FATHER FRANK’S RANTS - Tale of Two Gurus

Rant Number 362 9 September 2009

Vienna 1909. Jung is visiting Freud in his home. The Aryan is seeking to win the Semite over to his unorthodox views about occultism. ‘Because of his materialistic mindset, Freud rejected such matters as unsinning, nonsense’ Jung reports. Then he feels his chest muscles becoming as it were red-hot. At the same time a sudden, loud crack is heard from the bookcase right next to them. So loud they fear it is about to crash down on them.

‘There you are, Herr Professor. The proof. Occult powers exist.’

‘Unsinning!’ the aghast Freud persists. So Jung tells him he is going to repeat the feat. And sure again the bookcase detonates again. Nonetheless Freud remains unconvinced.

Freud or Jung? Which do you favour? The materialist guru or the spiritualist one? Religious people naturally warm to the latter. Jung’s writings abound in bizarre ‘mystical’ themes, from alchemy to the Tarot. Instead, Freud treats religion as a neurosis. His story of the purported truth about the human psyche, of the dark, sordid motors of human action, is base, unlovable. A non-believing Jew, in Moses and Monotheism he even sets out to denigrate his own religion.

Certainly, Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams contradicts Holy Scripture. The Bible shows God often speaking to men in dreams, something Freud’s theory rules out. Still, the Interpretation is not without interest but that is because I believe it proves its author’s dependency on an ancient Greek text which Freud quotes de passage, seemingly to scorn it. Artemidoros of Daldis was a professional dream interpreter – presumably a lucrative job - who lived 1800 years ago. His book anticipates Freud’s unsavoury theories about incestuous desires thrown up in dreams. The examples Artemidoros gives are too revolting to mention but he is the culprit, I have no doubt. Did Artemidoros appear to Freud in a dream and coaxed him into spread the vile Unsinn amongst gullible 20th century materialists? I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

Carl Gustav Jung is fashionable in certain esoteric circles. His works are a mixture of insights, sense and arrant nonsense. He can be fascinating, as well as plain stupid. But the chief problem with this Aryan is that he, like many gurus, is a fantasist. Less charitably, he tends to make up things. His Seven Sermons to the Dead are supposedly inspired by Jung’s guardian spirit. The author, the Gnostic heresiarch Basilides, has entered Jung’s soul for the occasion. (Or is it someone called Philimon? It hardly matters.) In Memories, Dreams, Reflections Jung describes that supernatural experience. Stupendous. Actually, he makes it up. As simple as that. Groan...Human, all too human.

Jung’s religious leanings could themselves be interpreted psychoanalytically. The son of a stern Swiss Protestant pastor, he subconsciously wished to please his father. But this repressed guilt leads on to confrontation with another surrogate dad, Sigmund Freud. A dad who considers religious experience nonsense. That brings with it even a whiff of anti-Jewish polemic – Aryan versus Jew. Pat, eh? Thank God, psychoanalysis is bunkum.

As to the poltergeist. Who was right? Freud or Jung? Was the father of psychoanalysis’ study really being haunted by a poltergeist? Or was it, more prosaically, simply an effect of central heating? (Cracks galore in the priest’s house when that’s on, I tell you.) Which one? Your own prejudices apart, how would you decide?

Well, you could use Occam’s razor. Something put forward by that worthy Franciscan, the English theologian and philosopher William of Occam. A principle held to curtail the unnecessary multiplication of entities. Going in for the simplest explanation, that’s it. If a kid throws a snowball, and it knocks off a man’s hat, what is simpler to conclude? That the snowball was responsible or that a host of invisible demons did it? The answer, I think, suggests itself. Similarly, it seems simpler to go from overheating oak boards to creaking noises than to noisy and mischievous ghosts. But of course, a follower of Jung may still dismiss this as sheer materialistic prejudice...

There is a true story about Bishop Mortimer, a learned bishop of Exeter. He was once called to exorcise a haunted house. That he did and all was piece and quiet. Until a month later, when he got a letter from a solicitor. ‘The poltergeist you exorcised has moved next door, my clients’ house. Please, will you come and do the job again.’

Whether the Bishop repeated the operation or not, I know not. But he could have declined. ‘How do you know the troublemaker is the same poltergeist I exorcised? It might be quite a different poltergeist. Therefore I am under no moral obligation to comply with your request.’

A rather uncharitably response, sure. But the Bishop had a good point. And that is that the identification, and re-identification, of disembodied entities presents an epistemic problem. I can tell the Tony Blair I see on TV today is the same Tony Blair – albeit a bit greyer and scrawnier – who was causing so much mischief as PM years ago. No problem. Why? Because Tony Blair is human. He has a body. Indeed, he is a body – he is embodied. Hence, bodily recognition of the critter presents no problem. But how do I tell yesterday’s poltergeist is the same nuisance as today’s poltergeist? He has no body. He is invisible. What criteria of identification do I have? That he makes the same noises? But, short of the chap (or chapess - but then some have argued there are no female poltergeists) tapping out long, meaningful messages in Morse code, how could I know? And he could still be a deceiver. That is why the Bishop’s riposte to the solicitor seems prima facie correct. But then the solicitor too could challenge the devious prelate. ‘Tell me then how do you know it is not the same poltergeist that you chased away before? What evidence do you have?’ Short of falling back on specious occult knowledge, the Bishop would be scuppered by his own argument, I fear.

After all this, it is with some compunction that I aver I have myself carried out exorcisms when in parish work. One of which resulting in a presumed poltergeist (or many – I haven’t a clue) happily moving off. Unsinning? I can only say, paraphrasing the Bard: there more things in heaven and earth that are dreamt of in human philosophy.

Revd Frank Julian Gelli

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