‘When nothing helps, prayer does.’ says Jung’s soul in the Black Books, and: ‘Prayer helps your God.’ Jung, during his descend into hell, seems to have developed the capacity for prayer and discovered its vital role for divine life. Max will trace prayer in Jung’s writing, whilst connecting it to his own background in the Christian mystical tradition. He has found that practicing psychotherapy often feels like prayer, even if it does not look like it or would ever be called that by the people he works with. In this talk he will try to follow the feeling, and, with the help of Jung, will explore whether prayer may be more universal than any religiously defined practice: a supreme act of human freedom and dignity, the capacity to shout out of the entanglements of our minds into ultimate reality.

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Max Noak is a Theologian and Analytical Psychologist based in London. Originally from East Germany, he has an interest in how our ancestors shape our souls. Max received instruction in contemplative prayer by the Jesuit Franz Jalics. The experience of mystical prayer led to a plunge into the unconscious that paved the way to training as a Psychotherapist.

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Jung, C. G. (2020). The Black Books. 1913-1932. Notebooks of Transformation, ed. with introduction by Shamdasani, S., tr. Liebscher, M., Peck, J., et al. New York: Norton. Vol. 6, entry of 2. X. 1916.

Jung, C. G. (2009). The Red Book. Liber Novus. A Reader’s Edition, ed. with introduction by Shamdasani, S., tr. Kyburz, M., Peck, J. et al. New York: Norton, Liber Secundus, Chap IV and V. ( The Anchorite. Dies I, Dies II).