Salome’s Embrace

The Jungian Women

Maggy Anthony

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780415787215
• eBook ISBN: 9781351849753
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

C. G. Jung, a man who accomplished a revolution in analytical psychology and made an impact both directly and indirectly on a great number of people, also took women seriously. The release of The Red Book has greatly added to our knowledge of Jung's relationship with the feminine: from his mother, his wife and his extramarital affairs to the effect these had on the formulation of his psychology and on the women who had the courage to explore the need for a spiritual link to Jung and who became known as the Valkyries.

In this revised and expanded study of the many women in Jung's close circle, Anthony explores the women who followed Jung during his lifetime, his need for their company, and their contributions to his work. The book includes studies of Emma Jung, Sabina Spielrein and Toni Wolff, as well as Jung's mother Emilie, and many other collaborators and followers. It also includes chapters on The Red Book, the Zurich Psychological Club and Dadaism. Including never-before published primary material, including interviews with the women themselves, Salome's Embrace assesses their work and its value for the generations of Jungian analysts that have followed, including women who practice depth psychology today.

The book will be of great interest to analytical psychologists and Jungian psychotherapists in practice and in training, academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian studies, gender, and women's history.

1

The beginning

Opening to the world

In the fall of 1948 in Zurich, after more than thirty years of working in the protected atmosphere of the Psychological Club as a small, closely knit, if sometimes contentious group, shielded from an often confused and hostile public, Jung and his circle opened the doors to the world. It was an exciting day, but the excitement was expressed in that repressed way which is very Swiss. The old building on the Gemeindestrasse with the staid Victorian exterior seemed to belie the momentousness of the occasion. Symbolically, the doors opened, not onto the street, but into a small, sheltered courtyard that had to be entered from the sidewalk. It was located in the realm of the gods,

where it runs past Minervastrasse (the street of the Goddess of Wisdom) and the Neptunestrasse (the street of the God of the Sea – in Jung’s psychology, often a symbol of the unconscious) and not far away are Mercurstrasse (the street of Mercury, deity much discussed by Jung), and the Heliostrasse, and the Lunastrasse (the streets of the Sun and the Moon which, Zurich geography imitating alchemical tradition, merge), and Wotanstrasse (the street … related to … Dionysus).

(Bishop 1994, p. 95)

As each student pressed the outside bell, Fraulein Amman would come to the massive wooden door, open it cautiously and enquire as to who was there, and what was the nature of their business. It must have seemed rather more like requesting an audience with the Pope than attending a place of higher education. The confused accents of the young American students, the Schweitzer-Deutsch of the Zurich students, and the more formal High German of the doctors and professors swept over the impassive countenance of this human watchdog as she conducted them into a small classroom inside. Fraulein Amman would then retire to the tiny kitchen and begin preparations for the coffee to be served midway through the class.

Every once in a while, the secretary, Fraulein Aniela Jaffé, would peek nervously into the subdued classroom to see if all were gathered yet.

At last the door opened and Frau Jolande Jacobi, a petite, well-dressed woman of middle age, walked in and went to the podium. She glanced nervously at the twelve students who had gathered and seated themselves, somewhat defensively, at the back of the classroom. She smiled a bit tremulously at them and said, “Please. Come to the front of the room. I’m an extravert and I like to have people around me.” In spite of the obvious strength that emanated from her, it was apparent she needed the support of the students. Reluctantly they gathered their books and papers, slowly making their ways to the front of the classroom. The first day of the C. G. Jung Institute for Analytical Psychology had begun.

In the weeks that followed, nervousness was the dominant feature of the teaching staff, which was made up of those women who were part of the inner circle around Jung, most from the earliest days of his career. The nervousness was due to the fact that for the first time they were presenting material to people outside their charmed circle. The composition of the teaching staff changed over the years as new teachers came in and others returned to their home countries to spread the Jungian word. But in general, they were known to the students by several irreverent nicknames: the Vestal Virgins, the Maenads, the Jungfrauen, and the Valkyries.

According to one of the many American students of the early days of the Institute, nervousness seemed out of character in these otherwise intellectually formidable women. However, in retrospect, it can be appreciated that the business of becoming public, after Jung and his thought had been almost a family affair for decades previously, would almost certainly make for tension. The fact there had been so much in-fighting and hurt feelings as the Institute was being formed certainly didn’t help. Toni Wolff was left out, as was Linda Fierz-David, and Dr. Jacobi, who was not much liked by the others, ultimately got her way in so much of the planning. Not to mention she was given a place on the Curatorium despite the protests of many of the others.

Jung had the last word in many matters concerning the framework. “When the Institute was founded in 1948, [Jung] said the institute was a research center with teaching of certain basic things such as anthropology and folklore. It was not a training institute” (Hillman and Shamdasani 2013, p. 144). Over the years that followed, much of that changed. However, shortly after Jung’s seventieth birthday on July 26, 1945, he had told Jacobi to go to Geneva to prepare a study on how best to found an institute in Zurich. He apparently said to her, “We have all these old ladies here, all sick people … only cured or half-cured patients but no scientists” (Bair 2003, pp. 506–507). He was obviously anxious that the institute would be intellectually sound. And that was perhaps why he insisted on her having a role in it. Also, he felt that as an extravert, she would have greater means of communicating with the outside world.

Jung himself chose the first Curatorium, or Board of Directors. On it he put two men, C. A. Meier and Ludwig Binswanger, both distinguished analysts. He chose two of the more outgoing women as the other members: Dr. Jacobi and Liliane Frey-Rohn. There was a great deal of controversy over his choice of Dr. Jacobi. As we shall later see, she was not popular among the members of the Zurich Psychological Club. After much challenging, Jung had his way, naturally, claiming she was the most adept of them all in dealing with the public. Dr. Joseph Henderson referred to her as the Sol Hurok of Jungian affairs, and maintained she was the most exasperating woman, who grated on the nerves of the more introverted Jungians (Henderson 1977). Perhaps there was a small amount of jealousy over her natural ability to charm people. Difficult or not, much of the Institute was created from her prodigious energies.

It soon became evident that the Institute was a showcase for the variety of talents and personalities of the women around Jung. And, more than any of his male contemporaries, it was women who were particularly drawn to his work and personality. Some reasons for this were more apparent than others. One major reason was that in the early twentieth century, women were still very much second-class citizens. As Dr. Liliane Frey-Rohn put it, “Women were still thought to be without souls” (Frey-Rohn 1978). Few creative men, during the first half of that century, took women seriously at all, still less would men willingly take them on as collaborators or assistants as Jung did, though they might just find them useful as muses.

Jung, from the beginning, took women seriously, mainly perhaps because of his own psychological makeup, as we shall see. He wrote an article in 1927 titled “Woman in Europe,” which was to attract many of his female followers in spite of such now-obviously sexist remarks as, “But no one can get around the fact that by taking up a masculine profession, studying and working like a man, woman is doing something not wholly in accord with, if not directly injurious, to her feminine nature.” And, “It is a woman’s outstanding characteristic that she can do anything for the love of a man. But those women who achieve something important for the love of a THING are most exceptional, because this does not agree with their nature. Love for a thing is a man’s prerogative” (Jung 1970, pp. 117 and 118). These remarks must be taken in the context of the time and of the very traditional Swiss culture from which he came.

He was also a very dynamic and physically attractive man, and this cannot be underestimated as part of his power. He was bursting with physical and mental vitality, which made him appear a natural healer of souls. “Von Franz was overwhelmed by the towering Jung, many years later she recalled how she fell for him in a terrific transference and a big schoolgirl crush” (Bair 2003, p. 369). And, “Although Jung was twenty-eight years older than I was, I found him an extremely attractive man. Tall, with a large, healthy frame and a handsome rather leonine head, Jung exuded health and vigor” (Bancroft 1983, p. 92).

These, and many other impressions of Jung from women encountering him for the first time, seem reminiscent of Walter Otto’s description of Dionysus as an “indestructible” life force. Also Jung’s personal psychology must be taken into consideration, which made him particularly vulnerable and open to the feminine, though wary.

From the beginnings of his private practice, Jung had a disproportionately large number of women patients. Although the aforementioned attractiveness played its part, another reason may have been his difficulties in relating to men. He admits this in a letter to Freud (McGuire 1974). Many of the Jungian men I interviewed felt he was an overwhelming figure, whose sheer force of personality and stature made them feel unimportant. Most of the men got away as soon as possible so their own lights could shine.

The women came as patients and many remained as analysts, colleagues, or helpers of one sort or another, particularly the unmarried ones. Jung’s vitality, good looks, and impression of being larger than life did not threaten them, and merely added to their attachment to him. He was also very much in touch, through his important, if difficult relationship to his mother, with what is described in Jungian thought as the feminine side of his nature, or anima, which had its shadowy and negative side too. Observers have said he was very aware of his effect upon women and felt it entailed a responsibility from which he never tried to escape. It might also be said he never did anything to discourage it. “He never let you down” (Wheelwright, Jane 1977). He did hold to the view prevalent at that time that women related to life solely through men. However, he did feel it was important for women to have their own work, though one has the impression that often this was to prevent the full force of the mother’s and wife’s energies focusing on the husband and children to their detriment. The fear of women was in Jung too.

As a young American man, Joe Wheelwright, coming to Jung shortly before the Second World War, was indignant about the women who seemed to form a human cordon around Jung. Wheelwright said something to Jung to the effect that he didn’t see how Jung could stand “those old girls” fluttering around him. Jung became very angry and told him that every one of the women was doing important and creative work and that not only were they a help to him, but they were furthering the knowledge and understanding of psychology. His psychology. He went on to say they had come to him when they had not been able to function well, but now they could. He admitted they seemed to need a lifeline to him and that as long as he saw them once every three months, six months or a year, they could function well. He added that he loved and respected these women, even though it was a burden being the spiritual father who energized them, and he kept them in equilibrium so they could keep on doing their good work. “Wait until you are my age, and if you don’t have a few of these ‘old girls’ hanging around, I’ll be surprised … and by that time you will have changed your attitude toward them” (Wheelwright, Joseph 1977).

This reveals much about Jung and his attitude to the women around him. From the journal of another man we hear that “Unkind gossip has accused these disciples and auditors of snobbery. But when someone raised the objection that a majority of his disciples were women, Jung is said to have replied, ‘What’s to be done? Psychology after all is the science of the soul, and it is not my fault that the soul is a woman.’” A jest; but for anyone who has followed his teachings, a jest which is itself charged with experience.

All this suggests that Jung knew the women needed his presence, even if only in the form of an occasional visit, for their continued well-being. This is a very shamanistic view in its acceptance that the very physical presence of the healer is capable of healing. It suggests, too, that the transference (whereby the analysand works out unresolved conflicts on the analyst) was never completely abandoned nor did Jung expect it to be. One begins to wonder to what degree it was mutual; did Jung need these women’s support as much as they needed his? What of his counter-transference?

Jung, following in the classic humanist tradition, needed his femme inspiratrice, or creative muse. He lived in the same cultural tradition as did his “ancestor” Goethe, and still called upon women as sources of inspiration and called upon them from his early days at the Burgholzli, especially with Sabina Spielrein.

Jung’s psychology stems from an awareness of the mythic material operating in the psyche. There are strong indications that one of the myths operating in his own personality was that of Dionysus, indications of which cropped up regularly in the women’s descriptions of him. Mention is made of the fact he was adept at helping women patients find themselves and their “greater personalities.” When they dreamed of him as a wizard or wise old man, he would say, “Good! Excellent! Now that you have dreamed it, it shows you have the potential within yourself!” As Jane Wheelwright put it, “With Jung you didn’t have to be someone famous or special or unusual. He treated you as if you were special” (Wheelwright, Jane 1977). At a time when ambitious women were frowned upon and not encouraged, even felt to be somewhat unnatural, Jung realized they needed intellectual outlets. This is very Dionysian, as the God would arouse women, in the ancient legends, to leave home and hearth, and come out into the world and dance.

To find the true beginnings of the circle of women, which formed around him, we must go to Jung’s early days of fascination with woman and the role she played in man’s psyche. Seen psychologically, this undoubtedly began with his mother, Emilie Preiswerk Jung.

References

Bair, Deirdre (2003) Jung: A Biography. Boston: Little, Brown.

Bancroft, Mary (1983) Autobiography of a Spy. New York: Wm. Morrow & Co.

Bishop, Paul (1994) “The Members of Jung’s Zarathustra Seminar.” Spring: A Journal of Archetype and Culture 56: 92–122.

Frey-Rohn, Liliane (June 1978) Author’s interview.

Henderson, Joseph (November 1977) Author’s interview.

Hillman, James and Shamdasani, Sonu (2013) Lament of the Dead: Psychology after Jung’s Red Book. New York: W. W. Norton.

Jung, C. G. (1970) “Woman in Europe.” In Civilization in Transition, trans. R. F. C. Hull. New York: Routledge, pp. 113–133.

McGuire, William, ed. (1974) The Freud–Jung Letters. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Wheelwright, Jane (November 1977) Author’s interview.

Wheelwright, Joseph (November 1977) Author’s interview.

2

Mother

Emilie Preiswerk Jung

In our world cultures for the past 2,000 years, we have only the human mother who stands alone, seemingly taking all the blame and praise for the raising of her children. Before that, behind her was the archetypal Great Mother, who carried some of her burden.

In Jung’s psychology the biological mother is important, but behind her stands the primordial Mother. Jung was particularly conscious of both figures in his personal life. His mother, Emilie Preiswerk Jung, often stood in the shadow of the archetypal Goddess in her son’s eyes, which is evident in his earliest memory of her.

“One [memory] recalls a slender young woman wearing a dress made of black printed all over with green crescents, who could be happy and laughing, but was subject to fits of depression” (Brome 2001, p. 6). One is tempted to linger on that memory of the dress with its associations to lunar Goddesses around the world and even the figure of Luna in alchemy, which was Jung’s major study from 1928 to the end of his life.

Jung’s mother dominates his mem...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Endorsement
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The beginning: Opening to the world
• 2 Mother: Emilie Preiswerk Jung
• 3 The beginnings of the entourage: Emma Jung
• 4 Siegfried’s mate: Sabina Spielrein
• 5 The fragrance: Toni Wolff
• 6 Zurich Psychological Club: Edith Rockefeller McCormick
• 7 Art attack: Dancing with the Dadaists
• 8 Sieglinde: Linda Fierz-David
• 9 The mysteries of woman: M. Esther Harding
• 10 The Americans: Eleanor Bertine and Kristine Mann
• 11 Eranos: Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn
• 12 The alchemist’s daughter: Marie-Louise von Franz
• 13 Impresaria: Jolande Jacobi
• 14 Priestess: Dion Fortune
• 15 The veiled lady of visions: Christiana Morgan
• 16 The rest of the entourage
• 17 Jung: The animus mundi
• 18 The Jungian women: An assessment
• 19 She Who Remembers
• 20 Into the future
• 21 The hieros gamos
• Appendix 1: Jung’s birth chart by Philip Culjak
• Appendix 2: Timeline: C. G. Jung and the Jungian women
• Author biography
• Index