Carl Jung’s Hand-Drawn, Not often-Seen Manuscript The Purple Ebook

Regardless of his one-time pal and males­tor Sig­mund Freud’s enor­mous affect on West­ern self-under­stand­ing, I might argue it’s Carl Jung who remains to be most with us in our com­mu­nal prac­tices: from his deal with intro­ver­sion and extro­ver­sion to his view of syn­cret­ic, intu­itive types of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and his indi­rect influ­ence on 12-Step professional­grams. However Jung’s jour­ney to self-under­stand­ing and what he referred to as “indi­vid­u­a­tion” was an intense­ly pri­vate, per­son­al affair that occurred over the course of six­teen years, dur­ing which he cre­at­ed an incred­i­ble, folio-sized work of reli­gious artwork referred to as The Purple Ebook: Liber Novus. Within the video above, you may get a tour by Jung’s pri­vate mas­ter­piece, pre­despatched­ed in an intense­ly hushed, breathy fashion meant to trig­ger the tingly sen­sa­tions of a bizarre phe­nom­e­non referred to as “ASMR.” Giv­en the guide’s dis­ori­ent­ing and sometimes dis­turb­ing con­tent, this over-gen­tle guid­ance appears appro­pri­ate.

After his break with Freud in 1913, when he was 38 years previous, Jung had what he feared is likely to be a psy­chot­ic break with actual­i­ty as effectively. He started file­ing his desires, mys­ti­cal visions, and psy­che­del­ic internal voy­ages, in a styl­ized, cal­li­graph­ic fashion that resem­bles medieval Euro­pean illu­mi­nat­ed man­u­scripts and the occult psy­stylish jour­neys of Aleis­ter Crow­ley and William Blake.

Jung had the work sure however not pub­lished. It’s “a really per­son­al file,” writes Psy­chol­o­gy As we speak, “of Jung’s com­pli­cat­ed, tor­tu­ous and prolonged quest to sal­vage his soul.” Jung referred to as this means of cre­ation the “numi­nous start­ning” to his most impor­tant psy­cho­log­i­cal work. After a few years spent locked in a financial institution vault, The Purple Ebook last­ly got here to mild just a few years in the past and was trans­lat­ed and pub­lished in an expen­sive edi­tion.

Since its com­ple­tion, Jung’s guide—a “holy grail of the uncon­scious”—has fas­ci­nat­ed artists, psy­chol­o­gists, occultists, and ordi­nary peo­ple search­ing to know their very own internal depths. For many of that point, it remained hid­den from view. Now, even should you can’t afford a replica of the guide, you’ll be able to nonetheless see extra of it than most any­one else might for nearly 100 years. In addi­tion to the whis­pered tour of it above, you’ll be able to see sev­er­al advantageous­ly illus­trat­ed pages—with sea ser­pents, angels, runes, and mandalas—at The Guardian, and skim a brief excerpt at NPR.

And for a really thor­ough sur­vey of Jung’s guide, lis­ten to the lec­ture sequence by lengthy­time Jung schol­ar Dr. Lance S. Owens, who deliv­ers one set of talks for lay peo­ple and anoth­er extra in-depth set for a bunch of clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gists. Vis­it the Gnos­tic Soci­ety Library web site to stream and down­load the stay­ing lec­tures.

Be aware: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this put up appeared on our web site in 2015.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Enter an Archive of William Blake’s Fan­tas­ti­cal “Illu­mi­nat­ed Books”: The Pictures Are Sub­lime, and in Excessive Res­o­lu­tion

How Carl Jung Impressed the Cre­ation of Alco­holics Anony­mous

Carl Jung on the Pow­er of Tarot Playing cards: They Professional­vide Door­methods to the Uncon­scious & Per­haps a Solution to Pre­dict the Future

Carl Jung’s Fas­ci­nat­ing 1957 Let­ter on UFOs

The Well-known Break Up of Sig­mund Freud & Carl Jung Defined in a New Ani­mat­ed Video

Josh Jones is a author and musi­cian based mostly in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness