Carl Jung on "Isms"

[Carl Jung on “Isms”]

Special to The New York Times

New Haven, Conn., Oct. 20.–Dr. C. G. Jung of Zurich said today in opening the Terry lectures at Yale University before more than 2,000 persons in Woolsey Hall that the great mental epidemics of our days, called “isms,” showed that the majority of human beings were exposed to the possibility of being dominated by irrational ideas.

“Such ideas are based upon unconscious motive-powers,” he added. “The most efficient method of exploring the causality and the meaning of such phenomena is the analysis of dreams.”

Dr. Jung crossed the ocean to appear for the Dwight H. Terry Foundation which was established for lectures on “Religion in the Light of Science and Philosophy.” He was introduced by President Seymour.

Speaking on the topic “Applied Psychology and Religion,” he said:

“There are any amount of creeds and ceremonies for the sole purpose of forming a defense against the unexpected dangerous tendencies of the unconscious. The peculiar fact that the dream is the divine voice and messenger and yet an unending source of trouble does not disturb the primitive mind. Since the dawn of mankind there has been a marked tendency to delimit the unruly and arbitrary ‘supernatural’ influence by definite forms and laws. And this process has gone on in history by the multiplication of rites, institutions and creeds.

“In the last 2,000 years we find the institution of the Christian Church assuming a mediating and protective function between these influences and man. It is not denied in medieval ecclesiastical writings that a divine influx could take place in dreams, for instance, but this view is not exactly encouraged and the church reserves her right to decide whether a revelation is to be considered as authentic or not.”

In his discussion of dreams, Dr. Jung stated that he “takes dreams for granted and not as a ‘mere facade behind which something has been carefully hidden.'” In this he disagrees with Freud.

“Freud has made a courageous effort to elucidate the intricacies of dream psychology by the aid of views which he has gathered in the field of psychopathology,” said Dr. Jung. “Much as I admire the boldness of his attempt, I cannot agree with his method and its results.

“I am doubtful whether we can assume a dream is something else than it appears to be. I am rather inclined to quote another Jewish authority, the Talmud, which says: “The dream is its own interpretation.’

“The dream is a natural event and there is no reason under the sun why we should assume that it is a crafty device to lead us astray.”

Image: The Blind Leading the Blind ~ Pieter Bruegel the Elder