I defer to John, but my impression has always been that they are different takes on roughly the same thing. Freud seemed to favor the subconscious I think (beneath/inferior to the ego), whereas Jung favored the unconscious (no necessary indication of hierarchy). I could be wrong about that though.

>It seems to me a lot of people at least in New Agie circles think of the unconscious as the enlightened inner self, whose wisdom is being overpowered by the ego self. I don’t think of the unconscious in this way, but more of as our animal/instinctive self.

Animal, instinctive, and more, IMO. Such a ridiculously huge amount of what we normally think of as conscious thought is actually unconscious. Even the elephant rider metaphor seems to undershoot the mark; the conscious is more like a barnacle on a blue whale! (at least in terms of size proportions). Take intention, for example. If you meditate, try to catch yourself intending to do something, whether it’s intending to scratch your knee, or intending to have a thought. Can you find that intention? I have never been able to find it. Intention is completely unconscious as far as I have been able to ascertain. We just notice ourselves doing things the moment we start to do them, and somehow feel that we willed it to happen.

Attribution theory is very enlightening in this regard. In tons of experiments, people have been shown to routinely invent rationalizations for their behavior after the fact. In a common experiment format, a person is shown two photos of different people and asked which is more attractive and why. Here’s the interesting part: after a photo is chosen, the experimenter uses sleight of hand to give the subject the photo they *didn’t* choose and ask why they “chose” it. A shocking proportion of people go on to explain all the reasons they “chose” that photo. This suggests that much of our intentions are hidden from our conscious minds, and we attempt to infer our intentions after the fact based on our behavior. We believe we have privileged access to our intentions, but in fact we may have no more access than an external observer of our behavior. In light of this, it starts to look like the conscious mind is less like a driver directing the elephant than a passenger taken for a ride, like a kid at a zoo.

Holy cow, that is exactly how I feel about the unconscious as well! I will have to get that book ASAP!

>My rider gets this, but still I don’t really know how to get from here to there, how to make religion, especially naturalistic religion, really work for elephants.

Exactly. It’s a perplexing question, but I think the answer lies in the increasing recognition that nature can do the complex work that we can’t. What I mean is, instead of trying to design the perfect religion (ego-based, and probably involving far too many variables for us to do well), we can just set the conditions and then let a suitable religion evolve organically. We need to know our basic values, such as naturalism, and accept nothing that strays out of bounds, but then let a variety of paths flourish within those bounds and see which one(s) triumph in the game of natural selection.

To even get started, though, I think naturalists need to go beyond the kind of simplistic rationalism which characterizes too much of today’s atheist and agnostic discourse, where anything that even remotely smacks of supernaturalism or religion is dismissed out of hand as woo. Instead, we need to recognize that the unconscious is an elephant that needs to be spoken to in elephant language, through symbols, rituals, myths, etc. Once we can accept the necessary conditions for genuine non-supernatural religions, they are bound to evolve.

When I say “animal self” I am thinking of something more elevated then the “reptile brain”. I really think of the unconscious as the “the body” and the consciousness (the talking self) as “the mind”. When you take away the talking mind, what is left is similar to what other animals have. Animals think but certainly not in words. According to Temple Grandin animals think in pictures, and surely she must be right. (see http://www.amazon.com/Animals-Translation-Mysteries-Autism-Behavior/dp/0156031442/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1344165921&sr=8-9&keywords=temple+grandin) Do animals have an unconscious mind or is it all unconsciousness?

“I think that’s part of it, but it also includes everything we have repressed as well as the cultural milieu which we are largely unaware of.”

Do you mean something like genes and memes – all those things which shape our nature (our way of being) which are outside of our conscious awareness? This kind of collective unconscious is bigger than the unconscious as “the body” or “animal self”. It is the animal self and its environment. The person we are is the result of the way our animal (our instinctive intelligence/will) reacts and interacts with the environment, including the many layers of human culture.

The Jungian unconscious and archetypes are difficult concepts at least for my conscious mind.

(FYI: I previously misspelled Jonathan Haidt’s name (it is Haidt not Heidt). Haidt’s theories grew out of his work in traditional India and because of this I think they provide a lot of insight into the psychological drives behind traditional religion. If you ever have a chance to look into any of his work, I would love to know what you think. For an introduction to his work see: http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html. Amazing his chapter on divinity (“Divinity With or Without God”) from his book “The Happiness Hypothesis” is online at http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/haidtreading2.pdf. His work has really influenced how I think about religion.)

I see it that way, but also as more primal. It is the chaotic source of inspiration. Consciousness gives order to the chaotic contents of the unconscious, just as it does for the chaos of our experience. So it is a source of wisdom, but also of madness. Too much focus on the conscious and you die of thirst in a spiritual desert. Too much focus on the unconscious and you can loose your self. Balance is what is needed. David Tacey has written an interesting critique of New Age conceptions of the unconscious which idealize the unconscious and denigrate consciousness in his book *Jung and the New Age* [ http://www.amazon.com/Jung-New-Age-David-Tacey/dp/158391160X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344127987&sr=1-1&keywords=jung+and+the+new+age ]

“… more of as our animal/instinctive self.”

I think that’s part of it, but it also includes everything we have repressed as well as the cultural milieu which we are largely unaware of. To me, dreams (and other manifestations of the unconscious) seem too rich with meaning to just be a manifestation of the reptile brain.

“what is the difference between the subconscious and the unconscious? Does Jung make any distinction between these two?”

Jung may have used “subconscious” (or been translated that way), but I only recall seeing “unconscious” in his writings. I think of them as the same thing as well — it is sub (below) consciousness and I am un-aware of it so it is un-conscious.

I suspect so. This is what makes (consciously) invented religion difficult. In some ways, it’s easier to lose yourself in something that is handed down from tradition.

“I think recent work in evolutionary psychology is really confirming Jung’s view of the self.”

You may like *Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious* by Timothy Wilson. I haven’t read it, but it looks interesting to me. [ http://www.amazon.com/Strangers-Ourselves-Discovering-Adaptive-Unconscious/dp/0674013824/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1344121135&sr=8-3&keywords=unconscious ]

“Religion isn’t for riders, but for elephants.”

Ooh, I like that! I’m going to borrow that!

“… I don’t really know how to get from here to there, how to make religion, especially naturalistic religion, really work for elephants.”

I wonder if BT’s upcoming post (How can a naturalist emerge in Paganism?) will address that.