Early Life
"Jung was born on July 26, 1875 in Kesswil, Switzerland, the only son of a Protestant clergyman. At the age of four his family moved to Basel. His childhood was a lonely one. Jung observed his parents and teachers and tried to understand their behavior, especially that of his father. The elder Jung had a failing belief in religion. Jung could never understand why. There were numerous relatives on either side of his family that were clergymen. It was expected of Jung to continue in the family tradition. Jung did not decide to follow, choosing instead to attend the University of Basel from 1895-1900. Before deciding to pursue medicine Jung studied biology, zoology, paleontology, and archaeology. His explorations did not stop with that, he looked at philosophy, mythology, early Christian literature as well as religion. His interest in religion could be attributed to his heritage as well as watching the demise of his father." ―muskingum.edu
“As a child I felt myself to be alone, and I am still, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know.”
―Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Life-Altering Events
"Carl Jung's dedication to study was somewhat slow in developing. After sustaining a head injury, which incurred fainting spells requiring him to stay home from school, he became so disgusted with himself (upon overhearing his father's fear for his future) that he managed to overcome both the physical handicap and his lazy habits to become a promising young scholar. But this transition, remarkable on its own, was marked by a peculiar incident that served to awaken Jung's interest in the nature of mind and in paranormal phenomenon. One day while walking home from school, he experienced himself suddenly coming out of a profound mental fog. He felt as if he were finally "himself". More remarkably, he also felt that this self was simultaneously 12-year-old Carl Jung and a wise old man who had previously lived in the 1700s. Paranormal events of this nature, or more particularly experiences of trance mediumship and clairvoyance, were not unknown in Jung's family. And in college his curiosity of such phenomenon led him to conduct considerable research, the skeptical results of which formed the basis of his doctoral thesis." ―nndb.com
"Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk." ―Carl Jung
Motherly Influence
"From his mother Jung inherited a not always pleasant ability to see people and things as they really were. Once at a wedding he told an 'imaginary story' to a barrister. An embarrassed hush fell on the company and Jung was later reproached with indiscretion for having told the man's life story; even more worryingly, he could not remember a single detail of what he had said. His intuitive ability was partly because Emilie treated him as a grown-up when he was a child and confided to him secrets she would not divulge to her husband. Jung said that he learned to divide everything she said in her normal mode by two 'but then came the moments when her second personality burst forth, and what she said on those occasions was so true and to the point that I trembled before it. It was from observation of his mother's 'split mind' that Jung claimed to have learned 'the natural mind of woman.' It was from her too that he intuited the secrets of 'splitting' end 'dissociation' that he was later to put to such good use in his studies of schizophrenia. His mortal fear of schizophrenic tendencies in himself was based on the knowledge of the genetic inheritance he could expect from his mother. Just as his mother was a loving carer by day and a demon by night, Jung sensed in himself a 'day' and 'night' personality." ―Carl Gustav Jung, Frank McLynn