Carl Jung writes to Aniela Jaffe
To Aniela Jaffe
Dear Frau Jaffe, Bollingen, 22 December 1942
Heartiest thanks for the very welcome and edible Christmas present you have destined for me.
I hope you haven’t stinted yourself of these things! To me they come most opportunely, especially here in Bollingen where one is a bit pinched.
Your dream is very remarkable in that it coincides almost literally with my first systematic fantasy/ which I had between the ages of 1 5 and 1 6. It engrossed me for weeks, always on the way to school, which took three-quarters of an hour.
I was the king of an island in a great lake like a sea, stretching from Basel to Strassburg.
The island consisted of a mountain with a small medieval town nestling below.
At the top was my castle, and on its highest tower were things like copper antennae which collected electricity from the air and conducted it into a deep vault underneath the tower.
In this vault there was a mysterious apparatus that turned the electricity into gold.
I was so obsessed with this fantasy that reality was completely forgotten.
It seems to me that your dream is an important contribution to the psychology of the self.
Through the self we are plunged into the torrent of cosmic events.
Everything essential happens in the self and the ego functions as a receiver, spectator, and transmitter.
What is so peculiar is the symbolization of the self as an apparatus.
A “machine” is always something thought up, deliberately put together for a definite purpose.
Who has invented this machine? ( Cf. the symbol of the “world clock” ! )
The Tantrists say that things represent the distinctness of God’s thoughts.
The machine is a microcosm, what Paracelsus called the “star in man.”
I always have the feeling that these symbols touch on the great secrets, the magnalia Dei.
With best greetings and cordial thanks,
Ever sincerely yours,
C.G.J. ~Carl Jung, Letters Volume 1, Pages 325-326.
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Blog
However much anyone might deplore the timing of Jung’s remarks on the Jewish cultural character, one would be relieved forever of suspecting Jung of anti-Semitism by the reading of the letters he wrote in defence of Neumann, who had escaped from Germany and settled in Tel-Aviv.
In these letters he shows such a profound understanding of the plight of the Jews in history, such compassion for all they have suffered from Christian projection of the Christian shadow onto them, such appreciation of their unique and indispensable contribution to the spirit of man, that one would shed the last traces of suspecting him as anti-Semitic and not even need recourse to the host of established facts which in any case refute the disgraceful charge beyond all dispute.
Best of all, one should read Aniela Jaffe’s analysis of the whole affair as set out in her masterly essay “Der Nationalsozialismus,” which she wrote largely at my sustained pleading over several years, because I was so dismayed by the way this unwarranted charge continued to be raised against Jung.
As a Jew herself [Aniela Jaffe], a refugee from Nazi Germany, a pupil and collaborator of Jung, she has, I believe, said with final authority all that there is to be said about the matter.
She deals admirably too with the second reason for Jung’s pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic labelling, his acceptance of the Chairmanship of the International Society for Psycho-Therapy in those dubious Nazi years, which meant that for a while he had to work with the head of the German· branch, a Goring who was a cousin of the notorious Hermann.
That. one of his main considerations in all this was to protect his Jewish colleagues in Germany and to provide them with some international status if expelled from Germany is by now well known.
Nonetheless, his participation in this form was abused by Goring and others sufficiently to provide his accusers with more ammunition to use against him.
Yet he did so much for his Jewish colleagues and even after his resignation continued to help them with such immense courage, ingenuity, and generosity that the persistence of the anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi charge in the face of it all must have some other motivation. ~Laurens van der Post, Jung: The Story of Our Time, Page 195-196
Aniela Jaffe: Parapsychologie, Individuation, Nationalsozialismus Themen bei C.G. Jung
168 Seiten, 2. Auflage, ISBN 3-85630-019-8 / 978-3-85630-019-7
Wie beurteilt die Tiefenpsychologie die Ergebnisse der Parapsychologie? Was ist unter dem vielzitierten Begriff der Individuation zu verstehen? Was ist Selbstverwirklichung? Was sagte C.G. Jung über ein Leben nach dem Tod? Dies sind Fragen, denen die Autorin in diesem Buch sachkundig nachgeht. Und schließlich diskutiert sie die oft gestellte Frage: Wie stand C.G. Jung zum Nationalsozialismus? Als ausgezeichnete Kennerin des Werks und der Person C.G. Jungs setzt sie sich kritisch mit diesen brisanten Fragen auseinander.
One of the most distinguished interpreters of C.G. Jung’s ideas, Aniela Jaffé was born in Berlin and studied psychology at the University of Hamburg. With the outbreak of World War II, she emigrated to Switzerland and soon began to train with the psychiatrist C.G. Jung. Frau Jaffé’s reputation as a lucid and authoritative writer was established through her collaboration with Jung on his autobiographical »Memories, Dreams, Reflections«, her editing of his collected »Letters«, and numerous independent works, including »The Myth of Meaning«. She practiced as an analyst in Zurich until her death in 1991.
Parapsychologie, Individuation, Nationalsozialismus – Themen bei C.G. Jung
