C.G. Jung and ‘Naturmystik’: The Early Poem ‘Gedanken in Einer Frühlingsnacht’

This article presents a hitherto unpublished text, found in the C.G. Jung‐Archiv of the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zurich, and discusses its significance. A brief overview of Jung's early religious development highlights aspects of Jung's childhood which his biographers have often noted, but the significant patterns of which they have more frequently chosen to overlook. In particular, Jung's childhood visions of the divine ithyphallus and the divine turd acquire new significance, when compared with the moment in Scripture where Yahweh hides from Moses his kabod (‘glory’, or genitalia); if Moses was only permitted to see the backside of God, Jung's vision of the divine phallus shows he was even more intimately acquainted with the divine. The author comments in detail on the unknown poem, and discusses the cultural intertexts that help us appreciate its significance. Attention is also paid to the formal and ‘literary’ features of the poem. The article concludes that the unknown poem expresses an outlook best described by the term ‘Naturmystik’, and offers a new insight into the fundamentally mystical temperament of Jung's early thinking.