The Scriptures are God’s Word spoken. They are not simply word about God, or about his Word or about his saving work. They are his Word, and therefore his work: for his Word is creative; what it says it thereby does. (In Hebrew, Dabar means both Word and matter, affair, etc.) The words of Scripture do not point to what God does; they are what he does. And it is necessary not so much to follow their guidance as to participate in their Mystery. So it is, analogously, of a creative work of art. For example, a poem does not refer to something apart from itself which one must apprehend: it is something, into which one must enter.

In the words of Scripture a mystery of creation is contained. They are intrinsically creative. And what is there already created is the mind of the Prophet who utters them. For the prophet is one who conceives the Word of God in his mind (in his ‘heart’), by the power of the Spirit, and brings it forth, utters it. He possesses, that is to say he is really possessed by, the Word of God. The prophetic utterance of the Word of God involves a divine work of creation; it means that the Word of God has in some sense become incarnate.

What happens in the divine history, of which the Scriptures are not just a record but an embodiment or a sacrament, is to be compared to what happened in the very creation of the world. The mystery there displays the chaotic material of life being moved over by the Spirit and so enlivened that it becomes responsive to the Word of God and out of the womb of chaos the cosmos is born.

Seeing that Professor C. G. Jung’s analytical psychology has been introduced to the Catholic public by the writings of Fr Victor White, O.P., and by Fr Witcutt’s Catholic Thought and Modem Psychology, it seems appropriate to discuss this subject from the practical point of view of the psychotherapist. It is the purpose of this article to illustrate one or two practical points of Jung’s method by a few examples in the endeavour to dispel the current notion that analytical psychology is an art intelligible only to the initiated. Yet it contains no greater mystery than the familiar phenomena of biology, e.g. the partition of cells. Jung continually stresses the point that his method is empirical, dealing with facts which emerge from the unconscious. Admittedly, these phenomena are often very surprising; however, they should not be disregarded even if they cannot always be explained satisfactorily.

Analytical psychology is not concerned with the soul in the full theological sense of the word but only with its manifestations, with the psyche, which, as Dr Strauss defines it, is the sum total of the experiences made during a person’s lifetime as well as those which have come down as a heritage from his ancestors. Modem man, as he is, separated from his divine origin and unable to balance his experiences in accordance with true values, is conscious of a deep-seated dissatisfaction and sense of frustration. This is the breeding-ground for that modern complaint termed ‘neurosis’. In essence, the neurotic person does not differ from his normal fellow. It is only that the ‘war with himself’ is fought with greater intensity and leads to embarrassing conflicts with the outside world. To deal with the complexities of this situation—often disguised under physical diseases like asthma—Jung’s method has been developed.

‘The Irish Tangle for English Readers’ (Macdonald; 10s. 6d.) is a mainly political history of Ireland. The historian, Sir Shane Leslie, sees himself under the sod—‘turf’ would have hotter associations in Ireland—and free to speak his detached mind without fear or favour. One cannot imagine a better place for this feat than a country house on the Ulster border guarded by Yankee sentries; with an occasional coffin of butter, followed by pious mourners, proceeding north, and a few gewgaws from Belfast infiltrating in the other direction. Here the book was conceived. It was finished in a military building in London as ‘impartial reading for Englishmen who are weary of Ireland and the Irish’. It is very good reading for anyone.

The book sets out to tell what Irish and English between them have made of Ireland. It does not saddle the living with the follies, vices and misdemeanours of the dead. Nevertheless, history and the climate have made the country what it is, and neither is particularly helpful. The author insists that Nordic interbreeding has been propitious, and that the climate can always be counted upon to turn immigrants into Irishmen. ‘The only pure blood in Ireland is . . . in the racing-stables.’ There is a climate, too, one notes, of the soul. Cromwell has to expel Spenser’s grandson for becoming a Papist. Nearly all the great Irish leaders have been of mixed stock. The supreme chance for an independent Ireland, without Partition, was lost, the historian insists, with Parnell. Any new opportunity, he says, will be hard and slow to come by; though it is quite possible now that Conservative Ulster may throw in its lot with the farmers of the South, rather than risk entanglement with English Reds.

However enthusiastic we may be concerning what is called ‘the back to the land movement,’ it is a fact that most of the attempts made in any organised form, in recent years have ended in failure. However much we may deplore that fact, it still remains a fact, and ‘trying again’ in the same way with the same mistakes, except in regard to some details, is not likely to do more than to convince our unconverted brethren that ‘it can’t be done’. We should surely learn from our past failures some other way of achieving the high task which is literally our only ‘alternative to death’.

The failure of most, if not all, of the well-intentioned ‘movements’ of past years has been due to one or all of three causes : lack of funds, lack of suitable people and lack of education, The last is fundamental and overwhelmingly the real cause of failure. You cannot make a farmer out of a townsman until he becomes, by training and experience, not a townsman settled on the land but a true countryman in every sense of the word. He has to learn more than the technical aspects of his new work. He must before, and above all, begin a new way of living. He must, by patient endeavour and humble obedience, re-orientate his thoughts to a new valuing of almost the whole of his life.

The problem is immense, the suggested solutions innumerable, but we shall not in the future any more than in the past find the true solution without facing the real issue, and the issue is mainly one of education and the re-setting of values. A host of willing helpers, complete with public or secondary school education, may be, and usually are, a great joy to a farmer who has left all things to follow the Divine Wisdom of Nazareth. Their companionship, their conversation, their interests, bring back to him some at least of the good things in the world he has left. But willingness is not effectiveness, nor is the appreciation of the value of work the only requisite for its well-doing. Father McNabb once epitomised life in the words ‘work and the preparation for work.’