The Darkening Spirit Av David (La Trobe University Victoria Australia) Tacey

<P>The twenty-first century could well be Jung''s century, just as the twentieth century was Freud''s. Jung predicted the demise of secular humanism and claimed we would search for alternatives to science, atheism and reason. We would experience a new and even unfashionable appetite for the sacred. Educated people, however, would not return to unreconstructed religions, because these do not express the life of the spirit as discerned by modern consciousness. The sacred has developed a darker hue, and worshipping symbols of light and goodness no longer satisfies the longings of the soul. The new sacred cannot be contained by the formulas of the past, but nor can we live without a sense of the sacred. We stand in a difficult place: between traditional religions we have outgrown and a pervasive materialism we can no longer embrace.</P><P></P><P>These changes in our culture have come sooner than Jung might have imagined. In his time Jung struck many as eccentric or unscientific. But his wo