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Bear with me for a moment while I share the biblical account of the Fall of Man (and woman, if you must). "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom (emphasis added), she took some and ate it." Because the fruit was pleasing to the eye Eve gave into temptation. She came, she saw, she ate. Bingo! Her eyes were opened. In one split second Eve went from God-centeredness to self-centeredness. From thereon out everything went downhill. "She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked" (Genesis 3:6). When Adam and Eve deliberately disobeyed God, sin, which is deadlier than the AIDS virus, entered into the world and infected all humankind. And the only sin cure is Jesus Christ!
Burney's approach to psychology might seem right for unbelievers, but it's wrong for Bible believing Christians.
Which brings me back to Carl Jung. As I mentioned above, Jung was considered a "spiritual thinker," albeit his lofty ideas came from Eastern mysticism, not Christianity or Judaism. The man was no ordinary psychologist by any stretch. Actually, he thought of himself as a "spiritist." According to Elliot Miller, "The movement that Jung initiated is much closer in nature to a neopagan (Aryan) cult than the scientific psychiatric discipline that it has always claimed to be. It is not just religious but a religion." [3] And a pagan religion at that!
Jung was deeply involved with his mother and two female cousins in hypnotically induced séances. He was also involved in alchemy, fortune telling, and channeling spirits. All are occult practices. To be involved in any of this is to go against God.
Ponder this for a moment. When Carl Jung was three years old a "spirit guide" named Philemon contacted him. The spirit was one of his teachers and tutored him all of his life. Other spirits came to him as well and he made this observation about them: "Philemon and other figures of my fantasies brought home to me the crucial insight that there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life. Philemon represented a force that was not myself. In my fantasies I held conversations with him, and he said things which I had not consciously thought. […] Psychologically, Philemon represented superior insight." [4] There was no reason for Jung to believe that his visitors were benevolent spirits; nevertheless he chose to believe they were. Could the "forces that were not myself" have been the forces of evil? Absolutely! Scripture tells us that Satan masquerades as an angel of light, which is why John gave this warning: "Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world" (I John 4). John calls the devil the "father of lies" and addressed the Gnostics with these harsh words, "You belong to your father, the devil," he says, "and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44).
Carl Jung has been called the "Father of Neo-Gnosticism and the New Age Movement" and rightly so. Dr. Satinover comments, "One of the most powerful modern forms of Gnosticism is without question Jungian psychology, both within or without the Church." [5]
Jung's view of good and evil is worth noting. To quote the Rev. Ed Hird, "Jung believed that 'the Christ-symbol lacks wholeness in the modern psychological sense, since it does not include the dark side of things...' For Jung, it was regrettable that Christ in his goodness lacked a shadow side, and God the Father, who is the Light, lacked darkness." [6]
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