Luella Sibbald: Memory of Toni Wolff
C.G. Jung, Emma Jung and Toni Wolff: A Collection of Remembrances
In 1948 I planned to go to Zurich to have some work with Miss Toni Wolff.
As it got near the time to go, several people intimated to me that Miss Wolff was not too easy a person to work with, that she had a very high standard about her work and could be quite severe.
On the first morning I went a bit tentatively to my hour.
Although Miss Wolff was a very serious person and could appear severe until she smiled, whether it was my feeling approach in contrast to her thinking, or not, we “clicked” immediately.
I deeply appreciated her as a wise person and I looked forward to every hour of our weeks together.
She conveyed her great respect for the unconscious and did expect a person to spend time and energy on the
inner work when working with her.
In one interview I told her that as a teenager and in early university years I was very interested in astrology, but people belittled it so emphatically I had buried the interest.
She stated, “I think it is very important that you don’t’ let early interests go underground.”
Within seven years I was working hard at it and astrology has continued to be an important part of my life.
With the Aquarian Age so near it has been a satisfaction to be able to understand more thoroughly what is expected of us to meet the challenge of this age.
From a Greek myth I sound a statement, “The sun follows in the footsteps of God. The footsteps are the signs of the Zodiac. With every footstep the rituals and forms of religion must change.”
This may explain certain things which are happening now.Luella Sibbald, J.E.T., Page 82
Bess Bolton: Memory of Toni Wolff
I went to Zurich to study at the C. G. Jung Institute.
It was in one of the lectures that I heard about using active imagination, as well as one’s dreams , to get in touch with the unconscious.
With Miss Wolff’s support and encouragement I was able to seek guidance from this introverted activity. It was in following this activity that I first met the tortoise.
Ever since he has served as a meaningful reminder of that significant experience.
These excerpts are statements of Dr. Jung’s from a seminar, “Dream Analysis.”
“There is a high mythical symbolism connected with the tortoise . . . a tortoise is a most fundamental being- the basic instinct that carries our whole psychological world, because the world is our psychology, our view .. . .
“The characteristics of the tortoise are the characteristics of the transcendent function, the one that unites the pairs of opposites.
“It is the reconciliation of the pair of opposites. From this reconciliation, there is always a new thing created, a new thing realized.
That is the transcendent function, and that is the tortoise. And the new thing is always strange to the old thing …. So the result of the transcendent function is as strange to us as the turtle is.” When I stopped dreaming of the tortoise I felt bereft.
How fortunate I was to have worked with Toni Wolff. She was dignified and quiet.
My original image of her was a rather tall, very serious, erect, straight-backed woman-the way she always sat in her chair.
Later I saw her as a comforting, warm, gentle, relating person.
The maid would bring a cup of tea-just one, for Miss Wolff but never two. I was wilting, but there was no tea for me. Bess Bolton, J.E.T., Page 10
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Blog
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Blog