“Believe me, I often think of you and I often wish I could see you again.”
C.G. Jung Letters, Vol. 1: 1906-1950
To Mary Mellon
My dear Mrs. Mellon, Bollingen, 8 September 1941
Thank you very much for your kind letter! •
I just got it and I answer it immediately.
I wrote a long letter to you in spring. But I think you never got it.
At least I heard from our post office that the letter has not been let through. I don’t know why.
Believe me, I often think of you and I often wish I could see you again.
But you are further away than the moon.
I thought of you in Ascona, where we had a very nice meeting.
Your dream is shocking indeed.
You get such dreams when you are too much identified with somebody.
The unconscious then tries to throw something in between.
You probably have a very living image of myself and it might keep you too much away from yourself, no matter what I am.
It must be something of the sort, because all your letters emanate an immediate warmth and something like a living substance which has an almost compelling effect.
I get emotional about them and I could do something foolish if you were not on the other side of the ocean.
Please don’t misunderstand me: I am in a healthy condition of mind, but I merely describe, with utmost honesty, that which is produced by a letter of yours.
It is slightly uncanny, and it proves that there is a living connection through the non-space, i.e., an unconscious identity.
Such a thing is dangerous to a certain degree, at least it can cause a certain alienation from yourself.
I do consider your dream as a very necessary compensation, though a painful one.
My attitude is one of honest and sincere devotion beyond all doubt.
It has never changed .
You don’t need to do anything about it, because I think a normally functioning unconscious will compensate the trouble efficiently.
It is f.i. enough to get this shock of such a poisonous dream.
You know, we have to realize that no matter how much we should like to be able to talk to each other, we shall be separated for a long time, perhaps forever, if such a human
concept can be applied to whatever happens after death .
You know time and space are only relative realities, which under certain conditions do not exist at all.
Yet our conscious life detains us within the confines of time and space.
Perhaps you ought to realize the facts as they are.
We don’t know what is going to happen over here.
Germany exhales a simply devastating atmosphere.
It is well-nigh indescribable.
I am not going to lecture this winter.
I feel it is time to reduce my public work.
A time might come when there will be nothing left but the life within.
It is splendid that Paul is with the army.
It is true, he has the air of a good marksman. We know them well in Switzerland.
I hope my lectures about the Mass will please you.
I don’t write a book about Paracelsus, only two lectures, because I have been asked to lecture about him on the occasion of the 400th return of the day of his death (1541).
Please give my best regards to Paul. Sincerely hoping that my letter will reach you, I remain yours,
Affectionately,
C.G. Jung
P .S. Can’t you pull a wire and tell the Bermuda censor who I am and that I am a F.R.S. and that I got an honorary D.Sc. at Oxford? And moreover I am a thoroughly reliable individual? ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 303-304.