Three Sisters And Their Mama
Plus, your letters about Carl Jung
That’s an image of my niece Claire Leming — now Mrs. Claire Osorio — at her wedding on Saturday evening in St. Francisville. On the left is her sister Rebekah, and on the right is her sister Hannah, who flew in from Barcelona for the event. I took the photo, and ran it through the Brushstroke app.
This photo was taken on the very spot in the St. Francisville United Methodist Church where the girls’ mother and father were married back in 1990 or so. It is also the spot where their mother Ruthie’s body lay in a coffin in 2011, at her wake and funeral.
For comparison’s sake, here is Ruthie and her daughters on May 15, 2011, at her final birthday lunch, at the Magnolia Cafe in St. Francisville.
I love this portrait of her on that day:
Claire’s wedding reception was held at that same place, the Mag. It was a last-minute thing. They were set to have it outdoors at The Francis, another restaurant in town, but rain came blowing in, and Robin, the owner of the Mag, generously offered at the last minute to let them use the big screened porch there.
My wife and kids and I skipped it because we are skittish about Covid, but I hear it was quite a party. Her husband Kiké’s brother and father are, like him, musicians, and they all played. Señor Osorio, up from Colombia, played the accordion. I’m so glad these people are in our family now. Hannah brought news that she thinks she and her Spanish beau are going to be together forever. So we are becoming a family of two languages and branches on three continents.
I would like to write more about all this, but can I tell you what happened tonight? Ten minutes before I was scheduled to do a Zoom interview, I discovered that a pipe had burst in the back bathroom, and was flooding the back third of the house. I got the water turned off, but we have all spent the evening cleaning and trying to dehumidify so we can (please God) avoid having to take out and replace drywall. I’m am worn out and frazzled — I lost some books, which is not good, but my poor wife may have lost a lot more in boxed documents on her flooded home office floor. So tonight, I am grateful that I received a number of interesting letters from y’all about my last post, which featured some discussion of C.G. Jung. Let’s go to the mailbag.
Here’s part of a note from the reader who tipped me off about Richard Noll’s criticism of Jung:
Thank you for taking my warning about Jung seriously. Noll's second book on Jung, The Aryan Christ, published in 1997, may be of even more interest than his first from a Christian point of view. His second book also has a more reasonable price of $18.22 at Amazon. We are repeatedly warned over and over again in the Bible about false teachers, false gospels, and false christs. Jung's demonic influence was far reaching in the 20th century and was a devastating competitor for the church. But one example was the Reich's church in Germany. Please consider whether Noll's second book is an option for you.
My knowledge of Jung alerted me to be cautious with Jordan Peterson, who is deeply Jungian, and his expositions of the Bible stories. Ideas do have consequences and the demonic seeds embedded in Jung's teachings are dangerous. I offer you cautions on Jordon Peterson based on the fact that he is a ferocious defender of Jung when confronted with criticisms of Jung. I would point out to his Christian defenders that Peterson has stated that he is not a Christian a number of times. He is not a trustworthy teacher of the Bible.
Another reader:
Your Friday substack mentioned reading "Fifth Business" and the synchronicity you experienced. I read the Friday substack that evening while on the elliptical at the gym and of course had to click on the video of "Nights on Broadway", a song for some reason I've always loved. After showering, and while getting dressed in the locker room, I was trying my best to stave off the assault of the usual piped in rap music when in the middle of some mindless, atonal "song", a sample of "Staying Alive", emerged, not once but several times. I had to smile. Ok, maybe not an exact synchronicity but close enough. I am an orthodox Catholic, a revert and survivor of the horrible catechesis of the 1970s, and firmly believe in the miraculous and transcendent.
Heh. On Sunday night, I did a deep dive into The Manticore, the second novel of Davies’s Deptford Trilogy. The entire novel is told as a Jungian analysis of the alienated son of a domineering character in Fifth Business. If I told you the dream I had last night about me and my dad, you would laugh at how hackneyed it was.
A reader who doesn’t fully buy Noll’s rejection of Jung writes:
Jordan Peterson is a fan of Jung and also not a Christian. I find the criticism by Noll to be very strange after understanding Peterson’s perspective. Being irrational is not a fault of modern humans following a cult—it’s a basic tenet of human architecture. We are not by any stretch rational beings. Why on earth would one version of archetypal thinking (monotheism) versus another (paganism) be singled out as problematic unless you could show through history that it actually harms societies?
Honestly, maybe your essay is just a bit muddled. Or maybe Noll’s thinking is. But I cannot glean from this what the point of his criticism is. If he’s truly pro-rationality then he’s basically a product of modern thinking that falls flat when trying to explain man’s proclivity toward religion and the divine. So why is he interesting? Why would a psychological theory assumes archetypal thinking and irrationality be a problem when the idea ‘rational man’ so obviously falls short of explaining our motivations. Honestly, a modern economics lecture and Mircea Eliade’s The Sacred and the Profane could answer this in about three chapters. I’m not convinced from this essay anyone need go further down the road with Noll’s work.
A pagan reader:
As a pagan, I gotta disagree with Noll about Jungianism. Not about Jung. I'm sure he knows his stuff about Jung's own life and intellectual history, but 21st century American Jungians always seem to be Pagan Lite types, seeing the gods as archetypes rather than as actual Divine Persons. My high priest has even categorized them as a type of atheist, which should be understandable to any Christians who know their C. S. Lewis. If the gods are archetypes instead of Persons, then they are impersonal forces who won't expect anything from individual humans. "Nothing to fear," as Lewis wrote. "Better still, nothing to obey." I very much doubt that this is how most people in the pre-Christian Classical world saw them.
At the same time, I'm surprised that you missed the moment when Ivan Tyrrell stepped out of his role as interviewer and put forward a notion that should be disturbing to sincere adherents of all the Great World Religions:
"These religions are not about spirituality, are they? The word “religion” comes from a root word meaning “to bind”. Yoga, the Indian word for religion, means, “to yoke”. Institutional religion was the means used to bring some measure of Civilization to barbarians – to “bind” them to civilized practices so that cultures could stabilise and develop. The more religions muddle up this civilizing process with spirituality, the more they degenerate."
He's coming right out and saying that institutional religion is a propaganda device, a tool by which temporal authorities control the populace. Judging by the way he phrases it, he seems to think this is a good thing and that direct contact with deity on the part of ordinary people, whether as theosis or gnosis or simply openness to the miraculous, is a bad thing because it might possibly undermine authority. He really sounds like Civilization is higher on his personal list of sacred things than Christ.
I appreciate the catch. I guess I am so used to that kind of remark about religion coming from a rationalist like Tyrrell that I don’t even bother to give it a second thought. But I do appreciate the opportunity to clarify. My anxiety about Jung is not mostly from a rationalist point of view, but a Christian one. I don’t fear that Jung was dabbling in nonsense, but that he was mainlining the demonic.
Another pagan, this one a personal friend, writes:
As you may recall, I've mentioned a few times my two major "sources" in my intellectual examination of my Pagan faith. Joseph Campbell is the other one, but Carl Jung set my rational basis very early on, and quite possibly helped me keep my sanity when I had no thought but to question it. My experiences were not just personally traumatic, they involved five other people. It was a shared step to the brink of insanity. Jung brought me back in some ways.
I've heard of Noll. He is a widely respected scholar in psychology, and being just a well-read layman I have no standing to question it. He was one of the few to soundly and correctly lambast the general psychology community for supporting the Satanic abuse fictions. I do, however, have a personal view of the schisms in psychology, and I use that term advisedly: Freud, Jung, Adler (from left field, as it were) and the experimenters (Milgram!) of the 20th century each formed a sect of psychology, including adherents whose fanaticism was and is closely reminiscent of religions and their history.
I do wonder if my layman status protects me somewhat from the sectarian aspects. I don't have the academic motivation to pick a side, and I certainly don't have the need to justify myself in a professional practice. I have friends in the profession, one of whom keeps me straight on the details, who corroborate my view. If you accept the premise that secularism is actually a sort of religion, then you can possibly accept that psychology is an old religion which has given rise to multiple sects. Jung's work is just one of several such.
I don't know Noll's motivations, but his writing looks familiar. I've discussed (and argued) this point with knowledgeable and trained Christians along the way, and for many of them labeling Jung's work a cult is a projection, a striking out in revenge because his notion that monotheism suppressed or erased much of the personal stability which polytheism offered strikes much too close to home. It has a ring of truth to it, even if the way it is phrased leaves it open to valid rebuttals. The rational argument settles on one point: no religion ever can validly lay claim to being the perfect faith for us imperfect humans. I live that point every day. It informs my interactions, most especially with the people closest to my heart, you, my devoutly Jewish daughter and her family, the Muslims among my Black friends with whom I spend time. My Pagan faith is entirely transparent to all of them, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
For me, Jung creates an abstract space within which I invite all others to stand and explore. He doesn't reject any religion, he makes every religion possible within the space, and attempts (his success remains arguable with me) to explain how religion could be so diverse and yet find itself so often at very similar destinations. You and others claim that religion is necessary for civilization to exist and thrive. Well, I agree, and you should recognize this (taken from a NYT article which included the quotes):
When a reporter asked him what he thought ofWestern civilization, he famously replied: "I think it would be a good idea." He did not spare journalists either, saying: "I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers." Gandhi was a smart man. That he so eloquently used humor as well just puts him more firmly in my personal pantheon of great thinkers.
We know too much to restrict ourselves to older ways of thinking and of looking at the world. When we either ignore this expanded set of knowledge or we deny it, we set ourselves up for a potentially very dangerous confrontation where our ignorance, settled or wilful, puts us at risk of very real injury. Jung pointed a way to look at our ignorance, to embrace it as a path to further knowledge. He justifies Clarke's "Third Law", that a sufficiently advanced science will look like magic, and the only cure to the magical beliefs is acquiring the knowledge to understand the science. It may not happen ever, it may take another 1,000 years or more, but we are faced with an ever-changing line between science and faith. Where science fails, faith steps up, and this is almost entirely the sanest response we can have. But where science "catches up", where it doesn't deny faith but gives it a chance to relax and focus on other things, it doesn't replace faith. Faith cannot be replaced. It is the very realm of intuition which Noll and others criticize Jung for emphasizing. There is a valid justification for intuition. It never looks right while it is happening, but it almost always proves to be right in hindsight. Faith can be wrong, or perhaps more politely faith can lead us to wrong decisions. It is never proven to be bad, just as science continues to face falsification of its prior theories as evidence and analysis prove them to be at least partly wrong, if not deserving of being replaced. The replacements themselves bear the exact same vulnerability to later evidence and analysis falsifying them as well.
A Catholic reader:
Regarding CG Jung, his links with the occult are obvious, but he seems to have come by them “honestly.“ His mother, whom he did not get along with, was heavily involved in the occult and if I remember, Jung himself thought she was probably in hell. His father, whom he had a good relationship with, was a Protestant minister, and although they differed, Jung retained a respect for religious believers because of his father. Significantly this was the source of his break with Sigmund Freud because Freud insisted that all religious belief was a mania and Jung refused, having known many religious believers who were very sane.
It is true that early experiences and prejudice turned him away from exploring Catholicism, though he seem to have retained a reference for the Blessed Mother that is difficult to explain.
I have been aware for years of the fight about whether or not Jung is a wise person to follow in psychoanalysis: I actually remember the cover story of a charismatic Catholic magazine which featured Jung, and I’m wondering if the Wanderer’s report was set against that. The position of believers that follow Jung is not that he is Christian but that part of his techniques can be baptized and used successfully in therapy or analysis. I believe there are still orthodox Catholics who believe this.
I read a book on him last year as a result of Jordan Peterson, who is the most staunch advocate of Jung today, and it was a mixed bag: profound, profound insights mixed with cuckoo sort of stuff. But the insights were good enough that I couldn’t throw him away. Once again I’m going follow you in referring readers to The Master and His Emissary. It could be that Noll is judging Jung in an excessively left brained way, not realizing that there are states of “betweenness” where CG Jung gives us insight that can be very valuable.
I have no truck with the occult, and not the least interest in it, but I felt moved to speak up in defense of the man himself. I can’t answer for any of the followers that Noll mentioned. I think that one reason that Jordan Peterson is so persuasive when he speaks about Jung is because he brings a rigorous left-brain analysis to the questions as well as right brain openness, which I think is overall fairly balanced.
I appreciate this comment as well. I cannot deny that Jung’s insights (mediated through the Davies novel, and my late devout conservative Catholic friend Michael Rust) really helped me at a crucial stage of my life, and made me much more confident in my Christian faith. Still, reading Noll’s revelations about Jung’s extensive and profound involvement with the occult has shaken me up. I can’t be nearly as settled about him as I once was, though I can’t throw him out either. This needs time for me.
Here’s a neat letter:
On Thursday night, I was up late talking with my dad. It happens often. He stays up late, and my mind has trouble letting go of the day's deep questions and thoughts. It helps that my dad's a pastor with a great theological mind.
That night, I was asking him what the balance is between pursuing a life of holiness as we are called to in Scripture and accepting the reality that I am human (and, therefore, imperfect). I'm still wrestling with that tension.
Then last night, I opened your piece "The Old Jesuit On the Train". It's funny that the concept and stories of synchronicity were mentioned (I've had many such experiences myself) because your piece was something of a synchronistic moment. In the midst of wrestling with this idea of holiness vs. humanity, you highlighted the conversation in the train car between Father Blazon and Ramsay. And there was my answer (or at least, an answer for now):
"Forgive yourself for being a human creature, Ramezay. That is the beginning of wisdom; that is part of what is meant by the fear of God; and for you it is the only way to save your sanity."So I'm forgiving myself for my humanity while striving toward holiness. It's a difficult tension, but one made so much easier when one remembers the grace and goodness of God.
A reader who is on the board of a Jung Society e-mails:
I’m trying out your daily substack and was intrigued to see your thoughts about Jung via your re-reading Fifth Business, but then I was dismayed to see you unearth Richard Noll and his “Jung Cult” hysterics. Noll took fragmentary texts from the as-yet-unpublished Red Book and imagined all sorts of bizarre cultic things in them. But we’ve got the full Red Book now in print, as well as the newly published Black Books which were the journals from which Jung drew that material.
Professor Sonu Shamdasani addresses this issue directly in Cult Fiction: C.G. Jung and the Founding of Analytical Psychology (https://www.amazon.com/Cult-Fictions-Founding-Analytical-Psychology/dp/0415186145/ref=sr_1_8?dchild=1&keywords=sonu+shamdasani&qid=1608388593&s=books&sr=1-8).
There are so many more interesting sources on the intersection of Jungian thought and Christianity. You might try the Jung-White Letters, the correspondence between Jung and Victor White, a Dominican priest: https://www.amazon.com/Jung-White-Letters-Ann-Conrad-Lammers/dp/1583911944/.
I enjoy your Daily Dreher, although I am not a Christian myself and don’t share your politics. But I do like to see your mind roam.
I’m definitely curious about the letters between Jung and the Dominican.
A Davies fan writes:
Since you've discovered Robertson Davies, I just have to make a pitch for my very favourite, Leaven of Malice. It's not weighty or deep, just a perfectly constructed little jewel of a novel. It's hilarious, but at the same time, Davies has deep sympathy and understanding for all his characters - that's what I like best about him. You might particularly enjoy it, because one of the main characters is the editor of a small-town newspaper, and Davies makes the most of the newspaper office as a setting. (Davies himself was a newspaperman, and editor of the Peterborough paper for years.)
Other subcultures explored are bickering academics at a second-string university, and a high-church Anglican parish community, complete with gossiping church ladies and louche organist. It's very Canadian, but it's also about small towns everywhere. The Salterton trilogy (Leaven of Malice is the second of the trilogy, but can stand alone just fine, and it's the best of them) is Davies' earliest, I believe, and I like it best - I'm not a fan of how heavy the Jungian themes got in his work over time. You should read it. It would make a great spousal read-aloud, by the way, if your wife is into that sort of thing. It's so hilarious, I keep inflicting passages on my husband every time I revisit it - which is often.
Funny, but I have the Salterton Trilogy on my bookshelf — I noticed it there today — but I have never read it. My copies of the Deptford Trilogy and the Cornish Trilogy are so well-used that the covers fell off. Maybe it’s time to pick up Salterton.
Well, that’s it for tonight. Thanks to all my correspondents, who filled in for me when I couldn’t carry the weight. I just went into to check on the progress of the industrial-strength dehumidifiers, and holy cow, the air is so dry back there that the acoustics are noticeably heightened. I had no idea that our super-humid air here in Louisiana had such an effect on the transmission of sound waves. The poor things have to swim through soup to reach our eardrums!
Remember, write to Your Working Boy at roddreher — at — substack — dot — com. I don’t have time to answer, but I do read everything.