The Red Book, How Carl Jung Saved Himself

They say that Carl Jung’s The Red Book  holds in its diverse pages a mind that wants to explore the underworld and save its soul. His work was intellectually legendary – enigmatic and fascinating, and for many the Holy Grail for the irreverent. For others, they were merely the fantasies of a maniac who rejected humanity as a whole in a matter of seconds.

If the world of psychology has any secrets left, they have to do with this manuscript, written by Carl Gustav Jung between 1914 and 1930. It is an unfinished book that is prophetic, mysterious and psychological. It also contains shocking illustrations depicting deities confused with ancestral demons.

There are few who try to attribute a logical and rational explanation to what the father of analytical psychology tried to achieve with his red book. But maybe he would not achieve anything. Maybe you do not need to look at it through a scientific lens. But as a work that, in reality,  could have been a cathartic exercise for the author, a personal therapy.  Where his mental demons were allowed to unfold on the pages of the Red Book in a moment of existential crisis.

Maybe that was all, and nothing else. But there’s an extra bit to this puzzle. After Jung’s death, his family guarded the manuscript suspiciously, keeping it locked up and breaking into a house in Kusnacht in one of Zurich’s suburbs. They let no one approach the book. Not his students, not Jung specialists. Later, in 1984, they moved the Red Book , or Liber Novus , to a bank. It was not until 2009 that Ulrich Hoerni, Jung’s grandson, allowed the manuscript to be published. This long-awaited event left experts and stuck without breath and speechless.

Carl Jung’s Red Book: A Mind in Crisis

This is one of the sections in the first chapter of the Red Book . For those who are familiar with Jung, but have not seen this work, it is fair to say that the first thing you will notice is the strangeness and contradiction of the text. Reading it gives you the feeling that you are holding a wild world in your hands. It is almost like a holy and forbidden bible. Bound in red leather, filled with nice creamy white parchment paper, covered with golden letters.

It is interesting to note that when it was published, many Jung experts (such as Andrew Samuels) were quick to say that Jung had no mental illness. However, some said that this book was nothing more than the result of a psychotic episode Jung went through after his discussions with Freud.

This was not the case. In reality, Jung went through a deep personal crisis. He started a new chapter in his life, which led to an intellectual evolution . He began writing The Red Book in 1914, during the end of World War I. During this period he worked as a doctor and psychiatrist in Switzerland. He was deeply disappointed in humanity and brutally skeptical of the rational science of his day.

The Cathar end of the Red Book

The Red Book is, above all else, an intimate diary. We will encounter problems when we try to solve the mess of symbols and codes and alchemy. This is due to the simple fact that no one can remove the shell and dissect the body that held this alien mind. Furthermore, this mind was one of the best examples of the etheric universe.

Within these pages , Jung explored his own psyche and his relationships with his subconscious. All within an extensive architecture where he, of course, was the privileged explorer. He used the psychonautical technique to give each individual side its form, using active performances he obtained through meditation, where he could allow images to flow freely. Those who stayed the longest made the journey from Jung’s mind to illustrations and descriptions in his red book.

This is how all the archetypes that would eventually be developed arose. His more turbulent worlds also come out at times. As the shadow we often do not recognize as our own, but which still shows us the form of our true selves.

The Red Book and its real purpose

A curious and wonderful thing happened during the publication of the Red Book in 2009 . Many of Jung’s former patients testified. These people understood the real purpose of this book.

While some shake their heads over this literary sea, filled with trees of wisdom, reptilian brains, starving dragons and kundalini snakes, others remember a piece of advice Dr. Jung had often given:

A wise piece of advice from a great teacher. His shadow and intellectual heritage delight us and still amaze us today.