Bidden or Not Bidden, God is present

Todd, K. (2003). “Bidden or Not Bidden, God is Present” C.G. Jung, A Research Study of the Numinous and the Journey to Individuation (Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2003).

ABSTRACT

What role does the numinous play in Jung’s journey to individuation? When does the journey really begin? How does the numinous interact over the course of our lives? To answer these questions we must cover a multiplicity of subject matter: the study of religion, the description of numinous experience, Jung’s theory of individuation, the relationship of mythology to numinous experience, and a description of the liminal spaces where the numinous reveals itself to us.


This dissertation explores the numinous experiences of five interviewees. Comparing each to the descriptions of the numinous of Rudolph Otto, Jung and William James, and the interviewee’s experience to Jung’s theory of individuation.


The research method utilized for the gathering and interpretation of data is the Duquesne studies in empirical phenomenological, human social sciences method. Five subjects volunteered to be interviewed as a part of this study, both females and males, at different stages of life. Each described a personal numinous experience and provided a brief history of his or her past. Open-ended questions were used to solicit relevant life events.


This brought to the experience conscious and unconscious associations. The interviewees related their life situation at the time of the experience, and any major pertinent recent life event. Each interviewee was asked to link his or her numinous experience to childhood events. They were also asked to address whether, and in what way, the experience had changed the course of his or her life.


The following role of the numinous emerged in Jung’s journey to individuation: 1) may provide the call to start the journey to individuation; 2) may illuminate the information the person needs to grow and mature; 3) may move the process forward when the person seems unable to escape the chaos; 4) may bring a time of chaos and reflection, by initiating the tension of the opposites that are needed for individuation to occur; 5) has the seeds of its beginning in the person’s youth; 6) and the numinous can present itself multiple times over a life-span acting as the catalyst in all the ways described.