Perceiving that “there are many signs today of a hunger among Christians for an experience of the truths believed in”. Christopher Bryant writes out of the conviction that Carl Jung’s psychology can guide Christians in the West into a deeper experience of the presence of God and Christ. He demonstrates that ‘individuation’, Jung’s term for the developmental process that presses us to realize and live out what we truly are, also represents God. ‘Individuation’ is part of the divine strategy by which we come to know God as the one who, while ever transcending our intellect’s grasp, guides us from the center of our beings.
Bryant concurs with Jung that our overwhelming tendency to resist change and to struggle to escape the often terrifying unconscious forces within ourselves has cut us off from our inner truths and the power of God that would liberate us into a vaster reality. Only if we confront the drives and emotions that lie beneath the level of consciousness ca we both discover who we are and come to know the God within us. Believing that the measure of our wisdom and humanity in the modern era depends upon the confrontation with our unknown selves, Bryant shows believers how to probe their own depths using Jung’s tools of self-exploration and the traditional Christian practices of prayer and worship, meditation and contemplation.