How many ‘posthumous’ lives does a man have to live? Nearly half a
century after his death, C. G. Jung is a subject of continual
controversies. Every few years, a new life of Jung appears, each
promising to provide the missing master key to the mysteries of his
life and work, and to lay bare their secrets. However, with every
successive ‘life,’ Jung becomes shrouded in an ever increasing web of rumour, gossip, innuendo and fantasy. We may ask the questions, why are Jung biographies so filled with shortcomings? How did Jung become a fiction? This book addresses these issues. It demonstrates the pitfalls and fallacies of such works, and sets out how his life and work should be approached on an historical basis, drawing on decades of archival investigation and new documentation. It surveys attempts to write Jung’s biography from during his own lifetime till the present, shows how Memories, Dreams, Reflections came to be falsely perceived as his autobiography, and why his Collected Works was never completed. Thus this work lays out an agenda for future studies and discussions of Jung and of his impact on modern psychology and contemporary culture.
century after his death, C. G. Jung is a subject of continual
controversies. Every few years, a new life of Jung appears, each
promising to provide the missing master key to the mysteries of his
life and work, and to lay bare their secrets. However, with every
successive ‘life,’ Jung becomes shrouded in an ever increasing web of rumour, gossip, innuendo and fantasy. We may ask the questions, why are Jung biographies so filled with shortcomings? How did Jung become a fiction? This book addresses these issues. It demonstrates the pitfalls and fallacies of such works, and sets out how his life and work should be approached on an historical basis, drawing on decades of archival investigation and new documentation. It surveys attempts to write Jung’s biography from during his own lifetime till the present, shows how Memories, Dreams, Reflections came to be falsely perceived as his autobiography, and why his Collected Works was never completed. Thus this work lays out an agenda for future studies and discussions of Jung and of his impact on modern psychology and contemporary culture.
