Aniela Jaffé From the Life and Work of C.G. Jung – Preface
Preface
A peculiarity of Jung’s scientific method was that he would constantly return to the basic problems in his writings, examine them from different points of view, think through old questions again, and give new and differentiated answers.
This makes a reading of his works an exciting experience, but at the same time it complicates a thorough understanding of a particular problem.
So it is only natural that his collaborators and pupils have repeatedly been asked to clarify one or another of his themes.
In 1965 Professor J. R. Smythies of the University of Edinburgh asked me to contribute an essay on Jung’s experiences and researches in the field of parapsychology for the symposium Science and ESP, in the International Library of Philosophy and Scientific Method.The
first essay, “Parapsychology: Experience and Theory,” is an expanded version of that contribution.
Jung’s parapsychological researches form one of the most difficult, but from the scientific point of view most important, chapters of his work.
The explanatory principle of synchronicity which he put forward as complementing causality enabled us to understand many hitherto
inexplicable phenomena and to fit them into a scientific framework.
Thanks to his insights parapsychology became the bridge between the psychology of the unconscious and microphysics.
Jung liked to turn his attention to out-of-the-way and disquieting problems on the ground that security, certitude, and peace do not lead to discoveries.
Parapsychology was just such a problem, and in many eyes it still is today.
The same is true of alchemy. Jung recognized, however, not only that the beginnings of chemistry are to be found in the labors of the alchemists, but that the contents of the alchemical texts must be regarded as a mystico-religious world of images and ideas springing from the unconscious.
This arcane aspect constitutes the importance of alchemy for depth psychology.
The Bollingen Foundation, New York, commissioned me to write an essay, “The Influence of Alchemy on the Work of C. G. Jung,” for the catalogue of the Mellon Collection, Alchemy and the Occult.
“Alchemy” is a revised and expanded version of that essay.
In 1921 Paul Mellon and his first wife, Mary Conover Mellon, had begun collecting works from alchemical and occult literature. Their interest had been aroused by conversations with Jung.
After the death of Mary Mellon, Paul Mellon kept adding to the collection until it was completed some twenty-five years later.
It comprises about three hundred works, as many books as manuscripts.
In 1965 he bequeathed it to the Yale University Library, which has since (1968) brought out a two-volume, copiously illustrated catalogue of the books in an edition of five hundred copies.
The catalogue cites for comparison Jung’s use of the material in his writings and also the books he owned, a collection of about two hundred items.
In 1966 Colonel Laurens van der Post encouraged me to take up the much-discussed theme of Jung’s attitude to National Socialism.
Van der Post was shocked by the constantly repeated charges that Jung had been a Nazi and an anti-Semite; he had known Jung too well to give them
any credence.
An account of the facts – those that speak in his favor as well as those that weigh against him – as seen in historical perspective, together with a psychological interpretation, seemed to van der Post and to me the best way of countering these attacks.
I have tried to give such an account in the third essay which, like the fourth, is published here for the first time in English.
I wrote the last essay, “From Jung’s Last Years,” at the request of numerous people who, though familiar with his scientific writings, also wanted a picture of his personality.
Their request was understandable since Jung had become something of a legend even during his lifetime – a curious fact which the posthumously published Memories, Dreams, Reflections did nothing to dispel.
That book was concerned almost exclusively with the experiences of the “inner man” – Jung called him Personality No. 2 – but there was little about Personality No. 1, who had his roots in the outside world and in human relationships.
My essay attempts no more than to present an impromptu series of snapshots of Personality No. 1, sidelights on the last years of Jung’s life.
Many others would have to be added to round out the picture of the man. ~Aniela Jaffé, The Life and Work of C.G. Jung, Page 6-7
https://carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog/
Carl Jung Depth Psychology on Instagram
