Ignaz Tauber with C. G. Jung – June 8, 1957
Encounters with C. G. Jung: The Journal of Sabi Tauber (1951–1961)
Ignaz Tauber with C. G. Jung – June 8, 1957
[Notes of Ignaz Tauber on his visit with C. G. Jung in Kusnacht, Saturday before Pentecost, noon. In anticipation of “dark times,” he took notes as carefully and truthfully as possible.]
In my childhood I had occasional moments of insight – a hunch, a feeling of participating in another world that was very close and yet very remote.
It was like a glimpse into eternity and infinity.
It was ecstasy and deepest pain simultaneously, because of the loss of such “knowing.”
After my talk with Jung I was seized by a shiver of happiness as if in an atmosphere of Pentecost, with a felt sense of having found this other world again – a world permeating and containing ours, but not contained in it – and that, under the guidance of Jung, I
would be able to find my way around in it, and to perceive this as the essential task of my life and its deepest meaning.
- G. Jung’s elucidations: Insight into the problem of the shadow is very difficult because of the Zeitgeist, which is always a spirit of heaviness.
One is completely caught in it, and it is extremely difficult to free oneself from it.
As soon as one takes the gods as principles perception changes, and one immediately understands that this is the principle of incarnation.
When God becomes man, he enters the dark sphere of humanity.
But Christ rejected the devil, dismissed the dark side of God.
Therefore, incarnation has not even taken place yet!
Only now, in our time, the complete incarnation of the Anthropos is happening within each individual human being.
At that point the relationship to an exterior God disappears, because one has God within.
There are testimonies from astrological symbolism for every eon.
We are now approaching the astrological Age of Aquarius.
The symbol shows two wavy lines: the upper and the lower waters.
Above is the sphere of the sky, atmosphere; below the heavy, humid air, close to earth.
That reminds one of the Book of Genesis: There was a separation of the upper and lower waters, when the devil appeared in the world. God didn’t say that he was pleased.
It was Monday -moon-day!
Helmuth Jacobsohn writes that it is very easy to demonstrate the transition from the astrological eon of Taurus into Aries.
At the end of each eon there is a basic change in the perception of God, a new aspect is revealed.
Today, we are faced with the task of the union of opposites.
Now the incarnation has to be truly accomplished, and not in a disinfected body, but in the real and natural human being.
There is a colossal change in the concept of God:
- to acknowledge the dark side of God, and
- to know that oneself embodies God.
How can this be digested? Certainly, no longer with the Christian ethic!
It is no longer, “Go away, Satan!” One has to recognize one’s own face in it!
This needs tolerance and psychological insight.
Otherwise we are defenselessly exposed, because there ensues enormous distrust in oneself and others through the awareness that there is also a commensurate shadow.
This awareness is paralyzing at first, until one has generated the necessary tolerance.
It is only real if one is tolerant with oneself in the first place – otherwise it is only a ban
mot for others, empty talk: “Well, you should … ” The others notice immediately that he doesn’t do it himself!
This is the great difficulty.
Theologians, too, got wind that it is about a transformation of the god image, which is absolutely necessary.
It is in accordance with God’s will, for he really wants to incarnate!
(My idea: This is why the Christians hope for paradise after death, because there they participate in God’s being. God’s incarnation on earth is the exact opposite.)
God was intent, but Christ rejected the dark side.
It had to be like that.
It is still necessary today, lest people fall into the dark side. It is terrible!
(I had told Jung that I now understand why I couldn’t integrate the shadow: because I didn’t yet have the moral strength, and anyway only recently came to recognize the core of the problem.)
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God! (Hebrews 10:31) One needs morality.
If Christ had realized that the devil was also his specific despot, then I could apply the principle of Christian charity toward the devil as well.
The Gnostics already knew this.
The Bible reads: If someone says to his brother: Raca!, he is doomed to hell fire!
If someone wants to offer a sacrifice and realizes that he has something against his brother, he should first go and reconcile with him, and only then bring his gift to the altar.
The Gnostics interpreted this as: first go and reconcile with yourself and then bring your sacrifice. One is one’s own closest brother. This is one of the most difficult things.
It presupposes insight and psychology.
In Egyptian mythology, Horuer (the older Horus) had one body and two heads – one was Seth’s.
They both hold the ladder for Osiris on which he climbs up to the heavenly plateau.
It means that the opposites are necessary if one wants to arrive at the heavenly plateau. He is the union of the two.
It is nature’s logic, of which one can only become conscious over time, when one is at one with oneself.
Depression is a purposeful reaction.
With one’s conscious mind, one always arrives in the upper sphere and finds it very positive.
In truth, however, one is separated from reality; one is in a subjective balloon.
One has to follow nature’s logic.
After all, we have these natural processes within ourselves.
As long as I’m afraid of them, I’m in danger of being led astray.
If, however, I’m not afraid, then the danger is much smaller than we think – quite to the contrary, then it goes the right way.
But we don’t have the necessary trust.
Remember the legend of the Rabbi, who wanders through the countryside, passing on teachings to his disciples, such as: “A barking dog doesn’t bite.”
But when they came upon a barking dog, they all ran away, with the rabbi running ahead of them.
His oldest disciple asked him why, in contrast to his teaching, he had run away.
The rabbi answered, “I know, but does the dog know, too?”
That is mistrust against the dark side of nature.
This is why the dog might indeed bite, because we mistrust nature.
Concerning the dark, one can be pretty sure (if the formulation of the question is right) that after some time a solution offers itself naturally, for example through a dream, or incidents of synchronicity, which all contribute in unexpected ways.
The problem of being too soft: Jung knows this from his own experience!
Otherwise one wouldn’t be a doctor.
He felt the same way. For a physician it may become an absolute vice.
I asked Jung: What about becoming president of the [Swiss] Medical Association?
Jung said that it was a question of responsibility toward the collective. Ask the / Ching!
It may be the right thing, even necessary, or it may be wrong.
He, for example, had consciously assumed quite a few such positions and then relinquished them again.
In part they were meaningful, in part wrongly assumed responsibilities. These are collisions of duty.
In those instances, the “you should” of police ordinances don’t help.
Therefore, to help with the decision, consult the / Ching.
When Jung wrote Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido, he realized that he had come to conclusions that were contrary to Freud’s.
Fear arose in him, that it would cost him the friendship.
Mrs. Jung thought that Freud was generous enough to be able to accept his findings, but Jung, himself, wasn’t so sure.
He couldn’t go on writing for two months, until he finally came to the decision that he had to risk sacrificing the friendship.
Then the inhibition lifted, and he wrote the chapter on the symbolism of sacrifice!
It is very difficult to give up an entrenched mindset. It inhibits new insight.
Why can one not understand? Out of fear one might understand!
[Ignaz Tauber discussed with Jung his wish to write a research paper on Egyptian mythology and asked him how he should proceed. It was a lifelong occupation; he himself had grown up in Egypt.]
Jung: For the Greeks, the Egyptians were the wisest people.
When you think of archaeology, you do not know what this is based on.
The Egyptians didn’t have a philosophy, no science (except for astrology}, nothing. But they had mythology- that’s it!
Their mythology contains an incredible wealth of wisdom and depth.
Jung’s practical advice was: Better than taking a sabbatical for several months is to do a retreat of a few days from time to time.
Otherwise there is the pressure of “now I should be able to do it” and then you are blocked.
Indeed, several friends had thought one could give it a try, but it didn’t work, because, as Jung pointed out, it is an inner growth process that one cannot control.
After writing his Answer to Job and Mysterium Coniunctionis, Jung came to terms with the fact that this was “it.”
He didn’t have any further ideas. So he only did masonry.
Something new could only come from without, whereas before, he always wrote when motivated from within.
Anything he wanted to write that was suggested from others either didn’t work at all, or was only a wearisome “milking.”
But now he was able to write about an outer suggestion as if it had been ordained from within.
For example, he has long had the idea about flying saucers, and when the artist with the fireman came, he thought about it again and played with the idea of at least writing
down some essential points.
But only when Walther Niehus told him that he had better write it down was he able to do it.
He now is totally dependent on such encouragement from outside.
It is Oedipus’ riddle of the Sphinx: in the morning on four, at noon on two, and in the evening on three.
I told Jung my dream: When I visited you with Sabi, I tied my shoes.
Jung said that it means to solidify my standpoint first and then go into the world.
Not to invest too much into my project on Egypt; to write only enough to bring out the essence.
For scientific purposes there must be completeness.
However, to give a paper to an educated public, no such extensive apparatus is necessary.
I must restrict myself to classical examples.
There is the danger of intuitive distraction, to lose one’s train of thought or critical evaluation, because one is possessed by the material!
I may only work the material as long as it doesn’t possess me. Clear sight is from afar.
This provides sureness in judgment, because one can recognize things in context.
It is the backbone, the guiding line, just like the staff of Asclepius around which the snake can coil itself.
Indian mythology has a parallel. In India, Naga stones are Cobra snakes with human heads.
They are placed in front of the city gate; often there are fifty to sixty Naga stones.
Sometimes there are single cobras with human heads – the staff of Asclepius would correspond to this – and sometimes a couple, a man and woman – corresponding to the Caduceus of Hermes.
The Nagas are protective gods.
Many reside under trees, ficus indicus, for instance in Indian villages.
These gods inhabit the branches – they are chthonic demons.
The basic thought here is that there is a spiral development from lower to higher regions, until they find representation in consciousness.
This is the basic idea of Kundalini Yoga: the idea of the snake that wants to rise up toward the light is very old.
Below is a tangle of darkness, above a head of light.
Jung’s Egyptian gem (from which he had a signet ring made) stems from the Ophites, descendants of Egyptian-Hellenistic Gnostics.
On the backside of the gem is a lion, that under Theodosius had his head scratched out because of his evil eye.
A Christian Ophite had inherited the ring, and didn’t want to fall under the lion’s spell.
The theriomorphic symbols (of animal or half-animal form) are especially interesting.
The Paleolithic Australians have ancestor spirits called Alcheringa: ancestors who had created the world by adapting things.
Similarly, in the Tabula Smaragdina, Mercurius is said to have created things through adaptation, meaning an inner alignment of animals or half-animals.
[End of notes of Ignaz Tauber.] ~Sabi Tauber, Sabi Tauber, Sabi Tauber: Encounters with Jung, Page 161-166
