The Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung

Richard Noll's 'Aryan Christ' presented to readers the Jung which which the recent publication of the Red Book confirms. Those interested in contextualising Jung and his journal or even to just 'de-code' the Red Book will benefit from reading Richard Noll's 'Aryan Christ'.

To some of us who have read widely and been around a long time, the "revelations" in this book consist less in its main theses than in the detailed evidence provided by the author. Jung's affections for the Nazis have been extensively documented elsewhere, so this is perhaps the least surprising of the major points Noll describes. In fact, the Jung Institute itself issued a book--Jung's Shadow--in an attempt to defuse at least some of the dismay arising from information dribbling out from behind the Archetypal wall. For some, the fact that Jung was more pagan than not in his spiritual leanings, will be hot stuff; to me, it's old hat; the interest, as I said, is in the specifics provided by Noll. The fact that Jung was not monogamous may similarly upset--or titillate--some people coming for the first time to know the man behind the mask, but once again, it's no great excitement to those who have read widely in psycho-spiritual literature. That Jung regarded himself as having been initiated and elevated to the rank of a god, depends on how 'god' is understood...and Noll does a good job of showing that this was intended in a pagan sense, and not a Judeo-Christian one. All in all, this is an informative book, one that provided documentation and detail--both things the Jung Archives try to prevent by keeping The Great One's original works and personal correspondence controlled and under seal.

As you can see from the diversity of viewpoints expressed both here and in reviews of Noll's "The Jung Cult", this is a highly controversial history of Jung's work with an emphasis on aspects that Noll claims have been suppressed. When I was debating whether or not to buy this book, I found one seemingly scholarly review that called it "bad history" and, just now wondering whether I should say what I am about to write, I did further searches and found several other, seemingly reasonable reviews which take Noll to task for bad scholarship. So, as one should always, I will try to remain open to the possibility that I have been misled. But the diary extracts, letters, and other source material from which Noll's conclusions are drawn are carefully footnoted and mostly gleaned from libraries where anyone could easily show deception if that were the case. So, for the moment, Noll has convinced me that there is a dark side (both in the Jungian and conventional sense) to Jung. I came to this book with a very high regard for Jung and seeing him as a guardian of truth in standing up to Freud's dogmatic insistence on the sexual basis of all neuroses. I still regard Jung as brilliant and having made extremely important contributions to humanity, but I now see a more balanced picture. Freud may have been too focused on sexuality, but apparently so was Jung, although in a much more personal way. Noll provides a convincing picture of Jung as being secretly dogmatic that a form of free love is essential to psychological health. Jung's sexual relationships with patients and coworkers, and his advice to patients to have extramarital affairs seem incontrovertible based on the evidence presented here. I suspect that much of the criticism of Noll is based on his evidence that Jung was heavily into an Aryan world viewpoint, which immediately conjures up Nazi stereotypes in our minds. Noll repeatedly tries to counteract that understandable tendency, saying for example (last paragraph of the Introduction) "But the most troublesome part of this story comes from asking you, the reader, to do the morally impossible: to imagine a world - fin-de-siecle German Kultur - in which the words "Hitler" and "Nazi" and "Holocaust" do not exist." Along these lines, it helps to remember that many intelligent, respectable, well-meaning Americans (e.g., Lindberg, Joseph Kennedy Sr.) were early Nazi supporters, just as many were early Communist supporters. The horrendous evils perpetrated in the names of Aryanism and Communism were not present in their early philosophies. It also helps to remember that anti-Semitism and racism in general were the cultural norm througout the world until well into the 1960's or 1970's. It was almost impossible NOT to be prejudiced in Jung's time. (A related book that touches on psychoanalysis and anti-Semitism and that I highly recommend is Bakan's "Sigmund Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition.") Another problem concerns Noll's evidence that Jung di

I read several of Jung's books over the years, and I enjoyed them. Still, it always bothered me when Jung writes that he has scientific evidence backing his theories, yet doesn't offer any. He just tosses out a few interesting anecdotes, basically saying, "There! You see? I was right." As for Noll's book, I think that it's an important contribution to understanding the historical and cultural background of European psychiatry and psychology. Prior to WWII, the racial beliefs were mainstream beliefs in Europe, in all classes and professions, including academia. The importance placed upon it differed from person to person, of course. And the main intellectual and social challenge to racism/racialism came from European socialists, who believed that class was more important than race. Jung was an intellectual who shared these racial beliefs. It's clear that he did believe that Europeans were FUNDAMENTALLY different from Africans and Asians. In his autobiography, he writes about his tour of Africa and clearly states that the consciousness of most Africans was "primitive," existing too close to the "collective unconscious," in a kind of twilight, dreamy fog. And he says that he was "in danger" of succumbing to this state while he was there, whatever that means. He also didn't believe that Jews were really Europeans. Noll mentions that Jung considered Freudian psychology to be by Jews for Jews, whereas Jung's branch was for "Aryans," or Europeans. Noll points out, however, that Jung wasn't malicious about any of this. It wasn't until after World War Two that these ideas, beliefs, and theories were universally condemned in Europe. The Nazi slaughter of millions based upon "race" discredited racial theory, or what we now call racism. "Aryan" wasn't really a dirty word before the Nazis. When you realize this from reading Noll's book, you start to understand that while the phrase "Aryan Christ" is emotionally charged in OUR time, it wasn't during most of Jung's life. And that's really interesting. According to Noll, Jungtoned down or hid these aspects of his theories after World War Two, while also trying to sever and deny any links he had with race "scholars," some of whom were Nazis. I think that Noll is saying that Jung was racist primarily because Europe was racist during most of his life. Europeans had invaded, conquered, and colonized most of the planet since the 16th Century. Even so, most Europeans, like Jung, weren't interested in acting upon their beliefs in any hateful or malicious way. If you're not one of Jung's True Believers, read the book. It's pretty interesting.