Carl Jung and Christmas
For Christmas my wife gave me a really superb photograph of Freud, ca. 12 x 20 cm. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 6.
I asked C.G. about the Christmas tree; he said it was a great symbol because it was the life growing in winter, the winter solstice, and that is what Christ is, the light in the darkness. ~E.A. Bennet, Meetings with Jung, Page 59
Marie-Louise von Franz had a strikingly alchemistic dream around Christmas, 1933, and by the spring she had plucked up her courage to ask Jung for an appointment in order to understand it. ~Barbara Hannah, Jung: His Life and Work, Page 165
Also, Christmas day is a Mithraic feast. In early days, Christmas came on the 8th of January, and was a day taken over from the Egyptians, being the day celebrating the finding of the body of Osiris. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 113
It was only in later days, when the Mithraic cult was being overcome, that the Christians took the 25th of December, the day celebrated by the followers of Mithras as the day of Sol invictus, for their Christmas. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 113
Christmas is celebrated three days after the shortest day; therefore it is the festival of the rebirth of the sun. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 176.
On 25 December we put lights on our Christmas tree in order that the sun may rise; and we have an evergreen tree so that it will bring forth fruit; it is a magic ceremonial to produce or increase the sun.
It has now become a sort of festival that produces Christ again, it is the birthday of Jesus.
But that was originally the birthday of Mithra, the invincible sun-it is a borrowed birthday. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 225
It is quite true that this tree, as we pointed out last time, has a close association with the tree of light, the Christmas tree, and thus also with the so-called vertical mandala.
Even the system of the chakras, which is a sequence of mandalas, forms a tree; therefore it is also likened to the growth of a plant. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 1002
The Christmas carol “This Is the Day That God Has Made” pleased me enormously. And then in the evening, of course, came the Christmas tree. Christmas was the only Christian festival I could celebrate with fervor. Carl Jung, Jung by Gerhard Wehr, Page 34
If only you and Mrs. Jung were here, it would be much more enjoyable. The archaic atmosphere, produced by my mother, has put me in the foulest humor imaginable! Christmas is going to be very peculiar here, due to the utter lack of Stimmung in Italy … it’s much more like Easter here, and even the windows have flowers and pigs and Santa Claus’s in the shape of Easter Eggs. ~Katy Cabot, Jung My Mother and I, Page 243
Thank you for your nice Christmas-card. It is awfully good of you to invite me to your enviable San Remo-place with all its delights. Unfortunately I cannot avail myself of your kindness since I am afraid of the long trip and the inevitable effort involved. I have to live quietly and more or less withdrawn from the adventures of the world. Though my state of health gives me no cause for serious complaints. ~Carl Jung, Jung My Mother and I, Page 602
Between Christmas and New Year, I had a book, The Gnostic Jung by Stephen Hoeller sent to me on your initiative. I had heard of it earlier, but never seen. Now I am very interested to read it. ~Franz Jung, About Franz: Remembering C. G. Jung-A Son’s Story, Page 34
Yes, I have had many dreams which changed my life, which I experienced as a great revelation. There is one in particular which I think is the biggest dream I ever had. That dream I dreamt between meeting Jung and asking him for analysis. I was eighteen, and on Christmas night I had what Jung would call an archetypal dream, a religious dream. It was a very long mythological descent into the underworld. One could sum it up as a descent into Hades, finding the mystical water of alchemy, and coming back with it. A kind of shamanistic journey into the land of death.
I still consider it to be the biggest dream of my life. I woke up deeply shaken. I was so shaken that for a few hours I couldn’t move. I had to stay in bed shivering until I had the courage to get up and put my clothes on again. I told that dream to Jung, but he never interpreted it in detail. He only said, “I knew you had something to do with alchemy. When I met you, I knew that was so. And now we see. ” And that dream laid the basis for a major work of my life, my collaboration with Jung on the symbolism of alchemy. ~The Way of the Dream, Page 17
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