The Jung Cult: Origins Of A Charismatic Movement [Hardcover]

Richard Noll (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 19, 1994

In this reassessment of C.G. Jung's thought, the author argues that such ideas as the "collective unconscious" and the theory of the archetypes come as much from late 19th-century occultism, neo-paganisn, and social Darwinian teachings as they do from natural science. Noll sees the break with Sigmund Freud in 1912 not as a split within the psychoanalytic movement but as Jung's turning away from science and his founding of a new religion, which offered a rebirth ("individuation"), surprisingly like that celebrated in ancient mystery cult teachings. Jung, in fact, consciously inaugurated a cult of personality centered on himself and passed down to the present by a body of priest-analysts extending this charismatic movement, or "personal religion," to late 20th-century individuals. The book reconstructs the intellectual currents of fin-de-siecle Germany which influenced Jung. In conjunction with his scientific training in medicine, Jung was drawn equally to these other ideas and teachings of the time: the vitalist school in biology associated with "Naturphilosophie", the evolutionary biology and monistic religion of Haeckel, racialist speculations on Aryan origins and character, Nietzsche's theory of the "new nobility," neo-pagan sun worshippers, and the speculations of philologists and archaeologists on prehistoric cultures and their matriarchical religions. Many of the themes and symbols of these "voelkische" beliefs were used by the National Socialists and have become so identified with Hitler and the Nazis that it is difficult to disentangle the sources from this later use. Noll uncovers the worldview of early 20th-century German culture and firmly separates Jung and his teachings from the later National Socialist movement.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Clinical psychologist Noll surveys the intellectual, cultural, and philosophical movements active in central Europe at the turn of the century and traces their influence on Jung and his circle. Without disparaging Jung's contribution to psychology, Noll demonstrates how Jung's experiences with occultism, neopaganism, and German utopianism led him to formulate such concepts as the collective unconscious, archetypes, and individuation. Contending that Jung, after his break with Freud, modeled his school of psychoanalysis on ancient mystery religions, Noll shows how followers continued to perpetuate this personality cult, ignoring Jung's early life and work. This fine work of scholarship is recommended for academic and public libraries.
Lucille Boone, San Jose P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

This reassessment of Carl Jung and the present-day applications of his theories will please few followers of Jungian thought. Noll argues that Jungian analysis has evolved to a cult of personality around its founder, to the point of becoming a religion--with Jung as its prophet, and today's analysts its priesthood. If it's a religious movement, Noll argues, there's too much focus on economic and personal promotion. As a way to explain the workings of the human mind, Noll asserts, Jungian theory contains little that is truly new, borrowing as it does from nineteenth-century occultism, social Darwinism, and neopaganism. Noll further takes to task many cornerstones of Jungian thought, such as the collective unconscious. An interesting deconstruction. Brian McCombie

Product Details

• Hardcover: 387 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr; First Edition edition (September 19, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691037248
• ISBN-13: 978-0691037240
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,270,274 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Well, so what?, May 20, 2003

By 

F. P. Barbieri "Fabio Paolo Barbieri" (London UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Jung Cult: Origins Of A Charismatic Movement (Hardcover)

Frankly, this was a disappointment. I went back from it with far more sympathy for Jung - and far less for Noll - than I had believed possible; and that in spite of the fact that - after a juvenile pash for Jung more than twenty years ago - I have long since given up on psychoanalysis (and in particular on the doctrine of Archetypes) as a system of knowledge and explanation; and that I was and am not impressed with Jung's private life and his abuse of patient/doctor relationships. The basic problem with this book is the juvenile, unmeditated, unintelligent pseudo-rationalism at its heart. Noll is apparently under the impression that there is something called "the historical Christ" which contradicts the teachings of historical Christianity; and therefore he approves of Freud, in spite of the howlingly obvious elements of pseudo-science, self-justification and superstition, because Freud takes religion to be a disease in need of curing rather than a legitimate way to view the world. Conversely, he opposes Jung because Jung, however distant his view from any orthodox religion, justifies religion as a state of mind. This, of course, is the reason why Jung's success continues in spite of his more than dubious scientific standing; because, however you look at them, in terms of the most basic issues of human thought Freud is a jailer, chaining us to the lowest processes of our bodies and offering us nothing more liberating than sex, and Jung is the man who turns the key and sets us free. I regard neither of them as in any way scientific, reliable or intellectually sound, but I also regard the influence of Jung as infinitely less pestiferous than that of Freud - and I owe this view to Noll's book, because it placed starkly in my face the sheer ugliness of the motives of those who attack Jung and defend Freud.

57 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Richard Noll's Fatal Attraction to C.G. Jung, December 19, 1999

By 

"wdprainer" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Jung Cult : Origins of a Charismatic Movement (Paperback)

Reading this book made me research the life and times of Richard Noll. Having done so casts a new light on Noll's book. Richard Noll is a 'shape shifter'.

I started from the Internet piece Noll posted in the Fall of 1998 called `A Christ called Carl Jung'. In this piece, Noll first confronts the reader with and early attempt to shift shapes. He tried to gain admission to an unnamed Jung Institute under false pretenses. Not all reputable historians-of-science do this, but Noll did. Having broken the moral ice, Noll offers a brief history of an on/off love affair with C.G. Jung. The problem is, Noll offers totally wrong dates! He passes off a doctored autobiography instead of his real one. Check this out: `For most of the 1980's, I lost touch with Jung and Jungians, but I again checked into the Jungian scene in the late eighties to see if the analysts were behaving any differently. They weren't. I was older now, and a seasoned clinician. I now knew the scientific literature on human memory and could cite evidence to back up my suspicions that something was terribly wrong when Jung - and Jungian analysts- promised their patients...a mystical transformation. I now knew there was no independent scientific evidence to back up Jung's idea of a collective unconscious. He clearly made a terrible logical error in 1916 and then refused to consider the matter to the day he died in 1961.'

Now the facts are: Noll was a 'card-carrying Jungian neopagan, sun worshipper' at least until 1992. Noll's academic paper trail bears it out. For, during the period for which Noll claims abstinence from Jungian neopaganism, Noll actually wrote several articles and books which speak very highly of Jung and/or were dedicated to C.G. Jung. For example, in an article in 1985 in 'Current Anthropologist' Vol. 26, No. 4, on 'The Role of Visions in Shamanism' Noll states that he too holds that 'imaginal experience is vital to spiritual exploration', and that he, Noll, has been influenced in this regard '...in particular by C.G.Jung'. Therefore, Noll did not give up C.G. Jung during the Eighties! Because this is so, it is also not surprising then to discover that Noll in August 1990 still had his fateful attraction to C.G. Jung. Noll writes in the `Acknowledgements' of his book `The Encyclopaedia of Schizophrenia and the Psychotic Disorders', published in 1992: `No book is created ex nihilo, and I have stood on the shoulders of three giants who have given me the insights and strength to wrestle with such a powerful demon as the disease we call schizophrenia.' Eugen Bleuler is mentioned as the first giant on whose shoulders Noll matured and found succour. The second giant Noll thanks is the neopagan, sun worshipping C.G. Jung: I thank C.G. Jung, he writes `for his insights into the personal symbolic meaning of the signs and symptoms of psychosis, for his phenomenological approach to the psyche, and for the tremendous impact his life and work have had on my life, both personally and professionally.'

It's obvious: Noll's Internet biography of 1997 and the sources I have cited, especially the articles Noll published during the Eighties, the laudatio of August 1990 and much more, which I will mention below, contradict Noll's account of 1997. In that account Noll had conveniently forgotten that as late as 1991, he had dedicated another book, this one on `Vampires, Werewolves, and Demons' to no other than C.G. Jung.

Yet, there is still worse biographical doctoring. Not only had Noll not given up on the neopagan, sun worshipping C.G. Jung by the late Eighties. In 1991 and 1992 Noll was actually an active neopagan Jungian-oriented `facilitator' in Philadelphia and making money at it. For two years in a row Noll actively taught mithraic, neopagan insights on the Philadelphia mystery circuit! This is can be learned when we read the footnote of an article Noll published in 1992 in the Jungian journal `Spring', called `Jung the Leontocephalus' (Noll recycled this article later in his book `Aryan Christ'. In footnote 2 of this article, Richard Noll writes: '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 Centre of Philadelphia (2008 Chancellor Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103)...'. Noll then thanks some 25 persons including one whom he calls his 'resident soror mystica'. No, in the late Eighties Richard Noll had not yet learned to be a proper, materialistic and positivistic scientist, as he would have his readers believe in 1997.

Noll, that much is clear, jumped onto the shoulders of C.G. Jung and it defined Noll's own personal quest until about the time he was 33 (Noll was born in 1959). The rest of Noll's biographical sketch of 1997 must be relegated to the yarns which psychiatrists label 'pseudologia fantastica', or false life-history syndrome.

So what about Noll's book The Jung Cult: The Origins of a Charismatic Movement? I will wait till Noll once again remembers what he wrote in 1985, namely a quote by L. George, that 'imaginal experience is vital to spiritual exploration'.It seems to me that C.G. Jung's twenty volumes of the Collected Works attest to this simple but well-phrased observation.

32 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I don't get it, July 10, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Jung Cult: Origins Of A Charismatic Movement (Hardcover)

I am a practicing attorney, and recently have developed a certain interest in Jung.

I read Noll's book before I had read any of Jung's own works. Without knowing a thing about Jung, it was obvious to me that Noll was not engaged in legitimate scholarship. He was not seeking to find out anything about Jung that he did not already believe. Rather, he had set himself up as Jung's prosecutor, and then set about gathering whatever evidence -- however tangential -- was consistent with his indictment. I stress "consistent," because Noll primarily cites events which, although roughly contemporaneous with Jung's work, cannot be shown to have any CAUSAL connection to what Jung wrote. Noll's book is based almost entirely upon insinuation, rather than demonstrable proof.

When I later began reading Jung's original works, I was fairly shocked. Jung bore no resemblance to the megalomaniac Noll made him out to be. Given Noll's allegations, I expected to be cringing, far more often than marvelling, at Jung's ideas. Quite the opposite was true.

This book is a frame-up. Jung deserves a new trial.

If you have any interest in Jung, competent scholarship, or how to prove a case, I heartily recommend "Cult Fictions." It is short, understated, and sharp as a razor.