Howard Thurman & Carl Jung

Common Threads along the Mystical Path

Howard Thurman & Carl Jung: Common Threads along the Mystical Path

Somewhere down the road, the topic of this issue of Notebooks could end up as a book or someone's Ph.D. dissertation. I confess at the get-go that my task here is unusual and fraught with potential problems. But for the sake of both fun and my ongoing pursuit of exploring the connection between the spiritual and the psychological, I'm going to give it a whirl. This month I want to bring two unique people together into a dialogue. Howard Thurman and Carl Jung never met; however, I wish they had. Because they would have much to discuss and likely learn from one another in surprising ways. "The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed."   (CG Jung in The Development of Personality, (1934) p. 29)

Howard Thurman and Carl Jung are two influential thinkers who have significantly contributed to religion and psychology. Howard Thurman was an African American theologian, author, and civil rights leader who developed a unique form of mystical theology. He served as the General Spiritual Director of the Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. On the other hand, Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology, also known as depth psychology. Although Thurman's mystical theology and Jung's depth psychology have different origins, they share certain similarities in their approaches to understanding human experience and consciousness.

Howard Thurman's mystical theology is grounded in the belief that everyone has a unique and intimate connection with the divine. This connection is not mediated by any institution, doctrine, or ritual but is directly experienced by the individual through inner reflection and contemplation. For Thurman, the goal of mystical practice is to cultivate this connection and use it to awaken a more profound sense of purpose and meaning in one's life.

Central to Thurman's mystical theology is the "inner sanctuary," which he describes as a space within each individual where they can experience a direct connection with God. This sanctuary is not a physical place but a state of consciousness that can be accessed through meditation, prayer, and other spiritual practices. "There is in every person an inward sea, with its shores forever unknown and its depths unsounded. The thoughts we have, the dreams we have, the ambitions that we have, are merely superficial phenomena of the self, the conscious self." – ("Deep Is the Hunger: Meditations for Apostles of Sensitiveness," 1951 p. 13). Thurman believes that by cultivating this inner sanctuary, individuals can tap into a wellspring of wisdom, compassion, and creativity that can transform their lives and the world around them.

Carl Jung's depth psychology is based on the idea that the human psyche is composed of conscious and unconscious elements and interacts in complex and often unconscious ways. According to Jung, the unconscious is a vast reservoir of personal and collective experience that influences our thoughts, feelings, and behavior in ways we are unaware. The goal of depth psychology is to explore and integrate these unconscious elements, promoting personal growth and self-awareness. "Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." – (Man and His Symbols, 1964 p. 34.)

Jung believed that the unconscious could be accessed through dreams, fantasies, and other symbolic expressions. He also developed a method of psychotherapy called "analytical psychology," which emphasizes the importance of the therapist's relationship with the patient and encourages the exploration of the patient's unconscious through dialogue, dream analysis, and other techniques.

While Thurman's mystical theology and Jung's depth psychology have different origins and focus on various aspects of human experience, they share certain similarities. Both approaches emphasize the importance of cultivating a deeper self-awareness and connecting with something greater than oneself. Thurman's inner sanctuary and Jung's unconscious represent a space where individuals can access deeper levels of insight, wisdom, and creativity that are not available to the conscious mind. You can hear places of resonance between the two in this 1973 lecture of Thurman at the University of Redlands. His citations of Meister Eckhart would likely have made Jung smile, as he, too, had a fondness for the medieval German mystic. Give it a listen, if for no other reason, to hear Thurman’s meditative cadence.

Thurman and Jung believe that this deeper level of awareness can be accessed through specific practices, such as meditation, prayer, and dream analysis. These practices serve as a means of accessing the unconscious or inner sanctuary and provide individuals with a way of tapping into a more significant source of meaning and purpose in their lives.

If you’ve reached this point in this essay and wondered how the ideas of Thurman and Jung, an African American and a European man, might speak to our contemporary conversation on race, I commend this talk by Dr. Catherine Meeks. CG Jung and Howard Thurman: Dismantling Inner Oppressors for Outer Liberation. Meeks brings the two minds together to address racism from the perspective of the two thinkers who saw much of the ills of our world as stemming from our inner life.  

While Howard Thurman's mystical theology and Carl Jung's depth psychology have different origins and focus on various aspects of human experience, they share certain similarities in their approaches to understanding the human quest for meaning. Both approaches emphasize the importance of cultivating a deeper self-awareness and connecting with something greater than oneself. Both recognize the potential for personal transformation that can result from this process. Ultimately, Thurman's mystical theology and Jung's depth psychology provide complementary paths toward personal growth and spiritual development. By extension, their approaches can help communal growth and communal spiritual development.

This quote from Thurman speaks to where the personal and the communal come together: "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." (Quoted in The Life and Work of Howard Thurman by Joanne Marie Terrell, 1985 p. 101.)

And another from Thurman’s most well-known book: "The movement of the Spirit of God in the hearts of men often calls them to act against the spirit of their times or causes them to anticipate a spirit which is yet in the making."  (Jesus and the Disinherited 1949 p. 11)

Jung might then add a more cautionary tone. "The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown." (Modern Man in Search of a Soul, 1933, p. 92)

A meeting of these two minds and souls would have been rich indeed. We can only imagine.

Those interested in viewing a fine documentary on Howard Thurman could watch Backs Against the Wall.

Until Next Time,