I’m a big fan lately of quoting passages from books I read, as you may have noticed. I want to pop in another segment from Von Franz’s Alchemy. This book, like a bunch of ones by her, actually consists of a transcribed lecture series she gave way back when. This one’s 1959, I believe. As a set up to this particular section, let me explain that she’s talking about conducting analysis on an imaginary patient, a Christian monk, who is having second thoughts about his vow of celibacy. Her advice on the matter is that the analyst should have him “listen to god,” thereby working within his own system of belief, rather than imposing hers on him. A man in the audience takes issue with her, saying basically that this man needs to listen to the Law of God, and not God’s voice.

Remark: Well, I know He has natural laws involving human beings.

Dr. von Franz: To us the experience of God is greater and more unknown and therefore we consult Him again each time. We have not the idea that He has uttered His last word. That is the great contrast between psychology and theology. We think of God as a reality who can speak in our psyche. One never knows what God may ask of an individual. That is why every analysis is an adventure, because one never knows what God is going to ask of this particular person.

Question: Are there limits to that?

Dr. von Franz: No, there are no limits, one cannot set limits for God. We have a much humbler attitude than theologians. We simply say we should wait and see what God has to say about the situation in each case. We make no assumptions as to what He is going to do, so each human life becomes a unique spiritual and religious adventure, and a unique meeting with God. God can set his own limitations.

Remark: By the point is that He has not yet done it.

Dr. von Franz: He hasn’t in your life, perhaps, but wait until God gives you an order! You are quite right to speak as you do until God makes you think differently, and you have the right to say that He has not interfered with your theories. So that is all right for you, but not for others. There are other people with whose conscious theories God has interfered and very strongly, and then they have to readapt to a new reality.

… For us, there is always only the individual and his or her experience of God and all the rest is secondary …

Remark: I think God has already given His unique answer in each case.

Dr. von Franz: That is where we differ. You think God has published general rules which He keeps Himself, and we think He is a living spirit appearing in man’s psyche who can always create something new.

Remark: Within the framework of what He has already published.

Dr. von Franz: To a theologian God is bound to His own books and is capable of further publications. That is where we lock horns. (p. 139-142)

Anyway, I really like that conversation for a variety of reasons. She seems like she was one goddamn smart and together woman. I would love to have met her and studied with her, which is not something I say about a lot of people.

Anyway, I think this quote relates very directly to the quote below about the Bible as a hologram, and entering into a dialogue with the Scriptures, as well as this whole idea theologically of the prohibition against adding any new information to God’s publications.

Also, to me, this quote is important, because she basically - without saying it - equates her view of the practice of psychology to a kind of mystical spirituality. And in so doing, she compares an individualized mystical approach to religion, to an orthodox theological one. You can guess pretty easily which side I favor.