In Marie Louise Von Franz’s Alchemy, one of the interesting items which she touches upon very briefly are how some types of religious traditions are more extraverted and others are more introverted. This refers to the Jungian system of personality types. Frequently, the definitions of introverted and extraverted get modified into “shy” vs. “sociable” although that’s not totally correct. The system of typology itself is a bit more complex, but introverts direct their mental/emotional (psychic) energy inward, while extraverts are more inclined to express it outside themselves.

So, applying this to religious traditions, Von Franz talks about how “introverted” religions place greater emphasis on direct personal experience of the divine. And since each individual inner experience is unique, there will be a bit more of a heterogeneous mixture to the traditions in that religion. Greater room for diversity, basically. And, in extraverted religions, she asserts that since extraverts naturally express energy outwards, they will usually place greater emphasis on unified outer expressions of their religion. That is, they may be more homogeneous orthodox traditions, wherein it is important that people all share certain elements, beliefs and experiences.

She also talks a bit elsewhere about how, many traditional religious texts were written by people who had introverted direct-type experience of divine/unconscious events. These were ironically later codified into extraverted/socially oriented-type orthodoxies. Of course, this is obviously a generality, but an interesting one, I think.