Carl Jung: Woman is world and fate
To Oskar A . H . Schmitz
Dear Herr Schmitz, 21 July 1927
There is something still a little unclear about the relation to woman, in spite of the great “hit” you made with Fraulein Wolff.
In this direction something needs to be added.
This belongs to that idea that constantly obtrudes itself in you, about the man who “is master of all his functions.”
Goethe, too, was a great bluffer.
Not only during h is lifetime but in particular posthumously he has had an increasingly bedazzling effect.
I doubt the genuineness of the “complete man . ”
It is too much of a concoction.
What was his marriage really like?
Because of your negative mother complex, all sorts of unrealized safeguards against feminine influence were still to be expected.
The penitent’s shirt beneath and the red habit outside are surely necessary forms of transition, b ut at the same time symbols of the bodily and spiritual celibate.
Woman is world and fate, that is why she is so important to the man.
Your present image in this respect is still eighteenth century.
It is remarkable how Keyserling, too, connects with Cagliostro – to say nothing of Faust.
I still have to gather breath to get started.
I ought to write, but the sunshine is still too good to be sitting at a desk.
With best wishes,
Yours truly,
C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page xxxii
