E.1-8: Jung and the Spiritual Unconscious: Dreams, Symbols & Scripture
Season 1: Episode 8
Jung and the Spiritual Unconscious: Dreams, Symbols & Scripture
listen by clicking the audio player here:
In this episode you will learn:
In this episode of The Christian Jung Podcast, Angela Meer takes us beneath the surface of the mind into the hidden territory Carl Jung called the unconscious —as sacred ground where God plants seeds of transformation. Through Scripture, dreams, and Jung’s insights, we explore how forgotten memories, buried fears, and God-given symbols can become doorways into deeper relationship with Christ. You’ll discover biblical examples of God bypassing the intellect to speak through visions, and learn how to recognize the Spirit’s movement in your own inner depths.
We talk about:
🔥 Why the unconscious isn’t to be feared, but entered with reverence
🧠 How Jung’s layers of the unconscious mirror biblical imagery and archetypes
💬 What dreams and symbols can reveal about your soul’s calling
✝️ How the Spirit turns shadowed places into ground for His glory
If you’ve been longing for more than surface faith — if you sense God stirring something deep within — this episode invites you into the mystery of your own soul, where the Spirit is already at work.
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Episode Length: 16:00
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Transcript
There are places in your soul you’ve never walked.
Rooms you’ve never entered.
Conversations with God you’ve never had — not because He hasn’t spoken, but because the words have been waiting in the deep.Carl Jung called this hidden territory the unconscious — not the enemy of faith, but a vast landscape where your unspoken fears, forgotten memories, and God-given symbols live.
Scripture hints at it too: “The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out” (Proverbs 20:5). Deep waters. Holy mystery.
Most of us live at the surface, in the bright, ordered rooms of our conscious mind. But beneath those floors are layers — storerooms of memory, chambers of ancient patterns, even a holy place where the Spirit of God longs to awaken what has been asleep in you.
Today, we’ll descend into those depths. You’ll see how Jung understood the unconscious, how Scripture reveals its presence, and how the Holy Spirit can turn even its shadows into light.
It’s time to go beneath the surface. Stay with me.
Some truths don’t rise to the surface.
They live in the deep — stirring quietly, shaping your life without your awareness, until the right moment comes to reveal them.Carl Jung called this hidden terrain the unconscious — not just a storehouse of forgotten memories, but a living landscape where God-given symbols and ancient patterns take root. It is both personal, shaped by your own history, and collective, shared across humanity’s story.
Scripture has always spoken of this inner depth.
“The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out” (Proverbs 20:5).
“Surely You desire truth in the innermost being; You teach me wisdom in that secret place” (Psalm 51:6).
“God has set eternity in the human heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).Think of Joseph, whose dreams carried the rescue of nations.
Think of Peter, whose rooftop vision broke open the doors of the Gospel to the Gentiles.
Neither event came through careful reasoning — they rose from the depths, carrying a wisdom that the conscious mind could never have manufactured.In Jung’s view, the unconscious is layered. The personal unconscious holds the memories and experiences you’ve forgotten or pushed aside, as well as untapped strengths God may be preparing to awaken. The collective unconscious is older still — a shared inheritance of symbols and archetypes: the Hero who rises in courage, the Prophet who carries God’s word, the Servant who sustains life, the Mother who nurtures new creation.
Biblical stories reach us because they speak to both layers. David and Goliath resonates because it mirrors our own battles with fear. Ruth’s story moves us because we know what it means to stay, to serve, to love at great cost. These patterns are written into us before we ever read them — Scripture simply calls them by name.
Today, we’re going to walk into that unseen territory. We’ll explore how Jung understood the unconscious, how Scripture reveals its presence, and how the Holy Spirit transforms even the shadowed places into ground for His glory.
Because some of God’s most important work in your life will happen in rooms you haven’t yet entered.
So before we go to a break, I want you to think…when was the last time that you felt God was trying to get at something deeper in you? How did it feel? Was it scary to think of something deeper than you’ve ever gone before? Or did it feel like an invitation into understanding your essence in a better way?
your spirit is awakening
The Liverpool Dream – A Portal into the Unconscious
One night Jung dreamed he was in a dark, sooty city — a place where the air felt heavy and the buildings were stained black. The streets were wet from rain, and the whole scene felt weighed down by gloom.
Then, he noticed something unusual: in the very center of the city stood an open square, brilliantly lit by sunlight. In the middle of the square was a small, radiant island of greenery. And at the center of that green oasis stood a magnificent magnolia tree, covered in blossoms so white they glowed.
In the dream, Jung was drawn irresistibly toward the tree. The contrast between the dark, dirty streets and the bright, blossoming tree was overwhelming — it felt like an image of hope breaking into despair.
When he awoke, Jung understood the dream as a profound message from the unconscious. The blackened city represented the grim realities of modern life and the burdens of the conscious world. But the radiant tree in the center symbolized the Self — the wholeness at the core of the psyche, rooted in divine life, untouched by the surrounding darkness. We would call this living Tree, the work of Christ, the One who died on a tree to give us abundant life as it says in John 10:10.
The dream reminded Jung that even in the most difficult psychological landscapes, there is a living center — a place of renewal and unity which operates as the kingdon of God that Jesus said was within us.
As a theologian, and a PhD in theology student, one of the things I always look out for is that my theology doesn’t become dead or lifeless. It is absolutely crucial to me that the Holy Spirit awakens Himself through me and that I become that living embodiment of the Kingdom of God.
One of the saddest things that I’ve seen in Christianity is that many people have made the Christian walk something intellectual, and it is that, in fact we are told to love God with all our mind. However, often when we lose the importance of the Holy Spirit, we will substitute it with our intellect. And that, we are told, is what the Pharisees of Jesus time did.
As a body of Christ, I am thankful for how Jung developed his psychology and realized it could have the greatest benefit to Christians. People like me and you who do not want to build a cathedral of intellect, but rather a dinner table of relationship with God. In fact, one of the most striking statistics of Jung’s legacy is this, a quote from Jung: “The majority of people I worked with eventually returned to their childhood faith — but in a deeper, more mature form.”
— C.G. Jung, MDR
Call to Action:
“In the Christian Jung community, I provide you with tools to go into the unconscious — all directed by the Holy Spirit. You are given all the tools you need to learn to what is awakening within you and to inspire your Christian faith into the realm of Spirit. Go to AngelaMeer.com to join us..
listening with reverence
Carl Jung described the unconscious as the vast, unseen territory beneath our waking awareness. It holds our forgotten memories, our hidden fears, our untapped creativity — and something more mysterious still: the collective unconscious, the shared storehouse of human images and archetypes that appear in our dreams, our myths, and our sacred texts.
In Scripture, this reality is mirrored in stories where God bypasses the conscious mind and speaks directly to the spirit through dreams, visions, and symbols. Think of Pharaoh’s dream of the seven years of famine, or Daniel’s visions of strange beasts, or John’s Revelation filled with lampstands, trumpets, and scrolls.
These are not logical puzzles for the intellect alone — they are living images, carrying divine meaning straight to the soul.
The unconscious, like Jung’s magnolia tree in the dark city, is not chaos to be feared. It is a place where the Spirit plants seeds of transformation — sometimes buried deep under the soil of our conscious life, waiting for us to notice them.
So here are three points in understanding the unconscious and how it relates to our Christian faith:
1. The Unconscious as Sacred Ground
Just as the Holy of Holies was hidden behind the temple veil, much of our inner life is veiled from our awareness. Jung believed the unconscious is not just a psychological reality but also a spiritual one — a place where the soul meets the symbols God uses to guide us. Think of what existed in the Holy of Holies: the Ark of the Covenant. The ark had things in it: manna from wandering the desert, Aaron’s rod that bloomed, and the tablet stones that held the ten commandments. Most of those items are symbolic: they are images of Jesus, who would be the Bread of Life, the one that died upon the tree like Aaron’s wooden rod, and He became the law that is now written on our hearts. These symbols have realities that cause our spiritual life to flourish.
2. Dreams and Biblical Archetypes
Dreams often speak to us about the unconscious layers in our life — those deep, hidden places where memory, emotion, and spirit converge. Carl Jung saw the unconscious not as a dark pit to be feared, but as a vast inner landscape that God can use to reveal what our waking mind cannot grasp.
Scripture hints at this depth when it says, “Deep calls to deep” (Psalm 42:7). It is why God so often chose the stillness of dreams to speak — to Jacob with his ladder stretching to heaven (Genesis 28), to Joseph in Egypt (Genesis 41), to the Magi as they returned home another way (Matthew 2:12).
When you dream, your unconscious speaks in images — a crumbling house, a flowing river, a locked door — each one a messenger from the depths. These images may reveal truths we’ve avoided, wounds we need to heal, or directions God is whispering for our journey ahead.
The unconscious is not separate from God’s reach. In fact, it may be the very place where His Spirit is already moving, shaping, and preparing you for what is to come.
3. Listening with Reverence
When we take the time to reflect on our dreams, our slips of the tongue, our sudden emotional reactions, we are not merely analyzing ourselves — we are approaching the inner sanctuary where God may be waiting with a message.
what is the state of your ‘inner city’
“As you reflect on today’s episode, I want you to imagine your own inner city. Maybe parts of it feel dark, cramped, and weary. But somewhere, there is a center — a magnolia tree blooming in full white glory, radiating light.
Your task this week is to find it.
Pay attention to your dreams. Notice the stories or Scriptures that feel strangely personal. Write them down. Pray over them. Ask the Spirit to reveal the radiant center He has placed within you.
If this is really your jam, I have a free 5-day devotional on my website that is entitled “Awaken the Wonder Within.” Simply go to AngelaMeer.com to get the free devotional.
“Next episode we are going to discover what Jung called the royal road to the unconscious…complexes.
“We’ll be here every week, diving deeper into the profound union of faith and psychology. Join me again, same time next week, to continue your journey toward God as Divine Spirit.”
But before we end.
Encourage 3-5 minutes of quiet reflection: “Take a few minutes now to sit in silence before God. What is He showing you in this moment?”
·
Closing Prayer St. Catherine of Siena — Prayer of Calling
· Eternal God,
You are a deep sea, into which the deeper I enter,
the more I find, and the more I find,
the more I seek.
O abyss, O eternal Godhead,
O sea profound,
what more could You give me than Yourself?
·