The Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung

According to Noll (The Jung Cult), one of the most potent concepts of 20th-century psychology--the collective unconscious--exists ""only on the shelves of Jung's personal library."" Only Freud has been more influential in psychology, and now both have been exposed as more imaginative than scientific in promoting what was psychoanalysis to one and analytical psychology to the other. Both effected what many accepted as cures. ""Patients became apostles,"" Noll charges. ""Analysis became initiation."" And to the charismatic Jung, who turned away from what he derided as Freud's Jewish psychology to a mystical Germanic neo-paganism that involved trance states, occultism and pre-Christian sun worship, ""Cures became secondary to conversions."" In his professional talks and publications, Noll contends, Jung (1875-1961) employed pseudoscientific terms to conceal the fact that he was offering his initiates a half-baked post-Christian religion with himself as its Christ. Those who find that Jungian prescriptions work for them will be reluctant to concede that the Swiss master was ""a hierophant who presided over his own mysteries."" But Noll, a clinical psychologist and historian of science, has marshaled persuasive documents to suggest that one of the shapers of 20th-century thought was a charlatan. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Sept.) FYI: For another take on Jung, see Frank McLynn's Carl Gustav Jung, published by St. Martin's/Dunne, reviewed in Forecasts June 2.