Jane Wheelwright on the role of the Feminine in the forthcoming Age

Jung seemed to say that the new era can come through only by means of the feminine principle (through Eros) and that is not only in the man’s experience of his anima.

It obviously has to come primarily through women.

No man’s anima can compare to a real flesh-and-blood woman.

It can, however, give the man some respect and belief and liking and trusting women that can help forward the movement.

On this note I would like to end, because it refers to Jung’s farsightedness and to his specific contribution to the future.

Without it I feel there would be far more delay in the understanding of women.

It also is another example of how Jung’s broad vision did in the long run constellate for me specifically my need to strive towards being a free modern woman with my roots planted deeply in the soil of archaic woman.

The more Jung’s concepts of the animus and anima are understood and the more Jung’s insistence on the conscious realization of these concepts, the sooner the woman’s movement will bring about the necessary changes in our society. At least I think so.

I wish therefore to honor Jung as having made an enormous contribution to this next step in our social evolution. ~Jane Wheelwright, J.E.T., Pages 96-97.

Carl Jung: One must remember, over the animal is the god; with the god, is the god’s animal.

Another time, discussing animals, he said: “God has His animal, the dove; Jesus had his, the little ram; the apostles all had theirs.

Now the ancients-Mithras-had different orders of initiation.

They would call the god by calling the animal-the raven, the cock-making the sounds with their
mouth, giving the call.

Sometimes they would come.

Call it synchronicity, magic, there it is.

If one can stay in the middle, know one is human, relate to both the god, and the animal of the god, then one is all right.

One must remember, over the animal is the god; with the god, is the god’s animal.”

The last time I saw Dr. Jung was on the occasion of his eightieth birthday.

I had flown in unexpectedly, and at the large hotel reception attended by many visiting dignitaries, I made my way to his big chair enthroned at the center of the room.

He rose to greet me, leaning on his sturdy, silver-headed cane, looking fit and handsome, with his shock of white hair.

And the next day he unexpectedly joined those who were continuing the celebration by a chartered boat ride around the Lake of Zurich.

And there he engaged in animated conversation with visiting doctors.

There are vivid small memories too: of the big empty chair in the club room, waiting for him, when it was known he would be attending a meeting, and the stir that went around when he entered and took the place reserved for him; of the evident enjoyment of the Institute parties which he and Mrs. Jung attended-the costume parties that are so much a part of Swiss life;
of an evening when Mrs.

Jung’s class on the Holy Grail was invited to the Jung home for coffee and discussion and questions and answers; and how inevitably Dr. Jung became head of the circle, and the one to whom the questions
were put.

I remember the look of appreciation in his eyes when I brought long-stemmed floribunda roses, a sheaf of them, to him, on the occasion of my first appointment.

And of how the spirit of anger filled him with a tremendous vitality, once, to be dissipated as soon as he knew the situation.

And of how, to me, his talk, ever kindly and gentle, was like a swift, clear stream on a summer morning.

I heard from Dr. Jung just once, after my return to America, in a letter written December 23, 1959.

I should like to quote the entire letter here, and I think it speaks for itself:

Dear Miss Ainsworth,

I have read your friendly letter with interest.

I have been particularly interested in what you say about the book of Job, i.e., the divine omniscience.

While reading this little book you must be constantly aware of the fact, that whatever I say in it, does not refer to God Himself, but rather to the idea or opinion, man makes of God to himself.

When I use the term “the omniscient God” it means: this is what man says about God and not that God is omniscient.

Man always uses that knowledge, he finds in himself, to characterize his metaphysical figures.

Thus you could make an analogy between the obliviousness of the human being and a similar state of his God.

But this is insofar not permissible as man himself has made the dogmatic statement, that God’s Omniscience is absolute, and not subject to man’s shortcomings.

Thus God’s omniscience means really a perfect presence of mind and then only it becomes a blatant contradiction, that He does not consult it, or seems to be unaware of it.

In this sense ‘God’ is very paradoxical and I call my reader’s attention to such and other contradictions,to wake him up, so that he gets aware of the insufficiency of his representations and indirectly of the need to revise them.

This is the point, which is regularly misunderstood: people assume that I am talking about God Himself.

In reality I am talking about human representations.

So if anybody should talk to you about my job, you better refer him to this passage.

With my best wishes for Christmas and the New Year,

I remain,

Yours sincerely,

C. G. Jung

~ Mary Louise Ainsworth , J.E.T., Pages 111-113

Gustav Drei Fuss: Memory of C.G. Jung

Gustav Drei Fuss: Memory of C.G. Jung

After about three years of analysis with Dr. Liliane Frey-Rohn, dreamt an archetypal dream of such a content that Dr. Frey found it to be a dream for the boss!

I was very excited about this suggestion and immediately wrote Jung.

And then, at the beginning of March, 1951, I received a letter saying that Jung was prepared to receive me. I was very excited , and the hour I had turned out to be very interesting, stimulating.

It was incredible how much knowledge, amplifications to my dream I received in one hour.

Although I had been scared to a certain extent to meet the big man, I felt at ease when talking and listening to him.

At the door he said to me: well, these were two really juicy dreams.

Another encounter: Attending a lecture, my wife and 1 happened to sit not far away from the Jung’s. When it was about time to leave, Jung suddenly turned to his wife and said in a genuine Swiss way: "So, Emma, chum jetzt!" (So, Emma, let’s go!)
These words my wife and I still "hear" today! ’

Around 1955 the diploma candidates of the Jung Institute had the opportunity to meet Jung in his home and ask questions.

1 vividly remember Jung’s answer with regard to the meaning of consciousness. Then he added: But a still bigger problem is unconsciousness.

How can man time and again become unconscious in order to unite with the depth of his soul and drink from the deepest wells? (At least, that’s how I remember it.) Gustav Drei Fuss, J.E.T., Pages 13-14.

Carl Jung: Astrologically the fish is deaf and dumb.

Mary Louise Ainsworth: Memory of C.G. Jung

In memoriam to this great explorer may I share a few remarks of his made to me , one morning by the shore of the Lake of Zurich, as we talked in his summer house , and noted down in my notebook immediately afterward.

We spoke of the fish; the two fish, the symbols of the Piscean Age–the opposites that were together. He cautioned me; he said, "The fish-it is helpless too; it is the thing caught."

"Christ is the fish; remember, Jesus was both sacrificer and sacrificed. Astrologically the fish is deaf and dumb.
We are in the age of Pisces, the fish ."

Then I asked, "During these years of Pisces, have we really been unable to get in touch with Christ, He who is the Word, because of being under the sign of the fishes?"

Dr. Jung answered "It is a question, how far we can push such symbolical statements.

I like to push them as far as possible.

Christ was also the Lion, a rapacious animal, think of that!

And he was the serpent, on the cross. Strictly speaking, he was the successor to the serpent, according to His own words.

Christ himself was the bait, the fish on the hook, to pull Leviathan in."

Faust was mentioned, and Dr. Jung said, "Yes, Faust was not meeting his own evil; he meets it only through Mephistopheles, the
unconscious side who then murders Philemon and Baucis. So Faust does it really.
Faust is a murderer!"

We spoke of the symbolism of the star.

"The star," he said, "is primitive man; his head is no more important than the hands or feet, all equal." Earlier, for no reason at all, he had begun speaking of the opposites, the red star and the white star.
And then later he remarked, prophesying, "It will take several hundred years for the conjunction of the opposites of the red star and the white." Mary Louise Ainsworth, J.E.T., Page 2.

Culver Nichols on Carl Jung "Quite a Business Proposition"

Culver Nichols: “Quite a Business Proposition”

Old-time Yankees in New England had a handy phrase for describing a person without saying too much about that person.

This phrase was ”quire a business proposition."

I first heard it from my New Hampshire-born father-in-law and again many years later across the sea in Switzerland, in talking with C. G. Jung, who used it in vernacular way, just as if he were born and bred in New England.

His English was American style and to a degree Yankee American.

This phrase "quite a business proposition" would say about a particular individual that that person was someone of substantial importance, to be reckoned with, to be dealt with, but it implied neither approval nor disapproval

It neither praised nor condemned in any sense! It simply said that this was somebody.

It left open all value judgments.

The thought later occurred to me that this very well applies to Jung himself, that he is in so many ways quite a business proposition.

During the winter of 1951-52 students at the C.G. Jung lnstitute, Zurich , were advised to attend the annual masquerade party in costume.

The idea came to me to outline my arms and legs with large colorful feathers.

These were found in children’s Indian headdresses at the Franz Weber toy store on Zurich’s Bahnhofstrasse.

These headdresses were then opened out full length and stretched to the arms and legs of black ski rights.

At the party Jung was obviously enjoying the festivities and the sight of the colorfully costumed couples on the dance floor.

He chatted happily with all who came over to rake a sear near him.

He liked to identify the costumes and called me an "Eagle Dancer," to my surprise.

I had been so close to the creation of my disguise that I had failed to see its meaning in depth.

"Quite a business proposition," said Jung about a "Venetian Woman" swirling by to the lively music.

By his presence at such functions Dr Jung contributed to the sense of personal participation shared by the students
and faculty of the C. G. Jung lnstitute, yet at all times his privacy was respected and no one thought to rake advantage of his openness.

His real business was with the unconscious in chef tremendous task of writing his most important works, and yet
he was always willing to listen and to talk.

He was often visited by such outstanding figures as physicist Nils Bohr, Laurens van der Post, Father Victor White,
and many others, and one felt that he had personal time for each visitor while at the same rime being deeply involved in his writings.

The business of publication and distribution of his work was given to others. His translator was R. F. C. Hull , who lived at Ascona.
In talking with Hull, I felt that he was a remarkable translator who understood Jung’s writing deeply and thor oughly
and was able to bring into the English translations many of them nuances from the German that might seem untranslatable
to some.

I was interested in the reasons for delays in the publication of Jung in English, wondering why it was taking

so
long after the translation was completed for us to be able to go into a bookstore and buy the book Psychology and Alchemy, for example, in English.

The English edition was finally ready when I was leaving this country to return to Zurich in 1953.

I was very fortunate to be able to obtain an early copy in New York on my way.

I rook it to Kusnacht where it was autographed for me by Dr. Jung.

But 1 was surprised at how long before that book would be available in bookstores, and it seemed to be that way with all Jung’s books.

I was greatly concerned about this and I became a little busybody, talking to Dr. Gerhard Adler, who was the head of the Board of Publications.

I finally realized that new volumes in the collected works would appear in English when the books themselves felt good and ready.

During our year in Zurich, Time magazine requested a press interview and cover story on Jung, but he was too
deeply involved in his work to want to be disturbed by this.

Also he was leery of the kind of journalism that was happening in those years in which, as always with reporting, things don’t usually come out the way you present them.

So he put off having char interview and asked my wife and me to help the Time magazine reporter get his story without having the interview he sought.

This points up the fact that here was a man who was quite a business proposition but who didn’t have any public relations arrangements at all!

The whole thing was handled within the Jung house-hold by Jung’s secretary, Mary Jean Schmidt , who was a gentle and reluctant dragon, protecting him from undesired encounters.

The family realized that what happens with reporting is apt to result in distortions of meaning. So it just seemed better at his time to avoid such interviews.

Because they had a tight little household, Mrs. Jung and Mary Jean saw to it that only chose people who were
wanted got in. •

For example, at the same time the magazine reporter was trying to see Jung, there was a psychologist from India, a Dr. Banerjee who had been sent all the way co Zurich by his colleagues in a psychoanalytical association in Calcutta.

His mission was to present greetings to Jung and appreciation of Jung’s remarkable bridge building between the psychology of East and West.

Dr. Banerjee was invited to the house and I was invited to transport him in my car.

It was a very exciting week because we had to keep the Time reporter away and at the same time arrange unobtrusively that the Hindu psychiatrist have his meeting with Jung.

The household was concerned to avoid Jung being called "mystic."

This was something that was a major of professional concern, perhaps even professional pride and dignity, be- cause the label "mystic" was sometimes used to denigrate Jung and his work.

The fact was that Jung was a real empirical scientist in his field.

There was a need to know about things mysterious and he was the guy who was doing the research where it had to be done, in the unconscious, and reporting it; so he was entitled to be regarded as the great scientist in psychology, and it would be quite petty and untrue to call him a "mystic."

But the press still persisted in saddling him with this label.

Imagine wharf the Time reporter would have done with that knowledge, if he had it, that a Hindu psychologist was visiting Jung’s home and having talks with him!

This might have been too sensational.

So we all although it just as well that their paths didn’t cross.

I am sure that many people have been helped in business and professional lives and in all of their activities by contact with the psychology of C. G. Jung.

Through my analysis and my studies I have experienced truly remarkable results and help, both in personal matters and in important business transactions, directly because of insights that came through Jung’s psychology.

I feel that the unconscious is quite a business proposition. Culver Nichols, J.E.T., Pages 44-46