The Black Books

by C.G. Jung, Sonu Shamdasani (Editor)

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.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Religion

1648 pages, Hardcover

Published July 28, 2020

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

[Egidija Šeputytė · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was reading "The Black Books" all year round  and finished them just before New Year (dates at the end of the seventh book sometimes coincided - just 100 years difference!). It was my conscious decision to read the texts in this way. So it was a different experience from reading "The Red Book", which I read without stopping. I would recommend giving oneself enough inner space and time to study and digest the texts. Also it's good to pay attention to one's own active imagination symbolism, because "The Black Books" activate that. 
I very much appreciate the amazing work Sonu Shamdasani has done. The introduction and all the foot-notes create a very important layer - they not only provide additional information, but also help to sense more intimately the material of the "The Black Books" as well as Jung's  personality. For instance  it was very interesting for me to know how many patients Jung had on a particular day (which is indicated), when he also wrote a particular piece of the text.  He was a really hard working practitioner!
The shadowy side of Jung's inner life for me somehow was more felt in "The Black Books" than in "The Red Book". I would say even dangerously shadowy, it was quite a process to read the processes of Jung. 
I hope the book won't be published in a simplified version as was "The Red Book". The respect and the in-depth attention that Jung dedicated to his inner processes deserve to be presented in a respectful form - let it be a bit costly and require some extra effort from the reader to have it and to read it.

[David Hartley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Same kind of deeper reality and powerful Jungian universe that is so active in his famed Liber Novus or Red Book, but even more raw and powerful. Jung’s entire system of thought and work were born in part from this earlier time period of self-experimentation where he encountered head on his own visions and fantasies. So, if you are ready to take on the powerful complexities of these highly personalized journals/ workbooks then you may find it well-worth the effort involved in doing so. Shamdasani’s lengthy introduction is invaluable in laying out the history of the Black Books and Jung’s work involved in creating them. The referencing and editing process of each journal is close to perfection considering the highly personal nature and complex inner dialogues of each book. I might mention that unlike so many of Jung’s followers, I choose to tackle his work as a helpmate in my own personal life and dreams, while trying to avoid the heavy magnetism of his own. And there are few, places to be found where the Jungian gravity is more intense than in these private writings. As I go through each book it strikes me as something highly personal and raw in nature really not meant for public viewing or understanding. Nevertheless we are lucky to have this rare chance to see how Jung developed his personal thought processes and creativity. Beyond the introduction contained in the first book, I might suggest if one is to truly enjoy the work contained in the Black Books, then it certainly helps to have a basic understanding of where Jung is coming from, and how his thought and ideal worked in this earlier time period. Amazing stuff by any standard however heavy and highly personalized it can and does get. And it’s easy to see why those close to this man became so submerged in his kingdom and reality. He was, after all, a brave pioneer in the early psychological field. One who left us with a means to not only face the darker aspects of our current world and all its radical change, but to move forward into the new paradigm of the 21st century, as he did with the 19th century into the 20th.

[Eduardo Blanco · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are a positivist or a mystic, I think maybe these are not books for you. What Jung is looking for is not objective facts about the mind, not a matter of science in the contemporary sense, nor a transcendent subjective experience or revealed truth, in the literary sense. I say that these books are not for mystics or positivists because these ways of seeing the world are both reductive and superstitious, meanwhile, Jung's thought is neither of those (at least in my view). Those closed ways of reading, rather than other perspectives, could lead to a misunderstanding of this work and the autoconfirmation of personal prejudices or common biases about the subjects or the author of these books.

These books part from a personal and psychic experience (or psychedelic, in the etymological sense) but in the path, and in the end, it becomes a dialog with several thinkers, traditions of thought, and the history of eastern and western civilizations; with it, he achieves not only a deep introspection but psychic experimentation, a symbolic journey such as those in the works of Dante or Tolkien, an intrasubjective and intersubjective thought, and, to some extent, he arrives to the borders of a metaphysical conception (that he does not develop because he recognized the limits for his profession and his project; metaphysics is beyond).

I have been reading these books for almost two years, with some pauses, revisions, and re-beginnings. With this, I have grasped some insights about myself, the current disciplines of philosophy and psychology, also about the past, the present, and the possible future of humanity. About Jung, I wouldn't say he is a wise man, a mystic (though he took it seriously this kind of traditions and experience), a (wanna-be) prophet/saint, or, about his work, that it is the discovery of (psychological) truths; I would rather say that he is an important thinker with an important oeuvre yet with the errors and the biases of his own, his society and of the time he lived. The Black Books have helped me to get a wider view of the origin and the core of Jung's project.

If you want to begin to read Jung's works from a psychological view or rather intellectual interest, I suggest looking first for technical or theoric ones.  

[Timothy Ball · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Why are all these things so dark and bleak? Because everything is a process of change. The times that previously were have become old and strive for new order. That's why everything is dark. Gloomy for you, but alive and active within."

[Yinxue · Rating 4 out of 5]

In some places, you are like "Wow BRUTAL! I remember why I love this guy now!".

In others, it's more like "what a fxxxing NUTCASE!"

[Idontknow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Agony.

[Adane Mamo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ygxyhr