Red book jung, should you read it?

“He sees the tree of life, whose roots reach into Hell and whose top touches Heaven. He does not longer know differences: who is right? What is holy? What is genuine? What is good? What is correct? He only knows one difference: the difference between below and above, and that it has its crown at the top, clearly differenciated by the roots. To him this is unquestionable. Hence he knows the way to salvation”
Carl Gustav Jung, The Red Book

A couple of years ago I stept into the Jungian Institute at Nijmegen. And there it was the Red book. A big, no I mean BIG red book, liber novus with gothic language handwritten by Jung. I was allowed to look inside (carefully tough because it was as expensive as it was tall), turned over the pages and enjoyed the artwork I saw. I was impressed. I was craving.

A couple of years later I saved enough to buy myself a copy of the Red book. Reading it over the years has helped me in my own religious wrestlings. Like Jung, I like science. But science despises magic. I need some magic to make my live more interesting.
“Please do not take my curiousity badly. Recently I heard something about magic that awakened my interest in this bygone practice. And then I came to you because I heard that you understand the black art. If magic was 

Jung’s inner explorations are moving: “I suffer my agony between two madman. i enter the truth if I descend. Become accustomed to being alone with the dead.”,
they outrage you sometimes: “She moaned and whispered in a weak voice: “Give me blood, I need blood” . Jungs’ anima Salome, was based on his crush for Sarah Bernhardt:

 

and shaped by his sexual addiction to Sabina Spielrein.

So I can definitly advice you to buy the Red Book. The Red Book helps you dive into the brilliant mind of Carl Gustav Jung. What he has offered the world were the results of inner musings like he describes in the Red Book. Even tough it can be difficult to display the discipline to read it, even though sometimes you get a bit offended, even irritated at the text and you have to tell yourself it has to do with the zeitgeist, the era in which Jung lived. He can be irritating, he can move you, you can recognize your own doubts about the life you live in his writings.

Now the Red book is available on a smaller format. My Red book can be very user-unfriendly if I need it to quote or if I take it with me to give workshops. If I had to buy it again I would certainly go for the smaller version.

If you would like me to orginize an online course about the Red Book please let me know