Possessing the Secret of Joy ~ by Alice Walker

(p. vi) Bollingen, the Stone

While reading Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections as part of my course of study, I was surprised by a photo of this stone. I thought, Hey! This stone is used on the cover of Alice Walker's book Possessing the Secret of Joy. Strange as it may sound, I bought the book because of the cover and have never read it. Maybe I should, now that I know its origin.

(click to enlarge the book's cover)

Carl Jung was a stone carver (I didn't know that, either) and carved this stone himself. He built his tower-house at Bollingen himself, and this stone was delivered by mistake. He liked the stone and kept it, carving this "mandala" on it.

If you've read the book, tell me what you thought about it, please. Should I read it?

Synchronicity of the First Order

Dear Ginnie, my friend,

You've gone and done it again, aiming me in a direction that will take another big chunk of time ... and I'm excited about it! I've decided to take a class in Jungian psychology. Here's the outline for the course, though I'll be reading (at this time) only two of the three "required" texts by Carl Jung. Dr. James J. Dillon, who taught this class in the fall of 2003 won't be my teacher, of course, as I've never even heard of him and I've missed the semester by almost five years. But he very kindly left his description of the course online, along with his list of texts (I'm skipping the first one for now) and course objectives (I'll pick and choose among these also, as I don't plan to have a "professional practice"). In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'll be doing this course of study on my own, with Carl Jung himself as my teacher. Since the course number is so high (psych 6785), I assume it's a doctoral (or at least master's) level course, so you may call me Dr. Bonnie when I finish. Consider this my first class report:

Synchronicity of the First Order

Yesterday I bought and started reading The Portable Jung, edited by Joseph Campbell. Going about this in my own inimitable way, I started with Chapter 13. (Hey, this was before I found Dr. Dillon's course outline while googling, so give me a break.) Anyway, I read the chapter about "The Difference Between Eastern and Western Thinking." That will have time to marinate in my noggin before I get to it about two-thirds of the way along in the course schedule.

Since I couldn't find a copy yesterday of Memories, Dreams, Reflections -- Jung's autobiography -- I got a copy today from the big library downtown and started reading. After all, it's the one you said I should read first of these two books. Page one is the beginning of the introduction by Aniela Jaffe, who recorded what Jung said and edited the book for publication. The very last line on the very first page has this sentence: "We began in the spring of 1957." And stamped below that was the date my library acquired this "cop.1" (first copy): JUN 1963.

Oh, what fun! In the spring of 1957, I was finishing my junior year in high school and would graduate in the class of 1958, exactly 50 years ago! Yes, I'm older than dirt, but we elderly grads have planned a sock hop for this fall. The synchronicity is not simply that "June 1963" is 45 years ago, though there's that, but that seeing the date took me back to the birth of my son in June 1963. I'm gonna guess that going through this self-imposed course of study of Jungian analytical psychology will be like birthing something new for me. I have read a bit by and about Carl Jung, but I've never really set out to integrate the big picture into my thinking. So wish me luck, Ginnie (and all of you who run across this posted on my book blog). I'm off and running. Gotta go now and read page TWO of the book.

Love,
~~~ Bonnie

Carl Gustav Jung was born on July 26, 1875 in Kesswil, Switzerland. He died on June 6, 1961 at the age of 85 in Zürich, Switzerland.

Link provided by Ginnie to the Jung Society of Atlanta.