Memories, Dreams, Reflections

by C. G. Jung

  At any rate, a schism had taken place between me and No. 2, with the result that “I” was assigned to No. 1 and was separated from No. 2 in the same degree, who thereby acquired, as it were, an autonomous personality. I did not connect this with the idea of any definite individuality, such as a revenant might have, although with my rustic origins this possibility would not have seemed strange to me. In the country people believe in these things according to the circumstances: they are and they are not. The only distinct feature about this spirit was his historical character, his extension in time, or rather, his timelessness. Of course I did not tell myself this in so many words, nor did I form any conception of his spatial existence. He played the role of a factor in the background of my No. 1 existence, never clearly defined but yet definitely present.

  Children react much less to what grown-ups say than to the imponderables in the surrounding atmosphere. The child unconsciously adapts himself to them, and this produces in him correlations of a compensatory nature. The peculiar “religious” ideas that came to me even in my earliest childhood were spontaneous products which can be understood only as reactions to my parental environment and to the spirit of the age. The religious doubts to which my father was later to succumb naturally had to pass through a long period of incubation. Such a revolution of one’s world, and of the world in general, threw its shadows ahead, and the shadows were all the longer, the more desperately my father’s conscious mind resisted their power. It is not surprising that my father’s forebodings put him in a state of unrest, which then communicated itself to me.

  I never had the impression that these influences emanated from my mother, for she was somehow rooted in deep, invisible ground, though it never appeared to me as confidence in her Christian faith. For me it was somehow connected with animals, trees, mountains, meadows, and running water, all of which contrasted most strangely with her Christian surface and her conventional assertions of faith. This background corresponded so well to my own attitude that it caused me no uneasiness; on the contrary, it gave me a sense of security and the conviction that here was solid ground on which one could stand. It never occurred to me how “pagan” this foundation was. My mother’s “No. 2” offered me the strongest support in the conflict then beginning between paternal tradition and the strange, compensatory products which my unconscious had been stimulated to create.

  Looking back, I now see how very much my development as a child anticipated future events and paved the way for modes of adaptation to my father’s religious collapse as well as to the shattering revelation of the world as we see it today—a revelation which had not taken shape from one day to the next, but had cast its shadows long in advance. Although we human beings have our own personal life, we are yet in large measure the representatives, the victims and promoters of a collective spirit whose years are counted in centuries. We can well think all our lives long that we are following our own noses, and may never discover that we are, for the most part, supernumeraries on the stage of the world theater. There are factors which, although we do not know them, nevertheless influence our lives, the more so if they are unconscious. Thus at least a part of our being lives in the centuries—that part which, for my private use, I have designated “No. 2.” That it is not an individual curiosity is proved by the religion of the West, which expressly applies itself to this inner man and for two thousand years has earnestly tried to bring him to the knowledge of our surface consciousness with its personalistic preoccupations: “Non foras ire, in interiore homine habitat veritas” (Go not outside; truth dwells in the inner man).

  During the years 1892-94 I had a number of rather vehement discussions with my father. He had studied Oriental languages in Göttingen and had done his dissertation on the Arabic version of the Song of Songs. His days of glory had ended with his final examination. Thereafter he forgot his linguistic talent. As a country parson he lapsed into a sort of sentimental idealism and into reminiscences of his golden student days, continued to smoke a long student’s pipe, and discovered that his marriage was not all he had imagined it to be. He did a great deal of good—far too much—and as a result was usually irritable. Both parents made great efforts to live devout lives, with the result that there were angry scenes between them only too frequently. These difficulties, understandably enough, later shattered my father’s faith.

  At that time his irritability and discontent had increased, and his condition filled me with concern. My mother avoided everything that might excite him and refused to engage in disputes. Though I realized that this was the wisest course to take, often I could not keep my own temper in check. I would remain passive during his outbursts of rage, but when he seemed to be in a more accessible mood I sometimes tried to strike up a conversation with him, hoping to learn something about his inner thoughts and his understanding of himself. It was clear to me that something quite specific was tormenting him, and I suspected that it had to do with his faith. From a number of hints he let fall I was convinced that he suffered from religious doubts. This, it seemed to me, was bound to be the case if the necessary experience had not come to him. From my attempts at discussion I learned in fact that something of the sort was amiss, for all my questions were met with the same old lifeless theological answers, or with a resigned shrug which aroused the spirit of contradiction in me. I could not understand why he did not seize on these opportunities pugnaciously and come to terms with his situation. I saw that my critical questions made him sad, but I nevertheless hoped for a constructive talk, since it appeared almost inconceivable to me that he should not have had experience of God, the most evident of all experiences. I knew enough about epistemology to realize that knowledge of this sort could not be proved, but it was equally clear to me that it stood in no more need of proof than the beauty of a sunset or the terrors of the night. I tried, no doubt very clumsily, to convey these obvious truths to him, with the hopeful intention of helping him to bear the fate which had inevitably befallen him. He had to quarrel with somebody, so he did it with his family and himself. Why didn’t he do it with God, the dark author of all created things, who alone was responsible for the sufferings of the world? God would assuredly have sent him by way of an answer one of those magical, infinitely profound dreams which He had sent to me even without being asked, and which had sealed my fate. I did not know why, it simply was so. Yes, He had even allowed me a glimpse into His own being. This was a great secret which I dared not and could not reveal to my father. I might have been able to reveal it had he been capable of understanding the direct experience of God. But in my talks with him I never got that far, never even came within sight of the problem, because I always set about it in a very unpsychological and intellectual way, and did everything possible to avoid the emotional aspects. Each time this approach was like a red rag to a bull and led to irritable reactions which were incomprehensible to me. I was unable to understand how a perfectly rational argument could meet with such emotional resistance.

  These fruitless discussions exasperated my father and me, and in the end we abandoned them, each burdened with his own specific feeling of inferiority. Theology had alienated my father and me from one another. I felt that I had once again suffered a fatal defeat, though I sensed I was not alone. I had a dim premonition that he was inescapably succumbing to his fate. He was lonely and had no friend to talk with. At least I knew no one among our acquaintances whom I would have trusted to say the saving word. Once I heard him praying. He struggled desperately to keep his faith. I was shaken and outraged at once, because I saw how hopelessly he was entrapped by the Church and its theological thinking. They had blocked all avenues by which he might have reached God directly, and then faithlessly abandoned him. Now I understood the deepest meaning of my earlier experience: God Himself had disavowed theology and the Church founded upon it. On the other hand God condoned this theology, as He condoned so much else. It seemed ridiculous to me to suppose that men were responsible for such developments. What were men, anyway? “They a
re born dumb and blind as puppies,” I thought, “and like all God’s creatures are furnished with the dimmest light, never enough to illuminate the darkness in which they grope.” I was equally sure that none of the theologians I knew had ever seen “the light that shineth in the darkness” with his own eyes, for if they had they would not have been able to teach a “theological religion,” which seemed quite inadequate to me, since there was nothing to do with it but believe it without hope. This was what my father had tried valiantly to do, and had run aground. He could not even defend himself against the ridiculous materialism of the psychiatrists. This, too, was something that one had to believe, just like theology, only in the opposite sense. I felt more certain than ever that both of them lacked epistemological criticism as well as experience.

  My father was obviously under the impression that psychiatrists had discovered something in the brain which proved that in the place where mind should have been there was only matter, and nothing “spiritual.” This was borne out by his admonitions that if I studied medicine I should in Heaven’s name not become a materialist. To me this warning meant that I ought to believe nothing at all, for I knew that materialists believed in their definitions just as the theologians did in theirs, and that my poor father had simply jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. I recognized that this celebrated faith of his had played this deadly trick on him, and not only on him but on most of the cultivated and serious people I knew. The arch sin of faith, it seemed to me, was that it forestalled experience. How did the theologians know that God had deliberately arranged certain things and “permitted” certain others, and how did the psychiatrists know that matter was endowed with the qualities of the human mind? I was in no danger of succumbing to materialism, but my father certainly was. Apparently someone had whispered something about “suggestion,” for I discovered that he was reading Bernheim’s book on suggestion in Sigmund Freud’s translation.1 This was a new and significant departure, for I had never before seen my father reading anything but novels or an occasional travel book. All “clever” and interesting books were taboo. But his psychiatric reading made him no happier. His depressive moods increased in frequency and intensity, and so did his hypochondria. For a number of years he had complained of all sorts of abdominal symptoms, though his doctor had been unable to find anything definite wrong with him. Now he complained of the sensation of having “stones in the abdomen.” For a long time we did not take this seriously, but at last the doctor became suspicious. This was toward the end of the summer of 1895.

  In the spring of that year I had begun my studies at the University of Basel. The only time in my life that I have ever been bored—my school days at the Gymnasium—was over at last and the golden gates to the universitas litterarum and to academic freedom were opening wide for me. Now I would hear the truth about nature, at least its most essential aspects. I would learn all there was to know about the anatomy and physiology of man, and would acquire knowledge of the diseases. In addition to all this, I was admitted into a color-wearing fraternity to which my father had belonged. Early in my freshman year he came along on a fraternity outing to a wine-growing village in the Markgrafen country and there delivered a whimsical speech in which, to my delight, the gay spirit of his own student days came back again. I realized in a flash that his life had come to a standstill at his graduation, and the verse of a student song echoed in my ears:

  Sie zogen mit gesenktem Blick

  In das Philisterland zurück.

  O jerum, jerum, jerum,

  O quae mutatio rerum!2

  The words fell heavily on my soul. Once upon a time he too had been an enthusiastic student in his first year, as I was now; the world had opened out for him, as it was doing for me; the infinite treasures of knowledge had spread before him, as now before me. How can it have happened that everything was blighted for him, had turned to sourness and bitterness? I found no answer, or too many. The speech he delivered that summer evening over the wine was the last chance he had to live out his memories of the time when he was what he should have been. Soon afterward his condition deteriorated. In the late autumn of 1895 he became bedridden, and early in 1896 he died.

  I had come home after lectures, and asked how he was. “Oh, still the same. He’s very weak,” my mother said. He whispered something to her, which she repeated to me, warning me with her eyes of his delirious condition: “He wants to know whether you have passed the state examination.” I saw that I must lie. “Yes, it went very well.” He sighed with relief, and closed his eyes. A little later I went in to see him again. He was alone; my mother was doing something in the adjoining room. There was a rattling in his throat, and I could see that he was in the death agony. I stood by his bed, fascinated. I had never seen anyone die before. Suddenly he stopped breathing. I waited and waited for the next breath. It did not come. Then I remembered my mother and went into the next room, where she sat by the window, knitting. “He is dying,” I said. She came with me to the bed, and saw that he was dead. She said as if in wonderment: “How quickly it has all passed.”

  The following days were gloomy and painful, and little of them has remained in my memory. Once my mother spoke to me or to the surrounding air in her “second” voice, and remarked, “He died in time for you.” Which appeared to mean: “You did not understand each other and he might have become a hindrance to you.” This view seemed to me to fit in with my mother’s No. 2 personality.

  The words “for you” hit me terribly hard, and I felt that a bit of the old days had now come irrevocably to an end. At the same time, a bit of manliness and freedom awoke in me. After my father’s death I moved into his room, and took his place inside the family. For instance, I had to hand out the housekeeping money to my mother every week, because she was unable to economize and could not manage money.

  Six weeks after his death my father appeared to me in a dream. Suddenly he stood before me and said that he was coming back from his holiday. He had made a good recovery and was now coming home. I thought he would be annoyed with me for having moved into his room. But not a bit of it! Nevertheless, I felt ashamed because I had imagined he was dead. Two days later the dream was repeated. My father had recovered and was coming home, and again I reproached myself because I had thought he was dead. Later I kept asking myself: “What does it mean that my father returns in dreams and that he seems so real?” It was an unforgettable experience, and it forced me for the first time to think about life after death.

  With the death of my father difficult problems arose concerning the continuation of my studies. Some of my mother’s relations took the view that I ought to look for a clerk’s job in a business house, so as to earn money as quickly as possible. My mother’s youngest brother offered to help her, since her resources were not nearly sufficient to live on. An uncle on my father’s side helped me. At the end of my studies I owed him three thousand francs. The rest I earned by working as a junior assistant and by helping an aged aunt dispose of her small collection of antiques. I sold them piece by piece at good prices, and received a very welcome percentage.

  I would not have missed this time of poverty. One learns to value simple things. I still remember the time when I was given a box of cigars as a present. It seemed to me princely. They lasted a whole year, for I allowed myself one only on Sundays.

  My student days were a good time for me. Everything was intellectually alive, and it was also a time of friendships. In the fraternity meetings I gave several lectures on theological and psychological subjects. We had many animated discussions, and not always about medical questions only. We argued over Schopenhauer and Kant, we knew all about the stylistic niceties of Cicero, and were interested in theology and philosophy.

  During my student days I received much stimulation in regard to religious questions. At home I had the welcome opportunity to talk with a theologian who had been my father’s vicar. He was distinguished not only by his phenomenal appetite, which put mine quite in the shade, but by his remarka
ble erudition. From him I learned a great deal about the Church Fathers and the history of dogma. He also introduced me to new aspects of Protestant theology. Ritschl’s theology was much in fashion in those days. Its historicism irritated me, especially the comparison with a railway train.3 The theological students with whom I had discussions in the fraternity all seemed quite content with the theory of the historical effect produced by Christ’s life. This view seemed to me not only soft-witted but altogether lifeless. Neither could I subscribe to the tendency to move Christ into the foreground and make him the sole decisive figure in the drama of God and man. To me this absolutely belied Christ’s own view that the Holy Ghost, who had begotten him, would take his place among men after his death.

  For me the Holy Ghost was a manifestation of the inconceivable God. The workings of the Holy Ghost were not only sublime but also partook of that strange and even questionable quality which characterized the deeds of Yahweh, whom I naively identified with the Christian image of God, as I had been taught in my instruction for confirmation. (I was also not aware at this time that the devil, properly speaking, had been born with Christianity.) Lord Jesus was to me unquestionably a man and therefore a fallible figure, or else a mere mouthpiece of the Holy Ghost. This highly unorthodox view, a far cry from the theological one, naturally ran up against utter incomprehension. The disappointment I felt about this gradually led me to a kind of resigned indifference, and confirmed my conviction that in religious matters only experience counted.