Carl Jung: I have often asked myself where my books go and how they are received.
To Werner Bruecher
Dear Mr. Bruecher, 12 April 1959
Your kind letter has come as a great surprise to me, as it contains a message from a group of people of whose existence I had not an inkling.
It gives me the enjoyable thought that there may be similar groups in other remote places of the world interested in my psychology.
I have often asked myself where my books go and how they are received.
The only thing I know definitely is that they have a tolerable sale, if compared to others treating similarly difficult subjects.
Moreover, I always have been impressed by the apparently general opinion that my books are difficult to read and I have seen myself from so many unfavourable critiques that there must be something in them which does not go down easily.
All the more I have been surprised by your so very positive and friendly welcome and understanding.
It is now over half a century ago that I tried to reach the ear of my contemporaries, with an astonishingly small echo.
I cannot complain, though, about academic honours bestowed upon me in Europe, America and even in remote India, but I am more than doubtful about the effect my books had upon those who were responsible for the bestowal of such honours.
I suppose that my books expect a human understanding of which the intellectual world or the world of intellect is afraid, although I can easily understand why that is so.
It is a great satisfaction to know that such an understanding does exist, because I know from the work with my patients, as well as pupils, how much the modern mind is in need of some guidance and how helpless people are in envisaging and dealing with the enormities the present time and still more the immediate future will present us with.
I cannot help believing that the real problem will be from now on until a dim future a psychological one.
The soul is father and mother of all the apparently unanswerable difficulties that are building themselves up into the heavens before our eyes.
We are thoroughly in need of a new orientation, and I hope that my small effort and yours will be a contribution to the solving of the great riddle.
I thank you and your friends warmly for the kindness and generosity which have inspired your letter.
Sincerely yours,
C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 497-498
