C.G. Jung Face-to-Face
Click on the still image below or on the link to the right to go to a separate page and view the 1959 film Face to Face with Carl Jung (00:39:27). You can also listen to Memories, Dreams, Reflections <<–here.
Carl Gustav Jung (click image to view film)
The Late Years for C.G. Jung
(From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A653410)
As he got older, Jung’s interest in the world expanded rather than contracted. Though originally eschewing the idea of disciples or any ambition to start a school of psychology, Jung helped found the CG Jung Institute in Zürich, in 1948, and was its first president, serving until he retired in 1950.
After 1945 and until his death in 1961, Jung did, however, see fewer patients, concentrating instead on his alchemical work. This profound interest in alchemy culminated in the publication of ‘The Psychology of the Transference’ (1946; In: The Practice of Psychotherapy, 1954; CW 16); Psychology and Alchemy (1953; CW 12); Alchemical Studies (1967; CW 13); and his magnum opus Mysterium Coniunctionis (1955-6; CW 14). Containing dream commentaries and amplifications on the images and symbols of individuation as portrayed in alchemy, these works provided his followers with alchemical insights into the analytical process and relationship.
In an effort to ‘popularize’ his work, and with the firm conviction that it would be the ordinary people who would carry on his psychology, Jung decided (in his early 80s) to write and get published his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections (<<–click the link to listen), as well as a collaborative work entitled Man and His Symbols. Explaining his psychology in a most fundamental way was an appeal for the public to realise the reality of the unconscious and, above all, to take their own souls seriously. To this end he needed to reach a wider public and, in 1959, he agreed to be interviewed by John Freeman for a BBC series about famous living people, called Face to Face. The interview was a success, with his much quoted remark about the existence of God – ‘I don’t believe, I know’ – arousing a storm of comment at the time.
Jung had many premonitions of approaching death, and he took these as both a preparation and a reassurance. In one impressive dream he saw the ‘other Bollingen’ bathed in a glow of light, and a voice told him that it was completed and ready for habitation5. The golden tower (as vessel of the Self) on ‘the other shore of the lake’ was now ready for him to move into.’
Jung died in Küsnacht, near Zürich, at a quarter to four on Tuesday afternoon, 6 June, 1961. It was synchronistic that about an hour or so afterwards, lightning struck a tall popular tree in his garden at the lake’s edge.
Jung himself saw death as paradoxical, an event that had elicited contrasting emotions of grief and joy. He further said that death was ‘a fearful piece of brutality… not only as a physical event, but far more so psychically: a human being is torn away from us, and what remains is the icy stillness of death’6.
Fun with Architecture
‘Sliding House’
Finding Wisdom among the White Mountain Masters
Once in the Jurassic about 150 million years ago,
the Great Sun Buddha in this corner of the Infinite
Void gave a Discourse to all the assembled elements
and energies: to the standing beings, the walking beings,
the flying beings, and the sitting beings—even grasses,
to the number of thirteen billion, each one born from a
seed, assembled there: a Discourse concerning
Enlightenment on the planet Earth.
”In some future time, there will be a continent called
America. It will have great centers of power called
such as Pyramid Lake, Walden Pond, Mt. Rainier, Big Sur,
Everglades, and so forth; and powerful nerves and channels
such as Columbia River, Mississippi River, and Grand Canyon
The human race in that era will get into troubles all over
its head, and practically wreck everything in spite of
its own strong intelligent Buddha-nature.”
”The twisting strata of the great mountains and the pulsings
of volcanoes are my love burning deep in the earth.
My obstinate compassion is schist and basalt and
granite, to be mountains, to bring down the rain. In that
future American Era I shall enter a new form; to cure
the world of loveless knowledge that seeks with blind hunger:
and mindless rage eating food that will not fill it.”
And he showed himself in his true form of
SMOKEY THE BEAR…
Smokey the Bear Sutra—Gary Snyder
Here is the beginning—not but a tender sapling. Here the rains fell well and the warm season lingered long past its time. Here the sky went dark for many moons from smoke and ash and light became a phantom memory. Here the sky flashed quick and bright, leaving its mark in a deep charred scar. Here the six legged and the eight legged, through yawning bore, made their home. Here, the sun returned—a miracle. These are grouped in spans of abundance, bracketed by equal terms of scarcity. This is where it stayed cold and dry, so cold and dry that the growing season might have been the last. Much was lost then, but what remains is surely grateful for the sacrifice. Then a fire came and took many that were near by, blackening here what was smooth and brown. So has it been and will continue to be as long as soil, sun, rain, and fortune allow it to be so.
The high, arid White Mountain range of what is these days called California stands in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada on the western edge of the Great Basin which seemingly stretches endlessly to the east. In this region, the extremes of geography are matched to the vicissitudes of climate with the lowest point in the North American Continent, Death Valley, bordering the southern end of the range and Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States, westward across the broad Owens Valley. This is an ancient place where extensive outcrops of dolomite were first laid down under the ocean 500 million years ago, then slowly uplifted through time; now sitting well over 14,000 feet in altitude many places. The soil quality is rated as some of the poorest in any of the alpine zones and much of the soil density has been swept away by the extreme conditions leaving little in which roots might take. Less than 10 inches of precipitation comes here annually with much of it in the form of snow that is largely blown away by the continual harsh winds. Lightning storms are frequent and severe. What awaits most life that would attempt settlement here is the slow suffering of exposure and desiccation.
Perceiving Beauty
Joshua Bell
A man sat at a Metro station in Washington, DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.
A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk. A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.
The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.
In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.
No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.
Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.
Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context? One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: if we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?
Note: Original source of text is unknown. I received this through the email. The original Washington Post article from April 2007 is here. Below is a YouTube video excerpt and a link to the full audio of the performance is here.
L. appellare “to address, appeal to, summon, name,” iterative of appellere “to prepare.” For more information about what's behind this site,