Jung’s Heart: The Red Book

in Perspective

David M. McDowell, MD
Stephen Martin
Sonu Shamdasani
The Jung Family
Finally Published

• Started in 1913
• Published in
October 2009
• 9 1/2 pounds
• Surprisingly brisk
seller
Sources
Black books 2-5 (11/13-4/14)
Handwritten draft (1914-15)
Typed draft (1915)
Corrected draft (1915-20)
Caligraphic Volume (1915-
30, 1959)
Cary Bayne’s transcription
(1924-25)
Yale Manuscript
Copy Edited Liber Primus
(late 1950s)
Carl Jung
• Founder of
Psychoanalysis
• Physician
• Respectable Family
Man
• World renowned
psychiatrist
Carl Jung
• Agent 488
• Flying Saucers
• Personality Tests
• Eastern Philosophy
proponent
• Integral to the founding
of AA
• Womanizer
• Guru
• Media darling
Who is Carl Jung?
 Family Background--Father
• Grandfather, Carl Gustav Jung was a
respected physician
• Grandfather was a Grandmaster of the
Freemasons
• Rumored (likely not true) to be the
illegitimate son of Goethe
• Carl’s Father was a clergyman
Family Background--Mother
(Preiswerk)
• A long established Basil family
• Contained many clergy
• Grandfather was an early
advocate of Zionism, with a strong
interest in the occult
• Until her marriage, Emilie was
obligated to stand behind her
father as he wrote his sermons (to
block the devil)
Other Childhood influences
• Mother had a
breakdown when Carl
was three years old
• Father lost his faith, but
lacking other
professional skills,
continued on with his
profession
• The atmosphere at
home was
“unbreathable”
• The combination of
medicine, theology,
occultism influenced
him for his entire life
• Only child until 9
• Solitary and
introspective (an
outcast)
Childhood
• He was an
unpopular, aloof
child
• While he was bright,
he was suspect.
• Famous incident of
the accusation of
plagiarism
Fantasy Life
• Am I the boy on the
stone, or am I the
stone itself that the
boy is sitting on?
Another recurrent dream
involved a castle
Childhood
• Isolated
• Found comfort in
books and thinkers
• Influenced by
(among others)
Heraclitis, Kant,
Shopenhauer, and
Goethe
Personality #1
• Dutiful
• “The child of his
parents”
• The outward person
who went to school,
and coped with life
Personality #2
• Older
• Remote from the
mundane world
• Close to nature,
dreams, and to God
• Direct access to the
mind of God (unlike
his father
 Crucial Dream
• He is walking in a dense fog at night. He is
holding a small flickering flame which he is
protecting against the elements, and is being
followed by a dark and dangerous character.
• “When I awoke” he says, “I realized at once
that the figure was a spectre of the Brocken,”
my own shadow of the swirling mists, brought
into being by the little light I was carrying. I
knew too, that this little light was my
consciousness, the only light I have. My own
understanding is the sole treasure I possess,
and the greatest.
 Death of his father
• Age 54
• Jung was 21
• “He died in time for you” His mother
commented Darkly
Jung the traditional man

• He married Emma
Rauchenbach
Jung the traditional man

• They lived in a
handsome house
Jung the Family Man

• Had five children

Jung the Family Man
 Choice of Psychiatry
• After dipping into Kraft-Ebbings Textbook of
Psychiatry
• “In a flash of illumination” “Alone the two
currents of my interest could flow together
and in a united stream dig their own bed.
Here was the empirical field common to
biological and spiritual facts, which I had
everywhere sought and nowhere found. Here
at last was the place where the collision of
nature and spirit became reality.
Apprenticeships and early
work
• The Burgholzli Mental Hospital
• Eugen Bleuler
• Word association
• In The Psychology of
Dementia Praecox (1907) he
argues that although
Schizophrenia is associated
with a biological toxin, it can
be understood as an inversion
of the libido and psyche into
the world of myth creation and
fantasy.
 Relationship with Freud
• Freud was 50, Jung 32 when they met
• Intellectually infatuated with one another
• “Let me enjoy your friendship not as one between equals, but as
that of father and son”
• First president of the International Psychoanalytic Association
and Chief Editor of the first Psychoanalytic journal , the
Jahrbuch
 Break with Freud
• Break with Freud
• Inevitable, but deeply painful (for both)
• Based upon (at least on the surface) the
growing independence of Jung’s thoughts,
and Freud’s intolerance of dissent
• The “Gesture of Kreuzlingen” was the final
spark that lit the powder-keg
1913 the “annus horribilus”

• Break with Freud

1913 the “annus horribilus”

• Deep conflict with

Emma over the role
of Antonia Wolff
“Tony”
1913 the “annus horribilus”

Tensions which would

lead to World War I
In October [1913], while I was alone on a journey, I was
suddenly seized by an overpowering vision: I saw a
monstrous flood covering all the northern and low-
lying lands between the North Sea and the Alps.
When it came up to Switzerland I saw that the
mountains grew higher and higher to protect our
country. I realized that a frightful catastrophe was in
progress. I saw the mighty yellow waves, the floating
rubble of civilization, and the drowned bodies of
uncounted thousands. Then the whole sea turned to
blood. This vision last about one hour. I was
perplexed and nauseated, and ashamed of my
weakness.
 The Crisis
• The edge of madness
• He played in his garden like a child
• Head voices in his head
• Held conversations with imaginary
figures
• Believed his house to be filled with the
spirits of the dead
 Methods to deal with his
psychological State
• Like Osysseus, Heracles, and
Orpheus…
• Jung embraced the darkness
• He explored, and embraced the
characters he found within his
imagination
• “When I parted from Freud, I knew that I was
plunging into the unknow. Beyond Freud,
after all, I knew nothing; but I had taken the
steps into darkness. When that happens, and
then such dream comes, one feels it is an act
of grace.
• “It all began then; the later details are only
supplements and clarifications of the material
that burst forth from the unconscious, and at
first swamped me. It was the prima materia
for a lifetime’s work.”
The Red Book
• Jounal
• Journey
• Heroic Tale
• Myth
• Dialogue
• Illustrated
The Red Book--highlights
• Travels to the land of
the dead
• Falls in love with a
woman who later turns
out to be his sister
• Gets squeezed by a
giant serpent
• Eats the liver of a small
child
• Is criticized by the devil
as being hateful
The Red Book

• Liber Primus
• Liber Secundus
• Scrutinies
Liber Primus
• It begins with Isaiah
• The voice changes
over time--and
includes the
protagonist and his
soul.
• The soul--his soul--
takes him on a
journey
Adventures
• The Desert
• Descent into Hell in the
Future “climb down into
your depths”
• The spliting of the spirit
• The murder of the hero
• The conception of God
 Mysterium. Encounter
• Elijah (the first old man)
• His daughter Salome
• Encounters with Peter with the triple Key--The Pope,
Buddha, and a many armed bloody goddess
• The black worm, serpent, snake etc. make
appearances
Liber Primus
“The Mystery showed
me in images what I
should afterward
live. I did not
possess any of
those boons that the
mystery showed me,
for I still had to earn
all of them.”
 Liber Secundus
• The second, and bulk of the action of
the Red Book, comprising an elaborate
mythical and fraught journey.
 Liber Secundus
• Begins with an encounter with “The Red
One”
• He then encounters a woman “She is
beautiful. A deep purity rests in her
look.”
• After that he encounters “One of the
lowly”
• After that an Anchorite (Ammonius)
Liber Secundus
• The remains of
earlier temples.
• Incantations
• The opening of the
egg
• Hell is introduced
 Nox Secunda
• Many dialogues
• “I accepted the chaos, and on the
following night, my soul approached
me”
• Followed by nox tertia and nox quarta
• Elijah and other characters appear
The Magician
• Is first encountered
in a small house in
the forest.
• He is old, but
content
• He is wise.
• His name is
Philemon
Philemon
• The wise protector,
and adviser
• Roots in greek
mythology
• Goethe
• Winged
Scrutinies
• Begins with an
amusing dialogue
between the author
and himself.
• Philemon continues
to give advice, and
make observations.
• Elijah returns
Scrutinies
Through all of these
journeys there is
struggle, and
acceptance, and re-
emergence. It is a
journey through life.
 Scrutinies
• The Blue Shade appears
• “I find you in the garden, beloved. The
sins of the world have conferred beauty
upon your countenance”
 Epilogue
“I worked on this book for 16 years. My
acquaintance with alchemy in 1930 took me
away from it. The beginning of the end came
in 1928 when Wilhelm sent me the text of
“The Golden Flower”…To the superficial
observer, it will appear like madness…It
would also have developed into one, had I not
been able to absorb the overpowering force
of the original experiences…I knew nothing
but to write them down in a “precious” and to
paint the images that emerged through
reliving it all…”
 The Red Book as Jung’s
Heart
• The germ of many of his contributions.
• He in many ways became Philemon, and all
the characters
• A living embodiment of the adventures of the
Red Book.
• A towering character, and individual, who
made one of the most lasting contributions of
the twentieth century.