “The Psychogenesis of Mental Disease,” Collected Works, 3. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1956) “Symbols of Transformation,” Collected Works, 5, 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1971), “Psychological Types,” Collected Works, 6. Princeton: Princeton University Press
________ (1959), ”The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious,” CW 9i. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1970), “Civilization in Transition,” CW 10. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1969), “Psychology and Religion: West and East,” CW 11. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1963), “Mysterium Coniunctionis,” CW 14. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
University Press.
________ (1976), ”The Symbolic Life,” CW 18. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1979), General Index to the Collected Works of C.G. Jung, compiled by Barbara Forryan & Janet Glover. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1965), Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York: Vintage Books.
________ (1975), Letters, ed. Gerhard Adler & Aniela Jaffé. 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1977), “An Eighty-Fifth Birthday Interview,” Jung Speaking, ed. William McGuire and R.F.C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Sharp, Daryl (1991), C.G. Jung Lexicon. Toronto: Inner City Books.
Tart, Charles (2009), The End of Materialism. Oakland CA: New Harbinger Publications.
[1] Collected Works 5 ¶257. Hereafter Collected Works will be abbreviated CW.
[2] CW 6 ¶336.
[3] “Letter to Philip Magor,” 23 May 1950; Letters, I, 558.
[4] Jung (1965), 9-10.
[5] “Letter to Anonymous,” 10 September 1943; Letters, I, 338.
[6] “Letter to Philip Magor,” 23 May 1950; Letters I, 558.
[7] “An Eighty-Fifth Birthday Interview;” Jung (1977), 454.
[8] Jung knew this essay would have this result, as his concept of the evolution of the God-image would not be widely understood, and for years he was inundated with letters from priests, pastors and other clerics, full of questions. The full list of these is given in Letters, II, 675-676.
[9] World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary, II, 1526.
[10] CW 10 ¶679.
[11] CW 5 ¶257.
[12] CW 6 ¶336.
[13] “Letter to Philip Magor,” 23 May 1950; Letters, I, 558.
[14] Jung (1977), 454.
[15] For a thorough discussion of the mysterious nature of symbols, see the essay “A Way into Mystery,” archived on this blog site.
[16] CW 11 ¶723.
[17] CW 6 ¶778.
[18] CW 5 ¶257.
[19] Ibid.
[20] CW 5 ¶s233-235.
[21] CW 6 ¶336.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid.
[24] “Letter to Philip Magor,” 23 May 1950; Letters, I, 558
[25] Ibid.
[26] Sharp (1991), 133.
[27] Ibid.
[28] CW 5 ¶260.
[29] World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary, I, 627.
[30] Tart (2009), 47.
[31] Ibid., 311.
[32] Dossey (1993), 57-158.
[33] Ibid., 169-195.
[34] CW 9i ¶130, note 19.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Ibid.
[37] CW 20, 651-655.
[38] On the method of amplification, see CW 3 ¶413 note.
[39] CW 9i ¶s80 & 258.
[40] CW 5 ¶557.
[41] CW 14 ¶743.
[42] Ibid.
[43] Ibid.
[44] CW 5 ¶260.
[45] Ibid.
[46] Ibid.
[47] However you define this “divine being,” it will work, like the source of gravity works for all people everywhere, regardless of the labels used by creeds.
[48] CW 5 ¶260
[49] Jung used the term “primordial image” interchangeably with “archetype.”
[50] Jung (1965), 9-10.
[51] Ibid.
[52] Ibid.
[53] Ibid., 27.
[54] Jung had an explicit discussion of this in response to remarks of Martin Buber; see Jung’s letter to the editor, “Religion and Psychology: A Reply to Martin Buber,” in CW 18 ¶s1499-1513 and especially ¶s1507-1508.
[55] ” Letter to Anonymous,” 10 September 1943; Letters, I, 338. Jung was quite aware that, being an archetype, God has both a positive and a negative (“dark Other”) side.
[56] Ibid.
[57] CW 10 ¶679.
[58] “Letter to Philip Magor,” 23 May 1950; Letters, I, 558.
