All the Labels: Jung’s Frustration at Being Misunderstood

… I am often classed among the Gnostics….

Jung (1952)[1]

Some while ago… I was characterized as ‘unspiritual.’… another utterance from an authoritative theological source [accuses] me of agnosticism—the exact opposite of Gnosticism.

Jung (1952)[2]

As a philosopher and speculating heretic I am, of course, easy prey….

Jung (1952)[3]

… I have in my time been regarded not only as a Gnostic and its opposite, but also as a theist and an atheist, a mystic and a materialist….

Jung (1952)[4]

Gnostic, agnostic, heretic, theist, atheist, mystic, materialist—Jung got hung with many labels in his lifetime, nearly of them reflecting lack of understanding of his psychology and method of inquiry. Why was this? And what labels did Jung appreciate? We consider these questions in this essay.

Why was Jung So Misunderstood?

There are many reasons why Jung was misunderstood. These reasons are of two sorts: those that relate to Jung, and those that relate to the collective society.

Reasons related to Jung. One reason is Jung’s type. Jung was, by his own statement, an INT—Introvert, Intuitive, Thinking—type.[5] As an Introvert Jung was not oriented to the outer world, in either his interests or the focus of his thinking. So his writing, in both content and style, was not oriented to appeal to the masses.[6] Jung’s strong intuition didn’t help: His type preference inclined him to “circumambulation,” leaps in his arguments, and long discursions from his topic.[7] Such non-linearity left many of his readers feeling either confused or irritated. And with his strong preference for Thinking (Feeling being very much his inferior function), Jung did not put in much effort to make emotional connections with his readers.[8] The result is that Jung (especially after his near-death experience in 1944) wrote for himself, on topics of interest to him, if to few others.[9]

Which is a second reason Jung found few who understood: Alchemy,[10] mysticism,[11] Ufos,[12] astrology,[13] cabala[14]—these are not (even now) subjects in the mainstream, and 60 years ago it was even harder to find academics, intellectuals or theologians who ventured into such fields. Jung was an intensely curious person, and had a very open-minded attitude.[15] He would venture into any area if it held out even the slightest promise of giving him explanations or insights into himself, his patients or empirical reality.[16] It is not uncommon today to find Jungians (that is, persons trained at Jung Institutes and certified as Jungian analysts) who roll their eyes and feel embarrassed when reminded of Jung’s interest in astrology or Ufos or other such outré subjects.[17] Given such narrow-mindedness even now among people with putative interest in Jung, it is not surprising that few of Jung’s contemporaries took the trouble to try to understand his work.

A third personal explanation for why Jung was misunderstood may lie in Jung’s intellectual brilliance and his training in the rigorous Germanic gymnasium tradition.[18] I have often told students here at The Jungian Center that Jung is really easy to read if you are fluent in Latin, Greek, French, German, numerology, astrology, symbology, mythology, Gnosticism, cabala and alchemy. Assuming you have mastered all these languages and subjects, you’ll have no problems tackling Aion or Mysterium Coniunctionis or Alchemical Studies. But who (especially in 21^st century America) learns so many languages? Who ventures even superficially into all these esoteric fields? Where would one even go to get training in all this, especially with so little likelihood of finding gainful employment at the end of it?? And so it is not surprising that Jung found few people outside his personal circle of students who were able to fathom what he was saying.

Reasons related to the collective society. Then there are explanations that relate to the collective, our Western culture, with its unconscious assumptions, attitudes, and “knowledge base.”[19] Jung was one of the great figures of the 20^th century who were able to step outside the reality of their culture to see it from new perspectives. In addition to his rigorous intellectual training and his interests in arcana, Jung was original. Over and over during his long life he came up with startling new perspectives on areas of Western culture that have been mired in stasis for centuries. One of the most controversial of these areas was religion.[20]

Given its “cosmic vanity,” “pride in history,” and “lust for certitude,”[21] Western religion has been resistant to new formulations in both its theology and its practices. “Cosmic vanity,” aka “ontological arrogance”[22] is the (mostly unconscious) attitude that privileges one religion over another. Expressed in the common vernacular it says: “If you don’t believe as I do, then you’re going to go to Hell.” Jung disagreed. He felt all religions had insights into the nature of reality and humans’ relation to the numinous.[23] “Pride in history” shows up in organized religions that are unable to accommodate new values and attitudes, e.g. women’s equality. It will say things like “We can’t have women priests because we never have had women priests” (ignoring the fact that some of Jesus’ most ardent followers, and Paul’s most active supporters, were women). “Lust for certitude” is a third temptation that religions tend to fall into, in their admonition to followers to “Believe, don’t doubt,” as if doubt were something negative. Jung recognized that belief is a thin reed, and the New Testament imperatives urging belief are mistranslations of the Greek.[24] Jesus and the authors of the New Testament are asking followers not to believe but to trust. Having personal experience of the Divine, Jung recognized the significant differences between belief and trust, and he wrote about this at length.[25] Controversy with clerics and theologians followed.

Jung also put clerics’ noses out of joint because of his call for change in organized religions. With his appreciation of Heraclitus,[26] Jung recognized the truth of God’s declaration “Behold, I make all things new.”[27] As Heraclitus understood, change is the only constant, and Jung was very open to change. He recognized that, unless Western religions actively shifted to promoting change in their beliefs and actions, they would become passé.[28] By the last decade of his life (especially after he was delivered of “Answer to Job,”)[29] Jung became convinced that a new form of expression of the “religious instinct”[30] in humans was aborning—a “new dispensation”[31] that was rooted in the desire in the individual to have personal experience of the Divine. Dogmas, rites and rituals were a “defense” against such experience,[32] and in calling ecclesiastics out on this point, Jung posed a threat to both their thinking and their livelihood.

Religion was not the only collective in Western society that Jung called out. As a practitioner of true science Jung posed threats to scientists and their practice of conventional science which, then as now, was/is rooted in “scientism.”[33] For all its talk of objectivity, reason, following the truth, inductive reasoning etc., Western science is actually very dogmatic, materialistic, and biased against the empirical pursuit of knowledge.[34] While this is beginning to change, 70 years ago scientism had a stranglehold on scientific research. Jung’s insistence that “the psyche is real”[35] fell on deaf ears. More than just “deaf,” scientists’ ears were affronted that anything intangible—like the psyche—would be regarded as a subject worthy of study.

Jung practiced empiricism: He observed what went on in himself, his patients and his students. He followed the insights he got via dreams, synchronicities, active imaginations, and his intuitions, and he tested these in real-life situations. He determined truth by what he experienced.[36] If he unearthed an assumption or attitude he had that life experience proved wrong, he changed his mind. He collected facts from his observations and then formulated hypotheses, always holding these hypotheses tentatively, lest some additional experience prove them wrong. This is the empirical method. But his fellow psychologists (by that label, “students of the psyche”) had little use for intangibles, even if their discipline was, in theory, focused on the (intangible) psyche![37]

Eager to dismiss and disparage Jung after his defection from the “Master” in 1913, Freudians went out of their way to criticize Jung and his work.[38] This was a third group in the collective that gave Jung a hard time. It is very gratifying for Jungians these days to watch how Jung’s work is proving true, while the limitations of Freud’s theories, and the poverty of Freudian reductionism are becoming more and more obvious.[39]

How Jung Wanted to Be Described

In various places in both his works and letters Jung noted how he would label himself. He calls himself a “doctor and scientist”[40] in his working with verifiable facts. He describes himself as “a psychiatrist whose prime concern is to record and interpret… empirical material.”[41] He appreciated being termed “an empiricist first and last” in a 1952 edition of the British Medical Journal, and he cited that article in a rebuttal of one of his critics.[42]

Jung distinguished between his studies of various subjects and being a believer in them:

The people who call me a Gnostic cannot understand that I am a psychologist, describing modes of psychic behavior precisely like a biologist studying the instinctual activities of insects. He does not believe in the tenets of the bee’s philosophy. When I show the parallels between dreams and Gnostic fantasies I believe in neither. They are just facts one does not need to believe…[43]

Just because he studied the Gnostics and their writings did not mean Jung was a Gnostic himself.

In the last year of his life Jung revealed his frustration at being misunderstood in a letter to an American academic:

 “The fact that I try to make you see my standpoint could show you that I don’t mind the criticism. I only want to defend myself against wrong premises. If I could not stand criticism I would have been dead long ago, since I have had nothing but criticism for 60 years….”[44]

Jung was one of those long-suffering geniuses born several generations ahead of their time whose fate it is to become widely recognized and appreciated only after their death. Those of us who know how much Jung’s work saved our sanity and enriched our lives owe it to him to help overcome the scientism and prejudice that still hinders full integration of Jung’s insights into the theory and practice of psychology.

Sue Mehrtens is the author of this and all the other blog essays on this site. The opinions expressed in these essays are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of other Jungian Center faculty or Board members.

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