Psychology and the Occult Publishing Over the Past Century Or So, Books That Have, by Popular Consent, Become Established As Classics in Their Field
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C. G. Jung Routledge Classics contains the very best of Routledge Psychology and the Occult publishing over the past century or so, books that have, by popular consent, become established as classics in their field. Drawing on a fantastic heritage of innovative writing published by Routledge and its associated imprints, this series makes available in attractive, affordable form some of the most important works of modern times. For a complete list of titles visit www.routledge.com/classics London and New York First published in the UK 1982 by Routledge First published in Routledge Classics 2008 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor of Francis Group, an informa business © !977 Princeton University Press "On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena" CONTENTS extracted from Volume 1 in The Collected Works of C.C.Jung, Psychiatric Studies, 1 2nd edn © 1970 by Princeton University Press. "The Psychological Foundations of Belief in Spirits" and "The Soul and Death" extracted from Volume 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 2nd edn © 1969 by Princeton University Press. "Foreword to Jung: Phenomenes Occultes." "On Spiritualistic Phenomena", "Psychology and Spiritualism," "Foreword to Moser, Spuk: Irrglaube oder Wehrglaube?" and "Foreword to Jaffe: Apparitions and Precognition" extracted from Volume 18, The Symbolic Life © !95°. 1953.1955.1958,1959. 1963. !968. '969. !970, 1973. !976 by Princeton University Press. FOREWORD Vii Typeset in Joanna by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Printed and bound in Great Britain by Foreword to Jung: Phenomenes occultes 1 TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, Occult Phenomena 5 mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter On Spiritualistic Phenomena 107 invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without The Psychological Foundations of Belief in Spirits 128 permission in writing from the publishers. The Soul and Death 150 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Psychology and Spiritualism 164 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Foreword to Moser: "Spuk: Irrglaube Oder ISBN 10: 0-415-43745-8 Wahrglaube?" 171 ISBN13: 978-0-415-43745-5 Foreword to Jaffe: Apparitions and Precognition 184 The Future of Parapsychology 188 BIBLIOGRAPHY 191 FOREWORD The occult was in the forefront of Jung's interest from the very beginning of his professional career, and before. At the behest of his chief, the great psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, Jung wrote his M.D. dissertation on "The Psychology and Pathology of So- Called Occult Phenomena,"1 published in 1902, and evidently composed after he became an assistant physician at the Burghol- zli Hospital in 1900. In psychiatric terms, he described several clinical cases of double consciousness, twilight states, and som• nambulism, then presented in detail the case of an adolescent girl medium, whose seances he had witnessed in the mid 1890's. He sought to account clinically for the visions experienced by this young woman, and cites the theory of cryptomnesia, the coming into consciousness of unrecognized memory-images—a reference, obviously, to the unconscious. In Jung's conclusion to the monograph, there is an allusion to what sounds very close to the collective unconscious. "I waded through the occult literature ' In the present selection. Viii FOREWORD FOREWORD so far as it pertained to this subject [the root idea of the girl's goes on, "In this capacity I have been dabbling in spookery visions], and discovered a wealth of parallels with our gnostic again. Here too your discoveries are brilliantly confirmed. What system, dating from different centuries, but scattered about in all do you think about this whole field of research?" Unfortunately, kinds of works, most of them quite inaccessible to the patient" Freud's letter in reply is one of the few that is missing. On April (par. 149). 12, 1909, just after Jung's second visit to Freud in Vienna, he Several years earlier, in 1897, while an undergraduate at Basel writes of a case he is analyzing in which "first-rate spiritualistic University, Jung discussed the occult in a lecture to the Zofingia phenomena occur" and another that involves the "evil eye," and Society, a student club.2 Speaking in 1897 on the general subject goes on to refer glancingly to his "spookery" during his last of psychology, the 2 2-year-old Jung said that the soul does exist, evening with Freud. This was the episode of the poltergeist it is intelligent and immortal, not subject to time and space. He knocking in Freud's bookcase, which Freud mentioned skeptic• declared the reality of spirits and spiritualism, on the evidence of ally in his answering letter: "My dear son, keep a cool head, for it telekinesis, messages of dying people, hypnotism, clairvoyance, is better not to understand something than make such great second sight, and prophetic dreams. sacrifices to understanding." Jung gave a full account only fifty In February 1905, Jung gave a lecture at his alma mater, Basel years later in Memories, Dreams, Reflections.5 University, "On Spiritualistic Phenomena"—a lengthy discourse Ernest Jones, in his life of Freud,6 relates that when Freud and in which he surveyed the history and psychology of the subject Jung met in Munich on December 26, 1910, they had a long talk in America and England as well as on the Continent. He drew about occultism, and Freud "was not surprised to hear that Jung upon a broad range of literature—Schopenhauer, Swedenborg, had long been fully convinced of the reality of telepathy and had Mesmer, Kant, Kerner, Krafft-Ebing, and the famous English carried out most convincing experiments himself." In a letter of physicist Sir William Crookes, whose observations of levitation May 8, 1911, Jung writes, "The meeting in Munich is still very had impressed Jung particularly. Jung himself had investigated much on my mind. Occultism is another field we shall have to eight mediums in Zurich; in general, he was unimpressed, dia• conquer—with the aid of the libido theory, it seems to me. At gnosing both hysteria and auto-hypnosis in most instances.3 the moment I am looking into astrology, which seems Two and a half years later, in a letter of Nov. 2, 1907,4 Jung indispensable for a proper understanding of mythology. There told Freud that because of his services as an occultist he had been are strange and wondrous things in these lands of darkness. elected an honorary fellow of the American Society for Psychical Please don't worry about my wanderings in these infinitudes. I Research—nearly two years before he first visited America. He shall return laden with rich booty for our knowledge of the human psyche. For a while longer I must intoxicate myself on 2 These lectures, in manuscript, were discovered in the files of the Zofingia magic perfumes in order to fathom the secrets that lie hidden in Society at Basel University. the abysses of the unconscious." 3 This lecture, serialized at the time in a Basel newspaper, dropped out of sight. This was the letter to which Freud gave a famous reply (12 It was first republished in vol. 18 of the Collected Works, and is in the present selection. 4 The Freud/Jung Letters, edited by W McGuire, translated by Ralph Manheim and s Recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffe (New York, 1963), p. 155. R.F.C. Hull (Princeton and London, 1974). 6 The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, vol. 3 (New York, 1957), p. 387. FOREWORD May 1911): "I am aware that you are driven by innermost inclination to the study of the occult and I am sure you will return home richly laden. I cannot argue with that, it is always right to go where your impulses lead. You will be accused of mysticism, but the reputation you won with the Dementia will hold up for some time against that. Just don't stay in the tropical colonies too long; you must reign at home." And, a month later, astrology again (12 June 1911): "My evenings are taken up very largely with astrology. I make horo- scopic calculations in order to find a clue to the core of psycho• logical truth. Some remarkable things have turned up which will certainly appear incredible to you.... I dare say that we shall one day discover in astrology a good deal of knowledge that has been FOREWORD TO JUNG: intuitively projected into the heavens. For instance, it appears 1 that the signs of the zodiac are character pictures, in other words "PHENOMENES OCCULTES" libido symbols which depict the typical qualities of the libido at a given moment." Freud's reply (15 June 1911) sounds rather fatigued: "In matters of occultism I have grown humble since the The essays collected together in this little volume were written great lesson Ferenczi's experiences gave me.7 I promise to over a period of thirty years, the first in 1902 and the last in believe anything that can be made to look reasonable. I shall not 1932. The reason why I am bringing them out together is that all do so gladly, that you know. But my hubris has been shattered." three are concerned with certain borderline problems of the human psyche, the question of the soul's existence after death. The present selection includes several further and shorter works The first essay gives an account of a young somnambulistic girl of Jung's on the subject of the occult, written between 1919 and who claimed to be in communication with the spirits of the 1957.