1961: Below is a set of dates providing an overview of the history/development of Alcoholics Anonymous. The list provides information not usually evident in material promoting the therapeutic work of A. A.

(Dates for the work of A. A. in Ireland the UK are not included.)

4 June, 1878, Birth of Dr. Frank Buchman, whose views on spirituality are later to have an influence on the development of what is now known as Alcoholics Anonymous.
1893, Birth of the later missionary and Episcopalian minister, promoter of the Oxford Group program in the north-eastern US, Dr Samuel Shoemaker, whose views on spirituality also are later to have an influence on the development of what is now known as Alcoholics Anonymous.
1908, Dr Frank Buchman has an experience of personal conversion in Keswick, England.
1909, European doctors Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud visit the United States. Freud introduces psychoanalysis to medical men. This however was not Jung’s only visit to the US (see for example his later writings on the worldview of Puebelo Indians).
1916, Dr Frank Buchman holds a position as extension lecturer at Hartford Theological Seminary. He resigns this position in 1923.
1918, Dr Frank Buchman has been attempting unsuccessfully to set up a spiritual renewal group at Princeton University.
1918, Dr Frank Buchman in China meets an American missionary, Dr. Samuel Shoemaker, who later adopts some of the principles Buchman espouses for the growth of Christian life.
1919, The beginning of the Prohibition Era in the United States. The issue is: does alcohol contribute to lawlessness? It is found that prohibition only encourages an excessive variety of lawlessness.
1921, Dr Frank Buchman has begun evangelizing at Oxford University, England, and begun what became known as The Oxford Group, the Oxford Movement. The original name, surfacing firstly in China, probably, was First Century Christian Fellowship.
1925, Jung writes, Marriage as a Psychological Relationship.
1926 Jung writes, Spirit and Life.
1927-1931, Jung wrote, The Structure of the Psyche, and Mind and Earth.
1928 Jung wrote, On Psychic Energy, and, Child Development and Education, and, The Significance of the Unconscious in Individual Education, and Mental Diseases and the Psyche. Between 1928-1931, Jung wrote, Analytical Psychology and Weltanschauung. Also, Psychoanalysis and the Cure of Souls. By 1928, he had finished a treatment (1921-1928) of The Therapeutic Value of Abreaction.
1928, Author Tom Driberg meets Dr Frank Buchman. Years later, in 1964, Driberg writes a book on Buchman and his Oxford Movement/Moral Rearmament Movement.
Between 1928 and 1931, Jung writes, The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man.
1929: Jung writes, The Aims of Psychotherapy, The Significance of Constitution and Heredity in Psychology, The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious. and in his Alchemical Studies wrote Commentary on the ‘Secret of the Golden Flower’. In 1929 he also wrote on the famous/infamous chemist/alchemist, Paracelsus.
1929, The name, Oxford Group is first used by Buchmanites in South Africa. (One suspects, to invoke the prestige of that university’s name in an unsophisticated cultural environment).
In 1930, Jung writes, Complications of American Psychology.
1930 Between 1930-1931, Jung wrote, The Stages of Life. And, Some Aspects of Modern Psychotherapy, and, an introduction to Kranefeldt’s Secret Ways of the Mind.
About 1931, American alcoholic Rowland H. consults Dr Carl Jung in Zurich and is told that a spiritual conversion ought to be part of any useful treatment. Rowland H. is later associated with Bill W. and other co-founders of A. A, as well as with the Oxford Group in the United States. At this time, the Oxford Group was at its height in Europe. In New York, the Oxford Movement is led by Dr. Samuel Shoemaker.
1931: Jung writes, Basic Postulates of Analytical Psychology, and Archaic Man.
1932 Jung wrote, Psychotherapists or the Clergy. Also, Sigmund Freud in His Historical Setting. And, an essay on the Spanish artist, Picasso.
1932-1934, A variety of interchanges occur between Rowland H. Bill W., Edwin Ebby: T., and various members of the Oxford Group, plus Bill W.’s physician, Dr. William Silkworth.
1933, In the US, the prohibition of the use of alcohol is ended. 1933 Jung writes, The Real and the Surreal.

1934 Jung writes, The Soul and Death, and, The Practical Use of Dream-Analysis, and, The Development of Personality, and A Review of the Complex Theory.

Between 1933 and 1934, Jung writes, The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man.
Between 1934 and 1954, Jung writes, Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, A Study of the Process of Individuation. 1934, Jung writes, The State of Psychotherapy Today.
August 1934, Bill W., Ebby and others concerned about alcoholism work with Oxford groups, discussing ways to help alcoholics find sobriety.
December, 1934, Bill W. is hospitalized for acute alcoholism and later experiences a spiritual illumination which provided inspiration for later application to the development of A. A. Shortly, due to a visit from Ebby, Bill. W. was reading William James’ book, Varieties of Religious Experience. Ebby and Bill W. engage in long discussions of the principles espoused by the Oxford Group. A preoccupation with Oxford Group methods lasts at least till 1937, when A. A. personnel abandoned reliance on the Oxford Group and went their own way with their program successfully adapted for their own purposes. May-10 June, 1935, In Akron, Ohio, discussions are engaged by Bill W. and a local doctor, Dr Bob, on the scientifically-derived views on alcoholism of Bill W.’s own doctor, Dr Silkworth of New York.
Late 1935, After other discussions in New York between Bill W. and other interested parties, the Twelve Steps of A. A. are formulated and published.
In 1935, Jung wrote, Principles of Practical Psychotherapy; What is Psychotherapy?
In 1936, Jung wrote, Individual Dream Symbolism in Relation to Alchemy, and The Concept of the Collective Unconscious. Also, Yoga and the West.
1938, Dr Frank Buchman develops the idea of moral rearmament while visiting Germany and later writes Moral Re-Armament. Other books followed on similar themes. Buchmanites in England become suspected of developing links with pro-Nazi elements.
1939, Reporter Elrick Davis writes a piece on A. A. in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
In 1939, A professional becoming interested in A. A. is Dr. E. M. Jellinek, co-founder and former director of the Centre for Alcohol Studies, Yale University, and consultant to the Alcoholism Research Foundation of Alberta, Canada (which was set up in some years before 1953).
1939, Outbreak of World War Two.
1939, The Oxford Group/Moral Rearmament Movement are incorporated as a charity.
In 1939, Jung wrote, On the Psychogenesis of Schizophrenia.
In 1941: an article on A. A. by Jack Alexander in the Saturday Evening Post had caused membership to grow from 2000 to 8000 by the end of 1941. (Bill W., p. 7 of AA Today - 25, writes, AA now had a membership of 250,000, in 8000 groups.
1950, Jung writes, Foreword to the I Ching.

19 November 1950, Death of Dr Bob.
nd: Dr Marvin Block of Buffalo, New York, is a physician credited with persuading the American Medical Association with defining alcoholism as a disease. (Hanna, Second Chance, p. 29).

1958, Dr Samuel Shoemaker writes an autobiography which heavily qualifies views on the extent to which he ever espouses Buchmanism, or, what became known as The Oxford Movement, whilst acknowledging the debt he did owe to Buchman. Driberg writes (p. 267) that Shoemaker ceased links with Buchmanites from November 1941, when he advised parishioners that he had evicted Buchmanites from their national headquarters, which had been his own parochial mission house.

1959-1961, The BBC produced a black-and-white documentary on Carl Jung, only a short time before Jung died. The documentary has since been widely rebroadcast. (See the introduction to an illustrated volume of Jung’s Man and His Symbols). One wonders if Bill. W. had not seen this documentary and was thus inspired to write to Jung on 23 January, 1961? In this documentary, Jung, then an impressive old man, was asked, Do you believe in God? Jung answered, I don’t need to believe. (He meant, I do not need to believe, because I experience.).

Dr Frank Buchman died, August, 1961. Between 1961 and 1968, his Moral Rearmament Movement became entangled in Cold War politics and was widely discredited.

1961, The chief organisers of A. A. were prompted to explain to A. A. members, and also to the public, how A. A. had developed. By this time, Bill. W. is retiring from the leadership of A. A.

1968, Bill W’s 33rd anniversary talk given. See his book, The Language of the Heart.
(End of Chronology on Alcoholics Anonymous)