George Beckwith (20 November 1896, in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa – 2 November 1931, in San Diego County, California) was an American expatriate in 1920s Paris and an early Jungian associate who accompanied psychologist Carl Jung on his African expedition (1925-6). Early life George Beckwith was born in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, the second child of Orville and Louisa Beckwith. His grandfather, Warren Beckwith (b. 1833) was a captain in the Union Army during the Civil War and later supervised the construction of railways in eastern Iowa. He then founded a company producing horse-drawn road-grading equipment of his own design, used in the construction of railways. Initially established in Mt. Pleasant, Western Wheeled Scraper Works soon moved to Aurora, Illinois and years later became part of Austin-Western Works. The family was comfortably wealthy. George Beckwith's cousins, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith and Mary Lincoln Beckwith, children of Orville's brother Warren and Jessie Harlan Lincoln, were the last surviving descendants of Abraham Lincoln. Orville Beckwith did not find success in his own business ventures. He committed suicide in 1920, and soon after that his wife and younger children moved to La Jolla, California. Beckwith attended Mt. Pleasant High School, class of 1914. By 1920 he was working in Aurora, Illinois, where the family business was located. According to a newspaper article of 4 May 1922, he was then attending Columbia University. Paris years In 1925, Leonard Bacon met Beckwith in Zurich. Beckwith was living in Paris, in analysis with Jung's associate, H. G. "Peter" Baynes,and traveling frequently to Zurich to attend the seminars Jung held for clients and students. Bacon was an American poet who had come to Zurich for a few months to be analyzed by Jung. Bacon recalled Beckwith in his memoir: A more delightful lunatic never walked a planet not distinguished for sanity. A more unhappy man never stepped habitually too hard on the gas, nor on the whole a more strictly honorable one. . . . He was I think the only man I ever knew who said whatever came into his head with complete effrontery and perfect impunity. Another friend during these years was Dolly Wilde, niece of Oscar Wilde. According to Dolly, George resembled Carl Van Vechten's fictional character Peter Wiffle, an aspiring writer in a book based on Van Vechten's recollections of the English-speaking literary community in Paris. Involvement with Carl Jung In the northern summer of