Jung and the Numinous

Image Credit: ‘Labyrinth Rose’, oil on canvas painting by artist Lauren Forcella

Venue: Online via Zoom
Time: Tuesday evening, 23 September 2025 at 19:30 SAST (GMT +2)
Fee: ZAR160. Booking is essential.

If you are not able to join the live virtual presentation, please note that recordings are shared with all registered participants two to three business days after the event.

Certificate Course Participants: Currently enrolled participants of SAAJA’s Certificate Course 2025 attend at no cost. Email saaja@mweb.co.za to register.
Student Discounts: We invite students to contact us for a 50% discount for all our Public Program events. Please email saaja@mweb to enquire.

About the Lecture

Carl Gustav Jung was a psychotherapist, psychiatrist, and empirical scientist. Yet the ideas he sought to convey to the modern world arose not only from clinical observation but from deeply personal revelations – insights revealed during what he called his “confrontation with the unconscious,” as recorded in The Red Book. These experiences included encounters with spiritual beings that shaped his insights/worldview.

Although Jung refused being labelled a mystic or Gnostic, the “attainment to the numinous experiences” of which he spoke refers to religious experiences of a quasi-mystical nature – numinous experiences which created a convincing link to the transcendent.

In a letter to P.W. Martin, Jung wrote: “You are quite right, the main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neuroses, but rather with the approach to the numinous. …the approach to the numinous is the real therapy and inasmuch as you attain to the numinous experiences you are released from the curse of pathology. Even the very disease takes on a numinous character.”  (Jung, Letters, 1973, Vol. 1, p. 377)

Jung also understood that the ancients’ experience of the human psyche was expressed in their religious beliefs and spiritual systems. 

He observed: “Religions are psychotherapeutic systems in the truest sense of the word… They express the whole range of the psychic problem in powerful images; they are the avowal and recognition of the soul, and at the same time the revelation of the soul’s nature.” (Jung, Collected Works 10, para. 367)

This lecture will explore how Sufism, Gnosticism, and other sacred traditions influenced Jung’s views and understanding of the Divine and the Numinous, and how these insights relate to the process of Individuation. Through this exploration with the presenter, Julie Manegold, we are invited to consider Jung’s unique synthesis of science, soul, and spiritual experience.

About the Presenter

Julie Manegold is a clinical psychologist, art psychotherapist and Jungian analyst working in private practice in Hilton in KwaZulu Natal. She has a long-standing interest in the mystical traditions of various religions, with a specific interest in Gnosis, Sufism and Christian Mysticism. Her areas of clinical interest include the challenges of midlife, dream analysis and working with images.

BOOKING INFORMATION | Advance Booking Essential

• Bookings close at 12:00 noon SAST on Monday, 22 September 2025. The Zoom link will be distributed at 14:00 SAST on the day of the event.
• We invite students to contact us for a 50% discount to all our events.
• Currently enrolled participants of SAAJA’s Certificate Course 2025 attend at no cost. Please email saaja@mweb.co.za to register your attendance.
• In the event of tickets being sold out or sales closed, a recording of the lecture will be available for purchase. 
• For more information, contact SAAJA at +27 21 689 6090 or email saaja@mweb.co.za