Jung's vital deceptions

ANTHONY STEVENS's response (THES, November 29) to my article on the scientific baselessness of Jung's theories of a collective unconscious and archetypes is a perfect example of the evasion and lack of scientific or historical understanding that is typical of too many Jungians - particularly analysts. Therefore, I shall offer a correction.

First, Stevens evades the fact that Jung consciously, deliberately and repeatedly fabricated vital facts about his patients in order to make the collective unconscious seem more plausible. Remember: the claim is that within each of us an analyst can find symbols and mythological materials that come from a deep, archaic, transpersonal layer of the unconscious mind. As I point out in my book, The Jung Cult, he not only did this with the case of the Solar Phallus Man but also that of Kristine Mann as well. As I will further demonstrate in my next book, The Aryan Christ, Jung lied about the prior alchemical and mythological knowledge of all patients whose clinical material is used as evidence in his writings.

Second, Stevens forgets that theories - if they are to be welcomed as scientific - need evidence. If Jung's claims about his evidence are riddled with deception, we must conclude that the theory is potentially a sham. Furthermore, if the phenomena can be explained by a less mystical and experimentally demonstrated processes of human memory - cryptomnesia or implicit memory - why ignore this huge fund of evidence?

Third, Stevens repeats the mistake of Jung with his argument for proof by analogy. We find it in Goethe and in the German Romantic philosophers and in the magical thinking of the occult sciences. It goes something like this: If one idea seems similar to another, then the two must share the same essence, or be related in some way, or one can explain the other. I doubt that the linguist, developmental psychologist, ethologist, and evolutionary psychologist whose terms Stevens cites would agree that their ideas validate Jung's collective unconscious or archetypes.

Fourth, Stevens makes the common mistake of making synonyms out of evolution and natural selection. Did Jung believe that humans evolved from other species? Of course. Did he accept Darwin's non-progressive hypothesis of natural selection to account for it? Jung did not. Jung was following a contemporary, Ernst Haeckel, who saw a purpose at work in evolution. Jung was mostly interested in how the stage theory of evolution validated - by analogy - his ideas about the evolution of the human soul. Jung also used this type of thinking to validate his racialism, for example, because of biological differences, the Aryan and Jewish races had different psychologies. Stevens evades this thorny issue.

I doubt that many mainstream evolutionary biologists are "allies" of Jung. (Richard Dawkins, where are you?)

Richard Noll

Department of the history of science, Harvard University