There could also be as many doorways into Alcoholics Anonymous within the twenty first century as there are people who stroll via them—from each and every global religion to no religion. The “international mutual-aid fellowsend” has had “a significant and long-term impact at the culture of the United States,” writes Worcester State University professionalfessor of psychology Charles Fox at Aeon. Certainly, its influence is global. From its inception in 1935, A.A. has repredespatcheded an “enormously popular therapy, and a testament to the interdisciplinary nature of well being and neatlyness.”
A.A. has additionally repredespatcheded, no less than culturally, a commentaryin a position synthesis of behavioral science and spirituality that translates into rankings of different languages, ideals, and practices. Or no less than that’s how it can seem from browsing the rankings of books on A.A.’s 12-Steps and Buddhism, Yoga, Catholicism, Judaism, Indigenous religion traditions, shamanist practices, Stoicism, secular humanism, and, in fact, psychology.
Historically, and regularly in practice, however, the (non)group of globalvast fellowships has repredespatcheded a miles narrower tradition, inherited from the evangelical (small “e”) Christian Oxford Crew, or as A.A. founder Invoice Wilson known as them, “the ‘O.G.’” Wilson credits the Oxford Crew for the processology of A.A.: “their massive emphasis upon the principles of self-survey, confession, restitution, and the giving of 1self in service to others.”
The Oxford Crew’s theology, although qualified and tempered, additionally made its method into lots of A.A.’s fundamental principles. However for the recovery crew’s genesis, Wilson cites a extra secular writerity, Carl Jung. The well-known Swiss psychiatrist took a willing interest in alcoholism within the Nineteen Twenties. Wilson wrote to Jung in 1961 to precise his “nice appreciation” for his efforts. “A certain conversation you as soon as had with one in every of your sufferers, a Mr. Rowland H. again within the early 1930’s,” Wilson explains, “did play a critical position within the discovereding of our Fellowsend.”
Jung won’t have recognized his influence at the recovery transferment, Wilson says, even if alcoholics had accounted for “about 13 consistent withcent of all admissions” in his practice, notes Fox. Certainly one of his sufferers, Rowland H.—or Rowland Hazard, “make investmentsment banker and former state senator from Rhode Island”—got here to Jung in desconsistent withation, noticed him daily for a period of several months, stopped drinking, then relapsed. Introduced again to Jung via his cousin, Hazard used to be instructed that his case used to be hopemuch less in need of a religious conversion. As Wilson places it in his letter:
[Y]ou frankly instructed him of his hopemuch lessness, as far as any further medical or psychiatric deal withment may well be concerned. This willdid and humble statement of yours used to be past doubt the primary foundation stone upon which our Society has since been constructed.
Jung additionally instructed Hazard that conversion experiences had been incredibly uncommon and recommended that he “position himself in a religious atmosphere and hope for the most productive,” as Wilson remembers. However he didn’t specify any particular religion. Hazard discovered the Oxford Crew. He would possibly, so far as Jung used to be concerned, have met God as he beneathstood it anythe place. “His craving for alcohol used to be the equivalent,” wrote the psychiatrist in a respond to Wilson, “on a low level, of the spiritual thirst of our being for entireness, expressed in medieval language: the union with God.”
In his answer letter to Wilson, Jung makes use of religious language allegorically. AA took the speculation of conversion extra literally. Despite the fact that it wrestled with the plight of the agnostic, the Giant E book concluded that such people will have to eventually see the sunshine. Jung, at the other hand, turns out very careful to keep away from a strictly religious interpretation of his recommendation to Hazard, who get starteded the primary small crew that may convert Wilson to sobriety and to Oxford Crew methods.
“How may one formuoverdue such an perception that’s not misunderstood in our days?” Jung asks. “The one proper and legitimateimate option to such an experience is that it happens to you in actuality and it will probably simplest happen to you whilst you stroll on a trail which leads you to a primeer beneathstanding.” Sobriety may well be completed via “a primeer education of the thoughts past the confines of mere rationalism”—via an enlightenment or conversion experience, this is. It may additionally happen via “an act of grace or via a consistent withsonal and honest contact with pals.”
Despite the fact that maximum discovereding members of AA fought for the stricter interpretation of Jung’s prescription, Wilson at all times inputtained the concept that multiple paths would possibly carry alcoholics to the similar purpose, even including modern medicine. He drew at the medical opinions of Dr. William D. Silkprice, who theorized that alcoholism used to be partly a physical disease, “a form of metabolism difficulty which he then known as an allergy.” Even after his personal conversion experience, which Silkprice, like Jung, recommended he pursue, Wilson experimented with vitamin therapies, in the course of the influence of Aldous Huxley.
His seek to beneathstand his mystical “white mild” second in a New York detox room additionally led Wilson to William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience. The ebook “gave me the trueization,” he wrote to Jung, “that almost all conversion experiences, whatever their variety, do have a common denominator of ego collapse at intensity.” He even idea that LSD may act as this sort of “temporary ego-reducer” after he took the drug beneath tremendousvision of British psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond. (Jung likely would have hostile what he known as “brief cuts” like psychedelic medication.)
Within the letters between Wilson and Jung, as Ian McCabe argues in Carl Jung and Alcoholics Anonymous, we see mutual admiration between the 2, in addition to mutual influence. “Invoice Wilson,” writes McCabe’s publisher, “used to be encourelderly via Jung’s writings to professionalmote the spiritual side of recovery,” a facet that took on a particularly religious character in Alcoholics Anonymous. For his phase, Jung, “influenced via A.A.’s success… gave ‘complete and detailed instructions’ on how the A.A. crew format may well be developed further and utilized by ‘general neurotics.’” And so it has, although extra at the Oxford Crew model than the extra mystical Jungian. It could neatly had been othersensible.
Learn extra about Jung’s influence on AA over at Aeon.
Word: Word: An earlier version of this put up seemed on our website online in 2019.
Related Content:
Carl Jung Gives an Introduction to His Psychological Idea in a three‑Hour Interview (1957)
Take Carl Jung’s Phrase Association Take a look at, a Fast Path Into the Subconscious (1910)
Carl Jung’s Hand-Drawn, Hardly-Observed Guyuscript The Purple E book
Josh Jones is a author and musician based totally in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness
