Crackling black-and-white film footage from September 1936 shows grinning men and women, notebooks under their arms, walking to a lecture on Bailey Island, eager to meet one man.

Carl Jung, the father of archetypal psychology, created a fervor when he delivered a six-day seminar on “Dream Symbols of the Individuation Process.”

Additional Photos

Paul Huss helped found the Maine C.G. Jung Center in Brunswick in 1988. The center will celebrate the 75th anniversary of Carl Jung’s visit to Bailey Island with a special program Sept. 25 at the Bailey Island Library. Photos by John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Paul Huss looks at the “Red Book” at the Maine C.G. Jung Center in Brunswick. “This ... is a place for kindred spirits who come from very diverse backgrounds,” he said.

While in the United States to receive an honorary doctorate from Harvard, Jung was invited to travel to Maine by three New York analysts who summered there.

Jung and his work will draw a crowd on the island yet again this year when the Maine C.G. Jung Center celebrates the 75th anniversary of his visit with a special program to be held Sept. 25 at the Bailey Island Library.

The program will include a presentation on early Jungian analysts, including longtime summer resident Dr. Kristine Mann (1873-1945), who was one of the first three Jungian analysts to practice in the United States. They will also show an eight-minute, black-and-white film made during Jung’s 1936 visit to Bailey Island.

During his Bailey Island visit, Jung lectured each day and met with analysts each night. Part of the anniversary celebration will be a discussion of the lectures.

The center is one of dozens of Jung centers and institutes across the United States. The Maine center does not teach Jungian analysis, but provides space for Jungian lectures, seminars, discussion groups and experiential workshops.

“We decided it would be a center in the best liberal arts tradition — learning for love of learning,” said Paul Huss, who helped found the center in 1988 and was the first president of its board of directors. “This place has maintained its vitality over the years. It is a place for kindred spirits who come from very diverse backgrounds.”

Located in Brunswick, the center is a one-room library with Jung’s 22 volumes on a shelf near a whole bookcase of writings inspired by them.

Colorful crepe paper mandalas, concentric geometric forms that Jung describes as “a representation of the unconscious self,” lay scattered on a table.

A copy of Jung’s “Red Book” rests on a stand. The book was published in 2009 after Jung’s family reluctantly allowed its pages to be scanned. The enormous volume covered in red leather contains vibrant drawings and calligraphy that illustrate mythical characters of his dreams and waking fantasies.

The still-flourishing center and its resources were primarily funded by Mildred Harris, who met Jung at the Bailey Island lecture and asked him about a Jungian cure for her epilepsy.

“Stick out your tongue,” Jung reportedly said to her, predicting an unfavorable prognosis. Later, when her symptoms disappeared, she attributed it to years of Jungian analysis.

After being approached by Huss about founding the center, Harris sold a beloved painting, Hans Hofmann’s “The Source,” to raise the funds.

Today, a poster of the painting hangs above the mantel at the center.

A video of Harris at the center’s opening on Sept. 17, 1988, shows her telling guests that it is one of the most important days of her life.

“Many people can learn to recover their lives in this center,” she said.

Christos Gianopoulos, a center member who has been planning the celebration on Bailey Island, said he has kept in mind the theme of psyche and place.

“There may be something about Maine, the nature and the ocean, that attracts people of Jungian thought,” he said of the concentration of analysts in the region.

Paola Biola, a Jungian analyst, said Maine’s unique and untouched nature provides a place for reflection.

“There is a craziness in our collective world today, a lot of people feel emptiness and no meaning. By journeying to the inner world we become more aware of ourselves and what is happening outside,” she said.

Staff Writer Colleen Stewart can be contacted at 791-6355 or at:

cstewart@pressherald.com

Related Stories