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Exposing Psychology, Exalting Christ |
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| Carl Jung and the MBTI®The MBTI®*, or Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®*, is a personality type classification test used by millions to help them with job placement and performance, personal relationships, self-analysis and even spirituality. The American church uses the MBTI extensively, including seminaries, churches and missionary organizations. Results of the test classify you as a combination of four traits: Extravert (E) or Introvert (I), Sensate (S) or Intuitive (N), Thinking (T) or Feeling (F), and Judging (J) or Perceiving (P). Whenever a new idea comes into the church, we must always ask, Where did this idea come from? Many people fail to realize that the theories and ideas behind the MBTI test were taken directly from the eight personality "archetypes" of Swiss psychiatrist C. G. (Carl) Jung. Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katharine Cook Briggs, were inspired to create the MBTI and apply it to job selection after reading Jung's book Psychological Types. Proponents of MBTI say the test was meant to make Jung's theory of personality types of practical use. Rev. Ed Hird, Past National Chair of ARM Canada, has written an excellent, well researched and well documented article about Carl Jung's teachings, along with their Gnostic foundations and their influence on the MBTI test. He concludes that ARM Canada's leadership training courses should no longer use the MBTI due to its unbiblical foundations. Here is the article: http://workhelp.org/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=3676. Since the article is lengthy, we will summarize the major points of interest to the discerning Christian: Jung believed that our problems stemmed from both our personal unconscious and a "collective unconscious," characterized by eight major innate characteristics, or "archetypes," that have accumulated over eons of evolutionary process. The eight archetypes are broken down into four sets of polar opposite characteristics, found both in Jung's Psychological Types and the MBTI: Extravert (E) and Introvert (I), Sensate (S) and Intuitive (N), Thinking (T) and Feeling (F), and Judging (J) and Perceiving (P). These eight archetypes are ruling powers in our unconscious that determine our personalities and motivate our behaviors. Jung believed that the goal of one's life was to use psychoanalysis to bring these polar opposites into harmony and balance to produce "self-actualization." The concept of good versus evil did not bode well for Jung, for these represented moral absolutes. Instead, Jung created his own philosophy/religion that integrated good and evil into a harmonious union, under the god "Abraxas." Abraxas represented the spiritual union of Jesus and Satan. Jung could never accept that God is light, and Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Instead, he believed God and Jesus had a dark side, and called the Lord Jesus "a god of death." Christ was only a symbol and a myth. For Jung, all religions were symbolic and mythical, and contributed to mankind's collective unconscious. Jung did believe in God, but he believed mankind were co-creators with God. Where did Jung get these ideas? From his spirit guide named Philemon (see Jung's sketch of Philemon, and its eerie demonic inspiration, here: http://www.crmspokane.org/Philemon.htm). Jung was deeply involved with occultic and mystical practices, including alchemy, mythology, folklore, astrology, divination, seances, necromancy, hypnosis, clairvoyance, and prophetic dreams. He dabbled in Buddhism, Taoism, Gnosticism and evolution. He has also been called anti-Semitic. His occultic obsession stemmed from his belief that to achieve wholeness, you must cooperate with the spirit of darkness. Philemon was not a friendly spirit guide. According to Rev. Hird's documentation, "The spirit guide Philemon/Elijah later mutated into Salome, who addressed Jung in a self-directed trance vision as Christ. Jung ‘saw’ himself assume the posture of a victim of crucifixion, with a snake coiled around him, and his face transformed into that of a lion from the Mithraic mystery religion." In Hunt & McMahon's America: The Sorcerer's New Apprentice, Jung admitted that, "far from being the science he had represented them to be, everything ('all my works, all my creative activity') derived from horrendous experiences with haunting spirit entities that nearly drove him insane." (p. 11) Jung's thoughts on marriage? "The prerequisite for a good marriage...is the license to be unfaithful." Rev. Hird quotes a clinical psychologist and post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University, who sees the spiritual intentions of Jung's theories: "Jung was waging war against Christianity and its distant, absolute, unreachable God and was training his disciples to listen to the voice of the dead and to become gods themselves." Shouldn't it now surprise you that many Christians, the sons and daughters of light, are trusting in the dark, Jung-based MBTI to help them understand themselves and others, and to help direct their lives? Paul says, "For what fellowship has light with darkness?" (2 Cor. 6:14) God helps us understand ourselves and others by His Word. The Holy Spirit is the one who directs our lives. Jesus Christ is a Person, not a personality test. Our God is alive and involved with His creation; the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a dead idol that cannot hear or speak or guide or comfort.
* The Myers-Briggs Type lndicator and MBTI are registered trademarks of Consulting Psychologists Press.
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