I’ve had Carl Jung’s Red Book in my possession for at least a year but finally decided to read it last week. The only other book by Jung that I’ve read is Synchronicity. When he is able to articulate himself well, Jung is a singular genius. I do find his writing heavier in exposition than I think is necessary. The Red Book might also be steeped in too much Christian rhetoric for my taste. The brilliant moments are no less profound, however.

It’s written like an endless, 500+ page journey into the Underworld. Unlike the classic anti-heroic journey in James Joyce’s Ulysses (which Jung openly criticized for being impossible to follow), The Red Book is the anti-heroic journey of becoming darkness. This is an internalized journey of shame, sin, gender, sexuality, death, ego and pain that crosses the genres of religious allegory, psychology and philosophy.

In Liber Primus, chapters like “Descent into Hell in the Future”, “Splitting of the Spirit” and “Murder of the Hero” make it clear that there is nothing intellectual about this work. That is where it is remarkably brave and effective. This is not just about journeying through the Underworld. This is about understanding the Underworld.

LIber Secundus grabbed more of my attention. Some profound passages like :

If no outer adventure happens to you, then no inner adventure happens to you either. The part that you take over from the devil- joy, that is – leads you into adventure. In this way you will find your lower as well as your upper limits. It is necessary for you to know your limits. If you do not know them, you run into the artificial barriers of your imagination and the expectations of your fellow men.

But your life will not take kindly to being hemmed in by artificial barriers. Life wants to jump over such barriers and you will fall out with yourself. These barriers are not your real limits, but arbitrary limitations that do unnecessary violence to you. Therefore, try to find your real limits.

In his conception of the anima and animus, the feminine and masculine archetypes present in every individual, Jung entered revolutionary territory. In his natal chart, he did have Lilith tightly conjunct the Midheaven (so did the Marquis de Sade), which explains his exploration of the often violent nature of gender and sexuality. He manages to demystify the Lilith archetype that the gender binary oppresses:

The feminine in men is bound up with evil. I find it on the way of desire. The masculine in the woman is bound up with evil. Therefore people hate to accept their own other. But if you accept it, that which is connected with the perfection of men comes to pass: namely, that when you become the one who is mocked, the white bird of the soul comes flying. It was far away, but your humiliation attracted it. The mystery draws near to you, and things happen around you like miracles.

A gold luster shines, since the sun has risen from its grave. As a man you have no soul, since it is in the woman; as a woman you have no soul, since it is in the man. But if you become a human being, then your soul comes to you. If you remain within the arbitrary and artificially created boundaries, you will walk as between two high walls; you do not see the immensity of the world.

But if you break down the walls that confine your view, and if the immensity and its endless uncertainty inspire you with fear, then the ancient sleeper awakens in you, whose messenger is the white bird.

The lengths humans will go to create divisions between one another is what Jung explains isn’t just social. It’s born out of the psychological dissociation with one’s own darkness and destruction. It is pointless to project what is evil onto someone else simply because they are more conscious of evil, or have made you more conscious of it. This is shadow work.

One last passage:

Two things are yet to be discovered. The first is the infinite gulf that separates us from one another. The second is the bridge that could connect us. Have you considered how much unsuspected animality human company makes possible?