Religious Experience According to Yung

Religious Experience simply means to encounter with the Holy or with a transcendent being. Manifested within individuals, this aspect of religion(s) related to the specific rituals of a certain religion. This kind of experience helps man release from suffering and difficulties and enables him to resist unwilling situations. One’s cognitive system, thus, may survive inside a secure shelter. William James is the first scholar to use the term, while Yung furthered the inherited concept in the 20th century. According to Yung, religion is based on the sacred experience or Numinous and means surrender to a higher power. Rooted in the collective unconscious which in turn contains archetypes, religious beliefs and dogmas are believed to be the outer manifestation of the inner part of our psyche, derived from within the experience of any certain religion.