To my defeats in mathematics and drawing there was now added a
third: from the very first I hated gymnastics. I could not endure
having others tel me how to move. I was going to school in order to
learn something, not to practice useless and senseless acrobatics.
Moreover, as a result of my earlier accidents, I had a certain
physical timidity which I was not able to overcome until much later
on. This timidity was in turn linked with a distrust of the world and its
potentialities. To be sure, the world seemed to me beautiful and
desirable, but it was also fil ed with vague and incomprehensible
perils. Therefore I always wanted to know at the start to what and to
whom I was entrusting myself. Was this perhaps connected with my
mother, who had abandoned me for several months? When, as I
shal describe later, my neurotic fainting spel s began, the doctor
forbade me to engage in gymnastics, much to my satisfaction. I was
rid of that burden--and had swal owed another defeat.
The time thus gained was not spent solely on play. It permitted me
to indulge somewhat more freely the absolute craving I had
developed to read every scrap of printed matter that fel into my
hands.
My twelfth year was indeed a fateful one for me. One day in the
early summer of 1887 I was standing in the cathedral square,
waiting for a classmate who went home by the same route as
myself. It was twelve o'clock, and the morning classes were over.
Suddenly another boy gave me a shove that knocked me off my
feet. I fel , striking my head against the curbstone so hard that I
almost lost consciousness. For about half an hour afterward I was a
little dazed. At the moment I felt the blow the thought flashed through
my mind: "Now you won't have to go to school any more." I was only
half unconscious, but I remained lying there a few moments longer
than was strictly necessary, chiefly in order to avenge myself on my
assailant. Then people picked me up and took me to a house
nearby, where two elderly spinster aunts lived.
From then on I began to have fainting spel s whenever I had to
return to school, and whenever my parents set me to doing my
homework. For more than six months I stayed away from school,
and for me that was a picnic. I was free, could dream for hours, be
anywhere I liked, in the woods or by the water, or draw. I resumed
my battle pictures and furious scenes of war, of old castles that
were being assaulted or burned, or drew page upon page of
caricatures. Similar caricatures sometimes appear to me before
fal ing asleep to this day, grinning masks that constantly move and
change, among them familiar faces of people who soon afterward
died.
Above al , I was able to plunge into the world of the mysterious. To
that realm belonged trees, a pool, the swamp, stones and animals,
and my father's library. But I was growing more and more away from
the world, and had al the while faint pangs of conscience. I frittered
away my time with loafing, col ecting, reading, and playing. But I did
not feel any happier for it; I had the obscure feeling that I was fleeing
from myself.
I forgot completely how al this had come about, but I pitied my
parents' worries. They consulted various doctors, who scratched
their heads and packed me off to spend the holidays with relatives
in Winterthur. This city had a railroad station that proved a source of
endless delight to me. But when I returned home everything was as
before. One doctor thought I had epilepsy. I knew what epileptic fits
were like and I inwardly laughed at such nonsense. My parents
became more worried than ever. Then one day a friend cal ed on
my father. They were sitting in the garden and I hid behind a shrub,
for I was possessed of an insatiable curiosity. I heard the visitor
saying to my father, "And how is your son?" "Ah, that's a sad
business," my father replied. "The doctors no longer know what is
wrong with him. They think it may be epilepsy. It would be dreadful if
he were incurable. I have lost what little I had, and what wil become
of the boy if he cannot earn his own living?"
I was thunderstruck. This was the col ision with reality.
"Why, then, I must get to work!" I thought suddenly.
From that moment on I became a serious child. I crept away, went
to my father's study, took out my Latin grammar, and began to cram
with intense concentration. After ten minutes of this I had the finest
of fainting fits. I almost fel off the chair, but after a few minutes I felt
better and went on working.
"Devil take it, I'm not going to faint," I told myself, and persisted in
my purpose. This time it took about fifteen minutes before the
second attack came. That, too, passed like the first. "And now you
must real y get to workl" I stuck it out, and after an hour came the
third attack. Stil I did not give up, and worked for another hour, until I
had the feeling that I had overcome the attacks. Suddenly I felt
better than I had in al the months before. And in fact the attacks did
not recur. From that day on I worked over my grammar and other
schoolbooks every day. A few weeks later I returned to school, and
never suffered another attack, even there. The whole bag of tricks
was over and done with! That was when I learned what a neurosis
is.
Gradual y the recol ection of how it had al come about returned to
me, and I saw clearly that I myself had arranged this whole
disgraceful situation. That was why I had never been seriously angry
with the schoolmate who pushed me over. I knew that he had been
put up to it, so to speak, and that the whole affair was a diabolical
plot on my part. I knew, too, that this was never going to happen to
me again. I had a feeling of rage against myself, and at the same
time was ashamed of myself. For I knew that I had wronged myself
and made a fool of myself in my own eyes. Nobody else was to
blame; I was the cursed renegade! From then on I could no longer
endure my parents' worrying about me or speaking of me in a
pitying tone.
The neurosis became another of my secrets, but it was a shameful
secret, a defeat. Nevertheless it induced in me a studied
punctiliousness and an unusual diligence. Those days saw the
beginnings of my conscientiousness, practiced not for the sake of
appearances, so that I would amount to something, but for my own
sake. Regularly I would get up at five o'clock in order to study, and
sometimes I worked from three in the morning til seven, before
going to school.
What had led me astray during the crisis, was my passion for being
alone, my delight in solitude. Nature seemed to me ful of wonders,
and I wanted to steep myself in them. Every stone, every plant,
every single thing seemed alive and indescribably marvelous. I
immersed myself in nature, crawled, as it were, into the very
essence of nature and away from the whole human world.
I had another important experience at about this time. I was taking
the long road to school from Klein-Huningen, where we lived, to
Basel, when suddenly for a single moment I had the overwhelming
impression of having just emerged from a dense cloud. I knew al at
once: now I am myself! It was as if a wal of mist were at my back,
and behind that wal there was not yet an "I". But at this moment I
came upon myself. Previously I had existed, too, but everything had
merely happened to me.
Now I happened to myself. Now I knew: I am myself now, now I exist.
Previously I had been wil ed to do this and that; now I wil ed. This
experience seemed to me tremendously important and new: there
was "authority" in me. Curiously enough, at this time and also during
the months of my fainting neurosis I had lost al memory of the
treasure in the attic. Otherwise I would probably have realized even
then the analogy between my feeling of authority and the feeling of
value which the treasure inspired in me. But that was not so; al
memory of the pencil case had vanished.
Around this time I was invited to spend the holidays with friends of
the family who had a house on Lake Lucerne. To my delight the
house was situated right on the lake, and there was a boathouse
and a rowboat. My host al owed his son and me to use the boat,
although we were sternly warned not to be reckless. Unfortunately I
also knew how to steer a Waidling (a boat of the gondola type)--that
is to say, standing. At home we had such a punt, in which we had
tried out every imaginable trick. The first thing I did, therefore, was
to take my stand on the stern set and with one oar push off into the
lake. That was too much for the anxious master of the house. He
whistled us back and gave me a first-class dressing-down. I was
thoroughly crest-fal en but had to admit that I had done exactly what
he had said not to, and that his lecture was quite justified. At the
same time I was seized with rage that this fat, ignorant boor should
dare to insult ME. This ME was not only grown up, but important, an
authority, a person with office and dignity, an old man, an object of
respect and awe. Yet the contrast with reality was so grotesque that
in the midst of my fury I suddenly stopped myself, for the question
rose to my lips: '"Who in the world are you, anyway?
You are reacting as though you were the devil only knows how
important! And yet you know he is perfectly right. You are barely
twelve years old, a schoolboy, and he is a father and a rich,
powerful man besides, who owns two houses and several splendid
horses."
Then, to my intense confusion, it occurred to me that I was actual y
two different persons. One of them was the schoolboy who could
not grasp algebra and was far from sure of himself; the other was
important, a high authority, a man not to be trifled with, as powerful
and influential as this manufacturer. This "other" was an old man
who lived in the eighteenth century, wore buckled shoes and a white
wig and went driving in a fly with high, concave rear wheels between
which the box was suspended on springs and leather straps.
This notion sprang from a curious experience I had had. When we
were living in Klein-Huningen an ancient green carriage from the
Black Forest drove past our house one day. It was truly an antique,
looking exactly as if it had come straight out of the eighteenth
century. When I saw it, I felt with great excitement: "That's it! Sure
enough, that comes from my times." It was as though I had
recognized it because it was the same type as the one I had driven
in myself. Then came a curious sentiment écoeurant, as though
someone had stolen something from me, or as though I had been
cheated--cheated out of my beloved past. The carriage was a relic
of those times! I cannot describe what was happening in me or
what it was that affected me so strongly: a longing, a nostalgia, or a
recognition that kept saying, "Yes, that's how it was! Yes, that's how
it was!"
I had stil another experience that harked back to the eighteenth
century. At the home of one of my aunts I had seen an eighteenth-
century statuette, an old terra-cotta piece consisting of two painted
figures. One of them was old Dr. Stuckelberger, a wel -known
personality in the city of Basel toward the end of the eighteenth
century. The other figure was a patient of his; she was depicted with
closed eyes, sticking out her tongue. The story went that old
Stuckelberger was one day crossing the Rhine bridge when this
annoying patient suddenly came up to him out of nowhere and
babbled out a complaint. Old Stuckelberger said testily, "Yes, yes,
there must be something wrong with you. Put out your tongue and
shut your eyes." The woman did so, and Stuckelberger instantly ran
off, and she remained standing there with her tongue stuck out,
while the people laughed. This statuette of the old doctor had
buckled shoes which in a strange way I recognized as my own. I
was convinced that these were shoes I had worn. The conviction
drove me wild with excitement. "Why, those must be my shoes!" I
could stil feel those shoes on my feet, and yet I could not explain
where this crazy feeling came from. I could not understand this
identity I felt with the eighteenth century. Often in those days I would
write the date 1786 instead of 1886, and each time this happened I
was overcome by an inexplicable nostalgia.
After my escapade with the boat, and my wel -merited punishment, I
began pondering these isolated impressions, and they coalesced
into a coherent picture: of myself living in two ages simultaneously,
and being two different persons. I felt confused, and was ful to the
brim with heavy reflections. At last I reached the disappointing
realization that now, at any rate, I was nothing but the little schoolboy
who had deserved his punishment, and who had to behave
according to his age. The other person must be sheer nonsense. I
suspected that he was somehow connected with the many tales I
had heard from my parents and relatives about my grandfather. Yet
that was not quite right either, for he had been born in 1795 and had
therefore lived in the nineteenth century; moreover he had died long
before I was born. It could not be that I was identical with him. At the
time these considerations were, I should say, mostly in the form of
vague glimmerings and dreams. I can no longer remember whether
at that time I knew anything about my legendary kinship with
Goethe. I think not, however, for I know that I first heard this tale from
strangers. I should add that there is an annoying tradition that my
grandfather was a natural son of Goethe.[1]
1 In regard to the legend, twice alluded to in this book, that Jung was a
descendant of Goethe, he related: "The wife of my great-grandfather (Franz
Ignaz Jung, d. 1831), Sophie Ziegler, and her sister were associated with
the Mannheim Theater and were friends of many writers. The story goes that
Sophie Ziegler had an illegitimate child by Goethe, and that this child was
my grandfather, Carl Gustav Jung. This was considered virtually an
established fact. My grandfather says not a word about it in his diaries,
however. He mentions only that he once saw Goethe in Weimar, and then
merely from behind! Sophie Ziegler Jung was later friendly with Lotte
Kestner, a niece of Goethe's "Lottchen." This Lotte frequently came to see
my grandfather--as, incidentally, did Franz Liszt. In later years Lotte Kestner
settled in Basel, no doubt because of these close ties with the Jung family."
No proof of this item of family tradition has been found in the
available sources, the archives of the Goethehaus in Frankfurt am
Main and the baptismal register in the Jesuitenkirche in Mannheim.
Goethe was not in Mannheim at the period in question, and there is
no record of Sophie Ziegler's staying in Weimar or anywhere in
Goethe's vicinity.
Jung used to speak of this stubbornly persistent legend with a
certain gratified amusement, for it might serve to explain one subtle
aspect of his fascination with Goethe's Faust; it belonged to an
inner reality, as it were. On the other hand he would also cal the
story "annoying." He thought it "in bad taste" and maintained that
the world was already ful of "too many fools who tel such tales of
the 'unknown father'. " Above al , he felt that the legitimate line of
descent, in particular from the learned Catholic doctor and jurist
Carl Jung (d. 1645)--discussed at the end of Chapter VI I--was
equal y significant.---A. J.
One fine summer day that same year I came out of school at noon
and went to the cathedral square. The sky was gloriously blue, the
day one of radiant sunshine. The roof of the cathedral glittered, the
sun sparkling from the new, brightly glazed tiles. I was overwhelmed
by the beauty of the sight, and thought:
"The world is beautiful and the church is beautiful, and God made al
this and sits above it far away in the blue sky on a golden throne
and..." Here came a great hole in my thoughts, and a choking
sensation. I felt numbed, and knew only: "Don't go on thinking now!
Something terrible is coming, something I do not want to think,
something I dare not even approach. Why not? Because I would be
committing the most frightful of sins. What is the most terrible sin?
Murder? No, it can't be that. The most terrible sin is the sin against
the Holy Ghost, which cannot be forgiven. Anyone who commits that
sin is damned to hel for al eternity. That would be very sad for my
parents, if their only son, to whom they are so attached, should be
doomed to eternal damnation. I cannot do that to my parents. Al I
need do is not go on thinking."
That was easier said than done. On my long walk home I tried to
think al sorts of other things, but I found my thoughts returning again
and again to the beautiful cathedral which I loved so much, and to
God sitting on the throne--and then my thoughts would fly off again
as if they had received a powerful electric shock. I kept repeating to
myself: "Don't think of it, just don't think of itI" I reached home in a
pretty worked-up state. My mother noticed that something was
wrong, and asked, "What is the matter with you? Has something
happened at school?" I was able to assure her, without lying, that
nothing had happened at school. I did have the thought that it might
help me if I could confess to my mother the real reason for my
turmoil. But to do so I would have to do the very thing that seemed
impossible: think my thought right to the end. The poor dear was
utterly unsuspecting and could not possibly know that I was in
terrible danger of committing the unforgivable sin and plunging
myself into hel . I rejected the idea of confessing and tried to efface
myself as much as possible. That night I slept badly; again and
again the forbidden thought, which I did not yet know, tried to break
out, and I struggled desperately to fend it off. The next two days
were sheer torture, and my mother was convinced that I was il . But I
resisted the temptation to confess, aided by the thought that it
would cause my parents intense sorrow.
On the third night, however, the torment became so unbearable that
I no longer knew what to do. I awoke from a restless sleep just in
time to catch myself thinking again about the cathedral and God. I
had almost continued the thought! I felt my resistance weakening.
Sweating with fear, I sat up in bed to shake off sleep. "Now it is
coming, now--it's serious! I must think. It must be thought out
beforehand. Why should I think something I do not know? I don't
want to, by God, that's sure. But who wants me to? Who wants to
force me to think something I don't know and don't want to know?
Where does this terrible wil come from? And why should I be the
one to be subjected to it? I was thinking praises of the Creator of
this beautiful world, I was grateful to him for this immeasurable gift,
so why should I have to think something inconceivably wicked? I
don't know what it is, I real y don't, for I cannot and must not come
anywhere near this thought, for that would be to risk thinking it at
once. I haven't done this or wanted this, it has come on me like a
bad dream. Where do such things come from? This has happened
to me without my doing. Why? After al , I didn't create myself, I came
into the world the way God made me--that is, the way I was shaped
by my parents. Or can it have been that my parents wanted
something of this sort? But my good parents would never have had
any thoughts like that. Nothing so atrocious would ever have
occurred to them."
I found this idea utterly absurd. Then I thought of my grandparents,
whom I knew only from their portraits. They looked benevolent and
dignified enough to repulse any idea that they might possibly be to
blame. I mental y ran through the long procession of unknown
ancestors until final y I arrived at Adam and Eve. And with them
came the decisive thought: Adam and Eve were the first people;
they had no parents, but were created directly by God, who
intentional y made them as they were. They had no choice but to be
exactly the way God had created them. Therefore they did not know
how they could possibly be different. They were perfect creatures of
God, for He creates only perfection, and yet they committed the first
sin by doing what God did not want them to do. How was that
possible? They could not have done it if God had not placed in
them the possibility of doing it. That was clear, too, from the
serpent, whom God had created before them, obviously so that it
could induce Adam and Eve to sin. God in His omniscience had
arranged everything so that the first parents would have to sin.
Therefore it was God' s intention that they should sin. This thought
liberated me instantly from my worst torment, since I now knew that
God Himself had placed me in this situation. At first I did not know
whether He intended me to commit my sin or not. I no longer thought
of praying for il umination, since God had landed me in this fix
without my wil ing it and had left me without any help. I was certain
that I must search out His intention myself, and seek the way out
alone. At this point another argument began. "What does God
want? To act or not to act? I must find out what God wants with me,
and I must find out right away."
I was aware, of course, that according to conventional morality there
was no question but that sin must be avoided. That was what I had
been doing up to now, but I knew I could not go on doing it. My
broken sleep and my spiritual distress had worn me out to such a
point that fending off the thought was tying me into unbearable
knots. This could not go on. At the same time, I could not yield
before I understood what God's wil was and what He intended. For
I was now certain that He was the author of this desperate problem.
Oddly enough, I did not think for a moment that the devil might be
playing a trick on me. The devil played little part in my mental world
at that time, and in any case I regarded him as powerless
compared with God. But from the moment I emerged from the mist
and became conscious of myself, the unity, the greatness, and the
superhuman majesty of God began to haunt my imagination. Hence
there was no question in my mind but that God Himself was
arranging a decisive test for me, and that everything depended on
my understanding Him correctly. I knew, beyond a doubt, that I
would ultimately be compel ed to break down, to give way, but I did
not want it to happen without my understanding it, since the
salvation of my eternal soul was at stake.
"God knows that I cannot resist much longer, and He does not help
me, although I am on the point of having to commit the unforgivable
sin. In His omnipotence He could easily lift this compulsion from me,
but evidently He is not going to. Can it be that He wishes to test my
obedience by imposing on me the unusual task of doing something
a