The So-Called Occult (Annotated)

Download or read book The So-Called Occult (Annotated) written by Carl Gustav Jung and published by . This book was released on 2020-11-15 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Annotated with new Historical Context The Story In 1900, Helene Preiswerk fell madly in love with her cousin, a handsome med student named Carl Gustav Jung. "She is slenderly built, face rather pale, eyes dark with a peculiar penetrating look," he wrote of her.Jung, absorbed in the study of dreams and neuroses, paid her little notice. "She has no serious illnesses," he said of her. "At school she passed for average, showed little interest, was inattentive. As a rule her behavior was rather reserved, sometimes giving place, however, to exuberant joy and exaltation. Of average intelligence, without special gifts, neither musical nor fond of books, her preference is for handwork--and day dreaming." However, Jung's relationship with Helene was changed forever on a dark August night, when she stumbled onto a séance he was performing with his friends. Shyly, she asked if she could join. Humoring her, the young doctor was stunned when "she became very pale, slowly sank to the ground, shut her eyes, became cataleptic, drew several deep breaths, and began to speak." From her mouth emerged the voices of the dead and the star-dwellers, weaving fantastic tales of "secret and open love-affairs, with illegitimate births and other sexual insinuations." So began a torrid drama of hauntings, gnostic arcana, "witch-sleeps," and "delicious bliss" that unraveled into obsession and tragic ruin. From these ashes Jung fashioned his M.D. dissertation, On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena, a faithful recounting of his niece's decent into mania and her increasingly desperate attempts to keep his attention with ever grander seances. This oft overlooked treatise launched the 25-year-old doctor's career as the world's most celebrated Archetypal Psychologist--but lurking between its lines of objective analysis is evidence of a libidinous game being played between two lonely people, fascinated with the mirror self they discover in the other. The Excerpt In connection with this experience she related all kinds of peculiarities of these star-dwellers; they have no god-like souls, as men have, they pursue no science, no philosophy, but in technical arts they are far more advanced than men. Thus on Mars a flying-machine has long been in existence; the whole of Mars is covered with canals, these canals are cleverly excavated lakes and serve for irrigation. The canals are quite superficial; the water in them is very shallow. The excavating caused the inhabitants of Mars no particular trouble, for the soil there is lighter than the earth's. The canals are nowhere bridged, but that does not prevent communication, for everything travels by flying-machine. Wars no longer occur on the stars, for no differences of opinion exist. The star-dwellers have not human bodies, but the most laughable ones possible, such as one would never imagine. Human spirits who are allowed to travel on the Other Side may not set foot on the stars. Equally, wandering star-dwellers may not come to the earth, but must remain at a distance of twenty-five metres above the earth's surface. Should they transgress they remain in the power of the earth, and must assume human bodies, and are only set free again after their natural death. As men, they are cold, hard-hearted, cruel. S. W. ecognizes them by a singular expression in which the "Spiritual" is lacking, and by their hairless, eyebrowless, sharply-cut faces. Napoleon was a star-dweller. The Author C.G. Jung (1875 - 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and secret mystic who founded analytical psychology. He famously brought humanity to an understanding of the collective unconcious, the personality types, and the archetypes.