Clarke Mackey
Apr 5, 2026,from Clarke Mackey to David:
Thanks so much for sending this fascinating essay. It makes me want to revisit Jung’s ideas and explore some of the other thinkers you mention.
In the ‘70s, when I was an undergraduate at U of T, my friends and I began reading Freud and Jung (along with R. D. Laing and his associates). I became obsessed with these ideas for several years. I think it was because it helped provide explanations for the confusing disjuncture between the intentions and actions in myself and those around me.
When my girlfriend and I made the budget grand tour of hostels through Europe in 1977, I dragged her to Zurich and Vienna so that I could stand where my heroes had lived. (At that time, Freud’s old apartment was a museum, but there was nothing commemorating Jung. Now his house is a museum as well.)
I knew there were important differences between Freud and Jung. At the time, I was attracted to Jung’s greater openness to non-western practices and beliefs, the para-normal, and other unpopular ideas. Acceptance of the mysteries of existence. Awareness of the limits of science.
In general, I find the idea of a God that is both good and evil intuitively correct, and the all-good Christ and Christianity as a serious flaw of the official church. I am sympathetic to the arguments you are putting forward. I’ve never read Hegel, but I suspect, given what I’ve heard, that he and his followers might find some agreement with you on the dialectical nature of God and the need to rethink faith in light of current conditions.
I’ll be curious to hear what your interlocutors have to say about this essay.
April 17, 2026, from David to Clarke:
I was glad to hear that you are in sympathy with Jung's basic idea. One of the great difficulties of discussing this question lies in the fact that God is often conceived, and spoken of, and to, as a person, and it then becomes hard to allow that God might be a bad person, whom we have some right to judge. This is a sound objection in certain ways, and to answer it requires a distinction between Jung's experiential language and more theological languages.
My friend Sajay intends to publish the essay in a special issue of Conspiratio - the little journal that so far many serves the community of Illich friends - https://thinkingwithivanillich.net/ - and I hope that will stimulate more discussion. So far, excepting yourself and a couple of others, I seem to have mainly faced hostility, incomprehension, or indifference.
From Chris Reichert to Jutta, July 13, 2026:
A parcel arrived in the mail from Chrissy Reichert, who until two years ago helped me in the house and the garden, and who worked to help us bring structure and grace to some family gatherings and also to some community gatherings when those were temporarily illegal due to the public health rules.
The parcel contained three sets of garden gloves, a secateur, a package of herb tea, a copy of C.S.Lewis’ book on his grief, and a card with a collage of David playing the guitar plus a vase of flowers (another little picture of birds flying on the back of the envelope), and this text:
“First time I heard his voice was in 2001 in a tiny apartment that had one window facing a brick wall, and it was dreadful. One of the good memories (before I had a computer) was listening to the radio and the only thing I remember was David’s “The Scapegoat” series with Renee Girard. It was so valuable to me at that time, and I never forgot it.
Then in 2012 I met a girl during a show and she mentioned “The Scapegoat” series & we bonded and were so excited to talk about it. Who knew that I would have the privilege to meet this wonderful broadcaster and his beautiful wife, and be working with them for several years Who knew that I would meet his entire family, witness his daily rituals of coffee and the newspaper with his wife, then upstairs to write, the down for lunch & see his love for sports & fellowship with his beloved. Who knew I would get to witness his love for family & friends, to get to see his beautiful floral arrangements, to find out what things were on his mind, & what he was working on, & see his cool little work space, art on the walls & wonderful book collection. To see his love and admiration for his wife, and daughter Kate, because it was very obvious how in love he was. And that I would get to share Christmas with him & his family, & sing the most beautiful carols, ones I never even heard at church. And that this man would come to one of my music shows, before my own father would, and that we would survive a weird pandemic. Who knew that I would fall in love with him& his family. Thank you Lord.”
From John Milbank to Jutta, Jul 6, 2026: Although David passed away in such good circumstances, he was far too young to die for these days, and was such a remarkable person. It was a real privilege to know him and he helped and encouraged me enormously. Without him surely Ivan Illich’s thought would not have reached its crucial final form. David was far more than a mere promoter; in the end more a co-elaborator. Along with Charles Taylor, Illich’s legacy is surely now much indebted to Canadians!
Ideas, John Milbank, The Myth of the Secular, Part Six, Radical Orthodoxy
From Phillip Mesley to Jutta, July 30, 2026
In the summer of 2021, a group of friends met regularly in Toronto parks, seated on blankets the approved 1 meter apart, to discuss David Cayley’s recently published Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey. Our group was not homogeneous: a recently ordained minister, a teacher, a gardener, a social worker, a human rights advocate, and a grad student, we were rarely in agreement, and certainly not all committed Illichians. I had been reading Illich for a few years by then and knew of David through his two books of interviews with him. He emerged as a distinct person for me when I came across his “Questions About the Pandemic” and, on a whim, decided to send him a response. What I found so refreshing in this text was not solely the ideas he threw out, but the expression of an earnest desire to discuss what was happening. I had observed how uncomfortable I made people in those days when I sought to debate the pros and cons of lockdowns, and in response I kept my views to myself or my closest friends. David announced his confusion publicly and dared others to take up the challenge to explain this new historical event to him.
Since that initial contact, I’ve gone through most of David’s archive of CBC Ideas documentaries (which he graciously made freely available on his website) and it is clear that the spirit of his “Questions” fits within a larger pattern. In the interviews he recorded with prominent thinkers of his age—Richard Sennett, René Girard, George Grant, and many others—he performed an incalculable service for future generations. But, despite what even he was probably inclined to think, this service was not limited to sussing out from them an elucidation of their thinking, but involved an actively creative exchange. In this, he revealed the meaning of “speech-thinking,” a notion developed by philosophers Franz Rosenzweig and Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy which David himself only encountered late in life and whose proponents he described as follows: “They are able to know what they think only through the intermediation of some interlocutor. Their thoughts do not already exist in some pure and essential form in advance of their expression – they take shape in an encounter with some other on whom they depend and for whom they can only wait and hope.” David could reasonably have described his vocation (or job title) as that of interlocutor. Such a task cannot be accomplished by a neutral interrogator; it requires a grappling partner.
David’s persistence, a simultaneous intuitive grasp and stubborn incomprehension, were the necessary condition for getting thinkers to develop as fully as possible their ideas, while trusting that they were speaking to a sincere and interested person. When confronted with an idea he could not comprehend, he did the opposite of what many of us do: he doubled down in his quest to understand it, asking more questions, soliciting more opportunities to talk it over, getting more perspectives to weigh in and resting unsatisfied until he felt convinced that he had truly mastered it. Some highlights from his radio career, for me, are his series on Simone Weil (featuring his daughter Kate giving truly breathtaking readings of Weil); “Being Born,” a report on the wacky and niche field of prenatal psychology; and of course the conversations that would make up The Rivers North of the Future.
When I reached out to David regarding his “Questions,” he immediately invited me into a sphere of confidence and engaged me in dialogue. When I told him about the reading group we were planning, he gladly accepted the offer to come speak to us on the final day of our conversations. Around a table in my backyard and some cheap red wine, David gladly joined the discussion and fielded questions, even as things at one point got slightly heated. The group spawned many more reading groups, with people coming and going. Some continue to ponder the themes brought up then—the modern conception of death and medicine, the relations between Judaism and memory, professionalization, gender, institutionality and evil. Yet arguably, the framework of the discussions itself was the most influential result of the group, which we’ve since gone on to apply in more a formalized humanities project. It is likely that the shape of this model had much to do with the choice of text with which we began. I am grateful to David for providing the occasion as well as the support for our efforts to create para-academic spaces for intellectual practice, as well as for being an example, in the sense he ascribes to Illich in his biography, for how to remain intellectually curious, faithful, and rigorous.
John Winslow Verity
John Winslow Verity had a website called New Scare City: https://backpalm.blogspot.com/Most but not all that’s on there is about Ivan Illich.
From John Verity, May 15, 2013, to David: I imagine you're aware of the doc. film shot at CIDOC in the mid-1970s by a German guy named Gordian Troeller: "No Respect for Sacred Cows": German film with good English subtitles 1976, when Cidoc was closing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epD932IBF_Yb
There’s a 1972 French TV interview with Illich. I thought I had landed a scoop when I recently found that video for sale in France (I paid!), from an archive, but evidently not. I mentioned it on my blog and then, Sajay very quickly produced the transcripts that you'd provided to him a week earlier and someone else (a Marty Kent, out here in Calif.) wrote to point out that the program has been posted publicly on the Vimeo site:
https://vimeo.com/58170701
On Jul 11, 2013, at 1:27 PM, David Cayley wrote: Thanks, John...hoping I'm going to see you in Oakland at Sajay's conference at the end of the month.
Sat, Jul 13, 2013, John wrote: you bet. I live an hour and a bit northwest of Oakland, in Sonoma Cty., so will be there. looking forward to it. perhaps there will be some time to hang out before the actual evening talks.
Fri, Mar 14, 2014, from David to Jutta: John Verity posted this interesting interview with Lee on his website New Scare City:http://www.conversations.org/story.php?sid=5 It's long, but it brought it brought Lee very much alive in my mind.
Scott Flemming
Oct.21, 2026, from Scott: Hi David, I teach Industrial Engineering at Dalhousie. After reading Tools for Conviviality and the Rivers North of the Future I realize how your getting an email from an Industrial Engineer (sometimes called Systems Engineer) is perhaps hilarious. I believe that the world is indeed over-industrialized and I am attempting to get my students to de-industrialize their imaginations partially through thinking about "Tools for Conviviality."
I have an interesting background in that I have specialized in industrial engineering but I have also received an M.Div. From Knox College (U of T) and so the concept that "corruptio optimi pessima" makes a lot of sense to me.
I wonder if you'd be open to be on my podcast ("The Useful Artist") where I am basically trying to learn about how it maybe possible for engineers to create convivial tools. I am banking episodes before I release the podcast but have the first one below made with my friend and philosophy professor Neb Kujundzic (University of Prince Edward Island):https://youtu.be/WkkFF1DrNUA. Shorts pulled from the full podcast: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz5Tl0GCbXhgm_lYYnLXSly8OtZ30695y. I have another one scheduled for recording next month with Ruby Justice Theolot, a professor from NYU in media studies (he grew up in Montreal and went to McGill).
Oct.25, 2026, from David: Thanks for your letter. I'm happy to talk with you and have you record the conversation for your podcast. Mornings are good for me - not next week - but beginning the week after - Nov. 3 and following days. I'll be glad to discuss Illich, but you might want to know that I've just published a new book - https://sutherlandhousebooks.com/product/the-cbc/
Oct.28, 2026, from Scott: We have fall break at Dalhousie on the week of Nov 10th-14th - perhaps we could meet in a morning then if that would suit you. I have been listening to podcasts and lectures and so on to sort of get some background on Illich and did hear about your new book. I do see a connection between conviviality and a CBC that takes dialogue seriously and would be happy to at the very least (if not more) than chat about the content of the new book while we are at it. I would like to send you a brief set of bullet points on the sorts of questions I might ask you to sketch out a potential path, but, the day of I would rather follow where the conversation takes us.
Feb 5, 2026, from Scott: David, as I prepare to release the podcast I am kicking myself I didn't have Esteva's name on the tip of the tongue at one point. Juan Lucena knew Carl Mitcham at Colorado School of Mines and Lucena quotes Gustavo Esteva in his "engineering and sustainable community development" which I mentioned in our conversation. The quote is below. I am kicking myself as I am almost through your 5 part CBC series on Illich 'part moon....' and realize of course Esteva knew Illich all along and perhaps why this quote below resonated with me years before I ever heard of Ivan.
Gustavo Esteva, a grassroots activist and intellectual in Oaxaca, Mexico, is particularly wary of this drive to help. When Americans or others offer “help,” he urges, “Don’t come [to my community] to help! Come to listen, to find out if our struggles are your struggles. Then and only then, we can sit and discuss how, if at all, we can work together” (personal communication).
Oct.10, 2026, from Scott: I have a conference paper here that I have been allowed to post on research gate: depending on how the link works for you I would be more than happy to have you share it! https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394260420_Ethical_and_Sustainable_Engineering_Design_A_Design_for_Conviviality_Approach