In his unique ‘The Red Book, Liber Novus’, Carl Gustav Jung dived into spirituality and the soul, and it formed the basis of all of his works, and therefore of modern positive psychology. The works that sprung from its contents show his true spiritual mastery, and indeed it contains the nucleus of all of his later writings. It was here that he developed his principal theories of the archetypes, the collective unconscious, and the process of individuation, that would transform psychotherapy from treatment of the mentally ill into a means for the higher development of the personality, which gives it its massive and universal appeal. He is the most holistic psychiatrist that I have come across. As an inquiry into what it means to be human, his ‘The Red Book’ transcends the history of psychoanalysis, and gives us much, much more. This article contains excerpts, especially in relation to his thoughts on the soul, to give you a flavour of his magnum opus.
Sonu Shamdasani writes in the editorial to the book that “Liber Novus thus presents a series of active imaginations together with Jung's attempt to understand their significance. This work of understanding encompasses a number of interlinked threads: An attempt to understand himself and to integrate and develop the various components of his personality; an attempt to understand the structure of the human personality in general; an attempt to understand the relation of the individual to present-day society and to the community of the dead; an attempt to understand the psychological and historical effects of Christianity; and an attempt to grasp the future religious development of the West. Jung discusses many other themes in the work, including the nature of self-knowledge; the nature of the soul; the relations of thinking and feeling and the psychological types; the relation of inner and outer masculinity and femininity; the uniting of opposites; solitude; the value of scholarship and learning; the status of science; the significance of symbols and how they are to be understood; the meaning of the war; madness, divine madness, and psychiatry; how the Imitation of Christ is to be understood today; the death of God; the historical significance of Nietzsche; and the relation of magic and reason.”
On inspiration
Jung wrote “The years, of which I have spoken to you, when I pursued the inner images, were the most important time of my life. Everything else is to be derived from this. It began at that time, and the later details hardly matter anymore. 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. But the numinous beginning, which contained everything, was then.”
Jung wrote “Be silent and listen: Have you recognised your madness and do you admit it? Have you noticed that all your foundations are completely mired in madness? Do you not want to recognise your madness and welcome it in a friendly manner? You wanted to accept everything. So, accept madness too. Let the light of your madness shine, and it will suddenly dawn on you. Madness is not to be despised and not to be feared, but instead you should give it life...If you want to find paths, you should also not spurn madness, since it makes up such a great part of your nature...Be glad that you can recognise it, for you will thus avoid becoming its victim. Madness is a special form of the spirit and clings to all teachings and philosophies, but even more to daily life, since life itself is full of craziness and at bottom utterly illogical. Man strives toward reason only so that he can make rules for himself. Life itself has no rules. That is its mystery and its unknown law. What you call knowledge is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on (the madness of) life.”
Jung wrote that “The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it.”
In ‘The Red Book’ he wrote “My soul, where are you? Do you hear me? I speak, I call you - are you there? I have returned, I am here again. I have shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet, and I have come to you, I am with you. After long years of long wandering, I have come to you again. Should I tell you everything I have seen, experienced, and drunk in? Or do you not want to hear about all the noise of life and the world? But one thing you must know: the one thing I have learned is that one must live this life. Do you still know me? How long the separation lasted! Everything has become so different. And how did I find you? How strange my journey was! What words should I use to tell you on what twisted paths a good star has guided me to you? Give me your hand, my almost forgotten soul. How warm the joy at seeing you again, you long disavowed soul. Life has led me back to you. Let us thank the life I have lived for all the happy and all the sad hours, for every joy, for every sadness. My soul, my journey should continue with you. I will wander with you and ascend to my solitude.”
He continued “I indignantly answered, “Do you call light what we men call the worst darkness? Do you call day night?” To this my soul spoke a word that roused my anger, “My light is not of this world.” I cried, “I know of no other world!” The soul answered, “Should it not exist because you know nothing of it?”
He wrote “The life that I could still live, I should live, and the thoughts that I could still think, I should think.”
We use metaphor and imagery to express what cannot be comprehensible in words. Jung wrote “My speech is imperfect. Not because I want to shine with words, but out of the impossibility of finding those words, I speak in images. With nothing else can I express the words from the depths.”
Jung continued “Whoever speaks in primordial images speaks with a thousand voices; he enthrals and overpowers... `He transmutes our personal destiny into the destiny of mankind, and evokes in us all those beneficent forces that ever and anon have enabled humanity to find refuge from every peril and to outlive the longest night… Everything to come was already in images: To find their soul, the ancients went into the desert. This is an image. The ancients lived their symbols, since the world had not yet become real for them. Thus, they went into the solitude of the desert to teach us that the place of the soul is a lonely desert. There they found the abundance of visions, the fruits of the desert, the wondrous flowers of the soul. Think diligently about the images that the ancients have left behind. They show the way of what is to come. Look back at the collapse of empires, growth, and death, of the desert and monasteries, they are the images of what is to come. Everything has been foretold. But who knows how to interpret it?.. Notice what the ancients said in images: The words is a creative act. The ancients said: in the beginning was the Word. Consider this and think upon it.”
Our personal growth and transformation do not depend on knowing the ‘laws of life’. Jung wrote that “We should grow like a tree that likewise does not know its law.“
The soul is a divine child
Finding your own soul is the birth of your own saviour. Jung wrote “You open the gates of the soul to let the dark flood of chaos flow into your order and meaning. If you marry the ordered to the chaos you produce the divine child, the supreme meaning beyond meaning and meaninglessness.”
Jung wrote “You do not overcome the old teaching through doing less, but through doing more. Every step closer to my soul excites the scornful laughter of my devils, those cowardly ear-whisperers and poison-mixers.”
Jung wrote “If you go to thinking take your heart with you. If you go to love, take your head with you. Love is empty without thinking, thinking hollow without love.”
He wrote “There is a knowledge of the heart that gives deeper insight. The knowledge of the heart is in no book and is not to be found in the mouth of any teacher but grows out of you like the green seed from the dark earth. Scholarliness belongs to the spirit of this time, but this spirit in no way grasps the dream, since the soul is everywhere that scholarly knowledge is not.”
Jung wrote “As long as you are not conscious of your Self you can live; but if you become conscious of your Self you fall from one grave into another. All your rebirths could ultimately make you sick. The Buddha therefore finally gave up on rebirth, for he had had enough of crawling through all human and animal forms. After all the rebirths you still remain the lion crawling on the earth, the Chameleon, a caricature, one prone to changing colours, a crawling shimmering lizard, but precisely not a lion, whose nature is related to the sun, who draws his power from within himself who does not crawl around in the protective colours of the environment, and who does not defend himself by going into hiding. I recognised the chameleon and no longer want to crawl on the earth and change colours and be reborn; instead, I want to exist from my own force, like the sun which gives light and does not suck light. That belongs to the earth. I recall my solar nature and would like to rush to my rising. But ruins stand in my way They say: 'With regard to men you should be this or that.' My chameleonesque skin shudders. They obtrude upon me and want to colour me. But that should no longer be. Neither good nor evil shall be my masters. I push them aside, the laughable survivors, and go on my way again, which leads me to the East. The quarrelling powers that for so long stood between me and myself lie behind me.”
The depths of your soul teaches you humility
Jung wrote “I, too, lived - which I had not done before, and which I could still do. I lived into the depths, and the depths began to speak. The depths taught me the other truth. It thus united sense and nonsense in me. I had to recognise that I am only the expression and symbol of the soul. In the sense of the spirit of the depths, I am as I am in this visible world a symbol of my soul, and I am thoroughly a serf, completely subjugated, utterly obedient. The spirit of the depths taught me to say: “I am the servant of a child.” Through this dictum I learn above all the most extreme humility, as what I most need.”
Self-discovery is the result of patience
Trust the process and that all is well. Jung wrote “Wherever the creative power of desire is, there springs the soil's own seed. But do not forget to wait. Did you not see that when your creative force turned to the world, how the dead things moved under it and through it, how they grew and prospered, and hour your thoughts flowed in rich rivers? If your creative force now turns to the place of the soul, you will see how your soul becomes green and how its field bears wonderful fruit.” John Quincy Adams agreed, saying “Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.” Do not rush your healing. Be kind and gentle with your Self. If you remain on the path, as Abraham Lincoln wrote “Good things come to those who wait.”
Jung warns against impatience, saying “Nobody can spare themselves the waiting and most will be unable to bear this torment, but will throw themselves with greed back at men, things, and thoughts, whose slaves they will become from then on. Since then it will have been clearly proved that this man is incapable of enduring beyond things, men, and thoughts, and they will hence become his master and he will become their fool, since he cannot be without them, not until even his soul has become a fruitful field. Also, he whose soul is a garden, needs things, men, and thoughts, but he is their friend and not their slave and fool.”
Jung wrote “Wherever the creative power of desire is, there springs the soil’s own seed. But do not forget to wait… To be that which you are is the bath of rebirth. In the depths, being is not an unconditional persistence but an endlessly slow growth. You think you are standing still like swamp water, but slowly you flow into the sea that covers the earth’s greatest deeps and is so vast that firm land seems only an island imbedded in the womb of the immeasurable sea.”
Your soul is the deepest part of you
Jung wrote “I swayed between fear, defiance, and nausea, and was wholly the prey of my passion. I could not and did not want to listen to the depths. But on the seventh night, the spirit of the depths spoke to me: “Look into your depths, pray to your depths, waken the dead.”"
Live your life and walk your path
Jung wrote “My soul, where are you? Do you hear me? I speak, I call you - are you there? I have returned, I am here again. I have shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet, and I have come to you, I am with you. After long years of long wandering, I have come to you again. Should I tell you everything I have seen, experienced, and drunk in? Or do you not want to hear about all the noise of life and the world? But one thing you must know: The one thing I have learned is that one must live this life. 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… But the supreme meaning is the path, the way and the bridge to what is to come... The fire burns right through you. That which guides forces you onto the way. But the way is my own Self, my own life founded upon my Self… Not that I know anything about what my distant goal might be. I see blue horizons before me: They suffice as a goal. I hurry toward the East and my rising - I will my rising… 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.”
Thoughts come from outside of us, unless they are intuitive thoughts. Jung wrote “What am I to do there? Is it a deception that I can no longer trust my thoughts? Only life is true, and only life leads me into the desert, truly not my thinking, that would like to return to thoughts, to men and events, since it feels uncanny in the desert… Thoughts are natural events that you do not possess, and whose meaning you only imperfectly recognise.”
It is our inner depths that guide us
Jung wrote “He leads to the depths, to the ground where I can see the heights. Without the depths, I do not have the heights. I may be on the heights, but precisely because of that I do not become aware of the heights. I therefore need the bottommost for my renewal. If I am always on the heights, I wear them out and the best becomes atrocious to me… At your low point you are no longer distinct from your fellow beings. You are not ashamed and do not regret it, since insofar as you live the life of your fellow beings and descend to their lowliness you also climb into the holy stream of common life, where you are no longer an individual on a high mountain, but a fish among fish... If you live the common life at your lowest reaches, then you become aware of your Self. If you are on your heights, then you are your best, and you become aware only of your best, but not that which you are in the general life as a BEing… We do not love the condition of our being brought low, although or rather precisely because only there do we attain clear knowledge of ourselves.”
We must suffer in order to to transform
Jung wrote that we must all walk the path of Christ, saying “Is there any one among you who believes he can be spared the way? Can he swindle his way past the pain of Christ? I say: “Such a one deceives himself to his own detriment. He beds down on thorns and fire. No one can be spared the way of Christ, since this way leads to what is to come.”"
On God
Jung wrote “God is not dead. Now, as ever, he liveth.”
Our freedom lies within us
Jung wrote “Our freedom does not lie outside us, but within us. One can be bound outside, and yet one will still feel free since one has burst inner bonds… I went into the inner death and saw that outer dying is better than inner death. And I decided to die outside and to live within. For that reason, I turned away and sought the place of the inner life.”
Jung wrote “Yet who today knows this? Who knows the way to the eternally fruitful climbs of the soul? You seek the way through mere appearances, you study books and give ears 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 be the wrong way for you, may each go his own way. I will be no saviour, no law giver, no master teacher unto you. You are no longer little children, one should not turn people into sheep, but rather sheep into people. Giving laws, bettering, 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… Thus, my friends, you learn much about the world, and through it about yourself, by what I say to you here. But you have not learned anything about your mysteries in this way; indeed, your way is darker than before, since my example will stand obstructively in your path. You may follow me, not on my way, but on yours.”
Jung wrote “How can you hold that which you are not? Would you really like to force everything which you are not under the yoke of your wretched knowledge and understanding? Remember that you can know yourself, and with that you know enough. But you cannot know others and everything else. Beware of knowing what lies beyond yourself, or else your presumed knowledge will suffocate the life of those who know themselves. A knower may know himself. That is his limit.”
Jung wrote “Since men do not know that the conflict occurs inside themselves, they go mad, and one lays the blame on the other… But he does not see the conflict in his own soul, which is however the source of the outer disaster. If you are aggravated against your brother, think that you are aggravated against the brother in you, that is, against what in you is similar to your brother.”
Conclusion
Jung said it best “Therefore the spirit of the depths forced me to speak to my soul, to call upon her as a living and self-existing being.” You are not here to suffer: The only thing that you need to do is to remember who you truly are...
Namaste.
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I have a Bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences from Trinity College, Cambridge; a Master's Degree in Philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge; a PhD Doctorate in Scientific Research from University College London (UCL); a Medical Degree (MD/MBBS) from The Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London and have been a doctor and reconstructive trauma and cancer surgeon in London for 20 years. I have published over 50 peer reviewed scientific journal articles, have been an associate editor and frequent scientific faculty member, and am the author of several scientific books. I have been awarded my Diploma in Transformative Life Coaching in London, which has International Coaching Federation (ICF) Accreditation, as well as the UK Association for Coaching (AC), and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC). I have been on my own transformative journey full time for four years and I am ready to be your guide to you finding out who you really are and how the world works.