Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) is an iconic man, the second founder of psychoanalysis, comparable in influence to Sigmund Freud. He called his version of psychoanalysis analytical or depth psychology. Esotericists and especially occultists consider him their man, philosophers love him, scientists do not understand what to do with him, but are forced to reckon with him. In any case, Carl Jung has a direct relationship to esotericism and the occult, but a controversial one to science.
K.G. Jung was born on July 26, 1875 in a small town in the north of Switzerland, into a very noble and wealthy family. K. Jung’s great-grandfather during the Napoleonic War was the chief military doctor of Bavaria, his great-grandfather’s brother was the Chancellor of Bavaria.
Jung’s father was a theologian, a specialist in religious dogmas, his mother was from a family of hereditary Protestant pastors, but the main interest of this family was in Eastern esoteric teachings and practices. Karl’s favorite children’s book is a book with beautiful illustrations of gods from esoteric religions, and instead of children’s fairy tales and the Bible, his mother read various esoteric stories to him. Since childhood, little Karl, like his mother, believed that he had two personalities: he, today’s little Karl, and personality No. 2 — a proud, authoritative and influential person from the 18th century. Who? Since his grandfather Samuel was convinced that he was Goethe’s illegitimate son, and given that Karl was named after his grandfather and looked strikingly like him, Carl Gustav Jung was sure that the soul of Johann Wolfgang Goethe was reincarnated in him. And he believed in reincarnation, because everyone in his family believed in it.
The whole family, of course, was interesting.
I must say that Carl Gustav’s father periodically fell into a deep depression, and his mother, a very emotional woman, suffered from bipolar depression with mood swings. She spent most of her time in the bedroom, where, as she said, she communicated with the spirits at night. At night, Jung said, his mother became strange and mysterious. One night he saw a slightly luminous, obscure figure emerging from his mother’s room, the figure’s head separated from the neck and floating in the air in front of the body. This is probably not surprising, since Carl Jung was in an atmosphere of «contact with other worlds» from childhood. He was surrounded by the appropriate atmosphere of the home of the Preiswerks, the parents of his mother Emilia, where communication with the spirits of the dead was practiced. Grandfather Samuel, grandmother Augusta, cousin Helen Preyswerk practiced spiritualism and were considered «clairvoyant» and «spiritual». Jung’s mother, Emilia, was not just a fan of the occult, but one of the famous organizers of various séances and meetings of mediums.
It is not surprising that in such a family, young Jung himself begins to arrange seances, show extraordinary paranormal abilities, prophetic dreams and predictions. Thanks to his love of reading and phenomenal memory, he amazes everyone with the most detailed knowledge of ancient religions, cults, mysteries and occult practices, and soon, despite his youth, he becomes a recognized authority among lovers of esotericism and occult sciences.
In his memoirs, Jung wrote that the dead come to him, ring the bell, and their presence is felt by his whole family. Here he asks the “winged Philemon” (his “spiritual leader”) questions in his own voice, and answers with the falsetto of his female being — anima, dead crusaders are knocking on his house …
In the future, having become a famous psychiatrist, he will be forced to state in himself and his fellow mediums various manifestations of schizophrenia. Actually, he went into psychiatry precisely because he wanted to cope with his schizophrenia, and to his credit it must be said that by the end of his long life, and he lived to 85 years, he was able to get rid of schizophrenia.
In fact, his determination and will could be envied. In the gymnasium, he was the first student, although closed and uncommunicative. But his ideals were always the heroes of ancient times, developed spiritually and physically, so Jung went in for sports all his life, tempered himself and soon became the personification of the Aryan psychotype of a German — tall, strong and beautiful.
As a psychiatrist dealing with schizophrenia, Carl Jung became interested in psychoanalysis in 1902. An infrequent correspondence took place between him and Sigmund Freud, but in 1907 an important event occurred — they met in person. Karl wanted to discuss with Freud psychological approaches to the treatment of neuropsychiatric diseases, but the meeting went unexpectedly. Sigismund and Karl, two not very sociable people, talked to each other non-stop for 13 hours and parted in complete mutual admiration. They quickly became close, in 1911, at the suggestion of Freud Jung, they were elected president of the International Psychoanalytic Society, after which Freud invited Jung on a joint lecture trip to the United States.
During the trip on the steamer, Karl wrote down the words of Sigmund in a notebook: «They still do not know that we are bringing plague to America …».
The collaboration between Jung and Freud was short-lived, but very mutually beneficial. Jung, thanks to Freud, quickly gained worldwide fame, and Freud, thanks to the Swiss German Jung, with his charismatic appearance and incredible erudition, brings psychoanalysis from a narrow circle of like-minded Viennese doctors to the world stage. However, they still did not agree on issues of great ideology. Freud demanded from Jung to take an oath that he would uphold as unshakable dogmas the position of the leading role of the sexual instinct in the development of neuroses, the stages of early childhood sexuality and the Oedipal complex. However, Karl, remaining a convinced mystic, could not and did not want to abandon esotericism and the occult, he was interested in parapsychology and alchemy, and Jung was closely in classical psychoanalysis.
In addition, Jung had a different financial situation. If Sigmund Freud felt like a poor Jew almost all his life, then Carl Jung was fine with money, especially since at the age of 28 he successfully married a very wealthy woman. Like Freud, he did not need to earn money, he could afford everything — and why did he need to embarrass himself somehow?
Carl Jung refused to take an oath, and in 1913 Freud and Jung parted ways. Causes respect that they broke up correctly. They exchanged letters stating that they had no complaints against each other, after which Jung always spoke respectfully about Freud, and Freud simply never mentioned Jung.
Jung went his own way. In a calm atmosphere, sometimes plunging into neuroses for months, he developed his analytical psychology and, without bothering himself with much practice, wrote thick books. Carl Jung continued to publish books for the rest of his life, including, in 1959, On Flying Saucers. About things observed in the sky.
- «The Mystery of the Unification»
- «Psychology and Alchemy»
- «The concept of the collective unconscious»
- «Man and his Symbols»
- «Psychological types»
- Carl Gustav Jung «Psychological Typology»
- Carl Gustav Jung «Psychological Type Theory»
- «Psychology of early dementia (dementia praecox)»
- «Transcendent Function»
- «Structure of the soul»
- «AION»
- «Answer to Job»
- «On the Psychology of the Unconscious»
- «On the nature of the psyche»
- «Libido, Its Metamorphoses and Symbols»
- «Tavistock Lectures»
- «Psychoanalysis and Art»
- «Memories, Dreams, Reflections»
- «The Relationship between the Self (Ego) and the Unconscious»
- «Research on the process of individuation»
- «Symbols of Transformation in the Mass»
- «Psychology of Transference»
- «An attempt at a psychological interpretation of the dogma of the Trinity»