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Each reading of the title of this book has brought me to the questions: did Jung consider himself a spiritual pilgrim? How would Teresa of Avila feel about having her spiritual journey and quest enlightened by Jung's psychology? Are they good bedfellows?
Morton. T. Kelsey is quoted on the cover: ‘One of the finest guide books of the spiritual journey which I have encountered’ and ‘far more than a study of Jung and Teresa; it is an account of the inner Journey and one of the best. It is honest careful, sympathetic.’ Morton Kelsey is an authority in the field of spirituality and spiritual journeys and quests. His opinion cannot be ignored.
As I read on I began to wonder on whose bookshelf this work would feel comfortable. Teresa of Avila's life and writing are well-known to seekers and journeymen and women in the spiritual realm. Her last contribution, The Interior Castle, is the quintessence of her experiences and life of prayer. Insights, enlightenment and transformation accrue in part in response to effort (prayer, meditation, contemplation) and in part through grace. Her entry through the door of the castle, using the imagery and symbolism of that work, was occasioned by her fear and terror of the afterlife, which did not change her interior life in this world. The only way for her was entry into a convent—at that time, the sixteenth century, a not unusual path for many reasons far from spiritual. Her reform of the order is well known.
However, religious persons show ambivalent attitudes to psychological understanding, exploration or insights of spiritual experiences. The individuation process is frequently likened to a journey of the soul and spirit. The part that illusion and imagination play in the assessment of progress in the quest is all too familiar to ‘Jungian travellers’, the timelessness of unconscious time (God's time) is forgotten when measuring progress and the journey. The journey itself is still—or at least not infrequently—considered linear or spiral.