E.A. Bennet: Mrs. Jung died at 10.30 this morning. C.G. came up to the Niehus’s house to tell me and to say goodbye.

Küsnacht, 23rd November 1955

Arrived at Zürich station at 12.25 and was met by C.G.

He told me Mrs. Jung was very ill and so I would not be staying with them but with his daughter Marianne Niehus.

But he took me to the Seestrasse for lunch; his second daughter, Mrs. Baumann, was there.

We had a long talk after lunch, mainly about schizophrenia.

This followed my reference in a lecture to a psychotic patient.

He [Jung] spoke of schizophrenia as a protection from the shadow, and usually the collective shadow.

Some say they can’t be perfect and recall some episode in the distant past; but they refuse to look at recent events, the sin of yesterday, that is too much for them.

Or when people are in a depression they may, on the contrary, take on the sins of the whole world.

He also spoke of the Germans who must always be ‘behind’ something – no confidence in just being a man; they must belong to a society, or be a doctor, or have a title.

Even an ordinary person, for instance a woman who has died, is described as ‘so-andso, the wife of...’, not just as herself.

In England it is different; being a gentleman is enough, but not in Germany.

He spoke of his wife’s illness and his dead friends coming in his dreams – death is in the air.

He had a feeling that the bridge had broken, she was different.

Later he mentioned his religious experience at Basel at the age of eleven1 and went on to talk of his father’s library.

He himself was a voracious reader and some books from his grandfather’s library were there, so he read everything.

He said that even at school he had always been suspected of being a fraud – as when the teacher refused to believe he had written his essay; there was so much in it the teacher had never heard of that he concluded C.G. had got someone else to write it for him.

‘I was always a bit too intelligent and people didn’t like it, thought there was some trick about it.’

27th, November 1955

Mrs. Jung died at 10.30 this morning. C.G. came up to the Niehus’s house to tell me and to say goodbye.


He said that four days ago, on Tuesday at breakfast, she had said she felt she was going to die and he said, ‘Oh, don’t think of such things’.

Later that morning he received the medical report they were awaiting which showed how grave the prognosis was.

He struggled with himself about telling her but he did so; she was quite undisturbed, and in a way relieved for ever since her operation she had been preparing for death.

Sometimes she had looked better, but she was very ‘grey’ at other times.

he had been working on the Grail legends in the original.

They had been married fifty-two years – a very full and wonderful life.

He spoke of Cicero’s De Senectute (that is, ‘concerning old age’), and how life ended when it was fulfilled. ~E.A. Bennet, Conversations with Jung, Pages 144-148

E.A. Bennet: C.G. told me that his name was on the black List in Germany because of his views,

Küsnacht, 29th March 1946

Arriving from Geneva yesterday I was met by car at the station in Zürich and reached the Seestrasse just before one o’clock.

With C.G. and Mrs. Jung were their daughter and son-in-law, Marianne and Walther Niehus, and two children, a girl of about sixteen and a boy of six – also C.G.’s secretary, Miss Schmid.

We sat down to a lovely lunch – fish mayonnaise followed by beef, then biscuits, and afterwards coffee on the verandah.

Later I had a long talk with C.G. till tea-time, and left about five.

He looks very fit, is most alert, and appears in excellent health though he says his heart is a bit weak – he can’t do hills and must go slowly upstairs.

He spoke of the sense of isolation in Switzerland in 1940.

They were expecting a German invasion, and one day his brother-in-law at Schaffhausen sent a message warning him that the Germans might come that night.

He took his wife and daughter and his daughter-in-law (who was eight months pregnant) to a refugium in east Switzerland by car.

The general plan was that in the event of invasion the Swiss would evacuate the flat ground near Zürich, and fight in the hills where they would blow up the railway tunnels, the Gotthard and others.

This was a big factor, a trump card – Switzerland would be useless to the Germans without communications To Italy.

He listened daily to the B.B.C. and knew that England was the only hope, and that they would never give in.

He said that until 1935 it had seemed possible, in Germany and Italy, that some good could come from Naziism.

Germany was transformed; instead of roads crowded with people without work, all was changed and peaceful.

Then he saw other things and knew it was evil.

He began to speak against it – as at the Oxford Congress for instance – and did so increasingly.

He showed me an American article which had been falsely translated, misquoting him on the subject: his phrase ‘looking with amazed eyes’ (at the trend of events in Europe) had been transcribed as ‘looking with admiring eyes’.

He said it had been answered.

He became so outspoken in his criticisms of Germany that Mrs. Jung was afraid he would get into trouble, with so much German influence in Zürich.

Referring to the rumours of his so-called Nazi sympathies, C.G. told me that his name was on the black List in Germany because of his views, and that he would certainly have been shot at once had he fallen into Nazi hands.

He said that at the Oxford Congress he had asked Göring if he thought there would be a war, and Göring replied, ‘Well, if there is there will be a round table conference later.’

C.G. added that this would never have happened had Germany won.

Of Russia – he said Stalin was clever and no fool.

He [Jung] had feared much when the Russians came into the war; but then he had a striking dream, of which he told me a part:

He was in a vast field with, in the distance, buildings like barracks.

The place was filled with hordes of buffalos (i.e. Germans).

He was on a mound, and Hitler was on another mound.

He felt that as long as he fixed his gaze on Hitler all would be well.

Then he saw a cloud of dust in the distance, and horsemen – Cossacks – rounding up the buffalos and driving them out of the field.

Then he woke and was glad, for he knew that Germany would be beaten by Russia.

This, he said, was a collective dream, and very important.

Various chat.

I told him of the Stalingrad sword incident and of Chamberlain forgetting his umbrella at Godesburgh.

C.G. was most interested in the former, and said of the latter that when people leave without an object that belongs to them it means that they are unconscious of something – as patients forget their notebook or bag etc.; it is not simply an indication that they don’t want to go, or want to come back.

He has had a long correspondence with Father Victor White of Blackfriars, Oxford, and is very impressed by him and his learning.

They publish a magazine, Blackfriars.

Both he and Mrs. Jung told me that he was publishing all his papers about Germany and the Nazis; the book is already in print and will be translated. ~E.A. Bennett, Conversations with Jung, Pages 23-27

Carl Jung across the web:

Blog: http: http://carljungdepthpsychology.blogspot.com/

Google+: https://plus.google.com/102529939687199578205/posts

Facebook: Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/56536297291/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=4861719&sort=recent&trk=my_groups-tile-flipgrp

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Carl-Jung-326016020781946/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/purrington104/

Red Book: https://www.facebook.com/groups/792124710867966/

Scoop.It: http://www.scoop.it/u/maxwell-purrington

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaxwellPurringt

WordPress: https://carljungdepthpsychology.wordpress.com/

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. Owen Gnosis Archive http://gnosis.org/welcome.html

Dr. Jung hypnotizes his mother

Another instance of the same thing was C.G.’s mother.

She remarked to him that hypnosis was a lot of nonsense and he replied, ‘Oh no, I’ll show you.’

He told her to hold up her arm, and then said, ‘Now you can’t put it down.’

She said, ‘Oh yes I can.’ ‘Well, put it down then,’ said C.G.

‘No,’ shevanswered, ‘I’m not hypnotised but I don’t want to put it down.’

Mrs. Jung and C.G.’s sister were there and they laughed.

Then he lifted his mother’s leg and held it horizontally, and there she sat with her arm up and her leg
stuck out.

She couldn’t move until he told her to do so, and yet she insisted that she was not hypnotised.

~E.A. Bennet, Conversations with Jung, Pages 97-98

Carl Jung and World War II

[Carl Jung and World War II]

He [Jung] had feared much when the Russians came into the war; but then he had a striking dream, of which he told me a part:

He was in a vast field with, in the distance, buildings like barracks.

The place was filled with hordes of buffalos (i.e. Germans).

He was on a mound, and Hitler was on another mound.

He felt that as long as he fixed his gaze on Hitler all would be well.

Then he saw a cloud of dust in the distance, and horsemen – Cossacks – rounding up the buffalos and driving them out of the field.

Then he woke and was glad, for he knew that Germany would be beaten by Russia.

This, he said, was a collective dream, and very important. ~E.A. Bennet, Confersations with Jung, Pages 26-27


He [Jung] listened daily to the B.B.C. and knew that England was the only hope, and that they would never give in. ~E.A. Bennet, Conversations with Jung, Page 24.

He [Jung] said that until 1935 it had seemed possible, in Germany and Italy, that some good could come from Naziism. Germany was transformed; instead of roads crowded with people without work, all was changed and peaceful. Then he saw other things and knew it was evil. ~E.A. Bennet, Conversations with Jung, Page 25.

He[Jung] became so outspoken in his criticisms of Germany that Mrs. Jung was afraid he would get into trouble, with so much German influence in Zürich. ~E.A. Bennet, Conversations with Jung, Page 25

Referring to the rumours of his so-called Nazi sympathies, C.G. told me that his name was on the black List in Germany because of his views, and that he would certainly have been shot at once had he fallen into Nazi hands. ~E.A. Bennet, Conversations with Jung, Page 26

Carl Jung across the web:

Blog: http: http://carljungdepthpsychology.blogspot.com/

Google+: https://plus.google.com/102529939687199578205/posts

Facebook: Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/56536297291/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=4861719&sort=recent&trk=my_groups-tile-flipgrp

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Carl-Jung-326016020781946/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/purrington104/

Red Book: https://www.facebook.com/groups/792124710867966/

Scoop.It: http://www.scoop.it/u/maxwell-purrington

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaxwellPurringt

WordPress: https://carljungdepthpsychology.wordpress.com/

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. Owen Gnosis Archive http://gnosis.org/welcome.html