Goethe an ancestor to Carl G Jung?
Is Goethe an ancestor to Carl Jung?
I was reading Carl Jung's biography and there he mentions, without confirming it, that in the family they had the rumour that he could have had Goethe as his ancestor.
See, this article, which mentions the legend:
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/cjung.htmhttp://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/cjung.htm
According to family legends, Jung's grandfather was Goethe's illegal son, although there was no real evidence to support the story. Goethe's Faust, memorized already at school, and influenced Jung deeply.
In the German speaking world, to prove or disprove such a legend so many years later would be a news scoop.
Could this not be a Family Tree DNA project?
They could look for volunteers from heirs to the Goethe and Jung families or get permission to take hair or bone samples from both in their coffins?
At Family Tree DNA they have a Jung family project with 169 entries.
That is a huge sample and may contain at least one descendant from Carl Jung.
There is no Goethe DNA in the FTD bank.
Goethe had at least one known son Karl August, born in 1789. (Note that he married only in 1806.) So there is at least one generation down the line to carry the Y chromossome of Goethe. I did some further research and found a further generation in the Goethe family: Walther v. G. 9/4/1818 - 15/4/1885 and Wolfgang v. G 18/9/1818 - 20/1/1883 (sic - the age difference of only five months).
The affairs of Goethe are mentioned in the Brockhaus (an Encyclopedia):
Christiane Vulpius (1788/89), Minna Herzlieb (1807/08), Marianne v. Willemer (1814/15), Ulrike v. Levetzow (1822).
Taken from a biography found in the Internet:
His paternal grandfather, Carl Jung Sr., was a professor of surgery at the university of Basel, as well as Grand Master of the Swiss order of Freemasons. Curiously this same grandfather, who was German born, was also rumored to be an illegitimate love child of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and he allegedly bore a physical resemblance to the famous writer.
Another Internet entry (this does not suggest Goethe as an anscestor to Jung):
Crucially, in his autobiography Jung goes on to trace the roots of his destiny as the founder of analytical psychology beyond his grandfather. Although his train of thought is typically obscure on this point, Jung suggests he is descended from a Dr. Carl Jung of Mainz (d. 1645), whom he portrays as a follower of none other than Count Michael Maier, a ‘founder’ of Rosicrucianism. As a ‘Paracelsian’ this supposed ancestor was purportedly acquainted with Gerhard Dorn, a man whom Jung believed to have “grappled with the process of individuation” more than any other alchemist. Jung goes on to comment suggestively that “all this is not without certain interest” in light of his own concern with alchemical symbolism and the coniunctio oppositorum (’conjunction of opposites’). In this way Jung intimates that the unanswered questions he felt driven to resolve through his lifelong intellectual and therapeutic work stretch back to the Rosicrucianism of Count Michael Maier and the alchemy of the Paracelsians.
Just to show the controversies around his ancestor, this is important in his work because of the alchemist influence which he traces back to Count Michael Maier. But if his ancestor was Goethe, is there also an alchemist influence to trace back?
If we could help to prove his ancestry one way or the other would be an important contribution and change the text in encyclopedias.
Message to Andreas le Noir, who has a Goethe heir in his site:
Since it is relevant to Jung's theories, I wonder if one could compare DNA samples from Jung and Goethe's heirs.
Family Tree DNA has 169 Jung family members already tested, but no DNA sample from a Goethe heir.
Being Both Goethe and Jung significant historical persons of western civilization, I do not feel myself meddling in the private lives of other's families.
So please excuse if this offends you.
Rudi Braaz, Brasília
More Replies:
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Re: Goethe an ancestor to Carl G Jung?
Pongawhakatihi Pompey 11/13/09
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Goethe an ancestor to Carl G Jung?
Rudi Braatz 11/21/10
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Goethe an ancestor to Carl G Jung?