The Heresy of Wholeness: Jung, the Shadow, and the Western Mind
by Francis Burkard
Preface
This essay began as a conversation between Francis Burkard, a freelance writer and consultant with Beezone, and Ed Reither, who is presently studying Carl Jung’s lectures at Yale University in 1937. These lectures form the basis of the book Psychology and Religion, which Reither is engaging with as part of a course he is attending at the Harvard Extension Program. Through ongoing discussions, we explored Jung’s radical insights into the nature of Western religious consciousness, its deep psychological structures, and its stark contrast with Eastern traditions. What follows is an essay born from these reflections, seeking to illuminate the hidden tensions within Christianity and their impact on the Western psyche.
Francis felt moved to write this essay because of the critical nature of this ‘error’ or omission—the failure of the West to integrate the fourth element Jung identified. This failure has not only created a deep psychological and spiritual fracture but has also led to a broader cultural consequence: the mind-body split. This division has, in turn, allowed science and technology, in the form of runaway logic and mathematics, to dominate the world. Without a proper integration of the unconscious and the divine within humanity, Western civilization has surrendered itself to an unchecked rationalism, where mechanistic thought and technological expansion now shape the course of human destiny, often at the cost of deeper wisdom.
Introduction
Carl Jung’s exploration of religious symbolism and the unconscious reveals a deep fracture in Western religious thought. In his Psychology and Religion lectures at Yale in 1937, Jung presented a striking insight: while Christianity’s core symbolic structure is a Trinity, the unconscious mind expresses itself in a quaternity. This missing fourth, Jung argued, represents the aspect Christianity has repressed—the human’s intrinsic connection to the divine. Western religious tradition, by positioning Christ as the sole bridge between humanity and God, has fostered a deep psychological and cultural split. By contrast, Eastern traditions, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism, embrace a more integrated vision of human-divine identity. Jung’s exploration of this missing fourth element challenges the theological and psychological foundations of Western thought, exposing the tension between institutionalized religion and individual spiritual realization.
The Western Fear of Wholeness: Jung, Christianity, and the Denial of the Divine Within
I. Jung’s Critique: The Incomplete Trinity and the Missing Fourth
Jung observed that Christian theology had structured itself around the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—while omitting a crucial fourth aspect. From a psychological standpoint, the number four symbolizes totality and completeness, as seen in mandalas, the four cardinal directions, and other archetypal structures. Theologically, the absence of this fourth element left Christianity with an incomplete model of human psychological and spiritual wholeness.
For Jung, this fourth aspect could be interpreted as the unconscious, the human being, or even the so-called ‘dark’ aspects of the psyche that Christianity had externalized as the Devil. By refusing to integrate this element, Christianity ensured that humanity would always remain separate from God—forever in need of external mediation rather than realizing the divine within.
II. The Cultural Imprint of Separation: Christianity and the Western Psyche
Christianity’s insistence on Christ as the only begotten Son of God placed a sharp dividing line between divinity and humanity. This distinction became foundational to Western thought, reinforcing dualities such as:
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God vs. humanity
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Spirit vs. matter
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Reason vs. emotion
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Conscious vs. unconscious
This rigid separation ensured that spiritual authority remained external—mediated through the Church, dogma, and moral law—while the inner world of the unconscious was cast into suspicion. Any direct experience of the divine outside the sanctioned structures of Christianity was labeled heretical, mystical, or even diabolical. In contrast, Eastern traditions, which recognize the divine as immanent within the individual, never developed such a stark divide.
III. The Ego as the Storyteller: How the Illusion is Maintained
Jung’s work points to the storyteller—the ego—as the architect of this perceived separation. The Western mind, shaped by centuries of religious and philosophical thought, has internalized the belief in a distinct, isolated self. This self-identity reinforces the illusion of duality, where the divine remains external, inaccessible without institutional mediation.
By contrast, Eastern traditions like Advaita Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism recognize this separation as an illusion (maya in Hinduism, sunyata in Buddhism). The self, upon deeper realization, is understood as not separate from the whole. Jung’s quaternity hints at this hidden knowledge within the Western unconscious—an awareness that, if integrated, would radically alter the Western religious and psychological landscape.
IV. Why the Descent into Hades is Necessary
Jung often spoke of the necessity of confronting the unconscious—the underworld, symbolized in myth as Hades or the abyss. Western culture, unlike Eastern traditions, has historically resisted this descent, viewing it as dangerous, irrational, or morally suspect. Yet, the refusal to descend into the unconscious leaves the psyche fragmented and spiritually stunted.
Mythologically, we see this fear reflected in stories like Orpheus’ failed journey into Hades or Dante’s perilous descent into Inferno. These myths, unlike Eastern teachings of self-dissolution and non-duality, warn against the depths rather than embracing them. Jung saw this avoidance as one of the great psychological wounds of the West—an unwillingness to confront and integrate the shadow.
V. Jung’s Radical Challenge to the West
Jung’s insights remain as disruptive today as they were in his time. He understood that a true psychological and spiritual awakening in the West required facing the shadow—both individually and collectively. His Red Book, in which he documented his own visionary descent into the unconscious, was kept unpublished for over 50 years after his death precisely because he knew how radical and heretical these ideas were. Jung did not seek to dismantle Christianity but to show where it had left an open wound, where it had denied the fullness of the human experience by externalizing divinity.
The True Work of Religion and the Role of Intuition
Jung’s understanding of the missing fourth points toward a path of reconciliation—but it is not a path one can simply will through egoic effort. The true work of a religious nature does not begin with esoteric realizations but with symbolic, moral, and mental purification. Only after this foundational work can one begin to entertain the deeper esoteric understanding of divine unity.
Jung himself was clear that this understanding is not something one seeks in a conventional sense—it is something that comes to you. In Psychology and Religion, he describes this as an intuitive arrival, something that emerges from within rather than something one acquires through effort. The Western religious framework has long resisted this because it disrupts the carefully maintained structures of authority, separation, and external mediation.
Jung’s challenge to the West is not to abandon Christianity but to recognize its limitations and integrate what has been excluded. The unconscious is not the enemy—it is the missing piece. And until this fourth element is acknowledged, Western religious and psychological life will remain incomplete, forever denying the wholeness it seeks.