Religion, the Loss of Instinct, and the Rise of Ego
"The forlornness of consciousness in our world is due primarily to the loss of Instinct, and the reason for this lies in the development of the human mind over the past aeon. The more power humanity had over nature, the more its knowledge and skill went to its head, and the deeper became their contempt for the merely natural and accidental, for that which is irrationally given—including the objective psyche, which is all that consciousness is not. In contrast to the subjectivism of the conscious mind, the unconscious is objective, manifesting itself mainly in the form of contrary feelings, fantasies, emotions, impulses and dreams, none of which one makes oneself but which come upon one objectively. Even today psychology is still, for the most part, the science of conscious contents, measured as far as possible by collective standards. The individual psyche has become a mere accident, a "random" phenomenon, while the unconscious, which can manifest itself only in the real, "irrationally given" human being, has been ignored altogether. This was not the result of carelessness or of lack of knowledge, but of downright resistance to the mere possibility of there being a second psychic authority besides the ego. It seems a positive menace to the ego that its monarchy can be doubted. The religious person, on the other hand, is accustomed to the thought of not being sole master of their own house. They believe that God, and not they themselves, decides in the end. But how many of us would dare to let the will of God decide, and which of us would not feel embarrassed if we had to say how far the decision came from God himself?
The religious person, so far as one can judge, stands directly under the influence of the reaction from the unconscious. As a rule, they call this the operation of conscience. But since the same psychic background produces reactions other than moral ones, the believer is measuring their conscience by the traditional ethical standard and thus by a collective value, in which endeavor they are assiduously supported by their Church. So long as the individual can hold fast to their traditional beliefs, and the circumstances of their time do not demand stronger emphasis on individual autonomy, they can rest content with the situation. But the situation is radically altered when the worldly-minded individual who is oriented to external factors and has lost their religious beliefs appears en masse, as is the case today. The believer is then forced onto the defensive and must catechize themselves on the foundation of their beliefs. They are no longer sustained by the tremendous suggestive power of the consensus omnium ('In Agreement of All'), and are keenly aware of the weakening of the Church and the precariousness of its dogmatic assumptions. To counter this, the Church recommends more faith, as if this gift of grace depended on humanity's good will and pleasure. The seat of faith, however, is not consciousness but spontaneous religious experience, which brings the individual's faith into immediate relation with God.
Here we must ask: Have I any religious experience and immediate relation to God, and hence that certainty which will keep me, as an individual, from dissolving in the crowd?"