The following letter from Dr. Jung was received by Mr. L.P. Holliday.
The following letter from Dr. Jung was received by Mr. L.P. Holliday. Mr. Holliday explained to me that when he wrote to Dr. Jung in 1960, he was a research engineer working on military projects"some of them involved hurling missiles long distances to explode nuclear bombs, possibly over innocent civilians." He wrote to C.G. Jung with the hope that people from different disciplines could work together to understand human nature and to achieve the "impossible dream" of peace.Kusnacht-Zurich
November 6, 1960
Dear Sir,
You are obviously deeply impressed by the present non-political moral and psychological situation. As far as I can see, it is matter of a psychological problem par excellence: Man is confronted with powers apparently created by himself, but which he cannot control.
This is au fond a primitive situation, with the difference only that the primitive does not imagine himself to be the author of his demons.
The very objects and methods which have led civilized Man out of the jungle, have now attained to an autonomy which terrifies Man, all the more so, as he sees no ways and means to cope with them. Since he knows that his Ogres are man-made, he lives under the illusion that he could and should control them and he does not understand why this is not so. He is like Goethe's sorcerer's apprentice who, using his master's magic, vivified his broom and could not stop him anymore. This prejudice increases the difficulties, of course. In a way it would be a much more manageable situation, if Man could understand his unruly monsters in the primitive way, as being autonomous demons. But they are indeed not objective demons, they are more rational structures which simply and inexplicably escape our control. Yet we are still, as a matter of fact, in the same old jungle, where the individual is still threatened by dangerous factorsby machines, methods, organizations, etc., even more dangerous than the wild animals.
Something has not apparently changed at all: we have carried the old jungle with us, and this is, what nobody seems to understand. The jungle is in us, in our unconscious, and we have succeeded in projecting it into the outside world, where now the Saurians are lustily playing about again in the form of cars, airplanes and rockets.
Now, if a psychologist should participate in your world-organization, he would be up against the thankless task to make his colleagues from other disciplines see, where they have the blind spot. Do you think, that such a thing would be possible? I have already tried it since about 60 years, and there are relatively few individuals, who were inclined to listen to me. The human mind, still an adolescent boy, will sacrifice everything for a new gadget, but will carefully refrain from a look into himself.
You must judge for yourself, whether my view is pessimistic or optimistic, but I am rather certain, that something drastic will have to happen to wake up the dreamers, who are already on the way to the moon.
Sincerely yours,
C. G. Jung
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