Memories, Dreams and Reflections by Carl Jung. A Beginner’s Ruminations about 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 it was partly written by him. It may 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 a...
