Chicken Little: The Inside Story (A Jungian ... - Inner City Books

30 Chicken Little: The Inside Story
Good luck to them, I say. But that’s not me. I’m at home on the
beaten track.
Besides, my interest in Chickle Schtick was, after all, at a low
point. My current studies in that area were desultory, at best. And I
had more than enough to do without going off on a wild, well,
chicken chase.
The whole business kept me awake for days. 37 I’m afraid even
Rachel became impatient.
“You’re a grown man,” she grumbled, as once again I crawled
over her in the middle of the night and got dressed to go home.
“Make up your mind.”
Arnold was marginally more sympathetic.
“Here’s what Jung says,” and he read out loud:
The stirring up of conflict is a Luciferian virtue in the true sense of
the word. Conflict engenders fire, the fire of affects and emotions,
and like every other fire it has two aspects, that of combustion and
that of creating light. 38
“You see?” said Arnold. “It’s good for you.”
I finally wrote to Brillig, as follows.
Dear Sir,
Let me say first of all that I felt honored to hear from you. I still
remember your remarkable thesis, “Archetypal Motifs in Existentialism,”
which I had the opportunity to read in the Institute library. It is
an impressive study, which I often heard students quote passages
from in colloquia. You will not be surprised, I’m sure, to learn that
the profs were not always pleased! In fact, I once stood up for you
myself in a discussion of Jung’s philosophical antecedents. (I was
slapped down unmercifully, to my mind, but that’s another story.)
I have to tell you, too, that your letter took me completely by surprise.
My little piece on “Ms. Little,” as you so charmingly refer to
37 For the record, this has happened to me before. The last time, I forfeited a $500
deposit on a new car. The salesman was quite perturbed when I told him I couldn’t
go through with it. “Makes no sense to me,” he said, “it’s a fine machine.” “I don’t
doubt that,” I blushed, “but my dreams do.”
38 “Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype,” The Archetypes and the
Collective Unconscious, CW 9i, par. 179.