Download The Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung ePub

Pretty much explains Jung to me. Seven years of talking to Jungian analysts, now I get it. Anyone interested in C. G. Jung should read this. Not surprising that there are a lot of condemnations from Jungians of this book and the author. Their careers are at stake. They've been feasting at a banquet of baroque pseudoscience for decades. And, after all couldn't Jung explain everything? Real researchers know the limits of their knowledge Jungians don't. Read about Noll then look up his critics. I'll let you decide.

As you can see from the diversity of viewpoints expressed both here and in reviews of Noll's "The Jung Cult", this is a highly controversial history of Jung's work with an emphasis on aspects that Noll claims have been suppressed. When I was debating whether or not to buy this book, I found one seemingly scholarly review that called it "bad history" and, just now wondering whether I should say what I am about to write, I did further searches and found several other, seemingly reasonable reviews which take Noll to task for bad scholarship. So, as one should always, I will try to remain open to the possibility that I have been misled. But the diary extracts, letters, and other source material from which Noll's conclusions are drawn are carefully footnoted and mostly gleaned from libraries where anyone could easily show deception if that were the case. So, for the moment, Noll has convinced me that there is a dark side (both in the Jungian and conventional sense) to Jung.

I came to this book with a very high regard for Jung and seeing him as a guardian of truth in standing up to Freud's dogmatic insistence on the sexual basis of all neuroses. I still regard Jung as brilliant and having made extremely important contributions to humanity, but I now see a more balanced picture. Freud may have been too focused on sexuality, but apparently so was Jung, although in a much more personal way. Noll provides a convincing picture of Jung as being secretly dogmatic that a form of free love is essential to psychological health. Jung's sexual relationships with patients and coworkers, and his advice to patients to have extramarital affairs seem incontrovertible based on the evidence presented here.

I suspect that much of the criticism of Noll is based on his evidence that Jung was heavily into an Aryan world viewpoint, which immediately conjures up Nazi stereotypes in our minds. Noll repeatedly tries to counteract that understandable tendency, saying for example (last paragraph of the Introduction) "But the most troublesome part of this story comes from asking you, the reader, to do the morally impossible: to imagine a world - fin-de-siecle German Kultur - in which the words "Hitler" and "Nazi" and "Holocaust" do not exist."

Along these lines, it helps to remember that many intelligent, respectable, well-meaning Americans (e.g., Lindberg, Joseph Kennedy Sr.) were early Nazi supporters, just as many were early Communist supporters. The horrendous evils perpetrated in the names of Aryanism and Communism were not present in their early philosophies. It also helps to remember that anti-Semitism and racism in general were the cultural norm througout the world until well into the 1960's or 1970's. It was almost impossible NOT to be prejudiced in Jung's time. (A related book that touches on psychoanalysis and anti-Semitism and that I highly recommend is Bakan's "Sigmund Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition.")

Another problem concerns Noll's evidence that Jung disparaged Christianity and secretly reverted to (as well as secretly proselytized for) an ancient, pagan, Aryan religion. Such a move will be seen through a highly distorting filter if viewed in the context of today's Christianity. Again, it is hard, but important, to view Jung's choices in terms of the dogmatic Swiss-German Christianity of the late nineteenth century.

As with most movements that believe they have the secret to saving the world, many Jungians idealize their prophet and make him into a kind of god. In contrast, the picture that emerges from "Aryan Christ" is of a brilliant man -- but a man not a god and therefore with all the attendant human frailties. The danger is in forgetting Jung's humanity.

Reading this book is like going on a drug trip of sorts. The picture of Jung that is presented is a mentally ill or very strange man. Many of the family stories, and interactions are hard to believe as Truth? I is an enjoyable read however.

The book is well written, but the subject, Jung, is hard to like. At least it gives you a different perspective on the whole psychoanalyst scam. Both Freud and Jung come across as delusional psychopaths. Maybe this is a judgement based on the last 100 years of perspective from watching the many hucksters like Hubbard, Shoko Asahara, Marshall Applewhite, who should make us more wary of joining totalitarian cults.

This is an okay book but is an anti-Jung analysis book.

Richard Noll's 'Aryan Christ' presented to readers the Jung which which the recent publication of the Red Book confirms. Those interested in contextualising Jung and his journal or even to just 'de-code' the Red Book will benefit from reading Richard Noll's 'Aryan Christ'.

After reading the negative reviews I was expecting a complete hatchet job. Aryan Christ is actually very readable and Richard Noll seems to have done a ton of research. Noll is a good writer so I have to admit that this was an enjoyable read.

However, you can tell Noll can't stand C.G Jung. Every opportunity to kick the guy is gladly taken.

This book reminds me of the biography of Timothy Leary by Robert Greenfield. Greenfield hates Leary at much as Noll hates Jung. But Greenfield's book is a classic and the man knows his subject.

As to why a man who can't stand a bloke will spend years researching the man when he can just throw a shoe at him is any ones guess!

Me, ill make a voodoo doll of my enemy and eat it rather than sit there and write a book about the bastards!