Carl Jung: The phenomena seem to fall into the category of poltergeist manifestations

In 1961, the year of his death, looking back on the phenomena he had observed, Jung wrote in a letter:

“I have seen objects moving that were not directly touched, and moreover under absolutely satisfactory scientific conditions.

One could describe these movements . . . as levitation, if one assumes that the objects moved by themselves.

But this does not seem to be the case, because all the bodies that apparently moved by themselves moved as though lifted, shaken, or thrown by someone's hand.

In this series of experiments I, together with other observers, saw a hand and felt its pressure-apparently the hand that caused all the other phenomena of this kind.

The phenomena have nothing to do with the "will," since they occurred only when the medium was in a trance and precisely not in control of his will.

The phenomena seem to fall into the category of poltergeist manifestations.” ~Aniela Jaffe, Jung’s Last Years, Page 11.

Carl Jung: Beforehand I had imagined that I would be dumbfounded if I were to see so fantastic a thing.

Twenty-five years later, when Jung wass in Central Africa, he was reminded of those experiments by a typical chain of associations.

On the train journey from Mombassa to Nairobi, he beheld a brownish-black figure who stood motionless on a steep red cliff, leaning on a long spear and looking down at the train.

“I was enchanted by this sight-it was a picture of something utterly alien and outside my experience, but on the other hand a most intense sentiment du deja-vu.

I had the feeling that I had already experienced this moment and had always known this world which was separated from me only by distance in time. . . .

The feeling-tone of this curious experience accompanied me throughout my whole journey through savage Africa.

I can recall only one other such recognition of the immemorially known.

That was when I first observed a parapsychological phenomenon together with my former chief, Professor Eugen Bleuler.

Beforehand I had imagined that I would be dumbfounded if I were to see so fantastic a thing.

But when it happened, I was not surprised at all; I felt it was perfectly natural, something I could take for granted because I had long since been acquainted with it.” Aniela Jaffe, Jung’s Last Years, Page 10

Carl Jung: It would all look hopelessly haphazard and pretty flimsy

Dear Dr. Rhine, September 18, 1945

Your letter has been a great joy to me.

I have often thought of you in these last years and I also often mentioned your name and your experiments to many people.

I wish I could fulfill your wish but having a scientific conscience I feel very hesitant about it since, being a doctor, my observations are all of a clinical kind, which means that they are unavoidably subjective to a certain extent and never systematic in as much as they are all isolated cases and facts which form a rather incoherent mass, which would look like a collection of anecdotes.

I despise such a way of dealing with this matter and I would much prefer to be in a position to deal with a coherent material collected along certain scientific lines.

Of course I have had quite a number of noteworthy experiences, but you know how it is: circumstances and persons involved, though indispensably important for the explanation of the facts, cannot be described in a way that would convince the outsider.

It would all look hopelessly haphazard and pretty flimsy.

As you assume, I have thought a great deal about parapsychological facts and I tried to establish certain connections, but I always refrain from talking publicly about such matters for the above mentioned reasons. (pp. 378-379) ~Carl Jung, Rhine-Jung Letters, Page 18.