Missed It By That Much

Missed It By That Much

Len Cruz, MD

Those who are familiar with the television show, “Get Smart” recognize the source of the title.  Maxwell Smart, a hapless secret agent would justify his obvious missteps with the phrase, Missed it by that much! During yesterday’s Red Book conference with Dr. Murray Stein, there were too many gold nuggets to even attempt a summary.  Instead, I chose one that Dr. Stein illustrated by recounting one of Jung’s dreams.  I’ll begin with a shortened version Jung’s dream as recounted by Dr. Stein.

Jung and his father are in a mosque.  They find themselves kneeling and beginning to bow.  Evidently, Jung’s father bows fully allowing his head to make contact with the floor.  However, Jung stops within a millimeter of the floor.  He will not permit himself to bow completely.(Missed it by that much!)

Yesterday Dr. Stein suggested that in Jung’s later years Jung stated that he did not believe but he knew. This may reflect Jung’s integration of the figure of Philemon a sort of prophet with whom he had engaged in fertile relationship for years.  According to Dr. Stein, the famous dream described above reflected Jung having outgrown a childish faith.  Soul had invited Jung to offer obedience to the gods, an exhortation he refused.  He argues with this anima figure and refuses to offer unqualified, blind obedience.   Instead, Jung proposed that if the gods wanted him to obey they must do something for him.  Dr. Stein suggested that this is evidence of Jung’s mature faith, a fully flowering faith founded upon knowing and notbelieving. At an earlier point in the conference Dr. Stein explained that Jung did not oppose faith but that the German word to which he objected might be better translated as belief, the experience of believing in something because you have been told to do so or because it has been transmitted to you.  Belief, in this context, is the untested, un-lived version of knowing.

Dr. Stein connected his ideas about Jung’s mature faith to the modern theological trend known collectively as “Process Theology”.  Anyone interested learning more about Process Theology may find these two books helpful, “Process and Reality (A. N. Whitehead) and “Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition” (John Cobb & David Ray Griffin).  What a brilliant insight Dr. Stein makes in suggesting that Jung’s later writings such as “Answer to Job” presage the movement that has come to be known as “Process Theology”.  An exceptional summary and commentary on “Answer to Job” by J. Marvin Spiegelman can be found online at http://www.junginstitute.org/pdf_files/JungV8N1p1-18.pdf .  It is no surprise that Dr. Stein, who is divinity trained (and possibly divinely trained), should make such a clear connection between Jung’s mature faith perspective and the process theologians.   However, let me propose a different rendering of Jung’s dream.  Jung may have missed it by that much!

Dr. Stein discouraged the reader of the Red Book from viewing the material as somechanneled work. Jung’s ego not only remained intact, it was actively engaged with the interior figures.  There was no merger, no suspension of ego into some passive vessel, no idle recipient of channeled experiences.   To the contrary, Jung was contentious, argumentative and even rude at times.  While this stance toward his interior figures may have permitted a fuller, deeper exposition of their insights and instruction, it may also have obstructed a different kind of knowing.  That stance also reflects an unyielding, willful, recalcitrant feature in Jung that earlier perhaps contributed to his split with Freud and delayed reconciliation with Father Victor White.  Perhaps the dream and that single millimeter are simultaneously a testament to Jung’s mature faith and his inability to offer a complete surrender into the mystical union.  It was a bridge he could not cross.

Jung’s tenacious grip upon the egoic functions that allowed him to record such a rich travel log as the Red Book may have been the ultimate barrier to the experience of the mystic.  We think of Rumi’s poetry as a different sort of travel log from one who became lost in a merged state with the divine.

This brings us back to Jung’s dream.  It is at once a testament by a man who has done the arduous work of soul building and one who had not found a way to step willingly into complete surrender.  Jung is a post-Promethean man.  He has received the fire of illumination and steps out fearlessly to claim his rights as an image bearer of God.  He sustains his fortitude when he declines soul’s request for his obedience to the gods.  Earlier, Philemon counseled Jung to always keep his eye on this figure (soul) and never lose sight of her.  But Philemon also advised Jung to beware since she would lead him astray.  Jung’s defiance to yield that last millimeter pays heed to Philemon’s counsel.   I propose that single millimeter of difference between Jung and his father extends in myriad directions.  It suggests an Oedipal defiance that conflates his earthly father and heavenly Father.  The drama of that single millimeter is like an harmonic in music, akin to an integer multiple of an earlier note in Jung’s life when he had his falling out with Freud.  And again, it is as if that millimeter he withholds is an overtone of an earlier conflict with Fr. Victor White.

Jung exemplifies the Übermensch  Nietzsche glorifies.  In addition, the endless recurrence of which Nietzsche was so fond, seems confirmed by the harmonic resonance between Jung and his succession of opponents (earthly father, Freud, White, heavenly Father).  Jung claims his place in relation to the gods and will not demure.  He is reminiscent of Camus’ Sisyphus.  Camus imagines this rebellious, miscreant trickster differently as he carries out his sentence of rolling a stone up a hill only to have it roll down the other side and starting over again.  Camus turns away from suicide by rendering this mythopoetic figure as being happily defiant toward the gods who condemned him.  Jung’s refusal to yield that last millimeter conforms to Camus’ Sisyphus.  To parody the title of the 1967 hit Broadway musical, he was a Thoroughly Modern Mensch (not Millie).

Sadly, Jung will not allow himself to recover the childlike realms of faith by offering a complete surrender.  It is tempting to wonder what might have occurred if Jung had descended one additional millimeter.  It is in that final millimeter that Jung reveals a profound struggle.  While not disputing Dr. Stein’s proposition that the millimeter reflects Jung’s mature claim upon his own divine attributes, I propose that the fateful millimeter is also an indication of the transcendent function falling short of its mark.  Perhaps it points to the unification of apparent opposites at a meta-level.  Can a person be simultaneously defiant as Jung is when he refuses refuses to descend one last millimeter and knowingly submit by offering himself as a living sacrifice to the gods (or God).  That sacrifice is akin to the one Jesus commits to in the garden in Gethsemane.  He knows his fate, he is fully developed as a Self, and he proceeds to surrender anyway.  Do not think that I am proposing some inflating identification with Jesus the Christ; I am not.  I am using His example to illustrate a point.  It may be the transcendent function failed Jung and in his final moments, he turned away from the mystical, merged state and chose to keep his bearings.  If he had plunged just a millimeter deeper perhaps he might have had nothing to show for his work but an exquisite love poem of the sort Rumi left us.  To Jung, who had faced his demons and realized that he was driven by the pursuit of honor, that might not have seemed enough.

In Jung’s personal Twilight of the Idols he refrains from the callous, barren expression that Nietzsche arrives at but he seems unable to unify the rational, willful, fully developed man with the numinous, yielding, childlike man.  And so, it is in that last millimeter, that Jung truly may have Missed It By That Much.

From “Thus Spake Zarathustra”-Nietzsche

O man, take care!

What does the deep midnight declare?

“I was asleep—

From a deep dream I woke and swear:—

The world is deep,

Deeper than day had been aware.

Deep is its woe—

Joy—deeper yet than agony:

Woe implores: Go!

But all joy wants eternity—

Wants deep, wants deep eternity.”

Len Cruz, MD (first published at www.ashevilleungcenter.org/blog/ on May 15, 2010)