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Analytical Patisserie: When Pastry Sparked Genius · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst on Cape Cod.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: So today we're going to have an interesting podcast episode.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: We're going to talk about a particular pivotal point in
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Jung's young life when he was struggling. between one of
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: two different careers. This very unexpected struggle inside of himself
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: happened somewhere during the visit with Freud in 1906, I
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: believe it was, in Vienna. Jung at this point had
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: been working with Bleuler. He had a sense of himself
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: as a psychiatrist, but there was underneath the surface a
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: very serious internal conflict of whether or not his life
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: was on the right path. And then after a seminal
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: experience in Vienna, this really came to crisis, and we're
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: going to talk about the other life that Jung could
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: have led.
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: Oh, the unlived life.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: His unlived life, indeed, and how he ultimately... found some
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: way to integrate these various interests inside of him.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Why don't you tell us about what happened in Vienna, Joseph?
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: What was it that was so important?
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: Take ourselves back in time. It's 1906. Carl Jung is
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: a really bright, really charismatic 30-year-old man. He's been corresponding
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: with many people, including Freud. He's brimming with complexes, really
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: powerful dreams, and he's on that train from Zurich to Vienna.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: You know, he has his suitcase, he's carrying the word
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: association test results he wants to talk about, he's got
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: his ink-stained notes, all this anxious enthusiasm.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: I just want to say, Deb and I took that train,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: didn't we, Deb? Yes. I can really picture it as
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: you're talking, Joseph. Go ahead.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: And they had been corresponding for months. Their letters were
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: crackling with this intellectual intensity. It was electrified. Freud is intrigued.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: And they're meeting at the epicenter of Viennese civilization, which
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: at that time was the Café Sacher. And there's a
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: famous little line in one of the letters that Freud wrote,
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: we will meet where the ego is least repressed beneath
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: that thick glaze of chocolate.
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: Isn't that charming?
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: That's really great.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: People don't think of Freud as being that funny. So
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: Jung arrives. He is wearing this very sober wool suit.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: You know, he's a guy who's ready to found a
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: new psychology, so to speak, or join Freud in that.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: Freud's seated in this corner table beneath this portrait of
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: Emperor Franz Joseph. And he rises and greets Jung really warmly.
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: And he says, Dr. Jung, I've reserved the most neutral table.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: And then the waiter approaches, and before Jung could order
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: mineral water, which he normally would have, Freud says, two
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: soccer tortes, the real kind, not the ones from the
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: bakery down the street. Those are for hysterics. So it
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: was very funny. And Jung, who had never had a
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: soccer court, assumed that that was some kind of term
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: for unconscious repression. He had not heard it before. What
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: arrived was this kind of glossy, layered, unknowable object, you know,
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: which turned out to be this dense chocolate confection, pierced
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: by a sliver of apricot and it sat there like
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: a dark mysterious archetype on the porcelain and he took
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: one bite and time slowed and this warm silence you
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: know fell over his inner landscape and and the apricot
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: and the chocolate and the cream and this crust that
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: was so delicious kind of whispered this secret experience to him.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: And then he looked up at Freud, just wide-eyed, and
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: he said, my God, this is like the self.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: Oh, my goodness. Freud narrows his eyes and says, no,
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: it's the pleasure principle.
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: Oh, my gosh. Right at the beginning, they have that.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: The total... difference that would divide them later, right?
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's amazing.
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: There it was, right in the.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Cafe in Vienna, yeah.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: So the seeds of the conflict, the seeds also of
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: something else that began to grow inside of him. And
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: so the Sackertort became the Conunctio Positorum. Mm-hmm.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Well, and it is too because it has the sweetness
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: of the chocolate and the creaminess of the whipped cream
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: and then also the slight bitterness of the apricot. So
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: it really is that coniunctio, that tension. Yeah.
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: We're talking really about Jung's experience with the transcendent function.
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: You know that amazing revelation where everything just comes together,
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: transcends your conscious awareness, reality. I mean, you're fully present,
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: but something much larger arises. And what I love about
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: this is that it unites body, spirit, and mind in
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: the taste of the sakura torta.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: The chocolate, the apricot, the whipped cream. It's like alchemy.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And in fact, you know, there, there are some
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: people who believe that Jung's interest in alchemy was really, um,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: kind of primed by his interest in, in pastry and confection.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: And just, Joseph, that was such a beautifully told story.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: And I, but I, I do want to just back
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: up a little bit because, you know, what, what we
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: know now is that, um, Jung had such a lively
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: mind as a young man. His father had said at
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: one point, the problem is he's interested in everything. And
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: that was true. He didn't know how to narrow down
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: his interests when he was finishing up kind of what
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: in America is called high school and getting ready to
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: matriculate in college. He had to choose a course of study,
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: and it was very, very difficult for him. He was
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: interested in the natural sciences. He was interested in archaeology.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: you know, mythology and the humanities, but he was also
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: a very, very talented pastry chef. And that was a
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: real interest of his that he gave some serious consideration to.
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: Well, I think it was, I mean, he was the
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: son of a pastor, a country pastor, did not have
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: a lot of money. And somewhere along the line, I mean,
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: we all know that for all of his life, he
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: was Jung loved good food. He loved sweets. He loved
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: good wine. And, you know, there have been hints and
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: rumors that while he was at university, he worked part-time
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: in the kitchen and learned about sort of bread baking,
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: pastry making, all of those delicious kinds of treats, you know,
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: at night. He was young, he was robust. You get
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: up at 2.30 or 3 and start the baking ready
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: for breakfast and coffee the next day. But I think,
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: you know, it was pretty rudimentary stuff at a university.
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: You know, unlike this revelatory experience with Freud, who somehow
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: knew to take him to a cafe. Of all the
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: places they should meet, it would be at this famous
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: Viennese cafe.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: It's very synchronistic, isn't it?
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: Incredible.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: There's Jung holding this tension inside of himself, and then...
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: As soon as he gets there, Freud's saying, you know,
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: we're going to the Isakar Cafe. I mean, it is
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: so uncanny to put him right into the middle of it.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: You know, just to provide some historical context, I mean,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: we have to remember that at the turn of the century, like,
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Zurich was, it didn't have much of an established pastry culture, right?
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you were interested in pastry, there were
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: really two places on the planet, you know, that you would...
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: want to make sure to go. One, of course, was Paris,
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: and the other was Vienna. So, you know, we think
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: about Jung kind of making this pilgrimage to Vienna to
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: meet with Freud, but really it's clear if you read
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: some of his kind of newly discovered letters and writings
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: and that kind of thing, that a big part of
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: what drew him to go to Vienna at the time
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: was to experience the pastry culture in Vienna, which was
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: world-renowned at that time.
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: Right. And he had been introduced to this when he
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: had previously gone to Paris to study with Pierre Jeunet,
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: a noted psychologist. He had been just working at this
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: mental hospital in Paris. in Zurich and really, really wanted
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: to go to Paris. His nickname in college had been
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: The Barrel. So, you know, we know he already developed
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: an appetite for sweets and good things. Off he goes
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: to Paris. And once again, he had.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Very little money.
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: He had a salary at the Berkholzsee And his boss,
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: Eugene Bleuler, would not give him leave, a leave of
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: absence to study. So off goes Jung anyway to Paris
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: to study, but he needs a moonlighting job, as it were.
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: And because of his experience at university, he got a
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: job at a cafe in a pastry place in Paris.
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: And once again, you know, you get up kind of
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: in the middle of the night. Jung is young. He's robust.
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: He can do both the moonlighting and his daytime studies.
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: And guess what he concocts? He was the one that
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: decided to put chocolate in a croissant. And he called
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: it the barrel because it is sort of round. with
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: this layer of chocolate underneath. It later became known as
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: a chocolate croissant. But Jung was the one that inspired
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: the creation and sort of the refinement of it. And
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: I think that really fired his passion for pastry, which then,
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: as you were saying, Lisa, later took him to Vienna
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: to meet Freud as a, as a cover story, really,
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: for wanting to experience Viennese pastry after having tasted what
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: Paris had to offer.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, cover story, I mean, I think he
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: did genuinely want to meet Freud.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: Oh, sure.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: I just think, you know, it had sort of a
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: dual purpose, you know.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a busman's holiday.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: And another little funny story, as you were talking about
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Jung's nickname as The Barrel, But once people understood his
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: kind of culinary skills, they used to call him the Fasskuchen,
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: which is basically the barrel cake. So, Fasskuchen. Yeah.
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: You know, I think from time to time, his love
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: of sweets, pastries, good food. I've never heard anything about
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: his fasting periods, you know, in between these trips and
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: experiences of indulgence. But There's definitely a tendency there to
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: overindulge him. We all know what happens if you do that.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: Yes, we all become fast kookans around our midsections. So
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: there's a pivot point. You know, he's already been experimenting
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: with some things. And like you said, that he had
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: developed a kind of archaic version of what was going
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: to become the chocolate croissant. Mm-hmm. And I think later
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: in life he understood that even the inspiration to create
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: the chocolate croissant had come up from an archetypal layer
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: of the psyche. As a matter of fact, he had
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: had a dream that he didn't understand when he was
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: quite young. Young, rather.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Young, young.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. That he went into a vast oven. that
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: was deep beneath the Alps. And inside there was this
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: kind of radiant baker who wore this intricate crown made
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: of sugar cubes. And the baker whispered to him, strangely
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: enough in French, transformation begins in the kitchen. Oh, wow.
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: That is archetypal, though. I mean, the hearth is... Our
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: modern kitchens are emanations of the hearth.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: Wow. And followed by a remarkable demonstration where the alchemical,
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: for lack of a better word, the alchemical baker took
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: this enormous egg, it was like the size of an
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: ostrich egg, and he breaks it and it kind of
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: slops onto the pan. And then after a few minutes,
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: of course, he's scrambling it and it turns into scrambled eggs.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: And Jung spent years and years meditating on that image,
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: and that became the inspiration for Salve at Coagula.
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: Oh, for heaven's sake.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: The liquid that coagulates had been demonstrated to him in
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: this dream beneath the Alps.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: You know, the thing about pastry baking, actually, is that
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: it's not quite candy making, but it's It's closer to
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: that than many other things. It's kind of highly technical.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: And you have to actually know quite a bit about
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: food science, as it were, to really be an excellent
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: pastry chef. You know, like the temperature of the dough and,
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: you know, how it's going to respond if it has
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: more butter versus more sugar. What does sugar do to
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: the dough, for example? It's very, very technical. And I
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: think in that sense... it really is alchemical. You know,
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: it really is like Jung in the kitchen, pouring over
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: different batters, trying to get something, just perfect, perfect something and,
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: and get it just right. It's very similar to what
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: the alchemists were doing when they were trying to experiment
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: with their alembics, turning the base metal into gold. And,
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: you know, Jung talked about how the, what happens in
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: alchemy is, that the alchemists were projecting psyche onto matter,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: which I think was exactly his experience when he was
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: in the kitchen working with pastry, is that it was
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: really sort of like an extended active imagination, right? Where
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: he just unconsciously was projecting psychic material onto the puff
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: pastry dough.
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: And you have to really pay attention to it incorporating
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: butter slowly, rolling out the various layers of pastry, it
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: does require a tremendous focus and attention to working the materia.
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: And we work with, in alchemy, work with the material
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: substance in order to achieve its transformation. And it is
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: patient work, just like the alchemists always said their work was.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: And if you do the work patiently and with attentiveness,
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: the hope is that we will activate the spirit in
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: the matter. I mean, personally, I can't think of any
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: better way to achieve a kind of spirit than something
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: that is hot and fresh and flaky and buttery and
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: sweet and chocolate. I mean, we all know that experience
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: of like, ah, it's a very, it makes transformation and
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: transcendence accessible.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: And digestible.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Exactly. So it is a concretization, but it's also so
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: symbolic of, the bigger, deeper spiritual process.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: As a funny aside, when Jung was really angry at Freud,
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: and before he wrote his final letter, you know, that
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: ends with something like, you know, and And after that,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: there was only silence.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: The rest is silence.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: The rest is silence. But he had written this sarcastic
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: little note to Freud where he was commenting on their
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: initial meeting at the soccer cafe. And I don't remember
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: all of it, but he did a kind of biting
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: analysis of the soccer tort. He said something like.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: The glossy, controlled exterior of the soccer tort hides a dark,
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: luscious interior not unlike the Victorian super-ego's repression of instinct
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: and desire. So that was his just really angry comment,
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: you know, that Freud himself was like a glossy, chocolate-coated pastry.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: but inside was all of this repressed energy. Later on
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: in a small monograph, he did an analysis and also
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: talked about the apricot jam inside, gave it a tart,
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: unexpected note, which he came to call the anima spark,
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: that there's a surprising encounter with the inner life underneath
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: the layers of conformity.
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: And then in the final bit, I think he says
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: something like the, it's kind of a comment on the
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: bourgeois culture that the soccer tour's reputation as an elite
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: dessert maps onto the persona of the Austro-Hungarian empire, which
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: itself was poised on the edge of disintegration while clinging
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: to refinement.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: He really found a lot in that metaphor. Wow.
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: But you know, I'm thinking about this, that maybe the
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: flip side and another sort of sweet revenge, as it were,
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: on Jung's part, is that the inside shadow part of
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: the Sachertorte is also delicious, you know? So that a
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: counterpoint to Freud's feeling about shadow is just the personal
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: darkness and the sort of slag heap of repression that
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: we have to slog through. And Jung's point is, but
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: it's also where the treasure is to be found. And
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: that most of the shadow is pure gold, or in
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: the case of his pastry, pure delight, pure sweetness, pure transcendence.
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: So he really makes a really important symbolic point and
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: just one food item that is splendid. And it takes
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: revenge on Freud. This is Freud's hometown, as it were, Vienna.
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: And he takes this thing from Freud's life and makes
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: it into something much better, more complex, and transcendent. It
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: really exemplifies his how he was contesting Freud, competing with him.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Jung's love of the soccer tour, and especially as you
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: were talking about, Deb, the kind of ooey-gooey inside of it,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: that is, you know, it's when they were discussing that,
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: that Freud mentioned that Jung, he warned Jung to beware
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: of the black tide of occultism. But he was referring
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: to the blackness of the inside of the soccer tort.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: That's right. He was tapping on it with his little
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: fork there in this very exemplary way. This is such a.
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: Great example of the symbolic life and the kind of
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: world in a grain of sand. Because you think, oh,
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: it's a soccer tort. It's just an item you get
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: in a pastry shop.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: Oh, no, no.
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: It's much bigger, much deeper, and more multifaceted than that.
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: And this is the beginning, I think many years later,
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: he coined the term living a symbolic life. But he
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: was already delving under these, what might have seemed like
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: an inconsequential experience, eating a sort of soccer tort. But
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: it meant so much more because he was reaching inside
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: himself to find other layers of meaning to these extraordinary
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: things that he was doing. experiencing inside of himself.
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: I just want to go back to this moment that
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: I brought up before where he's trying to decide what
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: to study. You know, he's got the possibility of studying
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: the natural sciences, the possibility of studying humanities, and then
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: he's also feeling really pulled to continue with his pastry studies.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: And it's just been something that's always been there. And
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: I just, I'm going to just read a little bit
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: from Memory Stream's reflections, as we like to do on
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: the podcast, because he had a dream around this time.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: He was really struggling with this decision, and I just
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: want to read the dream. He said, Then came a
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: second dream, and again I was in a wood. It
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: was threaded with watercourses, and in the darkest place I
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: saw a circular pool surrounded by dense undergrowth. Half immersed
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: in the water lay the strangest and most wonderful creature.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: a round animal shimmering in opalescent hues and consisting of
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: innumerable little cells or of organs shaped like tentacles. It
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: was a giant radiolarian measuring about three feet across. And
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: he said, it aroused in me an intense desire for
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: knowledge that I woke up with a beating heart. So, and,
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: you know, he interpreted it at the time in MDR.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: And in any case, he mentions, you know, that it,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: It sort of settled him to study science, but the
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: story is not actually that simple, because when he awoke
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: from that dream, he wasn't sure if it was a
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: living creature and it was an indication to study science,
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: or if it actually had been an image of a
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: sort of giant... A macaroon. Right, a macaroon.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: He loved macaroons, those wonderful little chewy confection sandwiches almost
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: that you can have. At first, actually, he thought it
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: was a macaroon, a translucent macaroon, which in and of
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: itself was strange, and it was like enormous. It was
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: like an 18-inch across macaroon, which also was highly shameful
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: to him.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's why it didn't make it into
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: the published version of MDR. But if you look at
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: some of the original protocols that are coming out, there
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: is this discussion about whether it was a macaroon and
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: whether that was actually an intimation from the self to
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: move toward becoming a pastry chef.
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: And such a gigantic image, I think, could also be
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: that he would have dreamed of something, a macaroon that's
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: three feet across. That's not the kind of thing you really...
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: want to delve into in terms of your own shadow
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: in a dream interpretation of that. Could it be that big?
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: Could it be that grand? Could it be that much?
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: Could it really have that kind of satiating power? So
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: I think the temptation to sort of symbolize it differently
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: is totally understandable and works. I mean, that's what dreams
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: allow multiple lenses through which to understand them.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: And, you know, it's so interesting because I can totally
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: see that image as a giant macaroon, right? Like macaroons
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: have that sort of delicate coloring oftentimes, you know, and
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: when you see them in shop windows, they're so entrancing.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: And here's this kind of magical macaroon in the middle
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: of the forest, you know, so.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: And it would have a living quality to it. I mean,
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: he came to think of it as a radiolarian, but,
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: you know, In the dream world, things are very strange,
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: you know, talking horses and singing macaroons.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Swimming macaroon.
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: And the macaroon is a kind of Eucharist, really, as
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: an enormous Eucharistic feast.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's great.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: Promising renewal, birth, death, and resurrection.
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: I want to sort of keep us tracking Jung's passion
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: for baking and pastry. It was lifelong. And that after
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: his transcendent experience with the soccer tour and Freud, the
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: next thing that happened some years later was that they
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: took a trip to America with Salvador Ferenczi. There was
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: a sort of competitive spirit between Freud and Jung. And
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: where do they go? They go to Worcester, Mass., which
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: is basically in the Boston area. home of the Boston
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: cream pie. And they were guests of the president of
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: Clark University's home. And, you know, they served local treats. And,
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: you know, Jung was really smitten with the chocolate of
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: the cake part of a Boston cream pie. And then
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: there is a filling there. Between the two layers, it's creamy.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: But it's not just whipped cream. It is a multitude
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: of other things that are really fantastic. And Jung, this
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: was new to Jung, and he tinkered with the recipe,
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: but he made it smaller. He made it like, you know,
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: I think the Radiolarian reminded me of this, of Instead
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: of three feet in diameter, this was more like three
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: inches in diameter, of two chocolate cake layers and the
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: cream filling in between that would later become known as
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: the whoopie pie. But there he had a little handheld
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: treat that he could tuck away in an inside pocket
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: or a desk drawer and have something sweet and pastry-like.
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: the combination of textures, colors, and flavors that was the
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: hallmark of Jung's work in the kitchen.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: I think that's really moving, the idea that he would
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: make these little sustaining treats for himself and that he
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: would then tuck them into his clothing in different places
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: to take care of himself. It's almost like food for
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: the little mannequins. that he had as a child. You know,
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: it's like that little mannequin-sized pie.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Well, I think it just speaks to the man's extraordinary,
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: prodigious creativity and flexibility. And just, he was so good
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: at so many things.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: He was a polymath, yeah.
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: Polymath, renaissance man.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: You know, he was, you know, he made Beautiful art,
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: we all know from the Red Book and these gorgeous
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: ideas that he was so full of and, you know,
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: founded new psychology and was a really brilliant pastry chef.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, that combination doesn't come around, but once every
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: few centuries.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: It's a unity of body, mind, spirit. He loved to
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: work with his hands. Mm-hmm. He loved being in the kitchen,
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: the archetypal hearth. He loved alchemy and the amount of
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: real focus and attention that pastry-like alchemy requires. You're right, Lisa.
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: I mean, it does speak to Jung as just an
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: astonishingly multifaceted person. genius and a genius for life in
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: all its forms.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: And I think that it gives us another way in.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: It gives us another way. You know, there's so many
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: sort of doors you can walk through to begin experiencing.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: You may get smitten with typology, and that's your exposure.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Or perhaps you really like tarot, and that's your exposure.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Or perhaps you enter in because you love myths and
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: fairy tales or dreams or alchemy. But this is another
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: way in too. And I think maybe it's a good
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: time to let our listeners know that we're going to
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: be bringing forward soon within the next year, a cookbook.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: We are going to be publishing a book of Jung's pastries.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: It will have, you know, original recipes, you know, with
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: annotations by us. And, you know, we really hope that
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: that will help listeners find new access to Jung and
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: his really extraordinary ideas.
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we can cook things up in all kinds of ways,
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: symbolically and also in the kitchen.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: Yes, we were inspired by a book that Sonu Shamdasani
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: had put out, which is, I don't have the title
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: exactly right, but it's something like Knowing Jung Through His Bibliography.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: that he had done this analysis of the sequence of
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: Jung's books. And so we were noodling this over and
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: Lisa had come up with this same idea of knowing
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: Jung through his recipes.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. It's very intimate.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: It's very intimate. There's also another really funny story that
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: when Jung was more advanced in age and particularly coming
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: up and down the stairs of the house was really
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: difficult for him. that he had trained his little dog
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: named Geberkoch, which really means pastry chef in German, to
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: carry a little basket up into the consulting room with
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: some of his confections. And so in the middle of
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: most sessions, you'd hear this little scratching, you know, on
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: the bottom of the door. And then this little dog
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: would kind of hop in with a basket in its
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: mouth and offer it. you know, to Jung and whoever
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: he was working with. And then they would have a
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: little kind of tea and treats there. So it became
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: something really charming that people delighted in. Yeah. So lots
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: of good things happening. Our cookbook is going to be
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: coming out. We've been thinking about names for it. We
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: haven't really landed exactly on what that might be.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: But, you know, actually, we'd love to hear your thoughts
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: about what we should name it. So please, yeah, please
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: share that.
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: Oh, that is a great idea. Yes, help us get
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: to something really wonderful to honor Jung's spirit and genius
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: in the kitchen in the way that his genius in
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: other areas has been so appreciated.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we are so proud to be helping to unearth
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: this forgotten legacy of Jung's.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: And in closing, from all of us to all of you,
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: April Fools!
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
• 36:14
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• 36:19
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• 36:22
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• 36:25
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