Jung, C. G. - Nietzsche's Zarathustra (Princeton, 1988)

In the Spring of 1 934, Dr. C. G. Jung brought to a conclusion a seminar

at the Zurich Psychological Club which had been running since October

1 930. The subject matter with which Jung and his studentspracticing

analysts, those training to be analysts, and selected analysands-

had engaged themselves was visions, more especially the remarkable

painted visions of an American woman, Christiana Morgan.

As this final term drew to a close, the question arose as to what the next

seminar should center upon, for by now the importance-almost the

necessity-of such a lecture/discussion series was well established. Before

Visions, there had been the Dreams Seminar, and so on back to

1 9 2 3-perhaps even earlier-when Jung started this kind of teaching

for a very particular audience. In 1 934 the group apparently had little

hesitation in deciding upon Nietzsche as their new topic, and more

particularly Nietzsche's strange and wonderful Thus Spake Zarathustra .

And so it was that when the group, some of whom had dropped out

and been replaced by others, convened in May, it was to hear their

mentor's warning that they all had an uphill and rocky path before

them , for not only was Nietzsche's mind highly convoluted and devious,

but his Zarathustra particularly so, with a style invented for this

very purpose-whatever that was ! But nothing daunted, they set to,

and as in previous seminars, the excitement grew as their leader (who

loved mountains) began to ready them for a journey that was destined

to end before its natural culmination, drowned out by the alarms of

war as the fateful summer of 1 939 approached.

By this time another feature of the seminars was also familiar: the

recording of the lectures and discussions. A professional secretary had

been engaged to take notes, which in turn were edited by Mary Foote

with the help of various members of the group, virtually all of whom

were taking their own notes. Bound multigraphed copies of these

notes were then made available to the participants, and to others associated

with Analytical Psychology, but each "volume" bore a warning

that the report was intended for the exclusive use of "members of the

Seminar with the understanding that it is not to be loaned and that no

part of it is to be copied or quoted for publication without Prof. Jung's

written permission."