Carl Jung on the great Martin Buber
That Buber has a bad conscience arises from the fact that he only publishes his letters, but does not grant me a fair representation because I am just a Gnostic and at the same time he has no idea about what motivated the Gnostic. ~Jung to Neumann Correspondence, 30 Jan 1954.
Unfortunately I have no copy of the letter to the Prot. Theologian. But I will send you an offprint of my answer to Buber who has called me a Gnostic. He does not understand psychic reality. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 61.
Buber has been led astray by a poem in Gnostic style I made 44 years ago for a friend’s birthday celebration (a private print!), a poetic paraphrase of the psychology of the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 571.
Concerning Mr. Buber, I can tell you that to my knowledge there has never been the slightest personal friction between us and I do not think that Buber has ever been impolite to me. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 101-102.
The only trouble with him [Buber] is that he does not understand what I am talking about. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 101-102.
I myself, quite personally, do not find a sufficient amount of meat in him [Kierkegaard]. One hears too damn much of himself, but very little of that voice which I would prefer to hear. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 101-102.
I have no personal opinion of Buber since I have met him only a few times and I dislike forming opinions on insufficient grounds. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 101-102.
Nothing is thereby asserted, nothing denied, and this is just what Buber doesn’t understand; for he is a theologian who naively thinks that what he believes must necessarily be so. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 367-368
What Buber misunderstands as Gnosticism is psychiatric observation, of which he obviously knows nothing. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 570-573
I have spent a lifetime of work on psychological and psychopathological investigations. Buber criticizes me in a field in which he is incompetent and which he does not even understand. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 570-573
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