Carl Jung - Red Book (Liber Novus)

[ghostman]

This thread is inspired from this thread about the Ego.

I see that some of you here are versed in Freud. I have also seen mention of Joseph Campbell. I think it's safe to assume that there are a few Jungians amongst us, at the very least a few who have read Jung. I am not going to get into the history between Jung and Freud.

For those who are unfamiliar with Jung, he was a counterpart of Freud's and is accredited with coming up with the model of the Psyche and the concept of Archetypes. He is the father of modern psychology. Purists will tell you though that it is referred to as analysis or interpretation rather than theory or rule.

What I would like to tell you about is a very important book called Liber Novus (New Book). The Red Book was kept a secret and spent 25 years locked away in a bank vault in Switzerland. It was the life's work, tour de force and personal diary of Carl Jung. It documents his personal journey from the darkness into the light. It documents, written on fine parchment and with paintings by the seer himself, his journey of self discovery, to hell and back.

The Jung family thought that they were the only people who had knowledge of the book, until a chapter was discovered in an American university. The family was finally convinced after many years of struggle to publish the book. The argument for this was that if Jung had sent a chapter to his peers, then he must have been garnering an opinion and that he might possibly have intended to publish the works himself.

Looking at the book one can see that he was what one might call a Shaman (at least with incredible capacity), a seer and healer extraordinaire. If you know Jung's work then you'll know that towards the end of his life he became deeply mystical and interested in mythology and alchemy. I own a copy of this book and reading it (it has been beautifully translated) and looking at the pictures, my jaw fell open. What lies in these pages in words and pictures will astound you all, it will as you all like to say resonate.

For those who are interested this book is still in First Publication so if you buy one, buy two as it will be very valuable one day. I have one for me, and another to keep pristine.

Enjoy, and please feel free to participate in any6 relevant discussion.

Here is an article on the book

Here are a few of the beautiful paintings, by Jung himself. I am sure this will be very familiar to all of you.

 

[BoKuDen]

This book is wonderful. There's a lot of history behind this book before Jung's family even allowed anyone to even see Jung's original; which was shrouded in mystery and myth.
Until now.

This book is a must-have.
The illustrations are extremely detailed, and the amount of work that went into getting the book published was impressive.

The book is expensive, but it is a miracle Liber Novus was even published.

 

[Virola78]

Definitely one of my heroes. I find his work very inspiring.
Thx for the info.

 

[lyserge]

Hmm surprised I've never heard of this, thanks for pointing it out. The parts I read from "Memories, Dreams, Reflections" were fantastic, "shaman" is an applicable term for him. I'm ordering it from the library, nice illustrations.

 

[Tek]

Has anyone looked into this book at all? I just discovered it this week.

Briefly stated, this book is a collection of works Jung composed during a 16 year period where he was convinced he was having a psychological breakdown. What followed was the production of the Liber Novus, or the Red Book which is a compilation of thoughts, images, and conversations Jung had with his own soul.

The illustrations that Jung painted in the book are highly psychedelic in nature. He drew many mandalas that he claimed to see during this period, and a variety of strange beings he claimed to converse with, including a 'wise old man' archetype he called Philemon. Philemon just jumps out at me as a hyperspace denizen, as well as most of the other images Jung put in the book.

Jung gave no instructions on what to do with the book after his death, so it sat in a Swiss vault until 2009 when the family finally decided to release it for publication so it's still a relatively new insight into what Carl Jung was really all about.

Just wondering if any fellow Nexians had discovered this buried treasure.

 

[Elicius]

I don't own it but its been on my want list for awhile. Eventually though... until then here is a Shpongled look inside

[YOUTUBE]

 

[ChaoticMethod]

I`m presently reading 'Man and his symbols' wich is my introduction to Jung. Really liking it so far. Would the Red Book be a good way to continue to explore his work or is there smaller books that would be best to read before? I want to go deeper into his philosophy but am not really sure where to start.

 

[brokin]

Also For people who lack the money, I think there is a PDF file on the web, it's translated in English but it's only text.

 

[Tek]

I`m presently reading 'Man and his symbols' wich is my introduction to Jung. Really liking it so far. Would the Red Book be a good way to continue to explore his work or is there smaller books that would be best to read before? I want to go deeper into his philosophy but am not really sure where to start.

Truth be told, I haven't researched into Jungian philosophy too much. I just know from the limited exposure I've had to his concepts that he had a more spiritual understanding of psychology than, say, his contemporary Freud. That being said, I've just started reading through the Red Book this week. I'm not very far into it, but I would highly suggest you continue your study of Jung with this book.

The reason I say this is because, like I said in my original post, this book wasn't released until just a few years ago (Jung died in the 1960s). He kept it as more of a notebook, sort of like a dream journal which he just kept adding to throughout the years. After he was convinced he was slipping into a kind of psychosis, he began to paint the images he was seeing as a way of externalizing them. In the introduction he writes that every following work he ever did had its foundations in the inner explorations documented in the Liber Novus. As I've begun to work through it, I must say it has such powerful resonance with my own psychedelic explorations that it cannot be merely coincedence.

 

[Wave Rider]

Wow, I am amazed that I have never heard about this.

Does anyone have the link to the pdf. version?

 

[brokin]

Well, unfortunately you need invitation to this torrent web-site But Most you probably have an account.
Also I can't find it anywhere else.

There are 2 books. One is the original German book, scanned.
And then the English translation.

Liber Novus

LE: I think you can download without invitation couple of times.

 

[onethousandk]

Looks awesome. Now if I just had the money to pick up a copy...

 

[autumnsphere]

So happy there is a topic about The Red Book! I'm writing my bachelor thesis on Jung and I AM AMAZED how trippy his whole work is. Let me quote some parts from the Archetypes, I think everyone will find themselves in those passages:

But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is. For what comes after the door is, surprisingly enough, a boundless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty, with apparently no inside and no outside, no above and no below, no here and no there, no mine and no thine, no good and no bad. It is the world of water, where all life floats in suspension; where the realm of the sympathetic system, the soul of everything living, begins; where I am indivisibly this AND that; where I experience the other in myself and the other-than-myself experiences me. No, the collective unconscious is anything but an encapsulated personal system; it is sheer objectivity, as wide as the world and open to all the world. There I am the object of every subject, in complete reversal of my ordinary consciousness, where I am always the subject that has an object. There I am utterly one with the world, so much a part of it that I forget all too easily who I really am. "Lost in oneself" is a good way of describing this state. But this self is the world, if only a consciousness could see it. That is why we must know who we are.

Man's descent to the water is needed in order to evoke the miracle of its coming to life. But the breath of the spirit rushing over the dark water is uncanny, like everything whose cause we do not know - since it is not ourselves. It hints at an unseen presence, a numen to which neither human expectations nor the machinations of the will have given life. It lives of itself, and a shudder runs through the man who thought that "spirit" was merely what he believes, what he makes himself, what is said in books, or what people talk about. But when it happens spontaneously it is a spookish thing, and primitive fear seizes the naive mind. The elders of the Elgonyi tribe in Kenya gave me exactly the same description of the nocturnal god whom they call the "maker of fear." "He comes to you," they said, "like a cold gust of wind, and you shudder, or he goes whistling round in the tall grass" - an African Pan who glides among the reeds in the haunted noontide hour, playing on his pipes and frightening the shepherds.

Water is the commonest symbol for the unconscious. The lake in the valley is the unconscious, which lies, as it were, underneath consciousness, so that it is often referred to as the "subconscious," usually with the pejorative connotation of an inferior consciousness. Water is the "valley spirit," the water dragon of Tao, whose nature resembles water - a yang embraced in the yin. Psychologically, therefore, water means spirit that has become unconscious. So the dream of the theologian is quite right in telling him that down by the water he could experience the working of the living spirit like a miracle of healing in the pool of Bethesda. The descent into the depths always seems to precede the ascent. Thus another theologian [26] dreamed that he saw on a mountain a kind of Castle of the Grail. He went along a road that seemed to lead straight to the foot of the mountain and up it. But as he drew nearer he discovered to his great disappointment that a chasm separated him from the mountain, a deep, darksome gorge with underwordly water rushing along the bottom. A steep path led downwards and toilsomely climbed up again on the other side. But the prospect looked uninviting, and the dreamer awoke. Here again the dreamer, thirsting for the shining heights, had first to descend into the dark depths, and this proves to be the indispensable condition for climbing any higher. The prudent man avoids the danger lurking in these depths, but he also throws away the good which a bold but imprudent venture might bring.

The statement made by the dream meets with violent resistance from the conscious mind, which knows "spirit" only as something to be found in the heights. "Spirit" always seems to come from above, while from below comes everything that is sordid and worthless. For people who think in this way, spirit means highest freedom, a soaring over the depths, deliverance from the prison of the chthonic world, and hence a refuge for all those timorous souls who do not want to become anything different. But water is earthy and tangible, it is also the fluid of the instinct-driven body, blood and the flowing of blood, the odour of the beast, carnality heavy with passion. The unconscious is the psyche that reaches down from the daylight of mentally and morally lucid consciousness into the nervous system that for ages has been known as the "sympathetic." This does not govern perception and muscular activity like the cerebrospinal system, and thus control the environment; but, though functioning without sense-organs, it maintains the balance of life and, through the mysterious paths of sympathetic excitation, not only gives us knowledge of the innermost life of other beings but also has an inner effect upon them. In this sense it is an extremely collective system, the operative basis of all participation mystique, whereas the cerebrospinal function reaches its high point in separating off the specific qualities of the ego, and only apprehends surfaces and externals - always through the medium of space. It experiences everything as an outside, whereas the sympathetic system experiences everything as an inside.

The unconscious is commonly regarded as a sort of incapsulated fragment of our most personal and intimate life - something like what the Bible calls the "heart" and considers the source of all evil thoughts. In the chambers of the heart dwell the wicked blood - spirits, swift anger and sensual weakness, This is how the unconscious looks when seen from the conscious side. But consciousness appears to be essentially an affair of the cerebrum, which sees everything separately and in isolation, and therefore sees the unconscious in this way too, regarding it out - right as my unconscious. Hence it is generally believed that anyone who descends into the unconscious gets into a suffocating atmosphere of egocentric subjectivity, and in this blind alley is exposed to the attack of all the ferocious beasts which the caverns of the psychic underworld are supposed to harbour.

True, whoever looks into the mirror of the water will see first of all his own face. Whoever goes to himself risks a confrontation with himself. The mirror does not flatter, it faithfully shows whatever looks into it; namely, the face we never show to the world because we cover it with the persona, the mask of the actor. But the mirror lies behind the mask and shows the true face.

This confrontation is the first test of courage on the inner way, a test sufficient to frighten off most people, for the meeting with ourselves belongs to the more unpleasant things that can be avoided so long as we can project everything negative into the environment. But if we are able to see our own shadow and can bear knowing about it, then a small part of the problem has already been solved: we have at least brought up the personal unconscious. The shadow is a living part of the personality and therefore wants to live with it in some form. It cannot be argued out of existence or rationalized into harmlessness. This problem is exceedingly difficult, because it not only challenges the whole man, but reminds him at the same time of his helplessness and ineffectuality.

Strong natures - or should one rather call them weak? - do not like to be reminded of this, but prefer to think of themselves as heroes who are beyond good and evil, and to cut the Gordian knot instead of untying it. Nevertheless, the account has to be settled sooner or later. In the end one has to admit that there are problems which one simply cannot solve on one's own resources. Such an admission has the advantage of being honest, truthful, and in accord with reality, and this prepares the ground for a compensatory reaction from the collective unconscious: you are now more inclined to give heed to a helpful idea or intuition, or to notice thoughts which had not been allowed to voice themselves before. Perhaps you will pay attention to the dreams that Visit you at such moments, or will reflect on certain inner and outer occurrences that take place just at this time. If you have an attitude of this kind, then the helpful powers slumbering in the deeper strata of man's nature can come awake and intervene, for helplessness and weakness are the eternal experience and the eternal problem of mankind. To this problem there is also an eternal answer, otherwise it would have been all up with humanity long ago. When you have done everything that could possibly be done, the only thing that remains is what you could still do if only you knew it. But how much do we know of ourselves? Precious little, to judge by experience. Hence there is still a great deal of room left for the unconscious.

 

[autumnsphere]

I`m presently reading 'Man and his symbols' wich is my introduction to Jung. Really liking it so far. Would the Red Book be a good way to continue to explore his work or is there smaller books that would be best to read before? I want to go deeper into his philosophy but am not really sure where to start.

Truth be told, I haven't researched into Jungian philosophy too much. I just know from the limited exposure I've had to his concepts that he had a more spiritual understanding of psychology than, say, his contemporary Freud. That being said, I've just started reading through the Red Book this week. I'm not very far into it, but I would highly suggest you continue your study of Jung with this book.

The reason I say this is because, like I said in my original post, this book wasn't released until just a few years ago (Jung died in the 1960s). He kept it as more of a notebook, sort of like a dream journal which he just kept adding to throughout the years. After he was convinced he was slipping into a kind of psychosis, he began to paint the images he was seeing as a way of externalizing them. In the introduction he writes that every following work he ever did had its foundations in the inner explorations documented in the Liber Novus. As I've begun to work through it, I must say it has such powerful resonance with my own psychedelic explorations that it cannot be merely coincedence.

Exactly, The Red Book is more like a conversation between Jung and his entities - almost like poetry or fiction. It's not a scientific publication, it's his most personal and trippiest book.