segunda-feira, 6 de agosto de 2018

A letter of Carl Gustav Jung critical of some spiritual teachers: Blavatsky, Steiner, Bô Yin Râ, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and their books. 1954.

A significative letter of Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), already in his maturity, expressing his thoughts about some of his contemporary spiritual teachers, like Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Rudolf Steiner and Bô Yin Râ, and also about the Communists, was published in the Letters, vol. 2, pp. 179-180:
«13 July, 1954
Dear Herr [Fernando] Cassani
Best thanks for your friendly letter. I can only tell you that none of my books represents a "syntesis or foundation of my work" at least not in my view. I am not a philosopher who might be able to achieve something as ambitious as that, but an empiricist who describes the progress of his experiences; thus, my work has no absolute beginning and no all-encompassing end. It is like the life of an individual, which suddenly becomes visible somewhere but rests on definite though invisible foundations, so has no proper beginning and no proper end, ceasing just as suddenly and leaving questions behind which should have been answered. You do not know my later (and perhaps more important) works yet. I therefore enclose a list of them.
As for the writings of Ouspensky and Gurdjieff, I know enough to satisfy me that I have no time for them. I seek real knowledge and therefore avoid all unverifiable speculation. I have seen enough of that as a psychiatrist. You might as well recommend Mme. Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled or the compendious opus of Rudolph Steiner or Bô-Yin-Râ (why not Schneiderfranken?). Anyway, I thank you for your good intentions.
It is so difficult to establish facts that I detest anything that obscures them. You can attribute this to a déformation professionelle.
I naturally agree with that you say about freedom of thought. The Communist doesn't come into this category, since he doesn't think, but his actions are a danger to the public. If he thought, he would have found out his deceit long ago.
Hope you will excuse my freedom of thought,
Your sincerely, C. G. Jung.»
Let us give some more attention to this important quotation of Jung's letter: «As for the writings of Ouspensky and Gurdjieff, I know enough to satisfy me that I have no time for them. I seek real knowledge and therefore avoid all unverifiable speculation. I have seen enough of that as a psychiatrist. You might as well recommend Mme. Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled or the compendious opus of Rudolph Steiner or Bô-Yin-Râ (why not Schneiderfranken?)»
Gurdjieff
 We see that Carl GustavJung feels satisfied with what he knows and that he avoids what is not possible to verify, considering that the teachings of Gurdjieff (1866-1949), Ouspensky (1878-1947), Blavatsky (1831-1891), Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) and Bô Yin Râ (1876-1943) are mostlty inverifiable, and that may lead to some psychiatric troubles, as himself as doctor and psychiatrist had already faced and probably helped to cure, or normalize in many cases...

At the end of the letter, Carl G., Jung gives a kind of justification for his severity of judgements: a déformation professionelle. Or, he is so much a psychiatric that he sees easily possibilities of psychic problems in the life of the persons, coming from their occult, or religious beliefs or even, worst, visions and revelations... 
It is interesting to note the caracterization of the work of Rudolf Steiner, at that time already dead (1861-1925), as "compendious work", or, in other words, some books and many conferences that will become too much books. But we have in another letter of C. G. Jung's correspondance more condennations of Rudolf Steiner teachings and clairvoyance, as he would read the Atlantean inscriptions but not the archeological ones of the Hittites:
"So long as Steiner is or was not able to understand the Hittite inscriptions yet understood the language of Atlantis which nobody knows existed, there is no reason to get excited about anything that Herr Steiner has said" – Letters, vol. I, pp. 203-4, a statement a bit exagerated as Rudolf Steiner could be misguided by his intuitions in many cases but that doesn't rule out the ones where he was really clairvoyant. And if in fact sometimes he went away from the truth with some imaginations and successive reincarnations, in our days there is still many people aplying and feeling well with his teachings on Waldorf education, health and Weleda organic products and bio-dynamic agriculture, worldwide. About Blavatsky, Q. Judge and others, Isis without Veil, C. Gustav Jung is correct as the work is a patchwork of hundreds of books and thousand of informations, many obscure, decontextualized and mystified.
Rudolf Steiner...
About the spiritual painter and master Bô Yin Râ (1876-1943), that was born in a simple family of peasants of Baviera as Joseph Scheiderfranken, after questionning if he ever read any of his works (and it seems not) there is what seems a sort of irony, with a bit of class superiority, as he asks: "why he doesn't say that his name is not Bô Yin Râ, but the more prosaic Schneiderfranken, a tailor?"
Bô Yin Râ
 We feel bad with this kind of critic, just by the change of name, and arguing that its name of familly was a prosaic one, a tailor, probalbly hinting that his ancestors were tailors. Even if that was true, what is the bad of having good manual artists as ancestors?
 Anyway Bô Yin Râ explained more than one time why he received that particular name, according to the caracteristic energies of his spiritual soul, from the oriental master who  initiated him when he was in Greece. 
Didn't Jung know that pratice from the Eastern tradition, or even in the West and christianity, or is he doubting about the reality of that claim and making Bô Yin Râ just a mystificator? 
Interesting is the fact that there is no word about his teachings, only the general inclusion in the inverifiable ones, when Bô Yin Râ so differently from many, asked people just to learn and realize and then know and affirm.
As the teachers mentioned have all passed away at that time of the writing of the letter, 1954, we can see that C. Gustav Jung is mostly desqualifying the teachings and the books, and in a response to Fernando Cassani who probably asked him about these teachers and their teachings. 
At the end of the letter Carl G. Jung goes a bit too much also against the common communist person saying that is someone who doesn't think and so his actions are dangerous for the public. We may feel the conservative side of Jung more visible in this way of expressing, probably also (or he want to believe) in a exagerated ironic sketch as we know of so many great thinkers and artists that were communists...
To finish, Jung asks forgiveness to Fernando Cassani, not for the expressions used, neither for the critical aspect or "déformation professionelle" showed, but for his freedom of thought...
A freedom fighter?
In a certain way, yes, as Jung is surely fighting against the possibility of errors and mystifications of occultism and of pseudo-spiritual teachers and teachings, so prevalent in the modern new Age mouvements and in most of the gurus, teachers and channelers of our days,  and against the Communism, with its good and tragic aspects for the evolution of Mankind, and in our days supersed by the omnipotent massification and alienation of people by the Media at the service of forces and beings of a elite surely against freedom and justice, truth and love. But most probably his psycho-spiritual limitations also blinded  him to see better in the spiritual realms and give truer judgements on the spiritual path and their teachers.
So, let us proceed with caution, either reading Carl G. Jung or the others, as human ignorance is still so vast, and let us be humble and search with eagerness and aspiration that inner Light of the Star (as in the engraving of Bô Yin Râ) in the path of Truth, and surely with mens sana in corpore sano as stone foundation.

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