The Holy Grail of the Unconscious

Whether or not you've heard of him, Carl Jung has most likely somehow been a part of your life in one way or another. Have you ever taken a Myers-Briggs Indicator (MBTI) test for work/fun or when applying for a job? Have you/someone you know taken part in a 12-step program? Do you know what an introvert or extrovert is? These were all contributions that can be directly tied back to Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung.

Jung has had an enduring influence not only on psychology, but also on society as a whole. He founded a new school of psychotherapy, called analytical psychology or Jungian psychology. This included: the concepts of introversion and extraversion. The concept of the complex. The concept of Collective Unconscious, which is shared by all people. As mentioned before, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

Even more interesting about him is: he lost it. And when I say lost - he had a complete psychotic break, even diagnosing himself later as 'schizophrenic'. He had vistions and heard voices. Though treatments at the time were vastly different. It was nuthouse - or no nuthouse, ignore thoughts OR don't ignore thoughts. During this period, he detailed his 'break' into small journals -- the good, the bad, and the ugly in a book/diary/experiment of sorts. In 1914, Jung began to transcribe his notes into a large red leather-bound book, which he worked on, on and off, for sixteen years. The Red Book.

When he died, Jung left no instructions for his book. His family eventually moved it to a bank vault in 1984. Sonu Shamdasani, a historian from London, for three years tried to convince Jung's heirs to publish it—they generally said no to every hint of an inquiry about it, and as of 2009 only about two dozen people had seen it. But Ulrich Hoerni, Jung's grandson who manages the Jung archives, decided to publish it. When money ran low, the Philemon Foundation was founded and raised more.

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In 2007, two technicians for DigitalFusion, working with the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, painstakingly scanned one-tenth of a millimeter at a time with a 10,200-pixel scanner. It will be published in German with "separate English translation along with Shamdasani's introduction and footnotes" at the back of the book, according to Sara Corbett for The New York Times. She wrote, "The book is bombastic, baroque and like so much else about Carl Jung, a willful oddity, synched with an antediluvian and mystical reality."

The Rubin Museum of Art in New York City will display the original and Jung's original small journals from October 7, 2009 to January 25, 2010. According to them, "During the period in which he worked on this book Jung developed his principal theories of archetypes, collective unconscious, and the process of individuation." Two-thirds of the pages bear Jung's beautiful illuminations of the text.

To learn more about the book and the people behind it's release (100 years overdue!); or, just to read a fascinating article in the NY Times about Jung and his Red Book, follow the link below.

Amazon has the book releasing on December 4th available for preorder now. It features the complete facsimile (German) with English translations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/magazine/20jung-t.html