The Postsecular Sacred: Jung, Soul and Meaning in an Age of Change

207 Pages·2019·1.98 MB·English

by  David Tacey

THE POSTSECULAR SACRED
‘The issues with which this book deals have been attracting increased interest for several
decades, and this seems set to continue for the foreseeable future. The question of the
place of the sacred in predominantly secular cultures is unlikely to be resolved one way
or the other anytime soon.’
– Roderick Main, University of Essex, UK;
author, The Rupture of Time
In The Postsecular Sacred: Jung, Soul and Meaning in an Age of Change , David Tacey presents
a unique psychological study of the postsecular, adding a Jungian perspective to a
debate shaped by sociology, philosophy and religious studies. In this interdisciplinary
exploration, Tacey looks at the unexpected return of the sacred in Western societies, and
how the sacred is changing our understanding of humanity and culture.
Beginning with Jung’s belief that the psyche has never been secular, Tacey examines
the new desire for spiritual experience and presents a logic of the unconscious to explain
it. Tacey argues that what has fuelled the postsecular momentum is the awareness that
something is missing, and the idea that this could be buried in the unconscious is dawning
on sociologists and philosophers. While the instinct to connect to something greater is
returning, Tacey shows that this need not imply that we are regressing to superstitions
that science has rejected. The book explores indigenous spirituality in the context of the
need to reanimate the world, not by going back to the past but by being inspired by it.
There are chapters on ecopsychology and quantum physics, and, using Australia as a case
study, the book also examines the resistance of secular societies to becoming postsecular.
Approaching postsecularism through a Jungian perspective, Tacey argues that we should
understand God in a manner that accords with the time, not go back to archaic, rejected
images of divinity. The sacred is returning in an age of terrorism, and this is not without
significance in terms of the ‘explosive’ impact of spirituality in our time.
Innovative and relevant to the world we live in, this will be of great interest to
academics and scholars of Jungian studies, anthropology, indigenous studies, philosophy,
religious studies and sociology due to its transdisciplinary scope. It would also be a useful
resource for analytical psychologists, Jungian analysts and psychotherapists.
David Tacey is Emeritus Professor of Humanities, La Trobe University, Australia. He is the
author of many books, including The Darkening Spirit: Jung, Spirituality, Religion (Routledge).

THE POSTSECULAR
SACRED
Jung, Soul and Meaning
in an Age of Change
David Tacey
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 David Tacey
The right of David Tacey to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
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Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Tacey, David J. (David John), 1953– author.
Title: The postsecular sacred : Jung, soul, and meaning in an age of
change / David Tacey.
Description: 1 [edition]. | New York : Routledge, 2019. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019008201 (print) | LCCN 2019019978 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780429260872 (Master eBook) | ISBN 9780429522994 (Adobe
Reader) | ISBN 9780429551161 (Mobipocket) | ISBN 9780429536465
(ePub) | ISBN 9780367203214 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367203221 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Postsecularism.
Classification: LCC BL2747.8 (ebook) | LCC BL2747.8 .T33 2019
(print) | DDC 200.1/9—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019008201
ISBN: 978-0-367-20321-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-20322-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-26087-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements and n ote on referencing vii
Introduction 1
The postsecular condition 11
1 The postsecular landscape 13
2 The mystical turn 36
Secularism under pressure 57
3 A secular country 59
4 The Aboriginal gift we will not accept 80
Reanimation of the world 97
5 Ecopsychology and indigenous cosmology 99
6 Physics and reanimation 116
vi Contents
Postsecular religion and atheism 129
7 God after God 131
8 Derrida: emissary of the postsecular 151
Violence and the sacred 169
9 Return of the sacred in an age of terror 171
10 Epilogue: sacrifice and the future 184
Index 193
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND
NOTE ON REFERENCING
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of Chapter 8 was published as ‘Jacques Derrida: The Enchanted
Atheist’, in T hesis Eleven: Critical Theory and Historical Sociology (London: Sage
Publishers), 110(1) June 2012, 3–16.
An earlier version of Chapter 9 was published as ‘The Return of the Sacred
in an Age of Terror’, in Murray Stein and Thomas Artz, eds., J ung’s Red Book for
Our Time , Vol. 2 (Wilmette, Illinois: Chiron Publications, 2018), 33–51.
Note on referencing
All references to the works of Jung in the Collected Works are to paragraph num-
bers, not page numbers. References to the Collected Works will be indicated by
the essay title, original date of publication, followed by C W and the volume
number. Such references are to The Collected Works of C. G. Jung , translated from
the German by R. F. C. Hull, edited by Herbert Read, Michael Fordham, Ger-
hard Adler and William McGuire, and published by Routledge in London and
in America by Princeton University Press, 1953–1992.

INTRODUCTION
First there is mystery, then there is no mystery, then there is. This is the three-fold
pattern I will explore in Western societies. The first two phases span centuries,
and yet some of us have experienced all three in a lifetime. Like others of the post-
war generation, I believed in religion as a child, under the influence of a religious
family and a community of believers. I lost much of this in adolescence and early
adulthood, influenced by an enlightened educational system. But, again like oth-
ers of my generation, I returned to a sense of the sacred once I outgrew the values
and assumptions of secularism. Secularism is too limited to contain the enquiring
mind and searching heart. But for all its limitations, it is still the dominant para-
digm in Western societies. At least, it is officially dominant, but a new, third force
is emerging, and this is what I want to explore in this book.
The new phase, the postsecular, looks to some like a return to the first,
because it affirms a mystery that secularism denies. Secularism tends to regard
the postsecular as a regression, but this is not the case. The postsecular is a cul-
tural and personal reorientation that presupposes disorientation, and loss of the
naïve faith of phase one, and the reductive rationality of phase two. It comes
after the collapse of belief, after the ‘death of God’, and looks to new ways of
experiencing the world, self and ultimate reality. As Derrida put the postsecular
formula: ‘if [belief] does not go through a number of atheistic steps, one does not
believe in God’. 1 Atheism becomes reframed as a crucial ‘step’ in the paradoxical
recovery of God.
Most of our Western institutions are still in the second phase: ‘no mystery’.
But there are individuals and groups in institutions who have moved beyond
it. Derrida grew beyond it, but most of his fans and followers clung to the out-
dated image of him as a reductive materialist. 2 Secularism is under pressure from
within, and tries to deny or ignore the new impulse that is rising in individuals
and societies. It is true that the emerging culture has many things in common