Finding the narrative line

Irene Pickard (née Speller),  started her adult life as a personal secretary, one of the few occupations open to 'respectable' young women in 1911. The typewriter was a real instrument of female emancipation. Its mastery, along with the other secretarial skills, enabling a degree of income and independence, perhaps even entrée into homes and lives of the socially 'superior'. In the class ridden society of La Belle Époque it was one of the few opportunities for a girl to 'better' herself, to enter worlds which her birth might not have given her access to.

Fortunately for posterity, Irene never lost the secretarial habit of making copies and filing. That is how her archive came about. It was composed of a mass of documents created between 1911 and 1982, a library of over 100 volumes on Jungian related themes, a box of personal letters between Rendel Harris and herself, articles in two periodicals, one published on each side of the Atlantic, along with a number of pamphlets written by her husband, Bertram, and others. 

When I first encountered what Irene had referred to as her 'compost heap' it was obvious that hidden within was a remarkable story. The problem was finding a narrative line which would give it order.

First there was the biographic frame of lives lived in Britain, Switzerland and the USA, and identifying who the main persona were, their relationships, the nature of the work they were engaged with, and how Quakerism related to their lives. Then there was the task of identifying the chronology –  which document belong to when. But what was central was the story of Irene's infatuation with Jung as a complement and argumentation to her Quakerism. And not just Irene, but the other members of the Quaker-Jungian group in Geneva too. An infatuation that would prove to have traceable consequences on both sides of the Atlantic up until the present.

As I familiarised myself with the archive, what became apparent was that Irene and the others had gone through a learning process with identifiable stages.

First came a preparatory stage, which put them in Geneva in between the wars and explained why they were there. A stage dominated by the theme of peace-work, but also by how Irene and Bertram came together as a couple.

Then came their introduction to Jung, which led to an intense phase of exploration and assimilation of his ideas. A period which according to Irene produced "the most intensive and far reaching study group I have ever known".

What followed in the later 1930s was a period of accommodation as the impact of Jung's ideas on their lives and faith were worked through, set against the the deteriorating international situation.

That led to a stage of dissemination starting during the Second World War, as the now scattered group shared what they had learned with the wider Quaker community and beyond. Dissemination that continued for years in the aftermath of the war as Irene and Bertram once more returned to Geneva to pick up the threads of their peace-work.

Finally there was a stage of consequences as the wider Quaker world absorbed what was being shared and undertook their own explorations and discoveries, and evaluated the the significance of Jung to their lives and faith.

Following that pattern of development allowed chapters to emerge and take their place. 

All that was needed was to add a few chapters to provide context and to trace the development of the peace work Bertram was engaged with. No small matter for someone who became something of a hub for the efforts of so many of the NGOs in Geneva, and who played a part in the founding the the United Nations, and became one of the first members of its secretariat, mirroring the role he had created for himself before the war as the spokes person for the NGOs to the League of Nations. 

The interweave of the twin themes of living out the peace-testimony – the Bertram theme – whilst comprehending and deepening spirituality due to Jung – the Irene theme – formed the two voices of a fugue that was their shared life, and the two themes that run through the book.

Preliminary: (What is) Quakerism; Re-visioning Quakerism – Harris, Jones and Rowntree; 1914 – a World Ripped Asunder; Well met at Woodbrooke; The Peace Testimony; Quaker responses to the 'Great War' and its Aftermath; Peace-work in Geneva. 

Exploration and assimilation: Encountering Jung's Ideas; Tina Keller-Jenny's Exposition; Meeting with Jung in Zürich ; The Letters; Many papers were written and read; Reactions – H G Wood and Howard Collier.

Accommodation: The Rising Tide of Fascism; Reconciliation, Relief and Refugees; The Calm before the Storm; The Looming Storm; Belief in an Age of Analysis; The Last Gasps of the League; Escape. 

Dissemination: Peace-makers in a time of war: The Aftermath of War: The Road back to Geneva: The Women's International Forum and the Friday Club; After Aion – Irene's Dark Night of the Soul: Answer to Job: P W Martin and the Experiment in Depth: Elined, Irene and the Inward Light: Martin Buber, Marjorie Martin & Piet Englesman; The Various Light; Pierre Lacout – God is Silence: Peace as a Process; The Godmothers – Elined: The Godmothers – Irene.

Consequences:  Jungian Ripples in America: Jungian Ripples in Britain: The Living Myth.

Those are the working titles and the pattern of chapters.