I have fallen foul of contemporary history.
C.G. Jung Letters, Vol. 1: 1906-1950
To E. Beit von Speyer
Dear Frau von Speyer, 13 April 1934
As you have probably noticed, your letter has not been answered.
The reason is that I was away from home and found it only on my return.
I am very sorry this has happened, but it was holiday time.
Thank you very much for your interesting picture.
It is a correct representation of your basic psychic attitude.
It is characteristic that the four functions are represented by four animals.
This means that the principles of these functions still have an instinctive form.
There are possibilities of further development.
I have fallen foul of contemporary history.
From abroad one can hardly have anything to do with Germany without becoming politically suspect on one side or the other.
People now think I am a blood-boltered anti-Semite because I have helped the German doctors to consolidate their Psychotherapeutic Society and because I have said there are certain differences between Jewish and so-called Aryan psychology which are mainly due to the fact that the Jews have a cultural history that is 2,000 years older than the so-called Aryan.
There has been a terrific shindy over this.
It is no pleasure to be well known.
You are then like a city on a mountain and cannot remain hidden.
With cordial greetings,
Yours sincerely,
C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 157
Without History there can be no psychology
I had very soon seen that analytical psychology coincided in a most curious way with alchemy.
The experiences of the alchemists were, in a sense, my experiences, and their world was my world.
This was, of course, a momentous discovery: I had stumbled upon the historical counterpart of my psychology of the unconscious.
The possibility of a comparison with alchemy, and the uninterrupted intellectual chain back to Gnosticism, gave substance to my psychology.
When I pored over these old texts everything fell into place: the fantasy-images, the empirical material I had gathered in my practice, and the conclusions I had drawn from it.
I now began to understand what these psychic contents meant when seen in historical perspective.
My understanding of their typical character, which had already begun with my investigation of myths, was deepened.
The primordial images and the nature of the archetype took a central place in my researches, and it became clear to me that without history there can be no psychology, and certainly no psychology of the unconscious.
A psychology of consciousness can, to be sure, content itself with material drawn from personal life, but as soon as we wish to explain a neurosis we require an anamnesis which reaches deeper than the knowledge of consciousness.
And when in the course of treatment unusual decisions are called for, dreams occur that need more than personal memories for their interpretation. ~Carl Jung, Memories Dreams and Reflections
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