“I am reading Memories, Dreams, Reflections by CG Jung, a work I had avoided till now, partly because I felt that the Jungians were the most terrible idolaters on the planet. However, this is mostly not Jung’s fault, just as being turned into a god was mostly not Jesus’s fault.
The beauty of reading Jung in his own words, or a good translation from the German is discovering that Jung was just another unique human being, perhaps more original than most. This fact alone distances him from his “disciples”. Everyone else plays the academic game of quoting references all the time, as if by quoting someone else you get nearer to truth than just saying what occurs to you.
The old man reflects on his own childhood experiences, and his writing has a lot of power. At one point it makes me think, “Oh, why do I bother? He’s said things so much better than I could ever do.”
And that’s the point where idolatry creeps in and has to be nipped in the bud. No one else can say things for us! But whilst we nip idolatry in the bud, if we are honest, we recognise the inbuilt tendency to worship, to follow a leader, which is understandable from an evolutionary point of view but has been ruthlessly exploited through the ages by secular and religious leaders alike. I’m happy following nobody and having nobody following me. It’s a lonely path, which makes it all the more pleasurable to share here.
What was the point of this wretched memorial service with the flat bread and the sour wine? Slowly I came to understand that this communion had been a fatal experience for me. It had proved hollow; more than that, it had proved to be a total loss. I knew that I would never again be able to participate in this ceremony. “Why, that is not religion at all,”, I thought. “It is an absence of God; the church is a place I should not go to. It is not life which is there, but death.
I would have put it differently; but I don’t have any reason to put it at all. Christianity has ever been gentle with me. We’ve left one another alone.
a wayfarer’s notes 
I agree. The real thing is always first-hand or in some way made our own – understood, owned up to, and lived by.
Recently heard an NPR thing on Freud and how much his personal experiences entered into his theories. Another person from psychology who's better read than read about.
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Hello Vincent
As you see I have moved elsewhere. ‘following no-one and having no-one following me’ Yes, yes and yes again. I have not found it to be a lonely path having found no need at all to share it.
Ruth
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