Correspondence

7 July 1996

Professor David Rosen compounds the problems raised by his article ‘If only Jung had had a rabbi’ by his response to Sonu Shamdasani's comment (JAP 41:2). To assert that an ‘intellectual historian’ cannot grasp what is involved in ‘feeling’ because he is a ‘non-analyst (non-healer)’ is quite disgraceful. Such stereotyping and predefining of the other may be compared in terms of its underlying epistemological structure to statements about Jews that assert them to be ‘badly at a loss for that quality in man which roots him to the earth and draws new strength from below’ (CW 10, para. 18).

Rosen's dependence on Jung's methodology is also shown in the psychologically reductionistic statement that ‘I think Ka was the source of the problematic statements and actions by Jung of depth psychology as a source of explanation of complicated phenomena such as Nazism - for example, in ‘Wotan’ (CW 10).

I would have hoped that Jungian analysts had learned not to say and do this sort of thing.

Rosen's response also offends norms of academic conduct and ordinary courtesy by its undocumented and unsanctioned references to ‘previous conversations’ he claims to have had with Shamdasani. Moreover, Shamdasani's revelation that Rosen was permitted to change his paper after reading Shamdasani's comment rather vitiates the entire exchange.

I must say that I simply do not know how to evaluate the information Rosen has given to the readers of the Journal about the composition of the Executive Committee of the International Association for Analytical Psychology in terms of Jews and non-Jews. I call on Professor Rosen to clarify his intentions in this regard.

I am very grateful to the Journal for publishing my and others’ material on Jung and anti-Semitism. It showed integrity. The protracted and painful struggle over getting the articles into print was worth it. I was aware of the content of Rosen's piece before it was published and was not too happy with what he planne