Sigrid Strauss-Klobe: Memory of C.G. Jung:

Sigrid Strauss-Klobe: Memory of C.G. Jung:

I would like to tell about three encounters with C. G. Jung.

I was present at the memorial address that Jung gave for his deceased friend Richard Wilhelm in May, 1930.

Jung spoke as one who was deeply moved, personally, and his words reflected the close ties he had with Wilhelm, both with the person and with his intellectual work.

He spoke of the human and spiritual encounter with R. Wilhelm as of one of the most significant events of his life.

He spoke of the grateful reverence he felt for this man and friend.

He remembered his all-embracing humanity, his greatness of heart which allowed him to divine "the whole," and which enabled him to bring to the torn-asunder soul of the West the gift of ancient Chinese wisdom of which we stand in great need.

Jung also spoke of the stimulus and influence on his own work which was due to Wilhelm.

Every listener knew that this was a memorial like no other.

Something numinous stood in the room.

I want to tell a funny memory I have of Jung in the year 1930.

Jung had spoken in the largest auditorium at the Munich University on the subject of "Psychology and Literature."

After the lecture, members of the Jungian circle met in the foyer of the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten in order to talk with Jung. In the course of the evening, Dr. Heyer brought Jung to our table where, besides my husband and myself, sat two ladies who had also been to the lecture, but whom I did not know.

These ladies told Jung that they doubted that a high caliber artist would necessarily have a shadow as Jung had asserted in the lecture.

Both women insisted that there were exceptions: in the presence of great personal differentiation they allowed
no shadow.

I remember one of them telling Jung: "But Johann Sebastian Bach!"

Jung answered, "Be glad that you were not married to Johann Sebastian Bach!"

Thereupon the other said: "But you, Herr Professor, you are, after all, an exception!"

Jung said nothing. The subject of conversation changed.

A few minutes later, Jung leaned back in his chair and stared at two strange ladies who stood in the foyer very modishly got up and said with tiny narrowed eyes: "Now those ladies would interest me a lot!"

No reply from the two idolizers.

I experienced a very merry Jung on the occasion of an evening excursion of the members of the Zurich psychological
club at the time of the Eranos conference of 1935 in Ascona.

The group had gone to the high-lying village of Intrania for a rural supper.

Being from Germany I did not belong to the group, but a woman therapist, who was a friend of Jung's, had asked his permission to bring me along.

Jung knew me since I had worked with him analytically earlier in the year.)

At the long table with local wine and fish and a full moon rising, a practically Dionysian boisterousness set in, in which Jung was fully included.

The full moon was greeted by Jung with solemn words.

All intellectual and personal conversational gambits were spiked with symbolic and mythic puns.

All this was couched in the Zurich Swiss-German dialect and I understood but little, yet simply could join in the general hilarity.

Toni Wolff, who sat opposite me (next to Jung) and who noticed my language problem, occasionally tendered explanations.

For me that evening was the experience of a totally relaxed Jung, with a child's readiness for merriment. ~Sigrid Strauss-Klobe, J.E.T., Pages 89-90.

Carl Jung across the web:

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Great Sites to visit:

1. Jenna Lilla's Path of the Soul http://jennalilla.org/

2. Steve Jung-Hearted Parker's Jung Currents http://jungcurrents.com/

3. Frith Luton's Jungian Dream Analysis and Psychotherapy: http://frithluton.com/articles/

4. Lance S. Owens The Gnosis Archives http://gnosis.org/welcome.html