The Aryan Christ - a critique
The following is from alt.psychology.jung on the controversy regarding Richard Noll's biography of Jung. - "The Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung."
On Thu, 30 Sep 1999 , Peter Harding wrote:
Was Jung attempting to substitute traditional religion for a new
belief system based on psychoanalytic concepts. R Noll in his book, "The
Aryan Christ" certainly suggests this. Incidently has anyone read this?
Yeah. Though, 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.
 |
|
|
|
