TO & FROM THE EDITORS Featured in BBR June 1995 TO: Noll Critiqued Over the course of his career Carl Gustav Jung got off two stand-up quality one-liners: "We cannot know what the Unconscious is, otherwise it would be conscious..." (Ta-dum); and "Thank God I'm Jung and not a Jungian." Jung was adamantly undogmatic, to the point of recommending other theorists' techniques. If Freud, or Adler, or Rank, or any of the other pioneers of psychoanalysis fit your client, then use those perspectives. Being anti-dogma precludes an effort to found a religion or worse-a cult. The thrust of Jungian analysis is individuality, meaning a move away from all group-oriented validation, but not disengagement from social life. It intends to bring the individual's essence to light as a basis for action in the world. This becomes a moral mandate, humbling in that "Where the fear is, there is your task" (Jung). Facing down one's fears precludes the fat head implied in Noll's "self- deification," or any other kind of selfishness or self- centeredness [Richard Noll, The Jung Cult: Origins of a Charismatic Movement, reviewed in the March issue]. Thirty-seven years ago, words of Jung quoted by another author so accurately described part of my psychological make- up that I am a life-long Jung scholar. This month I enter my ninth year of Jungian analysis. Only once have I used "Active Imagination" at home- alone. Jungians use all forms of self-expression as keys to the unconscious and individuality; all forms of writing, drawing and painting, dance, performance and much more. In my case, we have used drawings, poetry, journal writing, dream analysis and the traditional "talking-cure." An archetype is a "universal complex" (my definition), repeated throughout history in differing forms. For example, Venus, the Roman Goddess of erotic love, becomes Marilyn Monroe, presently evolved into Madonna. An archetype is not a god! The image does not even have to be divine. It is a representation of the universal complex, a psychological force (or drive) experienceable by individuals. In this case for both men and women, Venus stands for the impact of sexual desire. There is interaction with these universal complexes of psychological energy. To "unite" with them is psychosis at the extreme, or building a world in your head and going to live there, thus distorting reality very like Noll has done. Did he talk to any Jungian analysts or people currently having the experience of Jungian analysis? His book is fascinating if you are interested in sources and influences on Jung's thought. I see two difficulties: Noll has not experienced the analysis about which he writes; and the tabloid influence has penetrated the world of publishing. The word "cult" in the title sure beats "The History and Influences on the Thought of C.G. Jung" as a sensationalistic grabber (with all due respect your own headline, "German Passions and the New God," was right out there with the best attention-getting distortions). Boston has its own C.G. Jung Institute for the public and for the training of future analysts, located at 283 Commonwealth Avenue, phone 267-5984. Why not get in touch with them, or one of the analysts on their list which is available, for an accurate non-mysterious insider's critique of Noll's very mistaken outsider's view of contemporary Jungian practice? Richard D. Pearson Somerville, MA Christian Science Responds Robert David Thomas has written a sensitive and relatively supportive account of Mary Baker Eddy's life, With Bleeding Footsteps: Mary Baker Eddy's Path to Religious Leadership. He is clearly an admirer of hers. There is a sympathetic heart here, more than a sympathetic intellect. However, his decision to write a psycho-biography, a genre that relies heavily on psychoanalytic method, and his consequent psychological examination of the relationship between Mrs. Eddy, her family and especially her mother, as well as early followers with an emphasis on disloyal students, results in a paradigm that overemphasizes interpersonal relationships in her life. It greatly retards, but does not preclude, glimpsing the essential qualities of the woman. The same can be said of the review by Reverend Peter J. Gomes in your March issue. Both Thomas and Reverend Gomes have ignored Mrs. Eddy's caution: "Those who look for me in person, or elsewhere than in my writings, lose me instead of find me" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 120). The result is each man's scholarly, fair-minded, but arrested look at the historical Mrs. Eddy. It is not inappropriate to suggest that this review places too much faith in the fruit of the psychoanalytic technique in writing biography. Perhaps a more astute qualification of the inherent limitations of such a methodology would assist readers in assessing the limited scope of Thomas's biography and, in turn, provide a narrower scope for generalizations offered in the review. A few clarifying points are in order. Mary Baker Eddy was a lifelong student of the Bible. Christian Science does not reflect the teachings of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. For a time Mrs. Eddy was a patient of Quimby's and shared his view that disease is rooted in a mental cause. But as her understanding of Christ Jesus' approach to healing developed over the years, her concept of life and healing grew further and further away from Quimby's. Christian Science is vastly different from the teachings of Quimby. Quimby's son, George, emphatically confirmed that Christian Science was far different from what his father taught. These are clearly established facts and in no way can be described as "vexed within the orthodox world of Christian Science," as the review suggests. What vexes is Thomas's apparent unawareness of the fact that Quimby wrote little. A number of secretaries are responsible for the bulk of what is attributed to him. As Eddy scholar Richard Nenneman has written: "At least some of what he [Quimby] wrote was very probably written after his long periods of consultation with Mrs. Eddy in the years 1862 to '65. The most that one can say is that anyone reading Quimby cannot be certain that it is all original with him." One final point. Possibly, the offhand mention of the false folklore about the telephone in the tomb is meant to demonstrate that the reviewer is "in the know" on this subject. The readily obtainable fact of the matter is this: Mrs. Eddy's body was kept at the receiving vault at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge for several months while the monument was under construction. A guard was hired and a telephone was installed at the receiving vault for his use. There was never a phone at the monument, inside or outside. M. Victor Weisberg, Manager Committees on Publication The First Church of Christ, Scientist Boston, MA &copy1995. Boston Book Review. All rights reserved.

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