Carl Jung: A Near Death Experience

There’s a fascinating body of work dealing with past life regression and NDEs (near death experiences). The trend started with Carl Jung, the great Swiss psychoanalyst. Jung was born into a family of priests. Perhaps because of his religious background, and a mother who took part in seances,  Jung kept an open mind about extra sensory perception and mystical experiences which could not be explained scientifically. There is in Jung a fierce and fearless commitment to truth and direct perception, even when it seems absurd and irrational. He was influenced by Indian religious traditions, especially Buddhism. Jung records his mystical experiences as unverified personal experience and leaves it to his readers to accept or reject their validity.

In 1944 Jung had a heart attack and a near death experience:

‘It seemed to me that I was high up in space...A short distance away I saw in space a tremendous dark block of stone, like a meteorite. It was about the size of my house, or even bigger. It was floating in space, and I myself was floating in space...An entrance led into a small ante-chamber.  To the right of the entrance, a black Hindu sat silently in lotus position upon a stone bench. He wore a white gown, and I knew that he expected me...As I approached the steps leading up to the entrance in the rock, a strange thing happened. I had the feeling that everything was being sloughed away; everything I aimed at or wished for or thought, the whole phantasmagoria of earthly existence fell away or was stripped from me – an extremely painful process. Nevertheless something remained; it was as if I now carried along with me everything that I had ever experienced or done, everything that had happened around me. I might also say: it was with me, and I was it...I consisted of my own history and I felt with great certainty: this is what I am. ‘I am this bundle of what has been and what has been accomplished.’

‘There was no longer any regret that something had dropped away or been taken away. On the contrary: I had everything that I was and that was everything. Something else engaged my attention: as I approached the temple I had the certainty that I was about to enter an illuminated room and would there meet those people to whom I belong in reality. There I would at last understand-- this too was a certainty-- what historical nexus I or my life fitted into. I would know what had been before me, why I had come into being and where my life was flowing. My life as I lived it had often seemed to me like a story that had no beginning or end. I had the feeling that I was a historical fragment, an excerpt for which the preceding and succeeding text was missing. My life seemed to have been snipped out of a long chain of events, and many questions had remained unanswered. Why had it taken this course? Why had I brought these particular assumptions with me? What had I made of them? What will follow? I felt sure that I would receive an answer to all these questions as soon as I entered the rock temple...

(Then) an image floated up. It was my doctor Dr. H. -- or, rather, his likeness-- framed by a golden chain...A mute exchange of thought took place between us. Dr. H. had been delegated by the earth to deliver a message to me, to tell me that there was a protest against my going away. I had no right to leave the earth and must return.’

The vision ends. Jung is angry and disappointed at being dragged down to earth. He has not been able to enter the temple or meet the people to whom he truly belonged. Jung was seriously sick for three more weeks. In a strange coincidence, Jung’s doctor, Dr. H. took ill on the day Jung sat up, April 4, 1944. Jung was concerned about him because Dr. H. had appeared to him in his ‘primal form.’ Shortly afterwards, the doctor died of septicemia.

The ‘black Hindu’ in the temple is symbolic because for Jung, this was the moment of truth, the most significant event of his life.

Many of us have experienced similar events. If you or someone in your circle of family and friends has had a dream, vision, out of body experience, please share it. How did you interpret it? Do you think Jung was delusional? Or was it a true vision? How can we tell the difference?

Ref: Carl Jung, Memories,Dreams,Reflections, ed. Aniela Jaffe, trans.  Richard and Clara Winston (New York;Vintage Books,1989),290-2

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