The geometrical figure which turned the fixed notion of highly civilized mankind about the advantages of monogamy was not like a previously described triangle, but more exactly a polyhedron rolled in twisty labyrinth, ending in the most cases with dead-ends.

For 'the little grey cells' will be prepared and an aperitif, and digestive, but one of a full lunch's components will be served up right now... piping hot... because it could justifiably claim to the title of dessert... The most awaited and dainty, which changed once and for all the private aspects of Carl Gustav Jung's world view after he tasted it... some kind of a toffee pudding able to satisfy a 'gourmet of psychiatry's' nature no less than Sigmund Freud himself...

Otto Hans Adolf Gross (also Grob). Born in Gniebing near Feldbach in Styria, Austria in the family of a professor of criminality, the originator of dactyloscopy, one of the leading authorities worldwide among those who love to find and use fingerprints in crime investigations... Only the name it is known about his mother – Adele Gross (nee Raymann).

The members of the family thought with great respect about private education, therefore the boy learned mostly from private teachers and at private schools. By choosing to become a doctor, he traveled in South Africa in 1899 as a physician on shipboard and during this period 'caught' a love to drugs...
Yes... "So often in the World..."

If anyone is interested in the full list of biography's dates and scientific Otto's works, they better should go over the links on the web...
Perhaps, it will explain many things and, by all means, will open your mind, but the presence of this character in David Cronenberg's film is like a hundred-megaton bomb, hiding right now under your chair, at least, we'd love to believe it...
Because it's not every day you happened to see in one Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Sabina Spielrein and Otto Gross... and not every year... and even, alas, not every decade...
And this is not about a sexual revolution or connotations that don't bother us until they begin to sound quite specifically...
Whether we like it or not, but each of these characters itself is able to grip the audience’s attention for a much longer period of time than just the duration of a common full-length film.

What he was, Otto Gross-man, in an era of profound bourgeois-Christian Europe? A Danger, a danger and, once again, a danger... Freud, advising Gross, called him "too temperamental" and not thought of anything better to do than to send him to his beloved Follower – Carl Jung... However, Otto never was too wild... Perhaps that's why the force of his effect on the other people's personalities was so destructive. An Incitement to libertinism and calls to comply with the instinctive impulse sounded from his lips quite attractive...





Otto was loved...
By women, which he brought to madness, even if only for a short time...
By men for which he opened the door wide to the realm of unlimited conventions of sexual freedom, based on theory of rejuvenation and, moreover, of the salvation of the human race through sanctified uninhibited sex...
A doctor who preaches the theory of Nietzsche... Freudian-psychoanalyst... anarchist... the enemy of patriarchy... passionate morphine and cocaine addict... destroyer and a big dirty dog...
There's much to ponder already, isn't it?
But this is not all...
This brilliant, creative, charismatic personality has brought one of his patient-lover to suicide, and a little bit later his other patient died under similar circumstances...

For sake of objectivity, we must mention that Carl Jung didn't like Otto Gross at the beginning of their voluntary-forced contact...
From Jung's reports to Freud:
"The most unpleasant experience I have ever had, because in Gross I discovered something peculiar to myself, and he often reminds me of my double, although because of dementia praecox".

"I think Gross and new researchers go too far in using the sex factor, which doesn't require any special intelligence or taste, it is notable with convenience of use and therefore can be anything except the aspect that gives rise to a culture".

But, contrary to Follower's expectations, the views of Gross didn't cause the rejection in Freud-prude.
The Master insistently recommended Carl to continue research on the score of that will finally enrich them both...
In order to convince Jung in the appropriateness of his advice, Freud used the last resort, calling his Follower a genius, and added: "You are, in fact, the only one who can make an original contribution to this field, except, perhaps, Otto itself, but, unfortunately, he lacked health".

And... Something happened that is 'so often in the World'...
By the time they spent together, Gross offered to Jung an apple from the Tree of Knowledge of Evil... It was forbidden, seductive and incredibly delicious... Carl tasted and was poisoned once and for all... Everything has changed... And a sin has ceased to be a sin... Wrongs was useful for a personality because it releasing from the "unilateralism" and allowed to touch instinctive existence of Eden... and disobedience to a strong sexual impulse could lead to illness or even to death...

And those who knew Carl Gustav Jung for a long time testified that he propagated it again, again and again...
In a word, knowing the spiritual sacredness of sex on his personal experience, Jung called the others to listen to the voice of flesh...

Perhaps, Gross was a genius... From the genius to insanity there's only half a step... or less... who knows... it began with the insights... drugs... murder... or assisting in committing the suicide... and ended in psychiatric hospital... and a fairly rapid death in a hospital in Pankow...

Whom he was for Carl Gustav? Definitely, more than a patient... Although he didn't admitted that for his whole life... Like and his colleagues... But nobody and never could deny that fatal meeting of him and Otto is one of the most critical and emotional... It left its mark on everything, no matter what he was doing... and chased him the whole life...

Working with his new patient, Sabina Spielrein, he wrote to Freud: "...it's like to work with Gross, because it is also the case of 'generation gap', I was trying, damn it, treat the patient free of charge with such great patience, even abusing the sake of friendship... In all this the ideas of Gross prevented me... And Gross, and Spielrein – all of this is my bitter experience... I didn't gave so much of sympathy to none of my other patients, but it was they who made me suffer the most."