ABSTRACT
Tom Kirsch shares his experience of first coming to and reading Jung, beginning in his late teens and then extending through the years of his early development as a Jungian analyst to the present, some fifty years later. His essay includes an impressive meeting with Jung himself as well as an account of his early encounters with some of Jung's written works. Just as, at the start of a personal analysis, the powerful images and affects of an initial dream may continue to reverberate for decades and become a living symbol in the psyche of the dreamer, so Kirsch's initial experience of reading Jung as a young man seems to go on living vividly within his psyche. As Jung wound toward the conclusion of his essay on dreams he reflected on the criticism that he had received for venturing into material that he was told was not the purview of the psychologist, but belonged to the philosopher or theologian.
