Jung’s Wandering Archetype: Race and religion in analytical psychology

279 Pages·2016·1.94 MB·English

by  Carrie B. Dohe

JUNG’S WANDERING
ARCHETYPE
Is the Germanic god Wotan (Odin) really an archaic archetype of the Spirit? Was
the Third Reich at first a collective individuation process? After Friedrich Nietzsche
heralded the “death of God,” might the divine have been reborn as a collective form
of self-redemption on German soil and in the Germanic soul? In Jung’s Wandering
Archetype Carrie Dohe presents a study of Jung’s writings on Germanic psychology
from 1912 onwards, exploring the links between his views on religion and race and
providing his perspective on the answers to these questions.
Dohe demonstrates how Jung’s view of Wotan as an archetype of the collective
Germanic psyche was created from a combination of an ancient discourse on the
Germanic barbarian and modern theories of primitive religion, and how he further
employed völkisch ideology and various colonialist discourses to contrast hypothe-
sized Germanic, Jewish and ‘primitive’ psychologies. He saw Germanic psychology
as dangerous yet vital, promising rebirth and rejuvenation, and compared Wotan
to the Pentecostal Spirit, suggesting that the Germanic psyche contained the neces-
sary tension to birth a new collective psycho-spiritual attitude. In racializing his
religiously-inflected psychological theory, Jung combined religious and scientific
discourses in a particularly seductive way, masterfully weaving together the objec-
tive language of science with the eternal language of myth. Dohe concludes the
book by examining the use of these ideas in modern Germanic religion, in which
members claim that religion is a matter of race.
This in-depth study of Jung’s views on psychology, race and spirituality will
be fascinating reading for all academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian
studies, religious studies and the history of religion.
Carrie B. Dohe was a guest researcher at the University of Marburg’s Department
of Religious Studies from 2010 to 2015, investigating how people use discourse
about the divine to justify their social and political claims. Her current research
looks at religiously-motivated environmentalist movements in Germany.
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JUNG’S WANDERING
ARCHETYPE

Race and religion in analytical
psychology
Carrie B. Dohe
First published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 Carrie B. Dohe

The right of Carrie B. Dohe to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Dohe, Carrie B., author.
Title: Jung’s wandering archetype : race and religion in analytical
psychology / Carrie B. Dohe.
Description: London ; New York : Routledge, 2016. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016001167 | ISBN 9781138888401 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav), 1875-1961. | Archetype
(Psychology) | Race. | Religion. | Jungian psychology. | Germany—
Civilization—Psychological aspects.
Classification: LCC BF109.J8 D64 2016 | DDC 150.19/54092—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016001167
ISBN: 978-1-138-88840-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-71346-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Swales and Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
CONTENTS

List of figures vii
Acknowledgments viii
Abbreviations and readers’ guide x
1 “Something like Wotan”? 1
2 “Because we Germanic people still have a genuine
barbarian in us”: on ancient ethnographers, humanist
thinkers, and modern theorists of primitive religion,
or where Jung got his ideas 20
3 A “far finer and more comprehensive task for
psychoanalysis”: science, religion, and self-redemption
in analytical psychology 51
4 The “paleontology of the soul”: the concept of
primitivity and Jung’s theory of the stratified
phylogenetic unconscious 84
5 “Baldr comes home”: from the paleontology of the
soul to the invention of a Germanic mythology 118
6 Wotan and “the archetypal Ergriffenheit”: a tragedy
in three parts 159
7 “After the catastrophe”: wandering diagnoses and
changing relationships post-“Wotan” 192
8 The “most complicated psychology”: the reception of
analytical psychology in contemporary Heathenism 210
v
CONTENTS
9 Conclusion: “man as he was – and will always be”?
Racial essentialism, scientific discourse, and new
spiritualities 240
Index 250

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FIGURES

2.1 The Cheruscan leader Hermann and the reformer Martin
Luther. An illustration from the satirical magazine
Kladderadatsch (1875) commemorating the unveiling of the
Hermann Memorial in Detmold, Germany. Hermann
declares that he conquered; Luther, that he will.
The common enemy, Rome, appears in the background. 27
4.1 Jung’s 1927 model of the phylogenetic unconscious as a
multi-storied house. This represents the house as Jung
described it in his 1927 lecture “The Earth Conditionality of
the Psyche” to the School of Wisdom’s “Man and Earth”
Conference in Darmstadt, Germany. Illustration by
Christiane Strobach, ©2015. All rights reserved. 85
5.1 Eduard Schwechten, 1896, Das Lied von Levi, p. 13,
illustrations by Siegried Horn. This illustration shows that
Jung’s portrayals of Jews, blacks and Native Americans as
essentially primitive in an infantile sense were hardly his
own invention, but were common stereotypes in his day. 137
5.2 Jung’s concept of primitivity in relation to modern mass
society, Jews, and people of Germanic stock. Illustration
by Christiane Strobach, ©2015. All rights reserved. 139
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work has been enriched by the feedback offered by other scholars and students
from different countries at various workshops, conferences, and colloquia, and my
own students in courses I taught at the University of Chicago and Philipps University
in Marburg, Germany. In particular I wish to acknowledge the generosity, support,
feedback, and criticism of Richard Noll and George Hogenson in the United States;
Paul Bishop in Scotland; Nicolas Meylan in Switzerland; and Adelheid Hermann-
Pfandt, Horst Junginger, and Jörg Lauster in Germany. Special thanks to Richard
and Nico for their feedback on the final stages of the manuscript and to Richard for
his continual support for the project. Thanks, too, to Florian Mildenberger and other
participants at the “Master-Disciple Relationship in Interdisciplinary Discourse”
Workshop at the Free University of Berlin (April 23–25, 2010), and the many con-
versations with insightful colleagues at the European Society for the Study of the
Human Sciences Annual Conference in Würzburg in 2013.
Thanks to Michael Geyer and Paul Mendes-Flohr for feedback on an ear-
lier version of the present work. A special thanks to Celia Brickman, whose
rich commentary on earlier drafts improved the content and flow significantly.
I am most indebted to Wendy Doniger, not only for her insightful comments on
earlier drafts, but for her continued support and guidance through the process
of seeking a book publisher. Thanks also to Bruce Lincoln and Stefanie von
Schnurbein, in whose classes the seeds of this project were first planted at the
University of Chicago.
Katja Triplett and especially Edith Franke deserve a special acknowledg-
ment of gratitude for welcoming this wayward scholar into the Department of
the Study of Religions at Philipps University of Marburg, providing me space
to work there, as well as comments and encouragement along the way. The
diversity of programming and resources, the good cheer of the colleagues, and
the willingness of students and scholars alike to provide me with feedback on
chapters and presentations has made the completion of this book possible.
In researching this project, I used several archives in Germany and Switzerland.
I wish to thank the staff at the Literature Archive in Marbach am Neckar and at the
ETH-Bibliothek in Zurich (Switzerland). A special thanks goes to archivist Antje
Märke of the Federal Archive of Germany in Coblenz.
viii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My editor Susannah Frearson deserves a big thank you for shepherding this
book through the production phase.
Many thanks to Routledge and Princeton for granting permission to quote
extensively from vols. 7 and 10 of Jung’s Collected Works.
A hearty “herzlichen Dank!” to Christiane Strobach for her fine illustrations; to
Stefanie Ullman for her wonderful help with editing; and to Barbara Gueldenring for
her proofreading and comments. To dear friends who supported me during all phases
of this project and especially during the strenuous Endspurt: ganz herzlichen Dank!
Any errors in the text are entirely my own. Every effort has been made to con-
tact copyright holders of material used in this book, and any omissions brought to
the attention of the Publisher will be corrected in future printings.
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