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Postcard from Carl Jung to Smith Ely Jelliffe, October 13, 1931. Smith Ely Jelliffe Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (022.00.00); [Digital ID # rb0022]
In this postcard, Jung declines an invitation to submit articles to a journal Smith Ely Jelliffe edited because American medical colleagues find his writing hard to understand and consider him a mystic.
The charge that Jung’s work was compromised by mysticism stemmed from the value he placed on mythology and symbols as well as his statements questioning the all-sufficiency of reason and science.
Jung defended himself by observing that if you call me an occultist because I am seriously investigating religious, mythological, and philosophical fantasies. . . . then you are bound to diagnose Freud as a sexual pervert since his is doing likewise with sexual fantasies.
