Memories, Dreams and Reflections by Carl Jung. A Beginner’s Insight into the Great Man’s Thoughts.

 Recently, I told someone that I was a bit interested in Carl Jung, and she advised me to start off by reading his autobiography, which was described as a ‘basic’ way to begin. I am not sure about that! I found it fairly difficult, and even disjointed, probably because some of it was written by Amelia Jaffe, an analyst who worked with Jung, and some of it was written by him.  I think that it might have been a good idea to read an ‘objective’ biography at the same time.

The first part of the book which concerns his seemingly grim, but cultured, childhood in Switzerland describes his strange and vivid dreams, his developing attitude toward religion, and his different personalities - Personality 1, which consists of the studious Swiss schoolboy and his external life, and Personality 2, which is his inner, spiritual, subjective life. 

Jung develops an especially interesting theory of religion verging on Gnosticism as a boy. He writes that God encompasses evil as well as good, and that He actually wanted Adam and Eve to sin. In fact, He created them to sin. As a young boy, he decides that God wants to force him to do wrong, and force him to ‘think abominations’ so that he can experience God’s grace. 

As a Christian and a Catholic, I disagree with this, because the Christian God is loving and all-good. In fact, God is love itself, and Christ’s incarnation, passion, and resurrection is the ultimate expression of this all-encompassing love.  He certainly doesn’t incorporate evil! We were not ‘made to sin,’ and sin is separation from God. We were given free will, so that we have the freedom to choose between good and evil. 

However, it is hopefully possible to combine Jung’s psychological theories with Catholic beliefs when I get to the point of using it to help me understand my life. You don’t have to agree with his conception of God and religion to agree with his theory of the polarities in the psyche, individuation and integration, which he explains in the latter part of the book. 

The book becomes much more interesting, more objective, and more accessable after Jung becomes a psychiatrist. Here, he discovers how important looking deep into the soul is to healing mental illness, and even manages to cure ‘impossible’ cases by helping his patients to find their way to wholeness by delving into their inner depths, and finding the secrets in their psyches creating their trauma.

His feud with Freud is also fascinating. Freud regarded Jung as almost like a son, and certainly as his successor in the world of psychoanalysis. They both emphasized the importance of dreams and myths in healing their patients. But Freud’s emphasis on sexuality in psychoanalysis eventually got on Jung’s nerves, and Jung’s mysticism, religion and his idea of the collective unconscious eventually caused a huge rift. (Perhaps, it was really caused by Sabina Spielrein, a young Russian patient, who may have been a catalyst for their separation?)

The last part of the book becomes somewhat esoteric again but still fascinating as he describes the building of the Tower, his travels, archetypes and his thoughts on life after death. He also explains how he made the study of the secret of the personality his life’s work, and his ultimate conclusions on the study of the unconscious, religion and God. Really, essays could be written (and indeed have been written) on every aspect of this book, because there is just so much in it. 

I read this as an ebook, which was not a good idea because it requires a lot of studying, really, so please remember this if you are not happy with these ruminations! I’ll have to actually buy a physical copy of the book, and annotate it.

NB: I am going to look into my beloved C.S. Lewis’s thoughts on C.G. Jung which should be intriguing.

This essay by C.S. Lewis has nothing to do with my thoughts on Jung at all, but I am including it here because it is just so absolutely brilliant: The Inner Ring by C.S. Lewis