C. G. Jung: The Critical Edition, Volume 2 (1901-1904) Psychiatry and Psychical Research: Jung at the Burghölzli Asylum

An authoritative new edition and translation of Jung's writings from his time as a young physician in a psychiatric asylum, with extensive original commentary and rare materials published here for the first time At the end of 1900, C. G. Jung took up his post as an assistant physician at the Burghölzli Asylum, the psychiatric clinic of the University of Zurich. As he later recalled, he wanted to uncover "the hidden intruders in the mind" and study the unconscious phenomena of psychoses. This volume contains two major studies: his medical dissertation, On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena, and an unpublished study of a renowned trance medium and clairvoyant, Wilhelmine Fässler. In these works, Jung shows how spiritualistic phenomena could be understood through the psychology of the unconscious. The first presents a psychological analysis of his sittings with his cousin Helene Preiswerk, particularly drawing on the work of Théodore Flournoy, Frederic Myers, and Pierre Janet. His study of Fässler shows his developing use of word associations to study reactions alongside studying spontaneous images induced by music and paintings. In other studies in this volume, Jung explores twilight states, the simulation of insanity, hysterical misreading, the relation between hysteria and prison psychosis, and mania. We see an increasing interest in states between sanity and madness as well as the dawning recognition that "in insanity we do not discover anything new and unknown; we are looking at the foundations of our own being." The Critical Edition of the Works of C. G. Jung is a monumental, multiyear publishing initiative that introduces Jung's writings to a new generation of readers in a vibrant new English translation. Planned as a series of twenty-six volumes, it features in-depth historical introductions, informative annotations drawn from Jung's unpublished correspondence, detailed chronologies, and variorum presentations of works that went through multiple editions.