Alan Watts on Carl Jung: Ending the Civil War Within You

Some time ago, I came across one of the most powerful speeches I had ever heard from Carl Jung about the importance of nonjudgmental acceptance and how, through others, we can integrate our shadow and put an end to what he calls “the civil war within ourselves.”

Alan Watts described this talk as one of the most important and meaningful speeches ever given by Carl Jung and I believe rightly so. It was delivered in Switzerland to a group of clergy in the mid-20th century. In this text, Watts himself shares his interpretation of Jung’s message and teachings, along with personal insights about their relationship.

I haven’t found a good Spanish translation of this text, so I’ve decided to create this post to make it available to all Spanish-speaking individuals who are fascinated by Jung’s teachings and the legacy of Alan Watts. I hope you find it as valuable as I did back then.

I believe the most important aspect of Jung that he was able to highlight is that to the extent you condemn others and find evil in others, to that same extent you are unconscious of the fact that the same thing exists within you or at least the potential for it. There can be Eichmanns, Hitlers, and Himmlers in the world only because there are people who are unaware of their own dark sides and project that darkness outward onto the Jews, or the communists, or whatever the enemy may be and say, “There is the darkness, not in me.” And therefore, since the darkness is not in me, I am justified in annihilating that enemy whether with atomic bombs, gas chambers, or whatever it takes.

But to the extent that a person becomes aware that evil exists both within themselves and in others, to that same extent they are less likely to project it onto a scapegoat and commit the vilest acts of violence against others.

Now, this is, to me, the most important insight Jung had: that in order to admit, truly accept, and understand the evil within oneself, one must be able to do so without becoming its enemy. As he himself said, “You have to accept your own dark side,” and he possessed this quality in a truly remarkable way within his own character.

I had a long conversation with him in 1958, and I was deeply impressed by a man who was clearly extraordinary, yet at the same time someone with whom anyone could feel completely at ease. There are many people who are intellectually brilliant or what we might call “holy,” around whom the ordinary person tends to feel somewhat ashamed like they’re sitting on the edge of their seat, being silently judged by that person's wisdom or sanctity.

Jung managed to possess both wisdom and, I believe, a form of sanctity in such a way that when others came into his presence, they didn’t feel judged. They felt uplifted, encouraged, and invited to share in a common humanity. There was a kind of sparkle in Jung’s eyes. I had the impression that he was fully aware that he himself was as much a scoundrel as any other ordinary human being. There’s a beautiful German word, Hintergedanke, which means a thought in the very back of your mind.

Jung carried a hintergedanke in the depths of his mind, which could be glimpsed in the sparkle in his eyes. It showed that he was aware of and embraced what I have sometimes called the irreducible element of mischief within himself and he knew it so clearly, and with such warmth, that he would never condemn it in others. Therefore, he could not be drawn into those thoughts, feelings, or acts of violence toward others that are always characteristic of people who project the devil within themselves onto others onto a scapegoat.

Now, this made Jung a very integrated person in other words, and here I must introduce a somewhat complex idea: he was a man who was fully at home with himself.

Having deeply seen and accepted his own nature, he had a kind of unity and absence of inner conflict that came with an added complexity which I find so fascinating. He was the kind of man who could feel anxious, fearful, and guilty without feeling guilty or ashamed for feeling that way. In other words: he understood that an integrated person is not someone who has simply eliminated guilt or anxiety from their life, who is fearless, unshakable, and some kind of stone-faced sage.

Rather, it's someone who feels all these things, but doesn’t blame themselves for feeling them. And this, in my view, is a form of deep humor. You know, humor always contains a certain element of mischief. There was an interview on Pacifica Radio some time ago with Al Capp, and he pointed out that he felt all humor is fundamentally malicious.

Now, the highest form of humor is self-directed humor true humor isn’t about making jokes at the expense of others; it’s about making jokes at your own expense. And of course, those also carry an element of malice.

It carries malice toward oneself the recognition of the fact that behind the social role you assume, behind all your pretenses of being a good citizen, a great scholar, a brilliant scientist, a prominent politician, doctor, or whatever it is you are behind that façade, there is a certain element of the misfit or the rogue. Not as something to be condemned or regretted, but as something that can be recognized as contributing to one’s greatness and to the positive aspects of oneself, in the same way that manure contributes to the fragrance of the rose.

Jung saw this and accepted it, and I want to read a passage from one of his lectures that I believe is one of the finest things he ever wrote and something that has been profoundly meaningful to me. It was from a lecture delivered to a group of clergy in Switzerland some considerable years ago, and he writes the following:

People forget that even doctors have moral scruples, and that certain patients' confessions are hard even for a doctor to swallow. But the patient will never feel truly accepted unless the therapist also accepts the worst side of them. No one can accomplish this with mere words. It can only come through reflection and through the therapist’s own attitude toward themselves and their own dark side.

If the therapist wants to guide another person, or even accompany them for a single step along the way, they must be able to feel with that person’s psyche. They will never feel it if they are passing judgment. Whether they express their judgment in words or keep it to themselves makes no difference. Taking the opposite stance and immediately agreeing with the patient is also useless. True feeling will only come through an unbiased objectivity.

This may sound almost like a scientific principle and could be mistaken for a purely intellectual, abstract mental attitude—but what I mean is something quite different. It is a human quality—a kind of deep respect for the facts, for the person who suffers them, and for the enigma that is that person’s life.

The truly religious person has this attitude. They know that God has caused all kinds of strange and inconceivable things to happen, and that He seeks, in the most curious ways, to enter the heart of man. That is why they sense the invisible presence of divine will in everything. This is what I mean by unbiased objectivity: it is a moral achievement on the part of the therapist, who must not be repelled by illness or corruption.

We cannot change anything unless we fully accept it. Condemnation does not liberate it oppresses. I become the oppressor of the person I condemn, not their friend and fellow sufferer. I do not mean in the slightest that we should never pass judgment when we seek to help and improve. But if the therapist wants to help a human being, they must be able to accept them just as they are and can truly do so only when they have seen and accepted themselves just as they are.

This may sound very simple, but the simplest things are always the most difficult. In real life, it takes the greatest art to make something simple. And so, self-acceptance is the essence of the moral problem and the acid test of one’s whole outlook on life. That I feed the beggar, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do for the least of my brothers, I also do for Christ.

But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all beggars, the most impudent of all offenders, yes, the very devil himself what if I discover that all these live within me, and that I myself am the one who is most in need of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved then what?

Then, as a rule, the entire truth of Christianity is reversed. No more is there talk of love and long-suffering. Instead, we say to the brother within us that he is unworthy, and we condemn ourselves and grow angry with ourselves. We hide him from the world. We deny ever having encountered such an unworthy being among the lowliest parts of ourselves—and even if God Himself had approached us in that despicable form, we would have denied Him a thousand times before the cock crowed once.

Healing can be called a religious problem. In the realm of social or national relationships, the state of sustained suffering can be defined as a civil war and this state must be healed through the Christian virtue of forgiveness and love for one’s enemies.

What we confidently recommend as good Christians to external situations, we must also apply internally in the treatment of neurosis. That is why modern man has heard plenty about guilt and sin. He is deeply troubled by his own guilty conscience and is, in fact, more eager to know how to be reconciled with his own nature how to love the enemy within his own heart and call the wolf his brother.

Modern man does not want to know how he can imitate Christ, but how he can live his own individual life no matter how humble or unremarkable it may be. It is because every form of imitation seems dulling and sterile to him that he rebels against the power of tradition, which would imprison him on well-worn paths paths that, to him, all lead in the wrong direction.

He may not know it, but he behaves as if his own individual life were the special will of God that must be fulfilled at all costs. Hence his selfishness, which is one of the most tangible evils of the neurotic state. But the person who tells him he is too selfish has already lost his trust and rightly so because that person has pushed him even deeper into his neurosis.

If I wish to bring about a cure for my patients, I am compelled to recognize the deep significance of their selfishness. I would be blind not to see it as a true expression of God’s will. I must even help the patient to prevail in their selfishness. If they succeed, they will grow distant from others, push them away, and turn inward as they must because those others were trying to rob them of their sacred selfishness! This must be left to them, because it is their strongest and healthiest power.

It is a true divine will that sometimes leads a person into complete isolation. As miserable as this state may be, it also serves them greatly, because only in this way can they come to know themselves and learn what an invaluable treasure the love of their fellow human beings truly is. Moreover, it is only in a state of complete abandonment and solitude that we experience the usefulness of the powers of our own nature.