Sanskrit translations in Nazi hands

[Dan Lusthaus]

Robert Zydenbos, in a bit of defensive revisionism, argues against the
charge of Jung's nazi affiliations.

>Je pense que non.

Sadly, for all those so enamored of Jung, he was indeed a virulent nazi who
wrote position papers for the nazis, believing that his notion of
collective unconscious and the nazi aryan ideal were of the same stuff.

This is not an idle charge, but well documented and well known among Jung
scholars and practitioners - though, understandably, not the sort of thing
they broadcast far and wide.

One place to begin catching up on this is the introduction to the
translation of Jung's lectures on Nietzsche's Zarathustra. The intro is
written by a British Jungian therapist, who, while conceding the disturbing
contents of those lectures as part of a study group meeting in the later
1930s, pleads that we not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

What is more disturbing, to me, is that Bollingen Princeton Univ Press,
which publishes everything else by Jung and the Eranos group in affordable,
easily available editions, has made this particular book difficult to
obtain. Its price was $100 when first issued, and now somewhat higher, if
one can find it at all.

If one examines Freud's writings on Jung, including his diary entries, one
will note that even at their very first meeting, Freud was struck by Jung's
antisemitism, and continuously over the course of their relationship,
vainly encouraged Jung to drop it. While Freud never slept with his
patients, Jung did, even though Freud also warned him against that as well.

Simply put, Carl had a darker side.


Dan Lusthaus
Florida State University