Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

From the Center for Action and Contemplation

Week Forty-Seven: Carl Jung

The God Archetype

Father Richard shares the importance of archetypes for the soul’s encounter with God, which Jung explored in great depth.

Depth psychology tells us that our lives are guided by subconscious, ruling images which Jung calls archetypes. Jungian archetypes include the father, the mother, the eternal child, the hero, the virgin, the wise old man, the trickster, the devil, and the God image. These worldwide archetypes just keep recurring in different ways and form part of what he called “the collective unconscious.” These fundamental patterns show up in dreams and behavior in every culture, fascinate the soul, and appear in symbols and stories that go as far back in time as we can go.

For Jung, the God archetype is the soul’s whole-making function that drives us toward giving ourselves totally to something or someone, and initiates our desire for the absolute. It says to us: “Become who you are. Become all that you are. There is still more of you to be discovered, forgiven, and loved.” In the journey toward psychic wholeness, Jung stresses the necessary role of religion or the God archetype in integrating opposites, including the conscious and the unconscious, the one and the many, good (by embracing it) and evil (by forgiving it), masculine and feminine, the small self and the Big Self. I call this deep center of the psyche the True Self, the Christ Self, which has learned to consciously abide in union with the Presence within us (John 14:17).

Jung sees the unconscious as the seat of the “numinous,” where the God archetype lives. The Latin word numen is actually another word for the Divine. Something numinous is an awesome, wondrous experience that pulls you into a transcendent moment. Jung thus offers a foundation for rediscovering the soul and recognizing that soul both as within and yet shared with a much greater reality. God is not just out there! This essential insight overcomes the gap between transcendence and immanence.

Augustine (354–430) said much the same: “God is more intimate to me than I am to myself.” [1] Meister Eckhart (1260–1327) preached: Between God and the soul “there is neither strangeness nor distance.” [2] Yet most people have never been told there is a place to go to that’s called the soul. Soul is the blueprint inside of every living thing that tells it what it is and what it can still become. When we meet anything at that level, we will respect, protect, and love it. Much of religion, I’m sorry to say, doesn’t teach us or give us this essential light. It doesn’t help us understand the deep character of the Incarnation and how God has chosen our soul as God’s enduring dwelling place. We would have done much better to help other Christians discover their souls instead of always trying to “save” them.

[1] Augustine, Confessions, III.6.11. 

[2] Meister Eckhart, Induimini Dominum Jesum Christum (Put on the Lord Jesus Christ), Sermon on Romans 13:14.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, unpublished “Rhine” talk (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2015).

Image Credit: Rose B. Simpson, Holding it Together (detail), 2016, sculpture.

We featured the artist of these sculptures, Rose B. Simpson, at our recent CONSPIRE conference—so many of us were impacted by her creations that we decided to share her work with our Daily Meditations community for the month of November.

Image Inspiration: How many ways can I express myself? People ask me "who is your work modeled after?" And they're all self-portraits because the only story I can really tell is my own. And so they're all about different journeys I've had in my life.  —Rose B. Simpson, CONSPIRE Interview, 2021

Learn more about the Daily Meditations Editorial Team.

Prayer For Our Community

Loving God, you fill all things with a fullness and hope that we can never comprehend. Thank you for leading us into a time where more of reality is being unveiled for us all to see. We pray that you will take away our natural temptation for cynicism, denial, fear and despair. Help us have the courage to awaken to greater truth, greater humility, and greater care for one another. May we place our hope in what matters and what lasts, trusting in your eternal presence and love. Listen to our hearts’ longings for the healing of our suffering world. Please add your own intentions . . . Knowing, good God, you are hearing us better than we are speaking, we offer these prayers in all the holy names of God. Amen.
Listen to Father Richard pray this prayer aloud.

Story From Our Community

The Daily Meditations help me keep the strength to work with my clients. I'm a Jungian and Art therapist and people are so distressed and desperate. More than ever, faith is playing an important role in the therapeutic process. I always thought I was alone in my way, until I started reading the Daily Meditations. Thank you.
—Isa C.
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News from the CAC

James Finley Explores Stages of Growth in God

The fourth season of our podcast Turning to the Mystics is now streaming! Join James Finley as he explores the wisdom of Guigo II, a monk who described grace-filled stages of growth in our relationship with God. Listen at cac.org/podcasts or subscribe on your favorite podcast player. 

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