Religious attitude

1. Etymology

Religious attitude names, psychologically, an attitude informed by careful observation of and respect for invisible forces and personal experience. Related: numinosum; creed vs religion; self; god-image.

2. Plain summary

Not creed loyalty. Sharp: religion designates the attitude of a consciousness changed by experience of the numinosum; an instinctive human attitude across history; creed is intramundane confession, while religion’s meaning is the individual’s relation to God or to a path of liberation. A neurosis in the second half of life is seldom cured without development of a religious attitude—prompted by spontaneous revelation of spirit as reconciling order.

Samuels’s religion head (no separate religious attitude lemma): careful consideration of powers that move one to worship, obedience, reverence, love; naturally religious function as powerful as sex or aggression; God-image / self as ordering principle—not a theological claim about what God “is.”

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common religious-attitude motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
observation/respect for invisible forces; consciousness changed by numinosum; vs creed/dogma; instinctive attitude across history; individual relation to God / liberation path; second-half-of-life neurosis; spirit as reconciling light; self / god-image / mandala / cross; psychological standpoint (not crypto-theology claim).

3. Academic elucidation

In analytical psychology religious attitude is the experiential stance toward the numinous, distinct from confessional creed. Lexica (Sharp dedicated head; Samuels religion pp. 130–131) supply paraphrase Do not invent loci. Do not submit theological claims as Jung’s psychology.

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Religious attitude. Psychologically, an attitude informed by the careful observation of, and respect for, invisible forces and personal experience. … the term “religion” designates the attitude peculiar to a consciousness which has been changed by experience of the numinosum. … The religious attitude is quite different from faith associated with a specific creed… Jung believed that a neurosis in the second half of life is seldom cured without the development of a religious attitude…

(Sharp, 1991) — cites CW 11 ¶9, ¶260; CW 10 ¶512, ¶507.

Samuels, Shorter & Plaut (1986) — no dedicated religious attitude head; religion pp. 130–131

religion … For him, religion was an attitude of mind, a careful consideration and observation in relation to certain ‘powers’… ‘the attitude peculiar to a CONSCIOUSNESS which has been changed by experience of the NUMINOSUM’… by religion he did not mean code, creed or dogma.

(Samuels, Shorter, & Plaut, 1986/2013, pp. 130–131)

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

I want to make clear that by the term “religion” I do not mean a creed. … We might say, then, that the term “religion” designates the attitude peculiar to a consciousness which has been changed by experience of the numinosum.
(Jung, 1938/1969, CW 11, p. 8, ¶9) Dual numinosum NUM-3 untouched.

Despite the fact that he is potentially redeemed, the Christian is given over to moral suffering, and in his suffering he needs the Comforter, the Paraclete. … He has to rely on divine comfort and mediation, that is to say on the spontaneous revelation of the spirit, which does not obey man’s will but comes and goes as it wills. This spirit is an autonomous psychic happening… secretly bringing order into the chaos of his soul.
(Jung, 1948/1969, CW 11, p. 176, ¶260)

Religion, however, teaches another authority opposed to that of the “world.” … When it does so, I prefer to call it not “religion” but a “creed.” A creed gives expression to a definite collective belief, whereas the word religion expresses a subjective relationship to certain metaphysical, extramundane factors… the meaning and purpose of religion lie in the relationship of the individual to God… or to the path of salvation and liberation…
(Jung, 1957/1970, CW 10, pp. 256–257, ¶507)

Religion, as the careful observation and taking account of certain invisible and uncontrollable factors, is an instinctive attitude peculiar to man, and its manifestations can be followed all through human history. Its evident purpose is to maintain the psychic balance…
(Jung, 1957/1970, CW 10, pp. 259–260, ¶512)

See also: self; god-image; numinosum; individuation; regression; regressive-restoration-of-the-persona; neurosis.

References

Jung, C. G. (1969). Psychology and religion. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 11, p. 8, ¶9). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1938)

Jung, C. G. (1969). A psychological approach to the dogma of the Trinity. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 11, p. 176, ¶260). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1948)

Jung, C. G. (1970). The undiscovered self (Present and future). In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 10, pp. 256–257, 259–260, ¶507, ¶512). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1957)

Samuels, A., Shorter, B., & Plaut, F. (1986). A critical dictionary of Jungian analysis. Routledge.

Sharp, D. (1991). Jung lexicon: A primer of terms & concepts. Inner City Books.