The Red Book: A Reader's Edition

by C.G. Jung, Sonu Shamdasani (Editor), John Peck (Translator)

When Carl Jung embarked on an extended self-exploration he called it 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.

Genres: Psychology, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Religion, Mythology, Reference

601 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 21, 2013

About the author

Carl Gustav Jung (/jʊŋ/; German: [ˈkarl ˈɡʊstaf jʊŋ]), often referred to as C. G. Jung, was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology. Jung proposed and developed the concepts of extraversion and introversion; archetypes, and the collective unconscious. His work has been influential in psychiatry and in the study of religion, philosophy, archeology, anthropology, literature, and related fields. He was a prolific writer, many of whose works were not published until after his death.

The central concept of analytical psychology is individuation—the psychological process of integrating the opposites, including the conscious with the unconscious, while still maintaining their relative autonomy. Jung considered individuation to be the central process of human development.

Jung created some of the best known psychological concepts, including the archetype, the collective unconscious, the complex, and synchronicity. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a popular psychometric instrument, has been developed from Jung's theory of psychological types.

Though he was a practising clinician and considered himself to be a scientist, much of his life's work was spent exploring tangential areas such as Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, and sociology, as well as literature and the arts. Jung's interest in philosophy and the occult led many to view him as a mystic, although his ambition was to be seen as a man of science. His influence on popular psychology, the "psychologization of religion", spirituality and the New Age movement has been immense.

Reviews

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interrupted read--this book is so personal and ephemeral, a blakean diary of personal discovery, completely inside one man's symbol system, written for himself. I'm about a third of the way through the body of the text--there's also a long introduction. It's already inspired me to go back to keeping a dream journal, to think of what my own 'red book' would be. Dream life has become extremely active. But it lacks any quality of suspense or forward motion. I have a friend who has the big book--the facsimile Red Book, 18" by 12, weighing in at 8 pounds, with all the illustrations Jung painted to accompany the hand-lettered journal--she has to keep it on a footstool it's so big. This is the translation of the text, which is fascinating and boring and strange, by turns, just like Blake's longer poems. Meeting the soul, meeting the anima/animus, it's the laboratory of Jung's own theories--and like a live album, there's a lot of drum solos. Yet its remarkable to see the naked material arising, see him struggle with the contents of his own psyche before it's all processed and theorized.

[A · Rating 2 out of 5]

So Jung is a crazy person

[Khalid · Rating 4 out of 5]

ما أقدر أبدأ هذه المراجعة بدون ما أتكلم عن تاريخ الكتاب المعقد نفسه، فهذا الكتاب بقى حبيس مكتب كارل يونغ لمدة تقارب الثمانين سنة!
الكتاب الأحمر أصبح متوفر للعامة للمرة الأولى عام ٢٠٠٩ أي بعد وفاة كارل بـ٤٨ سنة لكن حقيقة وجوده ومحتواه ما كانت سر أبدًا وأي محب لكارل يونغ يعرف ذلك فالكتاب كان موجود على مكتب كارل نفسه وكل زواره سبق و رأوه كما أن كارل نفسه تكلم عنه في محاضراته ورغم كل ذلك بقت تفاصيله مخفية عن أعين العامة ل أسباب عديدة منها
١- كارل أمضى ١٥ سنة من عمره يعمل على هذا الكتاب ومن ثم فجأة توقف عنه وتركه لمدة ٣٠ سنة لانشغاله بأعمال أخرى لكنه في أخر أيامه عاد ليكتب خاتمته ولم يكملها حتى.
٢- بعد وفاة كارل، ورثته رفضوا نشره للعامة رغم كل المحاولات باقناعهم بالعكس وأستمر الوضع كما هو حتى عام ٢٠٠٠ وهو العام الذي حصلت فيه دار النشر على الضوء الأخضر لترجمة العمل من أحفاد أحفاد كارل ومن ثم أمضى المترجم ودار النشر ٩ سنوات كاملة لتنقيح وترجمة وتجميع الكتاب. كل هذه العوامل أدت لتأخر صدور الكتاب.

أما كارل يونغ نفسه فسبق وتكلمت عنه في مراجعات سابقة ولا أعتقد أن أي اضافة سأقدمها هنا ستفيه حقه لأنه وبسيرته الضخمة أكبر من أحرفي الرديئة هذه.. كارل موسوعة ما قد قابلت مثلها بحياتي و الإرث الذي تركه في علم النفس وعلي شخصيًا سيبقى خالدًا للأبد لكن اذا كان لا بد علي من تلخيص إرثه في جملة.. فسأقول أن أعظم ما قدمه كارل للبشرية ولعلم النفس تحديدًا هو تحليله ونقده الفني والعلمي العميق جدًا للميثولوجيا وعلوم القرون الوسطى كالخيمياء وكذلك الاديان وقد يسأل سائلٌ ما ويقول ما المميز في هذا؟ هناك ناس كثر تدارسوا هذه الاشياء واجابتي على هذا السؤال هو أن ما يميز كارل دون سواه كان يكمن في أخذه لكل ما ذكرت أعلاه ووضعه في إطار مش تاريخي ولا أكاديمي بل نفسي بحت، كارل بطريقةٍ ما أكتشف الأبعاد والأواصر الروحية التي تربط الميثولوجيا والأديان وعلوم القرون الوسطى بالنفس البشرية.
الكتاب الأحمر ذاته عبارة عن مذكرات خاصة كتبها كارل يونغ عن نفسه وفيها كان يوثق رحلته للوصول الى روحه ونفسه و مواجهاته مع اللاواعي كما يسميه هو.. كارل كان يوثق احلامه و رؤياه وخيالاته ومن ثم يرسمها (النسخة الكاملة تحتوي على نسخ طبق الأصل من رسوماته ولكنها مكلفة جدًا) وبعد رسمها يبدأ بتحليلها.. هذا الكتاب كان النواة التي انبثقت منها باقي أعمال كارل.
أخيرا لا تقرأ هذا العمل اذا كنت ترغب في البدء بالابحار في عالم يونغ لأنك ما راح تفهم شي..
قبلها أقرأ عن المصلحات اليونغية وأفهم معناها لأن مصلحات مثل:
‏Archetype, ego, psyche, collective unconscious
وغيرها هي مصطلحات تصادفها كثيرًا لذلك القراءة عنها سيكون أكثر فائدة قبل البدء مع كارل
ومن ثم بعد ذلك أنصح بقراءة ثلاث أعمال قبل هذا العمل حتى تستطيع الاستفادة من هذا الكتاب ويفضل أن تقرأ النسخ الانجليزية لأن الترجمات العربية لكتبه دون المستوى.

[BJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to preface everything with this: My initial instinct was to give this three stars, but after thinking on it, I realized that I went into this beast of a text having been warned by a friend of what to expect. So I gave it an extra star for being exactly what I was told it would be.

With that, I'll give you a warning similar to the one I was given, and hope that you take heed of it: This book is dense, the thinking is non-linear, and much of it appears to be automatic writing (stream of consciousness) mixed with dreams. You also have to read approximately 130 pages of introduction to put it into context (I would not suggest skipping that part!). You may come away thinking Jung was a lunatic or just ripping off Nietzsche.

That being said, I still enjoyed much of it. I wanted to read it to learn something about shadow work, and that is exactly what this book seems to be--a journal of Jung doing shadow work. If that's what you're into, and you've pushed your way through some older academic or occult texts, then you will very likely come out of the other end of this book as gaining some interesting insights.

[Jana Zvirbule · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is so gay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! best book this year so far

[Nik Maack · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nope. Read most of the introduction, saw the text, and just couldn't read it. Not entirely accessible. They've taken away all the pictures and left me with dense, dense text. I suspect this is one of those books people want to read but never start or never finish. Too bad. I was hoping for something a little mystical, but a lot more accessible.

I may try again, but right now, no thanks.

One key ingredient for me was when e introduction mentioned the text has "academic" qualities. Yeah, no thanks.

[Charles Hudson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Some may love it; I didn't. I have read some of Jung's books in the past and liked them. In this one, it is written "about" Jung as he intently studies his own belly button.

[Hrodnand · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a journey... As Jung himself described, the creative process behind The Red Book was the most difficult of his inner experiments and reading it proved no less demanding both intellectually and emotionally as well.
These 600 pages are a sheer descent into the unconscious: visions, symbols, mythology and archetypal figures come alive here, offering a rare glimpse into the very core and essence of Jungian thought. It's also one of the most insightful reads I've had in years and I can resonate with those who speak of its life-altering depth. It's a work of fire, shadow and soul.

[Carole Brooks Platt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first bought the large edition with its facsimiles of Jung's artwork and calligraphy. Truly, I was mesmerized (and bewildered) by the colorful artwork and precise calligraphy in both German and Latin. I tried to read Sonu Shamadasani's introduction in the back of the book, but it was too large to manipulate. Finally, someone clued me in that a Reader's Edition existed. This was manageable and utterly essential to my marking the important parts of the text and underlining Shamadasani's introduction and invaluable footnotes. I intend to write a much longer review on my blog, rightmindmatters.blogspot.com, but I will just say briefly here that everything he ends up saying in his future books did come out of the hallucinatory experience he had over an extended period. I personally feel that he was having a nervous breakdown because of all the pressures he was facing at the time, and it feels and sounds quite mad. But there is so much more that needs to be said by connecting his biography, beliefs and mental disposition to the kinds of themes and characters that arise. That he survived intact is a testimony to his fortitude in understanding his psyche and the need to pass his findings on to others.

[Melissa A Rosati · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Red Book is really the cosmology of C.G. Jung. Over the span of his lifetime, he recorded the imagery and dialogues of his dreams. While this is fascinating, I felt challenged by the text and worked through it slowly. Finishing it was an accomplishment. I believe it is an important book because it does show Jung's process of building a bridge between the conscious and unconscious mind.

This is not the kind of book you pick up to study on your own, unless you are really into C.G. Jung. It helps if you've read Memories, Dreams, and Reflections. That said, I read it as part of a study group. This was a wonderful experience.

Keep in mind, there is the Red Book Reader's edition and the actual Red Book itself. The "Big" book has all of Jung's artwork. You can find these pieces online. When reading certain passages, the art is fun to consider. But, it is not necessary. The Reader's Edition is packaged beautifully.

[Chant · Rating 5 out of 5]

When it comes to psychoanalysis, in particularly Freudian psychoanalysis (I guess I could lump Lacanian psychoanalysis here as well), seems to me a fairly outdated mode of inquiry about the nature of the unconscious.

However, that is not to say that psychoanalysis does not have it's place in our culture, as made evident by various continental philosophers, critical theorists, and comparative literature academics, which shows that they must be something there of worth there?

Jung on the other hand seems to understand that the unconscious better than his teacher's theory. Jung's Liber Novus bridges the gap between mysticism and the analysis of the unconscious, which I can see why this work has been underground prior to it being made available to the public.

I am horrid at giving "reviews"! General suggestions would be to have a solid/somewhat-solid grounding on Jung's previous works before diving into this mystical and honestly, very illuminating text.

[Alex Obrigewitsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This revelatory journey, replete with symbols, was a pleasure and an experience to read, especially alongside the the calligraphic volume.
This work is seminal of so much of Jung's work, as he had to work through it himself. I found myself experiencing through word many things I have thought and felt from within my own self, and so it was an enlightening journey as well.
Whether a reader of Jung or not, this text is a wonderful, though at times painful, experience of many primal internal images and experiences that I would recommend to any who are searching along the long and winding path.

[Gabriel · Rating 3 out of 5]

As interesting as this book is, it is too symbolic to really be enjoyed without the accompanying images. One also wishes the Jung had spent even more time on it nd eliminaated redundancies. Definitely not recommended for early comers to Jungian thought or to those less interested in his more ''mystical'' side.

[Kent Winward · Rating 5 out of 5]

From a purely historical perspective, this feels like the beginning of ideas that have worked their way into our society, but the ground is much more fertile than the current way of viewing the world. What does it mean to channel your inner blind Salome? Remember, Salome makes sure that heads (reason?) gets chopped off.

This is a book to keep coming back to.

[Debbie Hoskins · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried reading the first couple of pages, but the translated text is so dense and esoteric, I have absolutely no interest in reading it. The Red Book is all about the paintings.

[Joshua · Rating 2 out of 5]

seek professional help, carl

[Scriptor Ignotus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jung's exploration of the unconscious. Accustomed to listening only to his conscious voice (what he calls the "spirit of our time", at the beginning of the book), Jung begins to feel the voice of the "spirit of the depths", i.e. the voice of the unconscious, bubbling up inside of him. His journey into the depths of the unconscious produces mystical-poetical results. It can be likened to Dante's exploration of Hell, Purgatory, and the spheres of Heaven, or the angel-haunted world of William Blake's imagination. It reads a bit like a work of mythology, which would make sense considering that Jung saw psychological archetypes in the myths and cosmologies of cultures throughout the world.

Worthwhile for those already familiar with Jung's thought and who understand what he is trying to do here. Those approaching it without a prior acquaintance with Jung may find themselves disoriented.

[John Kulm · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw, online, a person asking advice what book by Jung she should read first. A reply said, The Red Book. I thought, "No! No! Read that one last! Read The Undiscovered Self first, and maybe next Personality Types.
Jung called the inner-journey he traveled in The Red Book, a "personal mythology" and the method of inner-travel is "active imagination." The nature of it is so personal and subjective ( like a dream as the person's own unconscious presents images and dreamlike stories) The Red Book almost seems nonsensical. Jung must have known how absurd the book would seem, and he didn't intend for it to be made public. But we benefit greatly having this account of his inner-journey. He would want the readers to write their own.

[Elizabeth LaPrelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Welp! This took me a year to read. I got the reader's edition rather than the full illuminated version purely because of cost, but the easy size made it possible for me to take it everywhere. It is admirably notated, and a beautiful book object in its own right. In terms of immersion in and comprehension of the content, though, I'm pretty dang certain I've missed out on a lot because I wasn't able to see the pictures and allow them to inform the text. To me this book is best for picking up and reading small doses of at a time.

[Nicole Woolaston · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had searched for this book for a long time. I heard about it several years ago, and I was very interested in reading it. One of my favorite passages is, "This life is the way, the long sought-after way to the unfathomable, which we call divine. There is no other way, all other ways are false paths."
I don't think you need to be interested in psychology to enjoy this book. There's so much to absorb, especially the places in the book in which Jung describes his dreams. If you do read this book, I recommend you take your time with it, otherwise you may miss a lot of really deep descriptions.

[Timothy Ball · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Did you ever think of the evil in you? Oh, you spoke of it, you
mentioned it, and you confessed it smilingly; as a generally human
vice, or a recurring misunderstanding. But did you know what
evil is, and that it stands precisely right behind your virtues, that
it is also your virtues themselves, as their inevitable substance?"

[Teresa Rofer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Relato místico moderno que roza el delirio, aunque no es un tratado sistemático, es la semilla de muchas ideas que desarrollaría posteriormente.

Te tiene que pillar en un momento ligero, porque es denso, extraño y literalmente da miedo. Muchos pasajes son crípticos y oscuros y puede sentirse como leer un sinfín de alucinaciones lúcidas.

Su valor es más histórico - artístico que práctico.

[Dusan · Rating 5 out of 5]

No superfluous words in this book. Just Deep Magic.
I found Reader Edition not only easier to handle (re size) but the text stands out stronger without images.

[Tz348]

insightful

[Bohemian Bluestocking · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book #2 of 2026.

This was intense, and a couple of times I had to put it down. You basically see an example of shadow work, specifically via active imagination, which I haven't experienced personally, although I do shadow work via dreamwork. I think the break with Freud perhaps was the instigator of this, and it shows how shadow work is really a descent into our psyche, and first we have to become aware of all the shadows, confront them as well as our own feelings about them to begin individuation. There are a few minimal helpful commentaries in the appendicies. I would love to be able to get the bigger copy of this text with images one day. But so far I've not made the plunge. I've just finished the Freud/Jung Letters and am continuing with A Dangerous Method. I've read The Portable Jung, Aion, and Vol. 8 of the collected works as well as a few collections on dreams, etc. I will continue to read Jung.

[Kade Vink · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a fascinating exploration of the subconscious by means of Carl Jung’s personal experiences, and it offers a set of segmented storylines that occur to Jung during dreams and periods of “active imagination” where we are introduced to several characters that act as segments of Jung’s own psyche as well as universal figures that appear in various dream sequences. This book is great for looking deeper into symbolism in dreams, as the material is layered, and the citations concerning those layers are extremely detailed. The downside to this book I found is that it is rather long at over 500 pages, so you have to take some time to get through it, and you may find yourself losing interest in some of the individual chapters, as they only build on a narrative sometimes and not others, which is why I found this read less stimulating than it would have been if it were more concise and less esoteric. Overall an enjoyable read, and definitely worth it to those who are interested in Carl Jung’s psychological models.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Random notes and meditation / madness passages.

Nothing here, ignore, unless you're Jung's researcher somehow, I guess.

[Dennis Merimsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the eve of the first world war, at the age of 40, when Jung had achieved worldly fame as Freud's acclaimed successor, he felt that something was missing in his life. He writes " I belonged to men and things. I did not belong to myself.” He felt entrapped by science "that clever knower" and his own vanity. Impelled by visions of world catastrophes and his own unconscious, he embarked on a quest to pursue his inner images by what he called "active imagination". He had to find his own way, a bridge to the future across the paradoxical and inexplicable. This necessitated opening the gates of his soul to let the dark flood of chaos flow into his order and meaning. He writes " If you marry the ordered to the chaos you produce the divine child, the supreme meaning beyond meaning and meaninglessness."
The Red Book is essentially a compilation of Jung's notebooks which record his inner journey to the verge of "divine madness" in order to discover his own personal myth and reconnect with his soul. The ideas in these notebooks are the raw material of many of Jung's later theories- the collective unconscious, the union of opposites, the complementary functions of anima and animus, the individuation process, the symbol creating function of the unconscious ,the paradox of fighting evil to produce good, and the death of god.
Jung writes "My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me. That was the stuff and material for more than only one life. Everything later was merely the outer classification, the scientific elaboration, and the integration into life".
This self-experiment "that became known as his “confrontation with the unconscious” was necessary to prove that the constructive standpoint of the Zurich school was superior to Freud's analytic methods and that through actively experiencing fantasies and myths, he himself could build a bridge from his present psyche to his own future. The symbol of this future was "the divine child" which anticipated the genesis of the renewed creative self " produced through the synthesis of the conscious and unconscious elements of the personality For Jung and his followers, the result of this experimentation period of dialogs with fantasy figures was a new form of psychotherapy which " enabled the higher development of the individual through fostering the individuation process" and no longer focused solely on treating psychopathology. In this book Jung dialogs with his soul, his persona, the serpent, his anima, the wise old man, the magician and other archetypes- struggling with each to integrate them back into his consciousness.
All this should make the Red Book riveting reading but unfortunately this is not the case. It does not flow or tell a story well like many inner quest narratives written in the first person, but instead gets bogged down in numerous dialogs between multiple characters representing different aspects of Jung's unconscious. This cacophony of voices is not only confusing but is made worse by the rhetorical style of the text.
Moreover, the text is often incomprehensible on its own. You have to read all the notes (which were not compiled by Jung) and the excellent introduction by Sonu Shamdasani to understand what is going on. I reread Jung's book "Memories, Dreams and Reflections" before completing the Red Book.
It is no wonder that Jung never succeeded in finding a format which satisfied him to publish this book. Even the paintings and mandalas, he added, fail to make the book an aesthetic experience because the text itself is unappealing. Unless you are prepared to embark on a serious study of the origins of Jungian thought, this book is not for you.

[Indrek Vaino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful stuff. Not for beginners. (Sometimes, I got a bit distracted by the footnotes. They somehow seemed inconsistent. Maybe for the first time reader, it's better to go with the flow and skip them)

[Marina · Rating 3 out of 5]

** Books 41 - 2020 **

This books to accomplish Tsundoku Books Challenge 2020

3,3 of 5 stars!

Actually i read this books because i'm interest why K-pop Artist like BTS (Bangtan Sonyeondan/The Bulletproof Boys) made album inspired from Jung's Map of the Soul: An Introduction Map of the Soul - Persona: Our Many Faces and Map of the soul - Shadow: Our Hidden Self So thats why i interest to start reading all the Carl Jung's works. I know i should read his biography Memories, Dreams, Reflections first since so many references about their music theory from this books so why not iam reading this books first?

I can say this books is personal journey of Carl Jung how to differentiate his soul. every soul is like an symbol what is in his life. we found there is an girl maybe it symbol as anima the unconscious feminine side of him. His spiritual journey is also interesting for me since i learn more another religion beside mine.

Jung also explain more about abraxas in almost end of the book's chapter. Both of Jung's book and Demian by Herman Hesse told us that Abraxas in the god who is difficult to grasp and the mother of good and evil. Abraxas also gives us some perspectives about balancing. what we got when we already into individuation. Thats why when people already found their individuation it can symbolic they already became god. it remembered me somehow when i watched EGO MV from BTS there is J-Hope became an mythology god and goddess such as Odin, Mithras, Zeus and Athen. somehow Athens who symbolic into an Sun's journey reminds me of God. so that means J-Hope became into individuation? He became god since he already found his Self? Hahaha it makes my head getting explode since so many BTS theories that based on from Jung's theories.

Thankfully i'm finished reading this pieces even well that means i have to try harder for understand it. But For sure if i doesn't know BTS i will not found this pieces :)

Thankyou Kobo.com!