Jungian psychology is highly popular in New Age culture, and this is for several reasons, some perhaps quite obvious, and others less so. I would like to detail these connections between New Age spirituality and Jungian psychology mainly as an effort to show how particular models of reality and mind lead to an embrace of some psychological or therapeutic schools of thought or modalities. (At the same time, it’s important to keep in mind that some Jungian-sounding ideas in New Age culture involve spiritualised language and concepts that Jung himself didn’t use.)
In making these connections, my aim is not to dismiss or reject New Age spirituality or Jungian psychology, at least not wholesale. I have critiqued aspects of both (here, here, and here), offering what I consider to be valid critiques. This isn’t to say I can’t appreciate some elements or motivations of New Age culture – non-woo aspects such as mindfulness and environmentalism – though I do to a lesser extent compared to Jungian psychology. In the latter case, I still see archetypes, for instance, as a potentially illuminating way to analyse dreams, stories, societal roles, cultural figures, fundamental human concerns, and psychedelic experiences.
I appreciate and can see the value in Carl Jung’s approach to psychology. Still, the more supernatural or less evidence-based aspects do make me question to what extent I can embrace Jung’s ideas. Yet, this isn’t to discount the wisdom or utility of Jung’s approach, nor the fact that elements that deserve scepticism may, one day, receive more robust evidential grounding.
Relatedly, what New Agers appreciate about Jungian psychology may be re-evaluated, shedding connotations of magical thinking, fantasy, delusion, falsehood, and naivety. For instance, this happened to me when visiting an exhibition on tarot at the Warburg Institute in London. The sceptical side of me had instinctively categorised tarot as one thing among many in New Age culture that are unscientific (and therefore without value or use). But this exhibition highlighted the psychology and storytelling quality behind tarot, so that benefits could arise without commitment to supernatural or metaphysical ideas such as divination, premonition, hidden or spiritual energies, the astral plane, the Akashic Records, or spirits.
Similarly, while we have long discarded alchemy as a form of pseudoscience, based on the alchemists’ false claims of transmuting base metals into gold and the existence of an elixir of immortality, a Jungian perspective on alchemy may still have merit. From a Jungian perspective, alchemy is a process of personal transformation, or individuation: the integration of the unconscious and the conscious. This psychological process can, therefore, be viewed, symbolically, as ‘alchemical’. It is this perspective that we find in the lyrics of Tool’s track ‘The Grudge’: “transmutate these leaden grudges into gold.”
The Link Between Jungian Archetypes and New Age Beliefs and Practices
One (key) aspect of Jungian psychology that I see as having a correspondence with New Age beliefs and practices is the archetypes. These are the inherited, shared symbols that humans possess, which exist at the unconscious level of the mind, and which manifest themselves in dreams, stories, and myths. Jung identified various distinct archetypes, such as the Mother, Trickster, Shadow, Child, Anima, Animus, and Hero.
Similarly, tarot decks consist of cards representing distinct personalities, voices, motifs, or archetypes. Some tarot cards also, to some extent, align with specific Jungian archetypes, such as the Fool and the Trickster, respectively. And in astrology, the 12 astrological signs are seen as having unique traits – they likewise represent specific archetypes. Jung and many Jungians are drawn to tarot and astrology, partly due to these correspondences.
Of course, the Jungian archetypes do not neatly align with tarot cards nor astrological signs; they differ in number, categorisation, function, metaphysical assumptions, and the relation between the symbols (i.e. Jungian, tarot, astrological) in question. Nonetheless, the tendency to think of reality, storytelling, and human psychology in terms of archetypes appears to be a shared tendency among Jungians and New Agers. In the latter case, we see this through the use of archetypal concepts such as the ‘Divine Feminine’, the ‘Divine Masculine’, ‘Mother Gaia’, and the ‘Warrior’. New Age spirituality can involve a fixation with ‘archetypal experiences’, achieved through altered states.
Why some people have a predilection for viewing reality through the lens of archetypes more than others is an interesting question. It could be argued that all people have this tendency, owing to the (presumed) fact that archetypes are real, or at the very least, because the tendency to categorise human experience into archetypes is real (with perhaps disagreements about why this tendency exists). However, this wouldn’t explain why people vary in their attraction to archetypes. It may be that certain personality differences predict these variations, although more research is needed in this area.
Hidden Forces and Realms at Work
Another similarity I have noticed between New Age beliefs and Jungian psychology is the belief in ‘hidden forces and realms’ at work, whether it be in the unfolding of cosmic order and human destiny in the case of tarot, astrology, karmic energy, spirits, entities, and the astral plane, or the influence of Jungian archetypes and the ‘psychoid’ realm on human experience. Again, some personality traits may attract people to this notion, whether it exists in New Age culture or in Jungian psychology.
Some research has found links between certain traits and tendencies and belief in the paranormal (see here, here, here, here, here, and here), which is a central component of New Age culture. These predictive traits include openness to experience, intuitive thinking, high neuroticism, fantasy proneness, and need for control. It would be clarifying to see if any of these traits also predict variations in people’s attraction to Jungian psychology, say, more than other schools of thought in psychology. It wouldn’t be that surprising, of course, to find that these tendencies make Jung’s thoughts on topics like tarot, astrology, and synchronicity more appealing.
The personality traits that predict paranormal beliefs can encourage a belief in hidden spiritual forces and realms in the following ways:
- Scoring high in openness to experience would make one more open to the idea of hidden forces and realms at work in reality and human experience. High openness is also linked to a stronger tendency to experience apophenia: the detection of meaningful patterns where none exist.
- Intuitive thinking is a preference for trusting feelings, impressions, and personal experience over analytical thinking. Since it is common to experience something like a ‘hidden’ force or realm, with some more likely to experience this than others (e.g. those high in trait absorption), if someone scores high in intuitive thinking, they may be more likely to trust their experience and initial judgement about it over a more analytical style of thinking.
- High neuroticism is tied to anxiety and a desire for certainty (to resolve the anxiety surrounding uncertainty), which may lead to the adoption of a belief in hidden forces and realms to explain this ‘plane’ of existence. Other sorts of explanations – namely, naturalistic ones – may be incomplete, competing, uncertain, based on probability, or feel unsatisfactory in some other way.
- Fantasy proneness or imaginativeness can make the notion of hidden spiritual forces and realms more palatable, given that these forces and realms diverge from ordinary, sensory, waking experience and fit into the ‘unusual’.
- Need for control is often a way to cope with a sense of lack of control in one’s life; if belief in hidden forces and realms can satisfy this need, then it can reduce the distress associated with a low sense of control.
Perhaps some of these patterns could also apply to Jungian psychology, going beyond the more obviously relevant elements like Jung’s writings on tarot, astrology, and synchronicity, extending to his ideas on archetypes and the psychoid realm. If these (normally) hidden forces and realms are seen as having a powerful influence in individual and collective human experience, with definite goals in mind, and framed as positive and transformative goals in mind, then this may resonate strongly with people who possess some (or all) of the personality traits described above. (On some level, the influence of archetypes and spirits can sound quite similar in nature.)
One might want to argue against this common thread of ‘hidden forces and realms’ by pointing to how materialists and scientists embrace this notion, too: the quantum level of reality, as well as dark matter and energy, are viewed as scientific and dictating the unfolding of reality, even though they are ‘hidden from view’. Scientists also accept the existence of the ‘unconscious’, that is, mental processes we are unaware of. Nevertheless, it is the specific kind of hidden forces and realms discussed in New Age spirituality and Jungian psychology – the supernatural or paranormal – that make them distinct.
Synchronicity
One major aspect of Jungian psychology embraced by New Agers, including among those unaware of Jung’s thoughts on this subject, is synchronicity. For Jung, synchronicity is an ‘acausal connecting principle’, in which there are meaningful coincidences between psycholoigcal states (e.g. perceptions, dreams, thoughts, emotions) and external events. Despite a lack of causal connection between the two, Jung thought that there is, nonetheless, a meaningful connection involved. Jung did not see statistical explanations as adequate, and instead saw synchronicities as validating the existence of the paranormal.
Contrary to Jung, many sceptics of synchronicity argue that it is more parsimonious to account for the perception of a meaningful coincidence as being related to confirmation biases (remembering the ‘hits’ and forgetting the ‘misses’), spurious correlations, and, due to probability, the fact that unexpected occurrences are inevitable or more likely than people assume. This explanation is more parsimonious because it fits the data (of experience) while avoiding additional assumptions about the paranormal.
Leaving aside the critiques of Jung’s defence of synchronicity, this experience or belief is another way in which Jung aligns with New Age culture. Synchronicity experiences seem to be common among New Agers, which could be related to psychological predispositions to have these experiences; and these very same predispositions could, similarly, make belief in synchronicity, or interpreting some experiences as synchronistic, more likely.
New Agers, like Jung, treat the coincidence of certain experiences and outside events as profoundly meaningful – and meaningful in a way that goes beyond simply triggering a moment or period of reflection. Rather, synchronicity is seen as indicative of ‘hidden forces’ at work, not explained in scientific terms.
The Shadow
‘Shadow work’ is a popular concept and practice within New Age spirituality. It derives from Jung’s idea of ‘the shadow’, which refers to the repressed parts of oneself that one deems unacceptable and unwanted, such as anger and jealousy. The Jungian archetype of the Shadow mentioned earlier is a universal pattern – representing the ‘dark’ side of human nature, such as instinctual aggression or selfishness – which exists prior to individual experience. One’s ‘shadow’ is personal, shaped by life experience; it is the specific way that the archetypal Shadow manifests itself in an individual.
New Age spirituality has faced criticism for its insistent ‘love and light’ message, leading to accusations of spiritual bypassing, or engaging in positive-sounding, spiritual ideas and practices as an (unconscious) way to avoid dealing with unpleasant feelings and personal flaws. Contemporary New Age culture seems to have (somewhat) moved past the hyper-positivity of the New Age movement of the 60s and 70s, given its willingness to engage with ‘darker’ concepts such as ‘ancestral trauma’ and ‘the shadow’.
Shadow work is the introspective and therapeutic process of bringing repressed aspects of the personality to light, so as to enhance self-understanding, heal emotional wounds, and improve relationships. The rising popularity of this idea in contemporary New Age has led to the emergence of shadow work journals, shadow work courses, and shadow work facilitators and coaches. However, despite the contemporary New Age obsession with ‘the shadow’, or the darker aspects of oneself, this doesn’t mean New Age spirituality isn’t still prone to spiritual bypassing. In fact, this remains one of its biggest issues.
Ironically, an attachment to the term, idea, or practice of shadow work can itself act as a form of spiritual bypassing: if this ‘work’ is not deeply engaged with, or one overestimates its impact, this can lead someone to avoid addressing the emotional and relational issues that remain. The shadow could continue to express itself in the form of projection, seeing issues in others that are actually one’s own. For instance, thinking or claiming that others are less ‘spiritually evolved’ is an accusation that may, unknowingly, be a confession.
New Age culture may also suffer from a ‘collective shadow’, whereby the darker aspects of the culture as a whole can get projected onto ‘the other’, or those outside the culture. For instance, New Age culture views itself as promoting peace, love, light, and positivity, while mainstream culture is seen as promoting the opposite: conflict, hatred, fear, greed, materialism, judgement, a herd-like mentality, and generally being ‘asleep’. Yet, this could be a form of projection, a way of hiding the reality that much of New Age culture is guilty of precisely these traits. This culture, despite its insistence on love and shadow work, can still exhibit selfishness (New Age spirituality can be very individualistic, competitive, and spiritually materialistic). New Agers also often express judgement, hatred, and fear of the out-group (which may manifest as paranoid, conspiratorial thinking).
A New Form of Collective Consciousness
It’s worth noting that Jung has earned himself the epithet of the ‘father of the New Age’. His resonance with New Age culture runs deeper than his thoughts on subjects like tarot and astrology. He wrote of a “new aeon” – in his work Aion (1951) – which refers to a shift from the ‘Platonic month’ of Pisces to that of Aquarius, reflecting a fundamental, collective shift in energies, values, and consciousness. He saw this as heralding a ‘new world’. This belief in the Age of Aquarius is foundational to the New Age movement, at least in its original form in the 60s and 70s: it’s in the name, after all.
Whether framed in terms of the Age of Aquarius or not, New Age spirituality can, at times, be highly invested in this idea of a collective shift in consciousness, which might be described as a ‘great awakening’, ‘global awakening’, ‘spiritual evolution’, ‘quantum leap in consciousness’, ‘the New Earth’, ‘raising the vibration’, ‘5D consciousness’, ‘unity consciousness’, or ‘Christ consciousness’.
There is a certain view of the evolution of humanity in Jungian psychology, therefore, that easily fits into New Age frameworks of spiritual evolution, although the latter frequently veers into idealism and utopianism. While I am not convinced of any neat, clean blocks of time, or ‘calendars’, that accurately track and predict how human consciousness changes over time, it is not inherently naive or unwise to consider a better future for human consciousness as a whole. In any case, to think of collective consciousness in these terms – in terms of distinct, revolutionary, planetary-wide shifts – is a further way in which Jung and modern-day New Agers align in their worldview.
