Carl Jung - Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky

Flying Saucers

convincing and impressive.

New Statesman

A UFO Vision

Carl Gustav

Jung

Flying Saucers

A modern myth of things seen in the sky

Ein moderner Mythus. Von dingen, die am Himmel

gesehen werden first published 1958

by Rascher, Zurich

English edition first published 1959

by Routledge & Kegan Paul

First published in Routledge Classics 2002

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, An informa business

1959 Carl Gustav Jung

Typeset in Joanna by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-0415278362 (hbk)

ISBN 978-0415278379 (pbk)

CONTENTS

Grateful acknowledgement is here made to Miss Barbara Hannah, for carefully checking the typescript of this translation; to Mr. A. S. B. Glover, for compiling the Index; and to Amherst Press, California, for permission to quote from The Secret of the Saucers, by Orfeo M. Angelucci.

The worldwide rumour about Flying Saucers presents a problem that challenges the psychologist for a number of reasons. The primary questionand apparently this is the most important pointis this: are they real or are they mere fantasy products? This question is by no means settled yet. If they are real, exactly what are they? If they are fantasy, why should such a rumour exist?

In this latter respect I have made an interesting and quite unexpected discovery. In 1954 I gave an interview to the Swiss weekly, Die Weltwoche, in which I expressed myself in a sceptical way, though I spoke with due respect of the serious opinion of a relatively large number of air specialists who believe in the reality of UFOs (unidentified flying objects). In 1958 this interview was suddenly discovered by the world press and the news spread like wildfire from the far West round the earth to the far East, butalasin distorted form. I was quoted as a saucer-believer. I issued a statement to the United Press and gave a true version of my opinion, but this time the wire went dead: nobody, so far as I know, took any notice of it, except one German newspaper.

The moral of this story is rather interesting. As the behaviour of the press is a sort of Gallup test with reference to world opinion, one must draw the conclusion that news affirming the existence of UFOs is welcome, but that scepticism seems to be undesirable. To believe that UFOs are real suits the general opinion, whereas disbelief is to be discouraged. This creates the impression that there is a tendency all over the world to believe in saucers and to want them to be real, unconsciously helped along by a press that otherwise has no sympathy with the phenomenon.

This remarkable fact in itself surely merits the psychologists interest. Why should it be more desirable for saucers to exist than not? The following pages are an attempt to answer this question. I have relieved the text of cumbersome footnotes, except for a few which give the references for the interested reader.

C. G. JUNG

September, 1958

It is difficult to form a correct estimate of the significance of contemporary events, and the danger that our judgment will remain caught in subjectivity is great. So I am fully aware of the risk I am taking in proposing to communicate my views concerning certain contemporary events, which seem to me important, to those who are patient enough to hear me. I refer to those reports reaching us from all corners of the earth, rumours of round objects that flash through the troposphere and strato-sphere, and go by the name of Flying Saucers, soucoupes, disks, and UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects). These rumours, or the possible physical existence of such objects, seem to me so significant that I feel myself compelled, as once beforethat drives me, but my conscience as a psychiatrist that bids me fulfil my duty and prepare those few who will hear me for coming events which are in accord with the end of an era. As we know from ancient Egyptian history, they are symptoms of psychic changes that always appear at the end of one Platonic month and at the beginning of another. They are, it seems, changes in the constellation of psychic dominants, of the archetypes, or gods as they used to be called, which bring about, or accompany, long-lasting transformations of the collective psyche. This transformation started within the historical tradition and left traces behind it, first in the transition from the age of Taurus to that of Aries, and then from Aries to Pisces, whose beginning coincides with the rise of Christianity. We are now nearing that great change which may be expected when the spring-point enters Aquarius. It would be frivolous of me to conceal from the reader that reflections such as these are not only exceedingly unpopular but come perilously close to those turbid fantasies which becloud the minds of world-improvers and other interpreters of signs and portents. But I must take this risk, even if it means putting my hard-won reputation for truthfulness, trustworthiness, and scientific judgment in jeopardy. I can assure my readers that I do not do this with a light heart. I am, to be quite frank, concerned for all those who are caught unprepared by the events in question and disconcerted by their incomprehensible nature. Since, so far as I know, no one has yet felt moved to examine and set forth the possible psychic consequences of this foreseeable change, I deem it my duty to do what I can in this respect. I undertake this thankless task in the expectation that my chisel will make no impression on the hard stone it meets.

Some time ago I wrote a short article in which I considered the nature of Flying Saucers.

For a decade the physical reality of UFOs remained a very problematical matter, which was not decided one way or the other with the necessary clarity, despite the mass of observational material that had accumulated in the meantime. The longer the uncertainty lasted, the greater became the probability that this obviously complicated phenomenon had an extremely important psychic component as well as a possible physical basis. This is not surprising, in that we are dealing with an ostensibly physical phenomenon distinguished on the one hand by its frequent appearances, and on the other by its strange, unknown, and indeed contradictory nature.

Such an object provokes, like nothing else, conscious and unconscious fantasies, the former giving rise to speculative con-jectures and pure fabrications, and the latter supplying the mythological background inseparable from these provocative observations. Thus there arose a situation in which, with the best It is a hypothesis that has special bearing on phenomena connected with archetypal psychic processes.

As a psychologist, I am not qualified to contribute anything useful to the question of the physical reality of UFOs. I can con-cern myself only with their undoubted psychic aspect, and in what follows shall deal almost exclusively with their psychic concomitants.