C.G.Jung’s “The Red Book”

[Trunk]

I’ll write more later, but wanted to drop this link here now.

 

https://appliedjung.com/finding-philemon/

 

A six month, inexpensive, online course around Jung’s “The Red Book”.  That includes producing one’s own artwork.  This would be especially interesting to those who are interested in using art to facilitate their inner work.

 

Here’s a video introduction into The Red Book

 

[Nungali]

Interesting .  ( I too am busy now but will return here later )

 

Philamon  is an interesting phenomena ... a few others have experienced similar.

 

I have been reading 'South', the epic story of Shackleton's  last Antarctic  trip ... what an epic and what a magnificent and arduous 'rescue mission he went on to save his men . I just finished the part where he made it , with two others to the whaling station on South Georgia Island , while crossing the island  - an Antarctic  wilderness ,   he comments on the 'the other' , a presence that he and the others noted . He was a pretty straight up guy  and said it was an unusual claim but so strong and real and noticed by them that he thought to inclide the record of it in his diary .

 

he called it  'providence' .   At times it seemed impossible that they would survive , yet time and time again, they did .

[Trunk]

 

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What you will need

• A journal
• Sketchbook, and tools for making art (watercolours, pastel crayons, etc.).
• Access to Internet and Facebook
• To keep track of your own dream life and unconscious processes in a manner similar to Jung.
• NB. You will not need a copy of the Red Book. – Obviously for those who have one, either the full illustrated version or the readers edition, these are wonderful accompaniments and a privilege to have. However, the reading and the course designed is set up in such a way that that owning your own copy of the book is not an essential prerequisite for participation. All texts under consideration will be shared with you as part of the course.

Course objective

Our goal is to study the Red Book more as a map and less of a text. In other words, it’s one man’s document detailing his exploration of his unconscious. Therefore, to grasp the Red Book one must undergo their own exploration and learn how to chart the waters of their own unconscious psyche. The Red Book is only able to be comprehended in such a fashion. The other part of understanding the Red Book is understanding Jung as much as possible biographically. Through this process of inner exploration, students will be able to chart a map of their own unconscious in a fashion similar to Jung.

 

https://appliedjung.com/finding-philemon/

 

 

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Registration

Commencing: 1 November 2019

Duration: six months

Tuition Fee: $19 pm

 

 

 

 

I am registering right now - and finding out that "$19 pm" means "$19 per month" ... for the 6 month course.  6 x 19 = $114 total over 6 months.  Once I paid via paypal, it redirected me to join the facebook group.

 

The Red Book isn't required for the course, but I got it yesterday from Amazon.  Only $10 to get same day shipping on it, f### yeah.

 

 

... should be interesting.

 

 

 

amazon book description:

 

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Product description

The most influential unpublished work in the history of psychology. When Carl Jung embarked on an extended self-exploration he called his “confrontation with the unconscious,” the heart of it was The Red Book, a large, illuminated volume he created between 1914 and 1930. Here he developed his principle theories—of the archetypes, the collective unconscious, and the process of individuation—that transformed psychotherapy from a practice concerned with treatment of the sick into a means for higher development of the personality. 

While Jung considered The Red Book to be his most important work, only a handful of people have ever seen it. Now, in a complete facsimile and translation, it is available to scholars and the general public. It is an astonishing example of calligraphy and art on a par with The Book of Kells and the illuminated manuscripts of William Blake. This publication of The Red Book is a watershed that will cast new light on the making of modern psychology. 
212 color illustrations.

 

 

Edited October 29, 2019 by Trunk

[Nungali]

Oh well, that cuts me out !

 

....  I dont do facebook

[Earl Grey]

I’d say Facebook for any group work is really a bad idea. But I’ll leave those reasons for another time and just wish you well because jungian work is fantastic.

[ilumairen]

@Trunk

 

The course started a few days ago. Do you have any preliminary thoughts you could share?

[Geof Nanto]

I still find new depth in Jung even after over 20 years of reading his multi-volumed Collected Works. The deeper I go into my own experience, the greater is my understanding of his complex writings. I bought The Red Book soon after it was published and highly recommend it. I've always been surprised and disappointed that topics on Jung's work attract so little interest on Dao Bums. 

 

On 30/10/2019 at 6:05 PM, Earl Grey said:

I’d say Facebook for any group work is really a bad idea. But I’ll leave those reasons for another time and just wish you well because jungian work is fantastic.

 

Yes, Carl Jung did not like group work for many reasons, and the teachers of the course Trunk is doing are no doubt aware of that. I checked out their website and liked what I saw so I signed up for their newsletter. They sent me this quotation in an email as an introduction to the course in question:  
 

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Believe me: It is no teaching and no instruction that I give you. On what basis should I presume to teach your I give you news of the way of this man, but not of your own way. My path is not your path therefore I cannot teach you. The way is within us, but not in Gods, nor in teachings, nor in laws. Within us is the way, the truth, and the life.
 

Woe betide those who live by way of examples! Life is not with them. If you live according to an example, you thus live the life of that example, but who should live your own life if not yourself. So live yourselves.

 

The signposts have fallen, unblazed trails lie before us. Do not be greedy to gobble up the fruits of foreign fields. Do you not know that you yourselves are the fertile acre which bears everything that avails you? Yet who today knows this? who knows the way to the eternally fruitful climes of the soul? You seek the way through mere appearances, you study books and give ear to all kinds of opinion. What good is all that? There is only one way and that is your way. You seek the path. I warn you away from my own. It can also be the wrong way for you.

 

May each go his own way. I will be no savior, no lawgiver, no master teacher unto you. You are no longer little children. Giving laws, wanting improvements, making things easier, has all become wrong and evil. May each one seek out his own way. The way leads to mutual love in community.  Men will come to see and feel the similarity and commonality of their ways.

 

Laws and teachings held in common compel people to solitude, so that they may escape the pressure of undesirable contact, but solitude makes people hostile and venomous. Therefore give people dignity and let each of them stand apart, so that each may find his own fellowship and love it. Power stands against power, contempt against contempt, love against love. Give humanity dignity, and trust that life will find the better way.

 

The one eye of the Godhead is blind, the one ear of the Godhead is deaf, the order of its being is crossed by chaos. So be patient with the crippledness of the world and do not overvalue its consummate beauty. 

 

 ~ Carl Jung, The Red Book, p. 231

 

 

Edited November 6, 2019 by Yueya

[Trunk]

On 11/6/2019 at 8:15 AM, ilumairen said:

@Trunk

 

The course started a few days ago. Do you have any preliminary thoughts you could share?

 

Just barely getting oriented, myself, busy with other stuff.  I guess that’s an advantage: participate as much/little as you like.

I’ve read at least one of the assignments (there’s absolutely no obligation to do nor to share)... they are substantial if you take them all the way. And the exercises with the imagery that you produce... they have instructions that ... go deep - is my impression.  List of steps, last step (if you dare), then, “That’s how Jung did it”.  It’s fucking interesting and not fluff.

 

There’s opportunity to download the documents, assignments, instructions ... So I’m gonna download them all (as they are posted) and I can review and dig as I like as long as I like.

 

People are posting their stories along with their art.  A lot of people, a lot of art.  All of the art is deeply connected to their process.  I’ve been hungry for some community along this line... I’ve joined some other art therapy groups on facebook, but this is 1. At a much more consistent serious level, partly due to method and understanding, I think.  I don’t have my head around it yet.  2. The number of people posting.  Good exposure: similar to here, it can be helpful to see others processing similar method etc.  It’s not a “small group feel”, though.

 

- Trunk

[gendao]

C.G. Jung on Christian colonialism a century ago...during the span he drew his Red Book:

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On my next trip to the United States I went with a group of American friends to visit the Indians of New Mexico

I asked him why he thought the whites were all mad.

“They say they think with their heads,” he replied.

“Why of course. What do you think with,” I asked him in surprise.

“We think here,” he said, indicating his heart.

I fell into a long meditation. For the first time in my life, as it seemed to me, someone had drawn for me a picture of the real white man. It was as though until now I had seen nothing but sentimental, prettified colour prints. This Indian had struck our vulnerable spot, unveiled a truth to which we are blind. I felt rising within me like a shapeless mist something unknown and yet deeply familiar. And out of this mist, image upon image detached itself: first Roman legions smashing into the cities of Gaul, and the keenly incised features of Julius Caesar, Scipio Africanus, and Pompey. I saw the Roman eagle on the North Sea and on the banks of the White Nile. Then I saw St. Augustine transmitting the Christian creed to the Britons on the tips of Roman lances, and Charlemagne’s most glorious forced conversions of the heathen; then the pillaging and murdering bands of the Crusading armies. With a severe stab I realised the hollowness of that old romanticism about the Crusades. Then followed Columbus, Cortes, and the other conquistadors who with fire, sword, torture and Christianity came down upon even these remote Pueblos dreaming peacefully in the Sun, their Father. I saw, too, the peoples of the Pacific islands decimated by firewater, syphilis, and scarlet fever carried in the clothes the missionaries forced on them.

It was enough. What we from our point of view call colonisation, missions to the heathen, spread of civilisation, etc., has another face – the face of a bird of prey seeking with cruel intentness for distant quarry – a face worthy of a race of pirates and highwaymen. All the eagles and other predatory creatures that adorn our coats of arms seem to me apt psychological representatives of our true nature.
If I had hit on something essential, he remained silent or gave an evasive reply, but with all the signs of profound emotion; frequently tears would fill his eyes. Their religious theories are not conceptions to them (which, indeed, would have to be very curious theories to evoke tears from a man), but facts, as important and moving as the corresponding external realities.
I observed that the Pueblos Indians, reluctant as they were to speak about anything concerning their religion, talked with great readiness and intensity about their relations with the Americans. “Why,” Mountain Lake said, “do the Americans not let us alone? Why do they want to forbid our dances? Why do they make difficulties when we want to take our young people from school in order to lad them in the kiva (site of the rituals, and instruct them in our religion? We do nothing to harm the Americans!” After a prolonged silence, he continued, “The Americans want to stamp out our religion. Why can they not let us alone? What we do, we do not only for ourselves but for the Americans also. Yes, we do it for the whole world. Everyone benefits by it.”

 

Edited November 10, 2019 by gendao