To those new, this post is a continuation of the story of Julia, the Atheist-Communist, our fourth guide through the active imagination journeys of J Marvin Spiegelman recorded in his book The Tree. Previous chapters are in our archives, and more are to follow.
Finding a Missing Piece
When we last left Julia, the guide for our latest session in active imagination, she was finishing the third seven-year cycle of her life and, after a profound dream, declared herself a Jewish Atheist for God. The ideals of her late father, a Communist true believer, and of her Zaideh, or grandfather, embodying the tradition of the Jewish patriarchs of old, have each been challenged by the realities of the Second World War and the Holocaust.
To draw attention to Julia’s dream once more, it is worth remembering that it began with her being torn between Heaven and Earth. While she awoke with the belief that even her doubt serves God in some way, the voice of God in the dream did not provide a checklist for how she ought to live out this vocation. Dreams are, after all, understood in the Jungian framework as windows into the unconscious; bringing what we see into the life of the conscious mind is another challenge.
Beginning with the distinctly Jewish nature of her calling, Julia journeys to spend the next stage of her life in Israel. She is joined by Zaideh, who finds himself at home in the Old City of Jerusalem. Julia, on the other hand, joins a Kibbutz, a collective farm, focused on building her new promised land in line with her Communist ideals of each giving according their ability to each according to their need.
Photo: Women training at Mishmar HaEmek kibbutz in 1947 or during the 1948 Arab Israeli War
Julia marries a young American Kibbutz member working on his doctoral degree, and lives a life that resembles both the paradise of her young life in the forest and the collective society of her highest Communist aspirations. It appears to be the life of Julia’s dreams. Yet after a few years, it becomes clear that she is not happy.
“What was it that I was experiencing? Was it a further disillusionment with the Communist way of life? Was it a breakdown of the meaningfulness of life? I did not know… It seemed too absurd to speak about depression and despair when I answered every question with a statement of satisfaction. Did I love my husband? Yes. Was I happy to be married? Yes. Did I feel that I was doing a meaningful work in the Kibbutz? Yes. Did I like it? No, not any more, but I did not despise it either. Was I glad to be living in Israel? Yes, indeed. Did I feel patriotic and believe I was living in an important time in history? Yes… all questions that would be asked of me, I could answer either affirmatively or in a way that could not account for my recurring times of lassitude, depression, crying spells.”
Julia’s melancholy is unrelated to any external factor, and she finds herself unable to understand the reason behind it. In a Marxist understanding she should be fulfilled on the Kibbutz; in a secular Jewish understanding she should be fulfilled in her Promised Land. Only one external factor corresponds with Julia’s melancholy, her inability to conceive a child.
Symbolically, conception is a creation of new life via a union of opposites, and is a core element of Jungian depth psychology. This idea of psychological union should be familiar to those who have been following this blog. Union of opposites was the mission of the Knight in confronting the source of evil in the world, as well as that of the Arab in integrating the Anima, the feminine aspect of the soul. In his extensive research into alchemy as representative of psychological processes, Jung viewed the alchemical symbol of “Coniunctio,” or union, as central. A Critical Dictionary of Jungian Analysis defines “Coniunctio” as:
"An alchemical symbol of a union of unlike substances; a marrying of the opposites in an intercourse which has as its fruition the birth of a new element. This is symbolised by a child that manifests potential for greater wholeness by recombining attributes of both the opposing natures. From Jung's point of view, the coniunctio was identified as the central idea of alchemical process. He himself saw it as an archetype of psychic functioning, symbolising a pattern of relationships between two or more unconscious factors. Since such relationships are at first incomprehensible to the perceiving mind, the Coniunctio is capable of innumerable symbolic projections (i.e. man and woman, King and Queen... Sol and Luna).”
With this in mind we can see the psychological reality that Julia’s inability to conceive represents in Spiegelman’s active imagination; there is still some aspect of the psyche that needs integration. This explains Julia’s lack of fulfillment as well; there is still work to be done, though she knows not what it is.
Julia discusses suffering with her Zaideh, her connection to the ancient Jewish tradition. Zaideh is unable to give her an answer to her infertility (just as Jung’s Coniunctio is incomprehensible to the perceiving mind.) Instead, he speaks to Julia’s suffering, tying it to the mysterious tradition of her people, presented with countless opposites to reconcile:
“I do not believe it to be a punishment…. no…. I believe that you, like me, and like all of us Jews, are chosen. You, dear Julia, are chosen in a way that neither I, nor even you, as yet, can fathom. I am ninety nine years old, and I have been chosen by God to live long, and watch the destruction of great numbers of my people… and why the Lord has given this unto me is a great mystery. But the Lord has also, in the same era and in the same time, given my people back its land – that for which we longed for two thousand years… The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and He giveth again, and mysterious are the ways of the Lord… You, little Julia, are like Sarah… For she, too, was barren, and she was the ancestress of our line… I feel you to be otherwise, and that you are the end and the beginning of a new era for the Jews… You, like Sarah, are burdened and barren. God will come to you, and make you fecund and creative and of a new line, and you will feel – as did Sarah – the breath of God in your name… Such it is that it comes to me, and blessed be thee, my sweet Julia, the last of my seed.”
Zaideh passes that night, leaving Julia a sense of peace and comfort, knowing that, like the great Matriarch Sarah, her barrenness will produce a new life, at once the continuation of the old and beginning of a new line.
Psychology as an Integrating Force
Zaideh’s passing corresponds with the end of the next seven-year cycle of Julia’s life, which sees her leave Israel for Switzerland as her husband works on his doctorate under the Great Psychologist (Carl Jung.) Julia describes the oscillating heavens and hells of her life, finding herself at the moment with a paradise outside and a hellish purgatory within. She views her move to Switzerland as a psychological pilgrimage, and hopes that it may join these heavens and hells into a livable unity. This hope is the psychological reality that presented itself in Julia’s infertility; that creation requires not just physical security, but a union of the opposites within oneself.
While there are lectures on mythology (shoutout to our YouTube project Mythos & Logos!)1, religion, and psychopathology, the core of the work is one’s own analysis. Julia undergoes her own analysis, searching into her soul through dream journals, studies, and active imagination. She makes great progress, but still struggles with the problem of evil, the question with no answer. However, along the way, and in harmony with the vision explored in our last post, she comes to a fuller understanding of her strange holy atheism:
“I understood the paradox that ‘God had chosen me to be an atheist and a Communist’ to be translated into a statement that the Self, the highest totality of me, had selected the function of my ego to be a challenger of all current and past images of this totality… In short, when people said, ‘God is dead”, they were saying the psychological truth that the old image of God was no longer viable or believable. My task was to deny all images, even the image which transcended images. That I am an atheist of God means nothing less than that I serve that image of God which is beyond all images, beyond all past, present, and future understandings, in short that I am indeed Jewish, and have no images of God at all!
“That, to my delight, makes me, indeed, a Jewish atheist for God!”
At the same time as this relative peace, Julia faces the challenge of evil in a far more direct and emotional way, as her husband confesses that he had been unfaithful to her. This revelation brings feelings of guilt, for being possessive and not caring for him enough; fear, for being alone and being thought a fool; yet also feelings of love and vulnerability through it all. The darkness of betrayal and the love of openness are felt all at once, along with the recognition in both that they are feeling it all together. Experiencing the depth of evil and love throughout it all, Julia walks in the forest and sees a vision of her grandfather once more, telling that now she has felt God’s darkness and become impregnated in the spirit. That night, filled with suffering and love, Julia and her husband conceive.
Bridging the Gap through Vulnerability
The final part of her work in Switzerland is a final meeting with Jung himself. Julia tells the Great Psychologist how she was moved by his books, in particular his deepest confrontation with evil (likely the Answer to Job, which I as a humble blogger running passion projects do not yet feel qualified to speak on with any semblance of authority.) Julia and Jung speak together about their sufferings, each opening up in vulnerability, lovingly repairing the wounds which their pain caused.
Photo: Portrait of Carl Jung
The emotional depth of their conversation is remarkable between a teacher and student, and almost certainly mirrors Spiegelman’s own experience at the Jung Institute. The first time he met the psychologist, Spiegelman asked a question regarding the meaning of a certain symbol; Jung snapped back that it was silly to ask a question which could just as easily be answered in a book. Jung’s Depth Psychology is, after all, not something focused on books, but on the psyche itself, both individual and collective. For both Spiegelman and his active imagination guide Julia, books and lectures provide information, but it is up to oneself to integrate them and experience Coniunctio, turning psychological lead into gold through the union of opposites within oneself. In Julia’s case, this is only finally accomplished through a deep vulnerability and love.
Finally, our last image of Julia is of her in the Garden, beneath the Tree with our other guides. She sees her Zaideh, her father, the Great Psychologist, her husband, and her twin sons – her brothers reincarnate – dancing in the shape of the Star of David. The women then appear, Julia, her Bubeh, her mother, and her twin daughters. Altogether they are eleven, which Julia equates to being her Minyan (a group of ten present during Jewish sacraments.) The women and men take the shape of a hammer and sickle, with Julia’s father declaring that this is their commune, of family and of those who love each other. When the Great Psychologist speaks, the hammer and sickle are instead the Greek letter Psi:
“What you see is the height of your ideal, and your attitude and your way, the Communist hammer and sickle is to me, dear friends, a Psi – that Greek sign of my ideal devotion, Psychology, the study and devotion of the Soul. That is in the Service of the Self and of Men. So, I embrace you.”
This multifaceted symbol takes its place, beside the Knight’s, Arab’s, and Ronin’s.
The next guide to join our group in Spiegelman’s active imagination sessions will be another named woman, Sybilla, the Nymphomaniac. I foresee that this may be a somewhat challenging one, especially for a blog, but I am very interested in what this journey into the author’s – and indeed the collective – unconscious will reveal!
https://youtube.com/@mythosandlogos
Interesting wanderings into the deep. And stimulating food for thought. The concept of union is such an important one, be it of opposites or of just asymmetrical things. Both as it pertains to the human psyche or to Being itself.
Anyways - very enjoyable to read, and will ponder it over a good cup of tea the rest of the evening!