Here are other articles he wrote for the Freeman
(links to unz.org site)
- Everyman's Dossier by Frederick Walker, pp. 26-29 - PDF
The Freeman/Ideas on Liberty, September 1957
- "Everyman's Dossier" by Frederick Walker, pp. 217-223 - PDF
In Essays on Liberty, Vol. V (1958) by The Foundation for Economic Education
- The Spirit of Humility by Frederick Walker, pp. 43-46 - PDF
The Freeman/Ideas on Liberty, March 1958
- The Early Quakers by Frederick Walker, pp. 17-19 - PDF
The Freeman/Ideas on Liberty, June 1958
- "The Early Quakers: An Experiment in Freedom" by Frederick Walker, pp. 40-44 - PDF
In Essays on Liberty, Volume VI (1959) by The Foundation for Economic Education
- Reflections after Concerts by Frederick Walker, pp. 38-40 - PDF
The Freeman/Ideas on Liberty, February 1959
- Observations from Europe by Frederick Walker, pp. 21-22 - PDF
The Freeman/Ideas on Liberty, May 1959
- [+] Review Human Nature and the Human Condition, by Joseph Wood Krutch
--- by Frederick Walker,, pp. 63-64 - PDF
The Freeman/Ideas on Liberty, April 1960
Cora Finch
Additional Notes to Stellar Fire
2. Correspondence with Bill Wilson Fredrick Walker
One little-known Wilson correspondent determined, more than
anyone else, the way that Jung's legacy to Alcoholics Anonymous
would be understood. In 1960, Frederick Walker sent Bill two
articles he had written. The articles and a letter of reply from Wilson
are now in the Kirk Collection at Brown University in Providence,
Rhode Island. "The Primary Problem of Alcoholism" advanced
Walker's theory as to why recovery from alcoholism is so difficult.
The second article, "My Soul Thirsts For Thee," described the
spiritual change or surrender which could make recovery possible.
Little is known about Walker himself, although he was clearly an
accomplished writer with an excellent grasp of the literature of
spirituality and mysticism. I suspect that he was the same Frederick
Walker, a journalist and public relations consultant, who contributed
to the conservative/libertarian magazine The Freeman in the late
1950s. Judging from Wilson's correspondence with Walker, he does
not appear to have been a member of AA. He lived in Europe during
the late 1950s and spoke to Jung. Walker had read Bill Wilson's
account of Carl Jung's involvement in the events leading up to the
founding of the fellowship and told Jung about it (Frederick Walker
interview, Ernest Kurtz collection, Brown University).
Neither of the articles Walker sent to Bill Wilson mentioned Carl
Jung, although Wilson's letter of reply did mention him. There are in
fact signs of Jungian influence in some of Frederick Walker's ideas,
particularly his explanation of how it could be possible that the
alcoholic both wants and does not want to recover:
This characteristic of not wanting to recover is all too familiar
to anyone who has tried to help alcoholic sufferers. Yet any
profound inner force carries its opposite side, a reversus,
which if moved carries the person concerned in a direction
completely opposite to the course previously followed. The
desire not to get well carries its opposite desire which is just
as deep to get well. Once this opposite is moved to function
an inner conflict begins which formerly did not exist since the
desire for fatality was not challenged, and once this conflict
has started the will to live emerges triumphant for it is the
nature of things that most living organisms instinctively
desire to live when there is a counteraction to the desire to
subside into oblivion, or in overcoming hostile external
conditions.
Beyond hints such as this, the articles are not specifically
Jungian. Walker drew a link between his theory that the root of
alcoholism is an inner self-destructive urge to Alcoholics
Anonymous concepts.
The persons who join Alcoholics Anonymous or other
successful agencies have emerged from this conflict with a
newly reinforced will to live, increasing awareness of their
diseased condition, and a resolution to overcome the hold of
alcohol on them. (pp. 4-5) Where recovery from alcoholism is
complete the results are often amazing and of great value ….
The reversus has been freed and a new life pattern is
established and lived. How this achievement is accomplished
is still dark, as dark as many other phases of alcoholism, but
the results are visible.
The first move in making the will to recover a living
becoming is surrender, absolute surrender. The sufferer must
and does admit he is powerless in the grips of his disease.
Here, by surrendering any pretensions to retaining his own
will, he makes an act of will which begins his recovery!
The other article, "My Soul Thirsts For Thee," is notable for its
similarity to the letter Carl Jung sent to Bill Wilson a short time
later. It would be difficult to explain this resemblance as a direct
result of Jung's influence on Frederick Walker, because Walker
never quoted Jung, or even referred to him, in the article. He quoted
a number of other people, including Aldous Huxley, Don John
Chapman, Karl Menninger, Abraham Lincoln and alcoholism
specialists Dr. Robert V. Seliger and Selden Bacon, but never
mentioned Jung.
Frederick Walker was corresponding with both Carl Jung and Bill
Wilson during the same time period. If Walker sent the same article
to Jung that he sent to Wilson, this might help to explain the
appearance of similar phrases in Jung's letter. Jung, for example,
used a line from Psalm 42 in his letter to Wilson: "As the hart
panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O
God." (Pass It On, p. 384) Frederick Walker's article opened with a
section of Psalm 63 beginning: "O God, thou art my God, I seek
thee, My soul thirsts for thee."
Walker began with the observation that "All men are born
potentially mystics," but through selfishness and the attractions of
the world the potential for illumination is lost to all but a few:
The mystics are the true pursuers of the Absolute, which is a
word which not too happily means love of and dedication to
God. The lives of the mystics are supremely dedicated to their
love and devotion. They, and they alone, live through to their
triumphant and transcendent destiny. To most people no such
dedication exists, or if it does it is dimly sensed; their lives
are scattered and diversified and lacking in meaning. Yet
there is another class of persons dedicated to an Absolute as
final as the love of God, and these persons are alcoholics
whose false Absolute which claims their complete dedication
is alcohol. (p 2)
Walker then summarized William James' explanation, from the
Varieties of Religious Experience, of alcohol as the great exciter of
the Yes function in man. The drinker (at least, the potentially
alcoholic one) sees a light which is comparable to the light which
comes to the mystics. But:
An alcoholic is in essence engaged in a suicidal course, a
slow process of giving way to the death wish, and what is this
death wish? It is a desire to die to something within. The
mystical dying to self is a well known development in the
spiritual life …. In a fumbling way the alcoholic is conscious
of the defects of his self which appall him, as is the mystic,
but his method of dying to these abhorrent traits ends in
lingering suicide. Yet unmistakably the vision of light which
has illuminated the inner aspects which are revolting or
shocking, and which motivates his drinking, was in
fundamental reality an opening grace leading to the radiant
center if it had been truly recognized. (p. 4)
The task, as Walker saw it, was to convince the alcoholic that,
"Spiritually endowed he has succumbed to a materialistic
possession. Reveal to him his true endowment so that he finally
knows himself and the materialistic possession will pass into the
mists." (p. 9)
If alcoholism were truly met as the religious problem it is by
religious bodies in a religious way it is possible to believe that
not only would many alcoholics be led to recovery but many
potential alcoholics would be saved from severe illness and
death …. "My soul thirsts for thee." There it is, the eternal
thirst, but which so often and so tragically is degraded into a
physical thirst for alcohol, so unending in its cravings that the
thirst brings destruction. Yet the eternal thirst is a great grace,
a true mystical endowment, which leads into the light if it
keep its true course. (p. 13)
On March 5, 1960 Bill Wilson wrote to thank Walker for the
manuscripts and express his agreement (Kirk Collection, Brown
University Library). "It is the experience of many of us in the early
stages [of drinking] to feel that we have had glimpses of the
Absolute and a heightened feeling of identification with the Cosmos.
I am satisfied that these feelings are generally more marked in the
alcoholic than in average drinkers." But, as much as he agreed with
Walker, Wilson did not feel that he could say so publicly, both
because of AA tradition and for practical reasons.
If, however, we were to publicly claim that the alcoholic's
desire to drink had a heavy component of religious
motivation, I think that would be very widely misunderstood
with the result that many people would be kept away. The
average clergyman would see red and the average psychiatrist
would call this arrant nonsense. Since we require the
cooperation of these professions, and because they are our
chief source of new members, there wouldn't be much sense
in doing this wide-spread, at least in the situation of
Alcoholics Anonymous. Maybe you have some suggestions
here, however.
What suggestions Frederick Walker gave may never be known.
Did he see a way out of Bill's dilemma? Bill added a postscript to his
letter, however, mentioning Jung for the first time:
P.S. What is the state of Dr. Carl Jung's health nowadays? I
have often felt remiss in not telling him of the part that he
really played in the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Would such a letter from me still be in order? In this
connection, I send you a copy of "A.A. Comes Of Age"
where some note is made of this fact.
One result of the Wilson-Walker correspondence was the famous
letter of reply from Carl Jung, in which Jung essentially endorsed the
Wilson version of Rowland Hazard's history. Later research
indicates that Wilson's recollection diverged from the actual
sequence of events, but at the time there was no way for anyone to
check the details.
Ernest Kurtz read the Frederick Walker articles and
correspondence while researching his history of AA, Not God, and
interviewed Walker. He cited that interview in support of his
impression that the Bill Wilson expression "deflation at depth"
derived largely from Jung (p. 178; note, p. 318). On listening to the
interview, I had the impression that Walker endorsed Kurtz' theory
in spirit but not in detail. Jung, Walker said, considered an inflated
ego to be a barrier to individuation. It is a bit of a stretch from this to
the AA concept of deflation at depth.
Frederick Walker's writing was certainly not dominated by
Jungian concepts, containing as it did contributions from a variety of
sources. There is no evidence that the articles were ever published.
Nevertheless, through their influence on Wilson, probably also on
Jung, and on Ernest Kurtz, the articles contributed to the impression
of a historical link between Jung and AA.