The Red Book is viewed by many as Carl Jung’s central work. From 1913 to 1916 Jung engaged in a deep inner process; it was an exploration of his unconscious that he later referred to as “my most difficult experiment.” From 1914 to 1917 he reflected his inner images in symbolic paintings which he later gathered together and called Liber Novus (the “New Book).  A red, leather bound manuscript, it became commonly known as The Red Book. Released to the public in 2009, it’s one man’s intimate journey with the unconscious, and it’s an excellent resource for those of us who similarly want to undertake a conscious path to understand ourselves more deeply.

We’d like to encourage all our members to read and personally engage with this rich and marvelous book. That is why we’ve chosen The Red Book as our Book Club pick for 2018.

The Red Book Book Club:

The Book Club is hosted by Dennis Slattery, Ph.D., via Zoom (like Skype but better!), and will meet four times. 

Complement your study of The Red Book with the Mandala Making Art Series with art therapist, and Calgary Jung Society member, Cynthia Brown, and is by donation only. See our event calendar for details.

From Dennis:

C. G. Jung’s The Red Book, published in 2009, may be understood as a work in the tradition of poetic epics as much as it is a psychological exploration of one man’s search for the complex nature of his own soul. This series of four Book Club discussions on such an enigmatic work will focus on, but not be limited to, its poetic and epic structure as a journey of a soul towards wholeness, gathering in its travels a host of characters, contradictions, paradoxes, psychological and spiritual discoveries as well as a series of exquisite paintings by the author.

We will relate Jung’s epic journey to our own, seeking a greater understanding of ourselves, and others, from wherever we are currently in life’s pilgrimage. We will explore both journeys in four installments that together will allow us to cultivate further the complexities of Jung’s psyche as it discovers and invents itself in the process. We will find in our exploration many analogies to our own challenges and gifts in life. 

"The Red Book was first published in German and English in 2009. It was illustrated by the breathtaking paintings of C.G. Jung; and, it contains rich and imaginative symbolism. The Red Book contains C.G. Jung’s imaginations and reflections on these images of the unconscious, which after his break with Sigmund Freud in 1912, he carefully wrote down and reworked - again and again - during the following sixteen years. At that time, Jung had reached midlife, a period that forced him to reorient himself to both his inner and outer life completely anew. More and more, the core and aim of this renewal was the recognition of the reality of the soul, a reality that Jung investigated in the Red Book with relentlessness, openness and honesty, and, with an ever-increasing certitude of the soul’s life-creative and regenerative power."

~Dr. Andreas Schweizer