Was Jung a Mystic? The Occult World of C.G. Jung

Psychologist C.G. Jung insisted that he was first and foremost a scientist, yet Jung's interest in the human psyche had a decidedly paranormal, even occult slant.

Was Jung a Mystic? The Occult World of C.G. Jung
- Gary Lachman

Throughout his long and sometimes turbulent career, the psychologist C.G. Jung insisted that he was first and foremost a scientist. Yet from the start, Jung's interest in the human psyche had a decidedly paranormal, even occult slant. From his early days attending séances to his last pronouncements on a dawning 'Age of Aquarius', Jung moved in territories most scientists ignored, when they didn't ridicule them outright. Jung himself, though, had a very ambivalent relation to mysticism and the occult.

While in his personal life he embraced a variety of occult ideas, as a 'scientist' he downplayed his involvement, and it was not until late in his career that he came 'out of the closet' and made public his belief in esoteric notions like synchronicity, his belief in a coming New Age, and his use of magical practices, like the Chinese I Ching.

Although working in the shadow of his one-time friend and mentor Freud for much of his career, today Jung is one of the founding fathers of the 'new consciousness' movement, and his mystical and occult investigations have been responsible for the huge interest in many of the 'alternative' ideas widely popular today.

Gary’s talk will chart Jung's 'occult history', look into the reasons behind his early reticence and later advocacy, and ask whether Jung was really a scientist at all.

Gary Lachman is the author of several books on the meeting ground between consciousness, culture, and the western esoteric tradition, including Politics and the Occult, Rudolf Steiner: An Introduction to His Life and Work, In Search of P.D. Ouspensky, A Secret History of Consciousness and The Dedalus Book of the 1960s: Turn Off Your Mind. He is a regular contributor to several journals, including the Independent on Sunday, Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, and Fortean Times, and frequently broadcasts for the BBC. As Gary Valentine, he was a founding member of the rock group Blondie, and wrote some of their early hits. His New York Rocker: My Life in the Blank Generation is an account of his years as a musician, and in 2006 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His most recent book is Jung the Mystic: The Esoteric Dimensions of Carl Jung's Life and Work.

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