Letters of C. G. Jung: Volume 2, 1951-1961

To James Kirsch:

Dear Colleague, Bollingen, 28 May 1953

At last I can find time to thank you personally for the kind letter you wrote to me on the occasion of the death of Toni Wolff.

On the day of her death, even before I had received the news, I suffered a relapse and had a bad attack of my tachycardia.

This has now subsided but it has left an arrhythmia which hampers my physical capacities very much.

I have ventured out to Bollingen over Whitsun and hope to recuperate a little more here.

Toni Wolff’s death was so sudden, so totally unexpected, that one could hardly realize her passing.

I had seen her only two days before.

Both of us completely unsuspecting.

The Hades dreams I had in the middle of February I related entirely to myself because nothing pointed to Toni Wolff.

Nobody who was close to her had any warning dreams, and in England, Germany and Zurich only people who knew her superficially.

At the beginning of my illness in Oct. 52 I dreamt of a huge black elephant that uprooted a tree. (meanwhile I have written a long essay on “The Philosophical Tree.”)

The uprooting of a tree can signify death.

Since then I have dreamt several times of elephants which I always had to treat warily.

Apparently they were engaged in road-building.

Your new interested me very much.

The Professor for the Old Testament at the University here is giving a seminar on my Job.

One can of course consider the Book of Job from various angles.

What mattered to me this time was man’s relationship to God, i.e., to the God-image.

If God’s consciousness is clearer than man’s, then the Creation has no meaning and man no raison d’etre.

In that case God does not in fact play dice, as Einstein says, but has invented a machine, which is far worse.

Actually the story of the Creation is more like an experiment with dice than anything purposive.

These insights may well involve a tremendous change in the God-image.

“Synchronicity” is soon to appear in English and Psychology and Alchemy is out at last.

The clinical practice of psychotherapy is a mere makeshift that does its utmost to prevent numinous experiences.

To a certain extent you can also get along in this way.

To a certain extent you can also get along in this way.

There will however always be cases which go beyond that, even among doctors.

The “white stone” (calculus albus) occurs in the Apocalypse as a symbol of election.

The model of the self in Aion is based on the Ezekiel vision.

With best regards,

Yours sincerely,

C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Volume II, Pages 117-118 [Excerpt.]