June 11, 2011

C.G.Jung- "The Red Book". Oh awe! Oh soul!






I see these images and my heart skips a beat. What can this be? How can this be? 
Of course it is "The Red Book" by C.G.Jung, published 2009, I am only 2 years late for where I was always meant to come.

The first words of Carl Gustav Jung's Red Book are "The way of what is to come."

What follows is 16 years of the psychoanalyst's dive into the unconscious mind, a challenge to what he considered Sigmund Frued's — his former mentor's — isolated world view. Far from a simple narrative, the Red Book is Jung's voyage of discovery into his deepest self.

The voyage began at age 11. "On my way to school," Jung recalled in 1959, "I stepped out of a mist and I knew I am. I am what I am. And then I thought, 'But what have I been before?' And then I found that I had been in a mist, not knowing to differentiate myself from things; I was just one thing among many things."

Thirty years later, Jung had a bookbinder make an enormous volume covered in red leather into which he poured his explorations into himself. These explorations included some psychedelic drawings of mythical characters of his dreams and waking fantasies — explorations that Jung feared would make people think him mad.

It took Jungian scholar Dr. Sonu Shamdasani three years to convince Jung's family to bring the book out of hiding. It took another 13 years to translate it.

And still, the Red Book remains incomplete. The last word Jung wrote in the Red Book is "moglichkeit," or possibility.

Can you call this quivering frantic bird in my chest a heart at this stage?? I feel like I have seen these images though I haven't, in fact I feel they have haunted me in my unconscious. I came to this through looking up the connection of dreams-snakes-Jung and here! A vision! Somehow it seems that the questions that have plagued me about my own unconscious are finally ready to be answered by no other than by the greatest psycho-analyst of all time.

And then I read... Page 2, The Red Book

"The door of the Mysterium has closed behind me. I feel that my will is paralyzed and that the spirit of the depths possesses me. I know nothing about a way. I can therefore neither want this nor that, since nothing indicates to me whether I want this or that. I wait, without knowing what I'm waiting for.."

I have no words at this point, I'm sure if I looked closely I would actually see my heart trying to jump out of my chest. This is precisely the state I have been in for perhaps years now, perhaps my whole life. I haven't really been able to speak these words, but here they are. In fact I feel this is the state most of humanity has been occupying, Jung knew it would be and he saw into this collective unconscious state.

I have doubts as to why this book wasn't published sooner, cause every instinct in me, from subtle to course, every breath of intuition I ever had- tells me this is not only the most important book of the last century but the most important book for us NOW, this very instant. In this way perhaps it has come out precisely when it had to come out. 
I have doubts as to why this book is preposterously expensive, for being as important as it is.

But I have no doubts as to this- I will not get peace till I finish reading it. :)

Most definitely will be follow-ups to this after.



15 comments:

  1. Amazing it took so long to come out! I had that feeling of not-knowing that you quote from Jung and wrote a poem about it once. But I didn't "stay" with it beyond writing the poem. I've been reading a bit of Krishnamurti the last week and he says a lot about staying with that feeling of not-knowing. http://multiply.com/m/item/jamintoo:journal:39

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  2. What an amazing experience Hille, and I'm so glad this book has such great meaning to you. I'll definitely give it a read myself.

    You know it's interesting, you describe a similar experience for myself. One of being led around by my soul and my unconscious. I've felt that way since the early nineties. Over the years I've gotten used to the fact that all will be revealed when I am ready for it to be revealed. I always get excited when I find something that is that revelatory and it is always confirmed by the sudden appearance of disorientation that I described earlier. It's like- Now You're ready to see! And then boom, you see it!

    I think one of the possible reasons it wasn't published until now is that we're ready to actually process what's in it. That there are people like you and me that are ready for such material to make a difference in their lives. If it had been published sooner, there might have been a tendency to dismiss it or even overlook it.

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  3. Excellent post Hille. I've heard about the 'Red Book' for several years, but for some reason I was never moved to inquire more about it. I have read a two excellent books by Jung in the past, so it is not based on any aversion for him. I just never took the report of this mysterious "Red Book' seriously (I think I first read about it five or six years ago), but just has you have done on several occasion, something that you have written about is the spark to ignite a flame of curiosity within me. Obviously the 'Red Book' looks like a life study and not a casual read, so we will see where this journey takes me.

    Thanks tons Hille!

    Check out this NY Times article titled 'Carl Jung and the Holy Grail of the Unconscious' - http://goo.gl/fTXMI

    I will post this link on my site with a reference to your page!

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  4. Hille, Here we go with synchronicity once again! If you look at the blogs at my site under "Favorites," you will see Carl Jung's "Red Book." What else! LOL!
    Meanwhile, I'm so glad to see that you have posted this treasure again. Many thanks! :))

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  5. Obviously nothing to do with 'The Little Red Book':-)

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  6. What a wonderful poem, okei, thanks for sharing, loved it. Very apt to bring up Krishnamurti, I've had several thoughts about him and some other eastern high figures while reading the Red Book, when he talks about not following anybody except yourself. Much metta!

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  7. A little quote which I love from there- "The monkey's manner is a way of life for monkeys, and for man as long as he is like a monkey. Human apishness has lasted a terribly long time, but the time will come when a piece of that apishness will fall away from men."

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  8. This is precisely how I have been feeling about my life's purpose. It's not ready yet, its on a stove somewhere in a hidden kitchen, cooking away, and I know its there but its not here yet so I wait, (and I fully recognize a thought at the same time of maybe some people's purpose being done while they are waiting. :) )
    You are so right about it being the right time for this book now and not before. He speaks of a new Sun/God/consciousness rising but having to go through hell first (which of course is the unavoidable path of any man/culture on a spiritual journey). Here's what he says about hell: "Hell is when the depths come to you with all that you no longer are or are not yet capable of... Hell is when you must think and feel and do everything that you know you do not want. Hell is when you know that your having to is also a wanting to, and that you yourself are responsible for it. Hell is when you know that everything serious that you have planned with yourself is also laughable, that everything fine is also brutal, that everything good is also bad, that everything high is also low, and that everything pleasant is also shameful. But the deepest Hell is when you realise that Hell is also no Hell, but a cheerful Heaven, not a Heaven in itself, but in this respect a Heaven and that respect a Hell." Seems to me that we are in general closer to this state now, in fact perhaps reaching some sort of needed culmination point, I don't know. But as he feared himself that he might be considered mad and that's why didn't publish it then, we are perhaps all so mad now that few would think that about him at this point. :)

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  9. Thanks Markus for the article and your always supportive comments! No it is not exactly a casual read, but for me the hardest reads are always the dry academic ones and this one is the polar opposite to that. It's interesting that though I've read his particular theories I've never read any books, had I known what a spiritual mystical being he was I would have no doubt read his actual books before, but in a way it was perfect to start where he started. I'm almost half-way through and have befallen to the category of those readers who hardly breathe while reading it! :)
    Hugs and much metta!

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  10. Hi Hille!

    http://roulette404.multiply.com/journal/item/10621/Jung_-_The_Way_of_What_is_to_Come
    You've seen all this already, but you might enjoy anyway, maybe as a reminder. :)

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  11. By the way, I was re-reading Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley the other week - it's a character-comedy novel set in the British countryside, nothing much happens, but it's a wonderful light read - and coincidentally, there's a red book in Huxley's Chrome Yellow! It was written in the 1920s, so surely he couldn't have known of Jung's Red Book, but he might have. One of the characters whom the narrator thought was deaf and a bit out of it has been drawing acutely perceptive caricatures of all the people in the house in her red book.

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  12. No way. So I just replied to you on Watts blog with mentioning Huxley and then I read your reply on this, What can you say to that kind of synchronicity? :)
    I must have read that book, though so long ago and obviously before I knew anything of the Red Book.
    ...
    What can I say? Words? I feel like an ape when confronted with something like that.
    Thanks hehe!

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