Edited by Deborah A. Wesley
Jung’s Foreword to Aion
In the Foreword to Aion Jung tells us that the theme of this book is the change of the psychic situation in the Christian aeon, which coincides with the astrological conception of the Platonic month of the fishes, in other words, Pisces.
The notion of the Platonic month is based on the astronomical fact of the precession of the equinoxes. Figure below pictures the way the earth, the sun and the circle of the zodiac line up at various times. The largest circle represents the circle of the zodiac in the heavens. One can think of it as representing the background of the fixed stars. At the center of the figure is the sun, with the planet earth orbiting around it once a year. It can be seen that at any given time of year the sun, as viewed from the earth, will have in its background one of the zodiacal signs.
A long time ago, at the date of the spring equinox the sun appeared to be in the sign of Aries the ram. Due to the precession of the equinoxes there is a very tiny loosening, or play, of the celestial mechanism. It is not absolutely tight, so that over a long period of time the sun shifts its position relative to the back¬ground of the zodiacal signs. At the spring equinox in about 1 A.D., at the beginning of the Christian aeon, it appeared to have left the sign of Aries and started into the sign of Pisces. Now, 2,000 years later, it is about to leave the sign of Pisces and enter that of Aquarius.
Similarly, if you go back to 2,000 B.C., you find that the sun was just leaving the sign of the bull, Taurus. This movement of the sun through each zodiacal sign is called the Platonic month, and each takes approximately 2,000 years. For a complete circuit to take place, to make a Platonic year, 26,000 earth years are required. It is that astronomical fact to which astrologers have attached certain meaning, and to which Jung attaches a synchronistic meaning. The Christian aeon, which corresponds synchronistically to the 2,000-year period in which the sun occupies Pisces, is the Platonic month that is now coming to an end. That is what Jung refers to when he speaks in his Foreword of the change of psychic sit¬uation in the Christian aeon (which coincides with the astrological conception of the Platonic month of the fishes)
There are two other important statements in the Foreword which can use some elaboration. In one, Jung says, “I write as a physician, with a physician’s sense of responsibility, not as a proselyte.” (page x) That word “proselyte” is bekenner in the German text, and perhaps could be better translated as “one confessing a faith.” So Jung announces that he writes as a physician and not as one confessing a faith. I take this to mean that he is speaking out of an objective, empirical point of view corresponding to the medical attitude, and also that he feels constrained by the medical ethics which dictate that one be primarily concerned for the health and well-being of the patient, that one do no harm. Jung is trying to be helpful in attempting to heal what he calls “the utopian mass psychoses of our time.”
This remark about the physician’s sense of responsibility raises an important issue which Jung was keenly aware of, the problem of writing for a mixed audience. Anybody who wishes to can pick up Jung’s books, which means that what Jung has to say is being directed simultaneously to people of many different levels of psychological development. Jung was particularly aware of this issue because what he had to talk about could be healing panacea—saving knowledge— for some people, while it could be absolute poison for others, depending upon the reader’s ability to understand what was presented. This is a grave issue and it goes a long way to explain Jung’s particular mode of expression in his later work. In “Answer to Job,” for instance, he speaks largely at a mythological level. Those who can make the translation get the message; those who can’t won’t be harmed. This is how I understand Jung’s statement, “I write as a physician with a physician’s sense of responsibility.”
The other comment that needs elaboration is:
Nor do I write as a scholar, otherwise I would wisely barricade myself behind the safe walls of my specialism and not, on account of my inadequate knowledge of history, expose myself to critical attack, (pages x-xi)
This is an allusion to the fact that Jungian analysts, just by the nature of their task of working with the psyche, are necessarily poachers on the posted domains of other disciplines. They are constantly venturing into scholarly realms of history and anthropology and mythology and all the arts, pursuing their prey, whose tracks are to be found in these various places. What they are tracking, of course, is the objective psyche, whose trail can be seen in all these old documents, so they have to go after it there. This makes them vulnerable to criticism from scholars who “barricade” themselves behind the “safe walls” of a specialty.
See Psychology and Religion: West and East, CW 11.