The “other Bollingen” bathed in a glow of light
Jung stood the journey very well, and was glad to be home again, especially since he was still too ill to have any obligation to meet demands.
Not long after his return, he told the same dream to both Marie-Louise and myself (separately).
We both had the feeling that he still thought he would probably die and wanted the dream to be recorded.
He dreamed:
He saw the “other Bollingen” bathed in a glow of light, and a voice told him that it was now completed and ready for habitation.
Then far below he saw a mother wolverine teaching her child to dive and swim in a stretch of water.
This was obviously a death dream, for he had often dreamed of this “other Bollingen” before, in various stages of construction, and he had always spoken of it as being in the unconscious, in the Beyond.
The end of the dream has the same meaning: the dreamer must soon pass into another element (usually called another world) and learn as different a way of adaptation as the young wolverine, who was already at home on dry ground, had to learn in the water.
Evidently Mother Nature was ready for the change and prepared to give him her full support.
This dream made both Marie-Louise and me very sad, for it was clear that Jung would soon be leaving us to go to “the other Bollingen.”
In fact, it may have been this dream that loosened his strong tie to his earthly Bollingen.
Once again, as had happened so often before, Jung’s complete acceptance of death gave him a new lease of life, to his own great surprise.
He recovered quickly and was pretty well all winter, but I do not think quite as well as before his eighty-fifth birthday.
At all events, contrary to his earlier practice, he made no attempt to go to Bollingen and also abstained from his usual winter visit to the Tessin.
Although he was undoubtedly declining physically, his mind and psychic understanding steadily increased, right up to the end.
If he forgot the slightest thing (actually he did so less than when he was younger!), he immediately said:
“There, I told you I was getting senile!” If he believed this himself, it was the only illusion I ever knew him to harbor. ~Barbara Hannah, Jung: His Life and Work; Pages 1149-1150