Did Jung Believe In... Astrology?

A recurring question is: “Did Jung believe in [random esoteric area]?” This comes from the fact that Jung, a scientist with some renown, without distancing himself, curiously and seriously researched and talked about astrology, alchemy, Ufos, and other esoteric areas. (Whether Jung qualifies for the term scientist is another discussion.) But both those who are engaged in esoteric areas and use Jung as a feather in their cap, for example the New Age movement, and those who take these Jung’s interests as grounds for mysticism allegations, miss something entirely central in Jung’s life and work; namely, that he speaks about the psychology of the unconscious.

If one wants to understand Jung, not least in these contexts, one must always keep in mind that he is not talking about “the thing in itself”, but about archetypal ideas and unconscious projections. The vault of the night sky has, everywhere and at all times, fascinated man, who has not only seen specific and eternal constellations, but also built systems around the positions of celestial bodies and their interrelationships in relation to himself. Jung obviously means that these are projections; the constellations does not “exist” objectively and celestial bodies simply cannot affect man. (Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, p. 326.)

But why, in that case, does astrology captivate Jung’s interest? According to him, projecting images and ideas onto the night sky requires that our unconscious already harbors corresponding elements - you cannot project what isn’t within you. Hence, astrology becomes significant for anyone studying the psyche, as it offers a window into the workings of the archetypes. We cannot study the archetype as such, only its manifestations. (Visions Seminar, p. 636f.)

We arrive at the conclusion that Jung “did not believe in astrology”, in the traditional sense, but at the same time, according to him, astrology mirrors a psychic reality that cannot be dismissed. With Jung, we often end up in a both-and conclusion, just as the unconscious itself is contradictory, paradoxical.

The corresponding dynamics apply to alchemy; its rich imagery and transformation processes recur, according to Jung, in the dreams of contemporary persons and are mirrored by the psyche’s individuation process.

“… the world of alchemical symbols definitely does not belong to the rubbish heap of the past, but stands in a very real and living relationship to our most recent discoveries concerning the psychology of the unconscious.” (Mysterium Coniunctionis, p. xiii.)

The alchemists’ unconscious psychological processes (individuation) were projected onto the material, according to Jung, onto the transformation process from prima materia (unconsciousness) to the philosopher’s stone (consciousness), through the union of opposites (unconscious and conscious). To study alchemy was for Jung a study of the dynamics of the collective unconscious, which had a practical value for him as a psychologist. Does this mean that Jung “believed in” alchemy, or that he “did not believe in” alchemy?

Our third and final esoteric example is Ufos. Jung began to take an interest in the phenomenon already in 1950. He became fascinated by it, and he studied the subject for the rest of his life. (Jung: A Biography, p. 571f.) He wrote a book about Ufos that was published in 1958, with the title Ein moderner Mythus: Von Dingen, die am Himmel geschen werden – “A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky”. Already the title makes it clear that we are back to archetypal projections, and its myth-creating effects. Since the Ufo phenomenon in its modern form arose during Jung’s lifetime, and had such obviously mythological content (“technological angels from the sky”), it is not difficult to understand why Jung became fascinated by it. But he did not write about Ufos per se, that is, flying crafts from outer space, but about the psychological phenomenon that people see things in the sky that do not seem to exist in objective reality.

“As a psychologist, I am not qualified to contribute anything useful to the question of the physical reality of Ufos. I can concern myself only with their undoubted psychic aspects.” (“Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth”, par. 394.)

But the question of what Jung “believes” regarding the Ufo issue is more ambivalent than in relation to astrology or alchemy. It is obviously so that Jung did not believe that celestial bodies affected humans or that one can make gold out of lead – but it is not obvious that Jung did not believe in Ufos as an objective, physical phenomenon. And one must be lenient with that, since it is not impossible that aliens have actually visited the earth. Since Ufos were such a hot subject at the time, and his book Flying Saucers became a success, he was pressed on the question what he ”believes”.

"'It is not in my line to make statements about things that I cannot prove,' he told one correspondent in 1958; in 1961 he told another that despite having studied UFOs 'for about 12 years … I cannot even say whether they exists or not.'" (Jung: A Biography, p. 572.)

But in this context the point is that Jung did not write about Ufos as extraterrestrial crafts, but about Ufos as a projection of archetypes, which always function mythologically.

In principle it is not possible to answer the question of whether Jung “believes in” one or the other esoteric subject, since the question is based on the assumption that the subject in question is something objective, apart from the human, which one either believes exists or does not exist. But as a psychologist this was not Jung’s approach; for him these esoteric subjects were subjective, psychic facts. (That is, one does not need to believe.)

Perhaps one can express it in the following way: “Do you believe that aliens shut down our nuclear weapons systems?” “No, but the idea is a psychological fact that thus must be taken into account.”