An Archetypal Approach to Death Dreams and Ghosts

Foreword

The author of this book has already made a name for herself by her valuable contributions to the literature of analytical psychology. Here she tells of strange tales which incur the odium of superstition and are therefore exchanged only in secret. They were lured into the light of day by a questionnaire sent out by Schweizerischer Beobachter, which can thereby claim to have rendered no small service to the public. The mass of material that came in arrived first at my address. Since my age and my ever-growing preoccupation with other matters did not allow me to burden myself with further work, the task of sorting out such a collection and submitting it to psychological evaluation could not have been placed in worthier hands than those of the author. She had displayed so much psychological tact, understanding and insight in her approach to a related theme – an interpretation of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s story The Golden Pot¹ – that I never hesitated in my choice.

Curiously enough, the problem of wonder tales as they are currently told – enlightenment or no enlightenment – has never been approached from the psychological side. I naturally don’t count mythology, although people are generally of the opinion that mythology is essentially history and no longer happens nowadays. As a psychic phenomenon of the present, it is considered merely a hunting-ground for economics. Nevertheless, ghost stories, warning visions, and other strange happenings are constantly being reported, and the number of people to whom something once happened is surprisingly large. Moreover, despite the disapproving silence of the enlightened, it has not remained hidden from the wider public that for some time now there has been a serious science which goes by the name of parapsychology. This fact may have helped to encourage the popular response to the questionnaire.

One of the most notable things that came to light is the fact that among the Swiss, who are commonly regarded as stolid, unimaginative, rationalistic and materialistic, there are just as many ghost stories and suchlike as, say, in England or Ireland. Indeed, as I know from my own experience and that of other investigators, magic as practiced in the Middle Ages and harking back to much remoter times has by no means died out, but still flourishes today as rampantly as it did centuries ago. One doesn’t speak of these things, however. They simply happen, and the intellectuals know nothing of them – for intellectuals know neither themselves nor people as they really are. In the world of the latter, without their being conscious of it, the life of the centuries lives on, and things are continually happening that have accompanied human life from time immemorial: premonitions, foreknowledge, second sight, hauntings, ghosts, return of the dead, bewitchings, sorcery, magic spells, etc.

Naturally enough our scientific age wants to know whether such things are true, without taking into account what the nature of any such proof would have to be and how it could be furnished. For this purpose the events in question must be looked at squarely and soberly, and it generally turns out that the most exciting stories vanish into thin air and what is left over is not worth talking about. Nobody thinks of asking the fundamental question: what is the real reason why the same old stories are experienced and repeated over and over again, without losing any of their prestige? On the contrary, they return with their youthful vitality constantly renewed, fresh as on the first day.

The author has made it her task to take these tales for what they are, that is, as psychic facts, and not to pooh-pooh them because they do not fit into our scheme of things. She has therefore logically left aside the question of truth, as has long since been done in mythology, and instead has tried to inquire into the psychological questions: Exactly who is it that sees a ghost? Under what psychic conditions does he see it? What does a ghost signify when examined for its content, i.e., as a symbol?

She understands the art of leaving the story just as it is, with all the trimmings that are so offensive to the rationalist. In this way the twilight atmosphere that is so essential to the story is preserved. An integral component of any nocturnal, numinous experience is the dimming of consciousness, the feeling that one is in the grip of something greater than oneself, the impossibility of exercising criticism, and the paralysis of the will. Under the impact of the experience reason evaporates and another power spontaneously takes control – a most singular feeling which one willy-nilly hoards up as a secret treasure no matter how much one’s reason may protest. That, indeed, is the uncomprehended purpose of the experience – to make us feel the overpowering presence of a mystery.

The author has succeeded in preserving the total character of such experiences, despite the refractory nature of the reports, and is making it an object of investigation. Anyone who expects an answer to the question of parapsychological truth will be disappointed. The psychologist is little concerned here with what kind of facts can be established in the conventional sense; all that matters to him is whether a person will vouch for the authenticity of his experience regardless of all interpretations. The reports leave no doubt about this; moreover, in most cases their authenticity is confirmed by independent parallel stories. It cannot be doubted that such reports are found at all times and places. Hence there is no sufficient reason for doubting the veracity of individual reports. Doubt is justified only when it is a question of a deliberate lie. The number of such cases is increasingly small, for the authors of such falsifications are too ignorant to be able to lie properly.

The psychology of the unconscious has thrown so many beams of light into other dark corners that we would expect it to elucidate also the obscure world of wonder tales eternally young. From the copious material assembled in this book those conversant with depth psychology will surely gain new and significant insights which merit the greatest attention. I can recommend it to all those who know how to value things that break through the monotony of daily life with salutary effects, (sometimes!) shaking our certitudes and lending wings to the imagination.

C. G. Jung

1 Bilder und Symbole aus E. T. A. Hoffmanns Märchen ‘Der goldne Topf,’ in Jung, Gestaltungen des Unbewußten (1950).

Introductory Note

The material used for the present investigation consists of letters written in response to an inquiry initiated by the editor of the popular Swiss fortnightly, the Schweizerischer Beobachter, in 1954 and ’55. This inquiry had been preceded by a series of articles on prophetic dreams, coincidences, premonitions, apparitions etc. The editor concluded the series with the question whether readers had had similar experiences and, if so, would they report them to the Beobachter. The response was astonishing; more than 1200 letters containing about 1500 accounts were received.

I am most indebted to the editor of the Beobachter for having generously placed the whole of the material at the disposal of Professor C. G. Jung who entrusted me with its psychological investigation. It was his interest in the matter and our many conversations on this subject that enabled me to classify the material according to the principles of analytical psychology and to seek a psychological interpretation of the many experiences related.

I should also like to express my thanks to Mr. Martin Ebon of New York for the interest he has shown in this book. It is at his instigation that it is published in English. He had previously translated and published my paper on the same subject Psychological Aspects of Spontaneous Cases, in the International Journal of Parapsychology (Vol. IV, No. 2, Spring 1962).

Especially warm thanks are due to Mrs. Jane Pratt of Bridgewater, Connecticut, not only for her interest, but also for her generous help with the translation into English.

Finally I should like to thank Mrs. V. C. Klein-Williams, Miss Veronica Ladenburg and Miss Mary Elliot for the translation and Mr. R. F. C. Hull for the translation of C. G. Jung’s foreword.

The Letters

The first thing that strikes us about the letters is their number. This is proof not only of the lively interest such questions arouse, but shows that occult² or, as they are often termed, super-sensory or supernatural experiences may be more common than we are generally ready to admit. In our so-called age of technology, there are no less than 1200 readers of a German Swiss fortnightly who considered it worth their while to report irrational incidents. They did not do so lightly. It is obvious that many of them hesitated before putting pen to paper, reluctant because their experiences are often not taken seriously, and they themselves are laughed at or branded cracked, liars, or tellers of tall tales. Thus in practically all the letters the writers ask that their names be omitted in case of publication, either because they do not want to be talked about, or because others concerned must be considered. The predominant feeling is that there is something in these experiences which commands special reticence or even awe. They touch on something inexplicable and mysterious, whose effects remain unpredictable even after the lapse of years. Even children feel these misgivings. In many cases they have kept their experiences to themselves, unable to speak of them to their parents or closest relations. Sometimes the writers have taken their priest or pastor into their confidence, which may be a hint that occult experiences often touch on the religious sphere.

I express my special gratitude to the writers. It was their frankness that made the investigation possible. Among them are representatives of all social classes, but most of them are farmers, workmen, tradesmen and office employees. And it must be added that some of the finest, most genuine and original letters are written by the common man, or simple women from town or country, while in the letters from intellectuals, critical reflections often tend to blur the impression of the experiences. There are, of course, exceptions in both cases.

The Value of the Letters as Scientific Material

The first question that arose in dealing with the letters was their value as material for scientific research. They cannot, in themselves, be considered as a contribution to the science of parapsychology as it is practised today. This must be emphasized from the start.

Hans Driesch, one of the German pioneers for the recognition of parapsychology as a branch of science, laid down a few rules for the scientific evaluation of occult phenomena. Reports of premonitions, clairvoyance, prophetic dreams, etc. could be accepted as valid research material only when set down in writing and communicated to some reliable person before corroboration by the actual event. In cases of haunting, apparitions, etc., each individual incident should be carefully observed and verified. Neither requirement was fulfilled in the case of the Beobachter letters.

I considered whether I should try to obtain proof of the experiences. However, verification years after the event had taken place would have been of doubtful value. Sometimes the occurrences happened to fathers, mothers or relatives of the writers, and most of the experiences were so charged with emotion that they were in any case difficult if not impossible to record objectively. It will, however, be explained later why the letters, in spite of these reservations, are scientifically instructive and significant.

It must also be remembered that the rules laid down by Driesch for parapsychological investigations are no longer regarded as absolutely binding. The question of the truth of each individual account is not as important as it was, say, at the end of the last century, when parapsychology was still in its infancy. Today accounts of parapsychological experiences can be handled with more freedom than they could when it was still an open question whether paranormal phenomena did or did not exist. Through decades of scientific research a greater certainty has been achieved, so that the original primary rules may, under certain conditions, be laid aside. However, meticulous verification of spontaneous parapsychological phenomena must still be regarded as the basis on which this borderline science should rest.

Besides spontaneous phenomena, the field of parapsychology also covers actual laboratory research. This has been developed steadily within the last generation; the scientific method and the statistical evaluation of its results have become the main object of research. Experimental parapsychology was developed and promoted in the grand style mainly by J. B. Rhine at Duke University. By means of his famous experiments with cards, Rhine proved that man was capable of extrasensory perception (in parapsychological literature, ESP). Thus man can, for instance, have knowledge of events distant in space or time without that knowledge being conveyed to him by his five senses. On the contrary, the knowledge of the future or distant event comes to him, as it were, through hidden channels of the mind, as Louisa Rhine, J. B. Rhine’s wife, called her book on spontaneous parapsychological phenomena. Rhine rendered the incalculable service of placing parapsychology on a scientific basis by means of strictly checked and controlled laboratory tests, and a broad field of parapsychological research all over the world has ensued from his investigations. Experiments with mediums – individuals outstandingly gifted with ESP – were carried out as long ago as the end of last century, but these were but the first uncertain steps of a very young science. Such experiments, of course, still play an important part in parapsychological research, though in a more exact scientific form. While in that type of research individuals are tested for their special gifts and capacity for ESP, etc., the tests initiated by Rhine have been conducted also in series, and were able to demonstrate those gifts as common human faculties. This was Rhine’s momentous discovery.

Thus experiments, exact observation, inquiries (questionnaires) and statistics are the foundation of parapsychological methods in our day. We must, however, mention those scientists who have summarized the results of these inquiries and drawn conclusions; for instance C. G. Jung in Switzerland. Most of his investigations were based to a large extent on the scientific results of Rhine’s research. His first concern was to discover the psychological conditions under which parapsychological phenomena occur, and his approach involved, above all, the action of unconscious factors inaccessible to planned experiment. In his essay, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle,3 which will often be referred to in the course of the present inquiry, Jung provided an explanation for parapsychological phenomena and particularly for meaningful coincidences, prophetic dreams, precognitions, telepathy, etc. He did so by including the unconscious and its laws as the constellating factor. Jung’s first and still important publication, his doctoral thesis published in 1902, On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena,4 was a scientific account of experiments with a female medium.

In the chapter entitled The Mailbag of Rhine’s book, New Frontiers of the Mind,5 we read that since the appearance of his first publication on ESP he has received thousands of letters from every part of the country and every kind of writer. Like the letters to the Beobachter, many of them are accounts of personal experiences. Most of the writers were deeply impressed by their experiences and, as Rhine says, write with a ring of sincerity that one feels to be beyond question. The same can be said of the writers to the Beobachter. Rhine cannot accept the letters as evidence, although to say this is not to cast doubt upon the veracity of the writers; nevertheless he attaches great importance to these written accounts, not only because they establish a living contact with people outside the laboratory walls, and record experiences closely akin to those investigated by himself, but because some day perhaps our files of this sort of material will be utilized in some research of a classifying or analytical nature. Thus Rhine confirms that similar accounts – for instance the letters written to the Beobachter – may also be put to good use and form the basis of a psychological investigation. In the meantime Louisa E. Rhine has undertaken the work suggested by her husband. She has published the results of her investigations in an essay, Hallucinatory Psi Experiences⁶ (Psi denotes the human capacity for extrasensory perception) and, later, in her book, Hidden Channels of the Mind (1961). From time to time I shall be referring to this thorough study which is based on a much larger number of letters than I had at my disposal. Mrs. Rhine was chiefly concerned with classification and parapsychological analysis of the reported material, whereas the point at issue in this book is a psychological and interpretative one. In the last chapter the role of the unconscious, especially of the archetype as an organizing factor in the unconscious, and the Jungian concept of synchronicity have been given special attention. Moreover I was interested in the significance which the experience had for the correspondents and particularly in the meaning of the events as symbols.

What does it mean if ghosts so often appear surrounded by light? Or if they are so often seen as white figures? Or headless, or transparent? These details are the rule, but are they mere chance? Or is there a meaning underlying the rule? It was these questions which led me to apply to the mysteriousness of the apparitions the method applied in Jung’s psychology to manifestations of the unconscious, dream, images, visions, poetry, etc. That is, I tried to interpret the phenomena with the help of amplificatory material.⁷

It was, of course, inevitable that in applying an interpretative and psychological method, one should also be confronted at every turn with the question of the nature of the apparitions, with the problem of what it is that is experienced and reported. The answer can only consist of suggestions and hypotheses drawn from the inner logic of the experiences; these are based on Jung’s research into the unconscious, particularly into acausal connections.

The Archetypal Character of the Experiences

The occult experiences recorded in the present collection, considered as mere facts, break no fresh ground. What the letters have to tell can be found in the oldest traditions. Experiences in which a dying person announces his presence by knocking, footsteps, the breaking of crockery, or a ticking in the wall, the motif of premonition or precognition, prophetic dreams, haunting or actual apparitions, etc., have been handed down from time immemorial in every part of the world and have survived in primitive as well as in highly civilized cultures, regardless of rational objections and criticism.

For these reasons the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) refused to consider accounts of apparitions simply as fabrications. Such an interpretation would, he said, be refuted by the absolute similarity inherent in the very peculiar nature of the alleged phenomena, however far apart in space and time were the happenings recorded.

A similar standpoint was taken by Henri Bergson (1859–1941).