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What part did Carl Jung play in A.A.'s beginning?

In short:

  • The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung treated an American alcoholic, later identified as Rowland H., in the early 1930s. When the man relapsed, Jung told him that medicine could do no more for him, and that his only hope was a genuine spiritual experience, which in alcoholics like him was rare.
  • The man joined the Oxford Group and got sober. He helped Ebby T. get sober in 1934, and Ebby brought the message to Bill W. That is the chain Bill later traced back to Jung.
  • The Big Book tells the story in Chapter 2 without naming the patient. Today's text names the doctor as "Dr. Jung"; our sources don't show whether the 1939 printing did.
  • Our sources show no other part Jung played: no meetings, no membership. In 1961 Bill wrote to thank him, and Jung replied. Jung's reply is the source of the Latin phrase spiritus contra spiritum.

What the Big Book says (Chapter 2)

Chapter 2, There Is a Solution, tells of an American businessman of ability and high character who went to Europe for treatment by "a celebrated physician (the psychiatrist, Dr. Jung)" (p. 26). He left with great confidence and was soon drunk (p. 26). When he went back and asked why, "In the doctor's judgment he was utterly hopeless" (p. 26). Asked whether there was any exception, the doctor said: "Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences." (p. 27). He described them as "huge emotional displacements and rearrangements" (p. 27). The man's religious convictions, the doctor told him, did not amount to that experience (p. 27).

The chapter goes on to say the man later had the experience and is free (pp. 26, 28), and that the other members "sought the same escape with all the desperation of drowning men" (p. 28). A footnote, added when the appendices were, points to Appendix II on spiritual experience (p. 27). See What is the "spiritual awakening" in Step 12?

The Big Book names neither the patient nor Ebby's connection to him. Today's text names Jung in parentheses; our sources have only the fourth edition, so it can't say whether that parenthesis was in the first printing.

How Jung's words reached Bill (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957)

In Bill's 1957 account, after his own experience at Towns Hospital he read William James and saw the pattern of deflation at depth: "Dr. Carl Jung had told an Oxford group friend of Ebby's how hopeless his alcoholism was" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957), Dr. Silkworth had told Bill the same, and then Ebby, another alcoholic, had brought the message (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). Before Bill went to Akron, Silkworth reminded him that the doctor in Zurich had told this alcoholic "his only hope of salvation was a spiritual experience" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).

At the 1955 convention, the Rev. Sam Shoemaker listed "Dr. Jung's simple declaration that science had no answer" among the strands that went into A.A., along with Dr. Silkworth's help and William James (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).

The name, and the letters (Pass It On, 1984)

Pass It On names the patient as Rowland H., of a prominent Rhode Island family (Pass It On, 1984). It says he was treated by Jung for about a year, got drunk soon after, and went back, to be told more treatment would be useless; in Jung's opinion only a spiritual awakening could help, and when Rowland said he already believed in God, Jung replied that "belief was not enough" and suggested he join a religious movement (Pass It On, 1984). Rowland joined the Oxford Group, got sober, and in 1934 helped Ebby (Pass It On, 1984). See Who was the old school friend in "Bill's Story" (Ebby)?

In January 1961 Bill wrote to Jung to tell him that this conversation was "the first link in the chain of events that led to the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous" (Pass It On, 1984). Jung answered on January 30, 1961 (Pass It On, 1984). He said he had had to be very careful in what he told Rowland, and explained what he had really thought: "His craving for alcohol was the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness" (Pass It On, 1984). He ended with a play on the Latin word for both alcohol and spirit: "Alcohol in Latin is spiritus" (Pass It On, 1984), and so the helpful formula was spirit against spirit (Pass It On, 1984). Bill wrote back in March; Jung died that June (Pass It On, 1984).

Where the sources differ

  • The year of the treatment. The timeline in our later printing of A.A. Comes of Age says Jung's help to the alcoholic came in 1930 and was "later seen as" the first step toward A.A. (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). Bill's 1961 letter, as Pass It On quotes it, says the man became Jung's patient about 1931 (Pass It On, 1984). The Big Book gives no year.
  • What Jung advised. The Big Book has the doctor say only that vital spiritual experiences sometimes happen and that the man's religious convictions weren't enough (p. 27). Pass It On adds that Jung told him to join a religious movement (Pass It On, 1984), and Bill's 1961 letter says Jung recommended that he "place himself in a religious atmosphere and hope for the best" (Pass It On, 1984).
  • "Founder" sayings. Our sources don't support calling Jung a founder or member of A.A. The sources describe one conversation with one patient, which Bill came to see as the first link in a chain (Pass It On, 1984).

Read it yourself

Sources

Source Pages Date
Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 2, "There Is a Solution" 26–28 1939 text (the parenthesis naming Jung and the footnote to Appendix II may be later; our sources have only the fourth edition)
A.A. Comes of Age (including Shoemaker's 1955 talk) (timeline, later printing), 35, 37, 135 1957
Pass It On (including the Bill W.–Jung letters of January–March 1961) — 1984

Big Book page numbers are from the fourth edition (2001). Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book, A.A. Comes of Age and Pass It On are © A.A. World Services, Inc.

These pages answer questions about A.A. from A.A.'s own published literature, read in full, with every quote checked word for word against the page it cites. Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. What we read, and when each source was written.