Letter from Sigmund Freud to C. G. Jung, February 13, 1910

13 February 1910, Vienna, IX. Berggasse 19

Dear friend,

Yes, in you the tempest rages; it comes to me as distant thunder. And though I ought to treat you diplomatically and humour your obvious distate for writing with an artificial delay in answering, I am unable to restrain my own precipitate reactions. I can only offer the excuse of practical necessity.

Please tell Knapp that we do not wish to submit the question of the Fraternity to our Congress just yet, that there are too few of us, that we ourselves are not yet organized, which is true. But you mustn't regard me as the founder of a religion. My intentions are not so far-reaching. Considerations of a purely practical, or if you will diplomatic nature led me to make this attempt (which at heart I have already abandoned). I suspect that Knapp is a good man, that Ψ A would bring him liberation, and I thought: if we join the Fraternity while it is in statu nascendi, we shall be able to draw the moralists to Ψ A rather than let the Ψ-analysts be turned into moralists. Perhaps the idea was too diplomatic. Glad to abandon it. I was attracted by the practical, aggressive and protective aspect of the programme, the undertaking to combat the authority of State and Church directly where they commit palpable injustice,1 and so to arm ourselves against the great future adversaries of Ψ A with the help of larger numbers and methods other than those of scientific work. I am not thinking of a substitute for religion; this need must be sublimated. I did not expect the Fraternity to become a religious organization any more than I would expect a volunteer fire department to do so!

I am returning the list without comment. Most of the outsiders will not come, we shall keep warm among ourselves. The only omission I can think of is O. Gross, but I don't know his address. I have added Eitingon's. As to the programme and the organizational proposals, we ought to agree in advance.