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The Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung

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When I read Noll's Aryan Christ I felt a sense of deja vu. Had I not read this argument before and found it quite trite? Some searching in my memory and reading the footnotes in Noll's book, confirmed my hunch: For this book Noll recycled an earlier article he had published entitled 'Jung the Leontocephalus', which had appeared in a Jungian journal called 'Spring, a Journal of Archetype and Culture' in 1992. When I read Noll's article then, I thought then that it misrepresented the approach Jung outlines in his writings of the events of 1925 during one of his active imaginations. Out of an episode which takes up no more than a dozen pages in that book, Noll has given us a fairy tale about Jung's inner life and connection to the Mithraic religion. A careful reading of Jung's 'Seminar Notes of 1925' show that Noll's take on Jung's experienced images contradicts Jung's own. Had Noll used a more germane approach, he could have saved himself writing this book and foregone temporary fame and fortune while riding on Jung' shoulders and abusing him. Why do I say this? On page 99 of the Seminar Notes, Jung states clearly how images of the kind he had experienced should be approached. Jung says: 'Anybody could be caught by these things and lost in them--some throw the experience away saying it is all nonsense, and thereby losing their best value, for these are the creative images. Another may identify himself with the images and become a crank or a fool.' It seems to me that Noll has identified himself with an image, which isn't even his own! and has turned himself into a fool about it, and at times a crank. Jung's more sober view is attested again a little later in his 'Seminar Notes', on page 104, a student asks Jung:'Do you think that some development of the Mithraic religion may become a living religion in the near future?' To which Jung answers: 'In itself this religion is as antiquated as can be. It is only relatively important as being the brother of Christianity, wich has assimilated some elements from it.' Clearly, Jung admonishes against reifying such inner images, albeit to take them very seriously indeed.

Noll's own biography is replete with a cultic, approach to Jung. In footnote Nr. 2, of the 'Jung the Leontocephalus' article, Noll lets on about his own mystic activities: 'I wish to thank the following members of the informal 'mystery cult' that has formed through their repeated attendance at a series of seminars on these and related topics which I led in the Summer and Fall of 1991 and the Spring and Summer of 1992 for the Aion Society and the C.G. Jung Center of Philadelphia (2008 Chancellor Street,Philadelphia, PA 19103)...' Noll then thanks some 25 persons including one whom he calles his 'resident soror mystica'.

In other words, Noll seems to have been a sort of a grandmaster of a Jung cult with its resident groupies. And just a few years later he blames Jung for his own activities. What Noll offers in his 'Aryan Christ' is the creation of a yarn which in its most serious variant is called a 'pseudologia fantastica', a false story of one's life. In Noll's case, about Jung's life. Carl Gustav Jung, by Noll's own admission (see the various pro-Jungian adulatory introductions he wrote to his Encyclopedia, the Werewolf book, etc.) must have been the positive guiding force in Noll's earlier career as a 'Jung-oriented' psychologist. Then, in Jungian terms, his 'entantiodromia' set in, still umbilically connected to Jung, albeit as the grand debunker of a now negatively toned symbiosis.

My advice: Read Jung if he interests you and read Richard Noll as a reminder of how a self-appointed, somehow jilted Jungian disciple falsifies His former master's life and writings.

The polemic and lurid title and the sensationalism of the blurbs on the cover bespeak the author's partisan resentments and his hunger to sell copies at the expense of intellectual honesty.

The author makes much of the fact that that Jung hid his esoteric "neo-pagan" beliefs behind a mask of Christianity. Anyone even remotely familiar with Jung's work would recognize that his beliefs evolved over time. That he did not instantly publicly proclaim them as they emerged from his mind is hardly surprising or sinister.

The author's assertion that Jung sought to make himself the high priest of some Aryan religion and that he saw himself as "The Aryan Christ" is absurd. To be sure, Jung was hardly an orthodox Christian and he and his followers saw their movement as something more than a mere clinical system. What is so sinister about that? After all, Freud was hardly an orthodox Jew and he and his followers saw their system as something more than an innovative system of psycho-therapy.

Whatever personal motives the author has for making a career out of trashing Jung, there is a market for this tripe because the academic and publishing establishment has a hatred for all manifestations of Germanic culture.

A large chunk of this books is a mean spirited, gossipy account of the lives of three of Jung's female analysands and analysts. The connection between these lives and the author's thesis about Jung is tenuous. These accounts are mere sensationalist padding for a very slight book.

The book contains some useful biographical material and the footnotes are of far greater value than the text. Apologies to Amazaon.com -- but don't waste your money on this book. Get it from the library or get a cheap used copy.

Some of the reviewers suggest that this book is a mean spirited attack on Jung. I didnt receive it that way, and after reading this book I followed up with others by Jung himself. I've found Jung's writings about religion most fascinating. I don't find Jung's interest in volkisch movement, pagan renewal, or the nexus between non-Christian archetypes and Christian symbols offensive in the slightest bit. Some other reviewers seem to think the author meant to smear Jung, but if he did, it was lost on me.

As for whether or not the author's premise that Jung was interested in the "collective unconscious" as a sort of racial folk memory-- I don't think that's all that radical of a notion. Indeed, if you consider Jung's postwar friendship with Miguel Serrano, as recounted in Serrano's work "C.G. Jung and Hermann Hesse," then perhaps the esoteric understanding of some of Jung's work is not so implausible.

I recommend this book to people who are interested in the history or psychology of religion.

The Aryan Christ, despite its shortcomings, makes a significant and critical contribution to providing a fuller picture of Jung the man, and the origins of his thinking. Prior adulatory accounts of Jung have portrayed him as a saintly `wise old man', a scientific pioneer in developing the science of analytical psychology, and, a man of mystical insight revitalizing understanding of the Christian myth.

Noll acknowledges the great contribution of Jung who early recognized the genius of Freud's insight, and his methodology for showing through psychoanalysis that mental disorder was psychological, not heredity. In support of this discovery Jung worked on the Word Association tests to provide a scientific tool capable of mapping the extent and relative strength of neurotic `complexes'. Furthermore he was the first to attempt actual psychological treatment of psychotic patients at the Bergholzli in an age when incarceration was the sole `treatment'.

But what about the deliberate distortions and omissions (some due to Jung, and some by his disciples), and the withholding of documents by his estate? For example, was the Jung / Freud break caused simply by Jung's rejection of the Libido theory, or were the differences more complex? Noll presents convincing evidence that whereas Freud sought to contain libido through sublimation, Jung sought to express it, which he and his closest followers did by a reformulation of it into pagan sexual magic. Jung's own promiscuity and conversion to the polygamous ideas of Otto Gross coincided with the break with Freud. The polygamous practices of Jung's disciples (in Jungian parlance `constellating the anima') have remained a hidden aspect of his thinking. The serial infidelity, and Jung's long term relationship with Toni Wolff have remained carefully hidden from outsiders, - from the uncomprehending `hoi polloi'. How does all this sit with claims Jung broke with Freud to express truths related to Christian sympathies?

Noll's work does oversimplify at times. The claims made in relation to the significance of Jung's experience of deification as a lion headed Mythraic God is an interesting hypothesis, but in the light of Jung's recorded answers to questions clearly overstates its significance. One can also ask whether Noll overstates the case for Jung's supposed goal of establishing a new religion. Don't all those who hold a view that they have unique insights capable of changing the life and condition of man wish to see it spread? But does that mean they wish to become canonized or deified? Likewise one must ask if Noll is altogether fair in presenting the role of the sun in Jung's system as being more akin to a primitive animism, than to potent symbolic and physical representations of `Light'. The same must be said of his anti-Semitism. In the context of views widely held throughout Europe and the UK in the 20s and 30s they are not unusual, whereas in this post Hitlerian age some comments are not acceptable.

Jung was a complex man, of particular and unusual interests and abilities. Some of those interests and abilities he chose to keep hidden. He had a lifelong interest in occultism and the paranormal, and hid these for professional reasons, particularly during the period from his doctoral graduation to his break with Freud. Following this break he returned to these interests, integrating them into his work. In his writing many of these ideas are coded into a more scientifically acceptable terminology. Noll provides sources (Creuzer, and Cumont) for some of the ideas Jung is credited with `discovering'.

Despite the suppression of some aspects of his life and work there is a need for a fuller and less bowdlerized picture of Jung. His own ability at trance mediumship, his divinatory practice by horoscopes for clients, and the `I Ching' in his own life, the accounts of seer-like ability demonstrated on occasion, -- there is reliable written and anecdotal evidence for all these. What of his belief in reincarnation (he believed himself to have lived as Goethe, Paraclesus, Julian the Apostate, Meister Eckhardt, and, he told Laurens vdPost, as an African tribesman who lived around 4000BC). But even in MDR this material is absent. Erlo Van Waveren, one of Jung's colleagues trained by Jung, reported some of his own dreams in which past life experiences were woven. Jung was at that time open and revelatory with him but the following day had Mrs Jung speak to him and "tell me not to talk to anyone about our conversation".

The enigma of Jung emerges much more humanly from this brave and critical work, than from the God-Man adulatory works of others. Noll has opened the lid of an old trunk, letting the light disclose its hidden contents. Some acolytes are shocked, fearing their God may be shown to have feet of clay. But there are those eager to discover a fuller, more accurate picture of this man who has so influenced the thinking of an age.

For those who still prefer the sanitized adulation of earlier works, read Laurens vdPost. There you can read seven pages about his relationship with Toni Wolff and still not realize she was his mistress. The reason Jung burnt their letters after her death, according to an "inkling" of Laurens vdPost, is because they were about the secret innermost process of individuation! Such delicate sophistry! I'll take Noll's critical questioning any day.

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 disparaged Christianity and secretly reverted to (as well as secretly proselytized for) an ancient, pagan, Aryan religion. Such a move will be seen through a highly distorting filter if viewed in the context of today's Christianity. Again, it is hard, but important, to view Jung's choices in terms of the dogmatic Swiss-German Christianity of the late nineteenth century.

As with most movements that believe they have the secret to saving the world, many Jungians idealize their prophet and make him into a kind of god. In contrast, the picture that emerges from "Aryan Christ" is of a brilliant man -- but a man not a god and therefore with all the attendant human frailties. The danger is in forgetting Jung's humanity.

Evident in the beginning of this book is the author's obvious disenchantment with Jung and his subsequent dislike of the man. Much of the book is filled with conjecture that is, in turn, used later as if it were fact. For example, early on Noll describes Jung and his associates as a cult, thereafter referring to any member of the Jungian persuasion as a "disciple" or "apostle", instead of what they truly were: patients, colleagues, and admirers. Noll also seems to be confused on the matter of Jung's concept of a person's deification. Anyone familiar with this Jungian concept or similar concepts based upon Gnosticism is probably aware that the terms "inner-god" or "Self" do not literally indicate a person's Godhood or the transformation into a God in the Classical sense, yet indicate a change in awareness that elevates the person's consciousness to a primal state that is in harmony with the universe. Although I can't remember the page this is on, Noll gives a quote by Jung that specifically states his view that psychoanalysis is but one way in which to achieve greater self-awareness, something that doesn't quite fit into the common cult mentality. Another example of the author's clear bias toward Jung is in his disregard for the accounts of patients helped by Jung's analysis. Whenever referring to one of Jung's new patients or followers, Noll uses such phrases as "fallen under Jung's spell" or "snarred by Jung", in obvious attempts to paint these people as if they were victims. When speaking of those that defected from Jungian thought, he uses the word "escaped". The fact that these people were clearly not victims, in fact mant were either cured or enjoyed prestigious careers due to their encounters with Jung, is conveniently never brought up. Fanny Bowditch Katz is a good example of this. Katz came to Jung on the verge of suicide, yet after treatment by Jung and his colleagues, Katz found meaning in her life. This is all mentioned in the book, yet Noll can't seem grasp that perhaps Katz's return to a healthy mental state may be an indication of what Jung was doing right... you would thing a Harvard grad. would have the ability to realize this!
Anyway, there is so much that is bad about this book that 1000 words simply won't suffice. Many of Noll's arguments are either petty or thinly veiled attempts to portray Jung as a lunatic. He also employs that old trick of linking Jung to the Nazis in the last chapter and constantly mentions Jung's antisemitic tendancies (although he excuses Freud's anti-Gentile attitude). If the antisemitism of a thinker was a disqualifying factor for their ideas, we would have to disgard the likes of Luther, Goethe, Kant, Paine, Franklin, and a whole host of others. It is these types of irrelevant remarks attempting to discredit Jung that make up the bulk of this book.
The only reason I don't rate the book lower is due to its cleverness in delivering its deceit.
A true piece of trash produced by an otherwise intelligent individual.

Three comments to Noll's own devious scholarship. 1) For a scholarly historian of thought, and Noll insists on being a scholar, it is certainly odd that he omitts in his own work the one work of a prior scholar who was certainly one of the first to show Jung in a critical light. I refer to Paul J. Stern, C.G. Jung: The Haunted Prophet, George Braziller:New York, 1976. 2) Getting into details: To show with what broad brush Noll paints: In his Aryan Christ, page 71, he says in reference to Otto Gross: "To Jung he (Otto Gross) was so much more, but neither Jung nor his followers have acknowledged his importance. As he (Jung) revised his published works over the course of his life, Jung carefully removed references to colleagues, who fell prey to scandal or suicide. Otto Gross was certainly one of them. Nevertheless, Jung's cataclysmic encounter with Gross is a critical episode in the secret history of his life." Now, isn't it strange that when taking in hand the General Index to Jungs Collected Works, looking up Gross, Otto, there are entries to Otto Gross and his works in Jung's Collected Works, volumes 2, 3, 4, 6, some two dozens page references in all. Yet, Noll would like his readers to believe that Jung banned Otto Gross from his scholarly works. It is simply not true. What smoke screens is Noll trying out here? 3) In the above reference under 2) Noll mentions Jung's colleagues who fell prey...to suicide. Obviously, this is a reference to J. Honegger, an early associate of Jung's, while at the Burghoelzli mental hospital in Zuerich. Now, it is true, that in the Collected Works, Jung took out the reference to Honegger when he rewrote his seminal work 'Symbols of Transformation' in 1950. Rewriting a book is any author's prerogative, and Jung has, in a lengthy foreword to the rewritten work, stated clearly why he felt he had to rewrite that work. On the other hand, the original German "Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido" was republished in 1991, (in its exact 1911/1912 text), and of course, there, the two references to Honegger are in place, just as they were in the original text. Again, here, it is clear that Noll is guilty of cryptomnesia, or plain lying, or whatever one wants to call his ingeniously devious method. The critical reader is taken aback noticing how Noll charges Jung with just the kind of obfuscation that Noll himself is practicing on nearly every page. There are several other dubious scholarly things Noll does, but let this suffice for the time being. Noll, if one checks his own 'scholarly' development, has obviously passed from Paul back to Saul. It is informative to check Noll's development as revealed by his publishing record. He certainly had no problem publishing his gushing adulations of Jung in his early articles in mainstream Jungian journals, especially the Journal of Analytical Psychology (JAP). There is no doubt to anyone having even an inkling of the scholarship on Jung and Freud as well as the scholarship on literary and artistic developments in Germany, Austria and Switzerland at the turn of the century, that Noll is practicing a method last known to have been practiced by Senator McCarthy during the Witch Hunt in the name of anti-communism. Noll's misuse of the term 'volkish' and 'aryan' in reference to Jung - geared specifically to an American audience - is blatantly racist in its own terms - but it will sell books. In the future, I wonder what Noll has to offer the world - other than tearing Jung down.

I find Noll's previous Jungicidal effort more interesting and persuasive: first and foremost microanalyzing the roots of CGJ's intellectual edifice, from Haeckel and Driesch to Nietzsche. Unfortunately, insightful material was pretty much devalued by Noll's unique blend of personal vendetta against all things Jungian and glaringly obvious intent to write a bombastic bestseller. Anyway, I think Noll has accomplished at least three things:

1. Wrote a convincing record on Jung's, er, "shadow"

2. Traced his Lehrjahre and conceptual development ( albeit distastefully gloating over Jung's polygynistic "scandals" ). Still, I like the "neovitalism" and Mithraism parts - although, in all sincerity, I can't buy anti-Semitism, anti-Christianity and Blut-und-Boden Nazi parts. These two books ( I'd say, intentionally ) overlook Jung's later development, with Christ emerging as the most powerful ( for Westerners ) symbol of Self. In short: Jung's was/is a neo-Gnostic Christ, not "Aryan". Especially ridiculous is the contention that Jung considered himself to be a sort of "Messiah".

3. Vented his rage and lo and behold...he was showered with $$$$$s and academic awards ( at least, one big fish in the net ). If Jung is pop, this is hip-hop, rave and rap combined.

All in all: cca 40-50 pages from both books [The Aryan Christ and Noll's earlier work The Jung Cult] are valuable. The rest is a salacious chronicle a la Seutonius.

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'.

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.