The Red Book Hours

In 1913, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) experienced an episode of psychosis, seeing visions and hearing voices in what he called a horrible 'confrontation with the unconscious.' But, instead of seeking to minimize the hallucinations after this initial episode, Jung believed there was tremendous value in this unconscious content and developed methods to encourage hallucinations. Over some sixteen years, he recorded his experiences in a series of small journals, which he later transcribed in a large, red, leather-bound volume, commonly known as 'The Red Book'. Jung never published the Liber Novus, as he called this pivotal part of his oeuvre, and left no instructions for its final disposition, and it therefore remained unpublished until recently. 'The Red Book Hours' complements the facsimile edition and English-language translation of 'The Red Book', published in 2009, and draws out the insights into Jung's affinity with art as a means of personal insight.

A lavishly illustrated volume of C.G. Jung’s visual work, from drawing to painting to sculpture. A world-renowned, founding figure in analytical psychology, and one of the twentieth century’s most vibrant thinkers, C.G. Jung imbued as much inspiration, passion, and precision in what he made as in what he wrote. Though it spanned his entire lifetime and included painting, drawing, and sculpture, Jung’s practice of visual art was a talent that Jung himself consistently downplayed out of a stated desire never to claim the title “artist.” But the long-awaited and landmark publication, in 2009, of C.G. Jung’s The Red Book revealed an astonishing visual facet of a man so influential in the realm of thought and words, as it integrated stunning symbolic images with an exploration of “thinking in images” in therapeutic work and the development of the method of Active Imagination. The remarkable depictions that burst forth from the pages of that calligraphic volume remained largely unrecognized and unexplored until publication. The release of The Red Book generated enormous interest in Jung’s visual works and allowed scholars to engage with the legacy of Jung’s creativity. The essays collected here present previously unpublished artistic work and address a remarkably broad spectrum of artistic accomplishment, both independently and within the context of The Red Book, itself widely represented. Tracing the evolution of Jung’s visual efforts from early childhood to adult life while illuminating the close relation of Jung’s lived experience to his scientific and creative endeavors, The Art of C.G. Jung offers a diverse exhibition of Jung’s engagement with visual art as maker, collector, and analyst.

Presents the Swiss psychologist's thoughts, experiences, and everything he felt after a period of time spent seeing visions, hearing voices, and inducing hallucinations.

The long-awaited publication of C. G. Jung's Red Book in October 2009 was a signal event in the history of analytical psychology. Hailed as the most important work in Jung's entire corpus, it is as enigmatic as it is profound. Reading The Red Book by Sanford L. Drob provides a clear and comprehensive guide to The Red Book's narrative and thematic content, and details The Red Book's significance, not only for psychology but for the history of ideas.

Analyst and author Ann Belford Ulanov draws on her years of clinical work and reflection to make the point that madness and creativity share a kinship, an insight that shakes both analysand and analyst to the core, reminding us as it does that the suffering places of the human psyche are inextricably—and, often inexplicably—related to the fountains of creativity, service, and even genius. She poses disturbing questions: How do we depend on order, when chaos is a necessary part of existence? What are we to make of evil—both that surrounding us and that within us? Is there a myth of meaning that can contain all the differences that threaten to shatter us? Ulanov’s insights unfold in conversation with themes in Jung’s Red Book which, according to Jung, present the most important experiences of his life, themes he explicated in his subsequent theories. In words and paintings Jung displays his psychic encounters from1913–1928, describing them as inner images that “burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me.” Responding to some of Jung’s more fantastic encounters as he illustrated them, Ulanov suggests that our problems and compulsions may show us the path our creativity should take. With Jung she asserts that the multiplicities within and around us are, paradoxically, pieces of a greater whole that can provide healing and unity as, in her words, “every part of us and of our world gets a seat at the table.” Taken from Ulanov’s addresses at the 2012 Fay Lectures in Analytical Psychology, Madness and Creativity stands as a carefully crafted presentation, with many clinical examples of human courage and fulfillment.

While The Little Red Book interprets the Twelve Steps, the Guide gives newcomers to AA the structure needed to live them. Designed as an aid for the study of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, The Little Red Book contains many helpful topics for discussion meetings. Drawing from the practical experience of alcoholics who found peace of mind and contented sobriety by following a way of spiritual life set forth in Alcoholics Anonymous, The Little Red Book can help members quickly develop an acceptable 24-hour schedule of AA living.Based on the many past study guide formats and beginner classes for The Little Red Book and modeled after Twelve Step instruction programs offered at AA meetings, this new study guide provides a solid and comprehensive study structure for men and women in AA Twelve Step groups and for individuals studying The Little Red Book on their own. While The Little Red Book interprets the Twelve Steps, the Guide gives newcomers to AA the structure needed to live them.

Until now, the single most important unpublished work by C.G. Jung—The Black Books. In 1913, C.G. Jung started a unique self- experiment that he called his “confrontation with the unconscious”: an engagement with his fantasies in a waking state, which he charted in a series of notebooks referred to as The Black Books. These intimate writings shed light on the further elaboration of Jung’s personal cosmology and his attempts to embody insights from his self- investigation into his life and personal relationships. The Red Book drew on material recorded from 1913 to 1916, but Jung actively kept the notebooks for many more decades. Presented in a magnificent, seven-volume boxed collection featuring a revelatory essay by noted Jung scholar Sonu Shamdasani—illuminated by a selection of Jung’s vibrant visual works—and both translated and facsimile versions of each notebook, The Black Books offer a unique portal into Jung’s mind and the origins of analytical psychology.