Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
Darmstadt, 14th December 1931 12
My dear doctor,
What could it mean that last night, after months of not dreaming of Victoria Ocampo at all – and up until then solely of her, and very often of her as a she-devil – I dreamed a wonderfully pleasant dream with her as the central figure?
I was at a seaside resort.
But there were various pools, which were carefully filled by the tide.
I was striving for the open sea, which was not always easy in the bathing costume since
I had to pass through a crowd of people.
But I was afraid that if I went dressed, my clothes would be stolen. V.O. was also at this bathing place.
Touchingly soft, quite aloof, only a “good friend” and eagerly willing to help me translate my Siidamerikanische Meditationen into Spanish!
Please do not bother to answer in writing – I write only quickly because I forget dreams too easily.
I will see you in January. On January
8th, I will give the first lecture of my Swiss tour in Zurich, then I have to move on immediately, but I will be back around January 20 for about 8 days of dental treatment in your capital.
My great work is 5/6 finished. It will be something completely different from everything I created before.
Not a modern “Sentimental Journey” like you said, but a modern Divina Commedia.
I have never been so moved and delighted. Warm Christmas wishes and New Year greetings from house to house.
Yours,
Hermann Keyserling
24 December 1931
Dear Count,
Your dream eludes my understanding as I don’t know what conscious situation it is compensating.
Academically speaking, “bath” always signifies “change”, “rebirth”, “renewal”. “Sea” = the collective unconscious.
V.O. is undoubtedly the anima, representing the coll. unc.
In the psychological sense your South America book corresponds to a “night sea journey”, i.e., another rebirth ritual.
Could this dream be connected with the fact that you have as good as finished the book?
As a rule a book or work of art amounts to an external ritual action, which does not by itself produce a change in the subject since it merely deputizes for him.
Often the (ritual) work can grip the author retroactively and afterwards bring about a psychic change in him if he has not gone through the initial experience or has not done so sufficiently.
This is a fateful question I cannot decide.
But if it should be your destiny to go through further changes in order to arrive at an illumination and detachment of consciousness you have not yet attained, then this dream would be a message and a warning that you are again confronted with the collective
unconscious and the anima just as you were in South America.
I have regretted very much not having seen you in the summer.
Unfortunately you were within reachable distance just at the time when I had shut myself away from the world for a month.
These retreats are so important to me that nothing can interrupt them. Please forgive me.
I am at home in January, from the 15th on.
If you came on the 20th, I would be most happy to see you again.
I need hardly say how much I am looking forward to your Divina Commedia.
I hope you have been sent my new book. It is only a collection of essays.
With best wishes for the New Year.
Yours sincerely,
- G. Jung [The Correspondence of Victoria Ocampo, Count Keyserling and C G Jung Page 95-97]
