Not much courage was needed to go ahead with my talk at the Club on the Tarot,
1958
Not much courage was needed to go ahead with my talk at the Club on the Tarot, on January 25.
Ignaz let me go on my own, but some of our good friends joined me.
How much I appreciated their warm-heartedness – if only they knew! Right before my presentation
was to begin, Jung came in and slipped me a tiny piece of paper: Fig. 25: Monday, Jan 27, Evening, 4:30 pm, for S. Tauber, in Kusnacht.
I wanted to rejoice loudly- thank God a little bit of reason remained!
I believe that my talk went well, and the day after next I wandered with my dog in unfriendly, rainy weather from the train station Kusnacht to Seestrasse 228.
For a while I played with Felix in the yard, so he’d be quiet afterwards.
Nevertheless, he greeted Jung with enthusiastic barking and by jumping up at him, but then settled quickly.
Jung began immediately, as if not to waste a second, “You wrote me about your husband.”
“Yes,” I answered, “he believes that he’s missed out on spring and his whole life … ”
Jung interrupted me, “Stop – the rest that belongs to this scenario I am going to tell you myself:
One doesn’t have feelings any more. Everything is kaput.
One has missed out, especially where sexuality is concerned.
One wants to make up for it and secretly imagines who-the-devil-knows what.
With one’s wife it somehow doesn’t work that well – and with other women one is impotent.
In the end, one is virtually haunted by sexuality. People all around make one suffer.
One becomes increasingly labile and completely unpredictable; one nags all day long about stuff and succumbs to outbursts of anger.”
“And why should I, for the most part, be to blame?”
“Because you are the principle carrier of his anima.
Against projections there is nothing one can do. This is a classical anima possession.
She reigns supreme and gives him the runaround – and if this continues and he puts up with it, she will drag him into spiritual, psychic, and material death.”
“Is there nothing one can do about it?”
“Of course, one can. But only if one really wants to.
Most men prefer to be ordered about by their anima.
Seldom are they ‘fed up’ . and draw the consequences. If they get old at all, it’s too late. One has to practice constantly.”
“What and how? Could I perhaps help?” “Yes, I believe so.
Look, with my patients I proceed this way: I take this inner being to task by asking, ‘What was it that you were thinking in your depression?’
Or, ‘Put yourself again in that bad mood: What were you saying then?’
And then he says, for example, ‘Everything is lost.’ I continue to question him, ‘Is that your opinion? Is everything lost for real?’
And then I give him an account of his reality: How many kids he has, that they are healthy; how much money he’s made; that he can have intelligent conversations with his wife, etc.
I glaringly paint his reality before his eyes, so that he has to realize that it isn’t congruent with what he believed a moment ago.
Thus, he has to recognize that he is in the grip of a being that forces him to make false statements.
That is the anima. He is in the grip of a ‘woman’ who asserts such nonsense.
Well, what do you say to somebody like her? Is she not a vulgar woman to seize hold of him in that way?
She wants to prove that she is the only one.
She has an outrageous and boundless claim to power over him and says, ‘You little boy, come with me!’
So, that’s his mother! Eventually she leads him into death.
The anima in a man doesn’t want to give up any illusion.
And the men don’t want to sober up.
Just like someone with diabetes whose carbohydrate intake is forbidden or reduced, but who indulges in sugar in spite of it – well then, he’ll eventually die from his sugar.
If your husband was sexually deprived, then where do the five children come from?
Just ask him whether it is true what he claims. He doesn’t take the problem seriously enough!
He simply goes along with the bad manners of his soul.
You can tell him this, with regards from me, and that he should educate himself!
With true self-discipline one knows that to hurt someone else means to hurt oneself, so one doesn’t do it.
If I take something away from someone else I take it away from myself – and I love myself far too much to do this to myself. I want to have my peace. That is wisdom.
Take your husband, if possible in the middle of his affect, into another room and start such a dialogue with this inner being, together with him. He has to imagine it.
You say, ‘This is a damn slut who takes your place in this manner, and you just listen to her.
And then she has you do things that end up hurting you.’ [He might say something like,]
‘It serves my wife and my family right if I die, then they’ll see how I worked myself to death for them!’
That’s being identified with the anima and sheer possession. If, in the moment, you can’t talk to him, then write everything he says down on a piece of paper.
Later you show it to him and start a conversation.
Otherwise he doesn’t believe it and says after ten minutes that he didn’t say that, or at least didn’t mean it.”
I told him Ignaz’ dream, in which he has to fetch his parents from a high mountain during a terrible rainstorm.
Jung commented: He should feel responsible for both parents and not simply let anything be done to him.
People want an ideal, so that they don’t have to do anything. With an ideal they acquire an alibi.
If your husband doesn’t realize this and reckons with himself in hindsight, it’s no use.
You should not accept his mood swings.
You have to confront him, confront the being within him who ruins his life.
You have to make him realize with such dialogues that his moods, disgruntled feelings and depressions are not the real thing – they are only anima deceptions!
But you yourself have to sacrifice any demand on your husband, · otherwise you become suspect of exercising your power!
Go dancing as much as possible, create joy in your life, and allow yourself anything within your reach.
This is how you free yourself from your claims on him.
If you feel resistance (“who cares?”), that’s your animus! Take it as a piece of education.
You can only do something like this for the sake of love.
“Do you really think that I will ever succeed, after having dreamed the following?
Spring has arrived, but all plants are frozen and dead; only in their roots there is some sap left. And both plants in our bedroom have perished!”
Jung: “Well, then you have to tap into your unconscious. There’s still some vitality left there, in the roots.”
In a flat voice I heard myself say, “I want to.”
He looked tired as he added, “But men rarely want to believe it. They can’t accept the suffering.
When they feel better, they forget the daily discipline and take it lightly. Women have a greater capacity
for suffering and thus take it very seriously.
In good times one has to learn to speak to one’s soul and practice it daily, so one is able to do it during difficult times.
Such an inner relationship that allows for a reckoning at any given time has to be crafted with much work and discipline – so one doesn’t fall into one’s own abyss.”
Felix had settled on Jung’s feet during our conversation and snuggled closely against his legs.
Jung, smiling faintly, didn’t let himself be distracted.
There was a knock at the door and I stood up, but Felix took his time, stretching and yawning, until he was ready to go back out into the wet, soppy weather.
Life never leaves you in peace for long; it always challenges – time and again.
December 18, 1958
Another year is coming to an end.
This time around I have the feeling that I’ve aged many years.
Death must be a very important goal to have us endure so much on the way toward it. After [Ignaz’] most horrendous “volcanic eruption” ever, I dreamed:
There is a mountain covered by lava.
Only a few old, tall trees are still standing. I stomp around in the lava feeling very sad.
Everything seems lost …
I’m doing my daily chores as if dead, feebly thinking of my guru – but no, I must not burden him!
Or might he, perhaps, have a longing for wretched humanity?
After all, Ignaz was only a tool; fire and lightning come from fate.
This is how far I’ve come in creating distance.
Being able to die may well be an essential part of life.
And the guru belongs to this essential life.
Oh guru grow strong into earth and heaven –
they receive you in love
as their courageous man!
And think back, perhaps,
to whom is left:
a small human being
who, in happiness,
is unhappy. ~Sabi Tauber, Sabi Tauber: Encounters with Jung, Page 172-176
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Blog
