Communion occupies a remarkably stratified position within the depth-psychology corpus, functioning simultaneously as sacramental act, psychological need, metaphysical principle, and relational ontology. Jung approaches the term from multiple angles: as a specific rite whose Lutheran-versus-Zwinglian controversy exposes the tension between feeling-grounded sensation and purely symbolic spirituality; as a psychological precondition requiring confession before genuine interpersonal encounter can occur; and as the Mass’s sacrificial drama in which God, priest, congregation, and substance are unified into a corpus mysticum. Edinger extends this by reading the wine of communion alongside Dionysian blood, discovering in both a reconciling function that bridges political and psychic opposites. John of Damascus grounds the term theologically, insisting that communion with Christ is an ‘actual communion’ constitutive of ecclesial identity and the pathway to incorruption. Modern Orthodox thinkers, particularly through Zizioulas’s concept of koinonia, radicalize communion into an ontological category: to be a person is to exist in communion. McGilchrist invokes David Bakan’s agency-communion polarity to characterize whole civilizational orientations. Frank relocates communion to the ethics of embodied witness, where the ill body and attending body must be mutually present. Across these registers, the corpus consistently treats communion not as mere ritual formality but as the structural condition under which separateness becomes bearable and transformation possible.
Communion, too, is spoken of, and it is an actual communion, because through it we have communion with Christ and share in His flesh and His divinity: yea, we have communion and are united with one another through it.
John of Damascus defines communion as ontologically real participation in Christ’s flesh and divinity, simultaneously constituting the unity of all believers as one body.
, Saint John of Damascus Collection, 2016thesis
The psychological root of communion, and the necessary preliminary, is always confession; we must confess before we are worthy to receive communion.
Jung argues that communion has a psychological precondition — confession — without which the communal meal cannot perform its function of establishing brotherhood.
, Dream Analysis: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1928-1930, 1984thesis
For Luther the word certainly had redeeming power, but the partaking of the Communion was also a mediator of grace… it was an acknowledgement, demanded by Luther’s own psychology, of the fact of feeling grounded upon the immediate sense-impression.
Jung reads Luther’s insistence on real presence in Communion as a psychological necessity rooted in feeling-type sensory grounding, contrasting it with Zwingli’s purely symbolic interpretation.
, Psychological Types, 1921thesis
The word ‘communion’ occurs in the titles of the first two volumes of collected articles — Being and Communion and Communion and Otherness. It is a central term in his understanding of what is meant by being truly human.
Louth identifies communion (koinonia) as the axial concept in Zizioulas’s theology, wherein authentic personhood and being itself are constitutively relational.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentthesis
after He had placed man in communion with Himself (for having made him for incorruption, He led him up through communion with Himself to incorruption)
John of Damascus presents communion with God as the original telos of creation, the mechanism through which humanity is led toward incorruption.
, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 2021thesis
men are weak and cannot endure their manifold nature. Therefore they dwell together and need communion, that they may bear their separateness.
Jung, in the Seven Sermons mode, grounds the human need for communion in existential weakness and the unbearable weight of inner multiplicity.
, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 1963thesis
communion manifests itself in the sense of being at one with others… communion in contact, openness and union… communion in non-contractual co-operation.
McGilchrist, drawing on Bakan, positions communion as the civilizational counter-principle to agency, associated with the right hemisphere’s relational, holistic orientation.
, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, 2009thesis
The wine of Dionysus shares with the blood of Christ the qualities of reconciliation and communion.
Edinger identifies reconciliation and communion as the shared qualities linking Dionysian wine and the blood of Christ, grounding both in a compensatory archetypal logic.
, Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche, 1972thesis
his living presence in the corpus mysticum of priest, congregation, bread, wine, and incense, which together form the mystical unity offered for sacrifice.
Jung describes the moment of consecration in the Mass as producing a corpus mysticum that integrates all participants and substances into a unified sacrificial communion.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958supporting
I was sure some great mystery must lie behind it, and that I would participate in this mystery in the course of Communion, on which my father seemed to place so high a value.
Jung recalls his adolescent anticipation of First Communion as an encounter with genuine mystery, framing his lifelong psychological preoccupation with the rite’s deeper significance.
, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 1963supporting
God is both agens and patiens, so too is man according to his limited capacity. The causa efficiens of the transubstantiation is a spontaneous act of God’s grace.
Jung interprets the Mass’s communal act as involving genuine human participation in a divine drama where both God and man occupy the roles of agent and sufferer.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958supporting
Living like it really matters, which it does, is living in communion with others. The excess of this communion over any verbal account is suggested by Jodi Halpern, defining empathic care as ‘attuned… through preverbal resonance.’
Frank relocates communion from the sacramental to the ethical-embodied register, arguing that genuine witnessing of illness requires a preverbal, mutual bodily presence that exceeds verbal exchange.
, The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics, 1995supporting
Communion lies at the relational core of human sociality. The need to ‘get along’ relates not only to requirements to connect with and be accepted by others but also to behave in ways consist
Lench positions communion as the foundational relational need in social psychology, linking it to the drive to connect and belong as a core demand of human societal life.
, The Function of Emotions: When and Why Emotions Help Us, 2018supporting
a meal shared by those taking part in the sacrifice, at which the god was believed to be present… a ‘sacred’ meal at which ‘consecrated’ food is eaten, and hence a sacrifice.
Jung traces the dual meaning of the Eucharistic meal (deipnon/thysia) to show that communion has always combined the ideas of shared participation and sacrificial offering.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958supporting
The body and blood of Christ are making for the support of our soul and body, without being consumed or suffering corruption… a protection against all kinds of injury, a purging from all uncleanness.
John of Damascus articulates the protective and purifying effects of receiving communion, emphasizing its sustaining function for both soul and body.
, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 2021supporting
he hears the refrain, ‘Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.’ As the song ends, the church becomes quiet and many people seem to be withdrawn
Pargament uses the phenomenology of an observer encountering liturgical communion as an entry point into the psychology of religious experience and the sacred.
, The psychology of religion and coping theory, research,, 2001aside