Waiting for Godot to Leave

In one of his newsletters , Christopher West said ... St. Augustine wrote, "Like a bridegroom Christ went forth from his chamber.... He came to the marriage-bed of the cross, and there in mounting it, he consummated his marriage. And when he perceived the sighs of the creature, he lovingly gave himself up to the torment in place of his bride, and joined himself to [her] forever" Now Augustine was hardly a Westian.  But that's not my point. My point is that West did not get this quotation from St. Augustine.  He got it from Carl Jung , who got it from his student Marie-Louise von Franz . [NOTE: He may have gotten it from Fulton Sheen, who got it from Carl Jung.  See ADDENDUM below - Kevin.] How do I know this?  I know this because this translation of Augustine includes an interpolation by von Franz, and also because this translation (along with the interpolated phrase) appears several times in Jung and is quoted by many authors thereafter, none of whom ap...

C. G. Jung One of the games Carl Jung and his followers used to play was this.  They would claim that they were not obsessed with sex the way the Freudians were, that they (the Jungians) wouldn't say that Paschal Candle = Penis  (Freud would say this, and Christopher West does say this ) but instead they would claim Paschal Candle = Penis = Creative Power of God = the Self = Individuation ("Individuation", by the way, is a three-dollar word for, "Do whatever you want to do"). "The Paschal Candle does not simply symbolize the penis!" they would exclaim (though they'd say phallus instead).  "Because the phallus itself symbolizes creative energy, which symbolizes God, and God is the archetype for the Self - that thing beneath the ego that we must cultivate through the process of Individuation." But here's the problem - where do you choose the symbol to stop?  Even if Candle = phallus = God = Self = Individuation ... we...

In a seminar once, someone asked C. G. Jung about the meaning of life.  "Isn't love the meaning of life?" he was asked. "No!" he replied emphatically.  "The meaning of life is life!" In other words, vitality, exuberance, existence, power.  Success!  (i.e., Moloch , Priapus ) Not sacrifice, compassion, caring, surrender.  Failure!  (i.e. the Cross) C. G. Jung Before my conversion, I read everything Carl Jung ever wrote.  Twenty or more volumes.  This one answer sums up the gigantic mistake that was behind his philosophy and that is behind everything that is ultimately anti-Christian.  There was much good in Jung - a rejection of Freud's atheistic materialism, a regard for the whole person, an appreciation for the spiritual realm, the courage to take religion seriously - but there was a poison, a poison that was particularly bad for me, and for anyone who was using Jung's false faith as a substitute for true Faith, as I was. And...