Opinions on Jung & The Red Book

[HoldAll]

A bit simplicistic but anyway, here goes:

A god ignored is a demon born.

Think you to hypertrophy some selves at the expense of others?

That which is denied gains power and seeks strange and unexpected forms of manifestation.

Deny Death and other forms of suicide will arise.

Deny Sex and bizzarre forms of its expression will torment you.

Deny Love and absurd sentimentalities will disable you.

Deny Aggression only to stare eventually at the bloody knife in your shaking hand.

Deny honest Fear and Desire only to create senseless neuroticism and avarice.

Deny Laughter and the world laughs at you.

Deny Magic only to become a confused robot, inexplicable even unto yourself.

(Peter J. Carroll, "Liber Kaos")

 

[Xenophon]

Interesting take on the shadow self, but primal drives for the modern (wo)man are a bit difficult to fulfill, unless one hunts in their spare time.
Still, you would have to cage in and don't nate your game and club it to death to fulfill primal drives.
Want sex with that (wo)man? Rape is out of the question.
Look at societal views upon those who live out their primal urges ... Even vigilantes come out of the wood paneling to get even with the "sickos".

Then the authorities---expressing the primal survival instinct of governments---weigh down on the vigilantes so-called.

 

[IllusiveOwl]

I felt there was a chance calling Carl Jung's Liber Novus a grimoire - despite there being incantations and profound secrets explained within - was reading too much into it; he is, after all, a psychologist. That's a part in why I put it in the title of this thread, in hopes that some of you may have read it and drew the same conclusions, but finding others who have sat down and read the thing is hard, even the man who gave me the Red Book at college didn't really understand or read it.

Thankfully, this wonderful content creator did the work and saw what I saw. I was correct, the Psychologist is a Shaman in a suit, playing the square to sand the corners off of others.

If you have not experienced magic directly, watch this. I'm curious to hear your views on it.

 

[Xenophon]

I felt there was a chance calling Carl Jung's Liber Novus a grimoire - despite there being incantations and profound secrets explained within - was reading too much into it; he is, after all, a psychologist. That's a part in why I put it in the title of this thread, in hopes that some of you may have read it and drew the same conclusions, but finding others who have sat down and read the thing is hard, even the man who gave me the Red Book at college didn't really understand or read it.

Thankfully, this wonderful content creator did the work and saw what I saw. I was correct, the Psychologist is a Shaman in a suit, playing the square to sand the corners off of others.

If you have not experienced magic directly, watch this. I'm curious to hear your views on it.

Still and all, I'm going to give Liber Novus a read (-in). I'm intrigued by your suggestion.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

I just bought the Kindle version, and I will be interested to see what it says.

I think it's easy to refer to it as a grimoire because almost everything about the layout and the way it's talked about looks and sounds exactly like one of the grimoires from one of the limited edition occult publishers.

 

[IllusiveOwl]

I just bought the Kindle version, and I will be interested to see what it says.

I think it's easy to refer to it as a grimoire because almost everything about the layout and the way it's talked about looks and sounds exactly like one of the grimoires from one of the limited edition occult publishers.

This book feels like an initiation in itself, less of a list of spells and more a primer, something to put yourself in cosmic perspective so that you may then hatch.

There is a lot of truth in this book that will make you a better magician if you read with your whole being and then some.

 

[Xenophon]

This book feels like an initiation in itself, less of a list of spells and more a primer, something to put yourself in cosmic perspective so that you may then hatch.

There is a lot of truth in this book that will make you a better magician if you read with your whole being and then some.

Personally, I think that the focus of magick needs to be getting into the proper perspective with the needed level of energy. Once one has practiced a bit with a grimoire that suits, he need not keep collecting recipe books. My (rather too few) effective workings have, oftener than not, been improv. So the Red Book is on the near future's study-list.

 

[Ilúvatar]

I love the Red Book. I think it inspires you to try and write your own -- tapping into your own dreams and psyche, to create your own "mythology." It's impressive, too, not just for the writing but the art. The combination is powerful.

 

[Xenophon]

I finally got a copy of the Red Book and delved in. (It had not been published when I had my Jung fling as an undergrad.) Fascinating material though I have to be careful not to react to views Jung expresses enroute---the man is developing, and in any case, Jung's voice is not necessarily his own (the self's).
@OP, yes---reading Liber Novus as a grimoire would be tempting. Maybe even fruitful, though mastering the imagery would be a challenge. As Iluvatar hints it might be more rewarding to develop one's own "version" of the book. Using, that is, one's own writings and art. (Case in point: I almost never use tarot for divination, but making my own deck has been highly beneficial in collateral ways.)

 

[Mars]

I don't understand where the sudden interest in Jung and him being linked to hermeticism or the occult comes from.

Doesn't seem to me as if Jung understood alchemy or magic properly, at best. At worst it was a deliberate attempt to further degenerate the royal art. At least he is not a charcoal burner like so many others.

 

[IllusiveOwl]

I don't understand where the sudden interest in Jung and him being linked to hermeticism or the occult comes from.

Doesn't seem to me as if Jung understood alchemy or magic properly, at best. At worst it was a deliberate attempt to further degenerate the royal art. At least he is not a charcoal burner like so many others.

Jung spent decades researching Alchemy in an age before the internet; he traveled around the world looking for books, his interest in Alchemy was far from casual.

I would suggest trying to read Jung's mysterium coniunctionis before laying such intense sentance on him, or even taking a crack at the Red Book yourself. You limit yourself greatly when you hold bold opinions about people without proper due research.

Using more modern terms, I would call Jung a proper Mystic and Chaos mage. He also was very open about his fascination with parapsychology, psychic phenomena, and ghosts. His cosmology is also very much like Crowley's, both he and Jung agree that people are stars.

 

[Mars]

What do you want me to say? That I read some of his works? The original german even? Or that he was a psychiatrist first and foremost and everything was viewed from this angle? He was good, but didn't understood alchemy fully. It's like with the totem, someone discovers a key to open a secret door and now thinks this key works everywhere. Same as with the kollektiven unterbewußtem. And same as with Freud. Will Freud now also be labelled a chaos mage, when he was a conservative jew in reality?

His cosmology is also very much like Crowley's, both he and Jung agree that people are stars.

Didn't thought someone like you would mention crowley in a way like it would be to praise him.

 

[IllusiveOwl]

What do you want me to say? That I read some of his works?

I would be curious to hear which works those were, yes. Particularly ones you've gleamed his knowledge of Alchemy from. His Memories, Dreams, Reflections is a nice one to see the peak to his mountain of wisdom, if you're interested in a more thorough judgement.

Will Freud now also be labelled a chaos mage, when he was a conservative jew in reality?

No Freud and Jung are two different people, as you are aware, so I do not feel the same way about him. Ironically, Freud created his Sex Dogma in an attempt to combat the "black tide of mud, of occultism."

Didn't thought someone like you would mention crowley in a way like it would be to praise him.

Someone like me? I read and respect many people. I am also much more than I present myself to be, as I imagine many other people on this site are wise enough to do.

 

[Xenophon]

I would be curious to hear which works those were, yes. Particularly ones you've gleamed his knowledge of Alchemy from. His Memories, Dreams, Reflections is a nice one to see the peak to his mountain of wisdom, if you're interested in a more thorough judgement.



No Freud and Jung are two different people, as you are aware, so I do not feel the same way about him. Ironically, Freud created his Sex Dogma in an attempt to combat the "black tide of mud, of occultism."


Someone like me? I read and respect many people. I am also much more than I present myself to be, as I imagine many other people on this site are wise enough to do.

I would be curious to hear which works those were, yes. Particularly ones you've gleamed his knowledge of Alchemy from. His Memories, Dreams, Reflections is a nice one to see the peak to his mountain of wisdom, if you're interested in a more thorough judgement.



No Freud and Jung are two different people, as you are aware, so I do not feel the same way about him. Ironically, Freud created his Sex Dogma in an attempt to combat the "black tide of mud, of occultism."


Someone like me? I read and respect many people. I am also much more than I present myself to be, as I imagine many other people on this site are wise enough to do.

The criticism has been made by Guenon and Evola, among others, that the Collective Unconscious tends to be a grab-bag of whatever is not overtly personally psychological. And, personally, I find a psychologized reading of hermetic and alchemical texts rather beside the point.

Me, I view the bulk of Jung's work as highly useful in its day as a way of making traditional magickal texts "intellectually respectable" to the secularized public. That's a first step. The next step is to wean oneself from the need to court intellectual respectability and meet the texts on their own terms. When Jung is at his best, I still find a certain tension between his honesty of acknowledging the reality of the paranormal and his persistent lapsing back into what amounts to psychologizing explanations. (A tendency he shares with a good many contemporary magi---witness certain passages in Anton Long where he waffles a bit.)

The Red Book is interesting as a record of visions and some meditations on their meaning. One need not go full-bore Jungian to appreciate it---which I don't think you have. I would not call Jung a mage, but I'd certainly say he traversed some of the art's terrain.

 

[IllusiveOwl]

Collective Unconscious tends to be a grab-bag of whatever is not overtly personally psychological.

There are actually a number of impersonal psychological elements in Jung's model: the Anima/Animus, the shadow, the regular unconscious, the archetypes.

Personally the Collective Unconscious rings to me as a Psychological way of explaining the Akashic field or Storehouse-consciousness to Squares. Jung is the Alan-Watts to young Christians: he gives simple and easy to understand instructions for understanding a much larger, more alien picture that most people refuse to learn because the cost of knowing its totality. (I also don't idolize Alan Watts, he drank himself to death at 50-something.)

When Jung is at his best, I still find a certain tension between his honesty of acknowledging the reality of the paranormal and his persistent lapsing back into what amounts to psychologizing explanations.

I find very often a tone of perplexion in Jung. He claims himself that he's just put his hat into a vast river and all his works are just a single hatfull of wisdom from an ineffable source. His religion background, the infancy of Psychology, and the days he lived in hindered his boldness, sure... but some of the shit he wrote down was out there, Gnostic, and layered in symbolism. For example:

None of this feels psychological at all, and his work is more insightful than many modern-day mystics & doctors in my nerdy opinion. Calling him a Mage may have been a stretch, he was more a mystic, he himself stated he didn't know what he would do with magic in the Red Book

 

[Mars]

The criticism has been made by Guenon and Evola, among others, that the Collective Unconscious tends to be a grab-bag of whatever is not overtly personally psychological. And, personally, I find a psychologized reading of hermetic and alchemical texts rather beside the point.

Me, I view the bulk of Jung's work as highly useful in its day as a way of making traditional magickal texts "intellectually respectable" to the secularized public. That's a first step. The next step is to wean oneself from the need to court intellectual respectability and meet the texts on their own terms. When Jung is at his best, I still find a certain tension between his honesty of acknowledging the reality of the paranormal and his persistent lapsing back into what amounts to psychologizing explanations. (A tendency he shares with a good many contemporary magi---witness certain passages in Anton Long where he waffles a bit.)

The Red Book is interesting as a record of visions and some meditations on their meaning. One need not go full-bore Jungian to appreciate it---which I don't think you have. I would not call Jung a mage, but I'd certainly say he traversed some of the art's terrain.

You seem to be the only one that actually understands me here. Thank you kindly

Alan Watts

He was actually born too early I think. He would fit much better in this current time then the 50-70s with his view on life and bringing people to spirituality. Russel brand might be a modern equivalent to him perhaps. But with brand its difficult to tell if he is genuine or just found something to capitalise on.

Post automatically merged: Jun 11, 2024

Anima/Animus, the shadow,

Huh? But all these come from the collective subconscious! That's the quintessence.

Nothing comes from outside the human creation. Gods and spirits likewise are just birthed from the human collective. Nothing comes from above. That's what he wrote.

Anima was the original word for the soul in Alchemy. In his works it's just a gendered aspect of a human. While the soul can by definition not be of any gender, otherwise it couldn't be a soul.

For Jung everything was a "Laune der Natur des Menschen heraus". No higher or supra aspects.

 

[Xenophon]

There are actually a number of impersonal psychological elements in Jung's model: the Anima/Animus, the shadow, the regular unconscious, the archetypes.

Personally the Collective Unconscious rings to me as a Psychological way of explaining the Akashic field or Storehouse-consciousness to Squares. Jung is the Alan-Watts to young Christians: he gives simple and easy to understand instructions for understanding a much larger, more alien picture that most people refuse to learn because the cost of knowing its totality. (I also don't idolize Alan Watts, he drank himself to death at 50-something.)

I find very often a tone of perplexion in Jung. He claims himself that he's just put his hat into a vast river and all his works are just a single hatfull of wisdom from an ineffable source. His religion background, the infancy of Psychology, and the days he lived in hindered his boldness, sure... but some of the shit he wrote down was out there, Gnostic, and layered in symbolism. For example:

None of this feels psychological at all, and his work is more insightful than many modern-day mystics & doctors in my nerdy opinion. Calling him a Mage may have been a stretch, he was more a mystic, he himself stated he didn't know what he would do with magic in the Red Book

When I said "psychology" I don't mean he is at all dismissive. He tries to maintain the integrity of his subject matter and experiences and does a pretty good job of it. Still...I guess his treatment the matter of the ontological status of what's afoot is something I find dissatisfying. (Jung himself seems to share this at times.) Let's just say that the man of science in him oft wrestled with the mystic, without a clear winner.

Post automatically merged: Jun 27, 2024

I just finished reading the Red Book. Quite frankly, I am disappointed. In several parts, he urges one to "kill the hero" in oneself in order to be human. I can follow his reasoning on the topic. But, in the end, it leaves me dissatisfied. It strikes me as a highly personal version of the roughly concomitant emphasis in the U.S. on being "well-adjusted" as the summum bonum. Which, in turn, is just Willy Loman's "Biff is well-liked" decked out in academic drag.

Jung's father was a pastor in the Swiss Reformed Church. And, I swear, that is pretty much where Jung ends back up at book's close. Having been at pains to develop the reality that there are many gods, he coulsels at the end that one cling to the nice God. Sunday School psychologized, if you will.

 

[IllusiveOwl]

I came across an interesting passage where Jung explains, in his view, what happens during "enlightenment" or "awakening:

"[A]t this point, a compensatory operation comes into play which each time seems to me like a miracle. Struggling against that dangerous trend towards disintegration, there arises put of this same collective unconscious a counter-action, characterized by symbols which point unmistakably to a process of centering. This process creates nothing less than a new centre of personality, which the symbols show from the first superordinate to the ego and which later proves its superiority empirically. The centre cannot therefore be classed with the ego, but must be accorded a higher value. Nor can we continue to give it the name "ego," for which reason I have called it the "self." To experience and realize this self is the ultimate aim of Indian yoga, and in considering psychology of the self we would do well to have recourse to the treasures of Indian wisdom." p.101 The Practice of Psychotherapy, from a lecture by Jung delivered in 1941.

 

[DarkNinja3000]

I believe the most important thing in all of this is to understand how to use the mind to materialize thought. As well as understand ones unconscious trauma patterns to then solve them.

 

[Xenophon]

I believe the most important thing in all of this is to understand how to use the mind to materialize thought. As well as understand ones unconscious trauma patterns to then solve them.

Could be, could be indeed. Though, as you hint, a necessary preliminary is creating the sort of mind whose materializations deserve being made real. I have heard that Buddhist hell is simply having one's impulses instantly realized and that without hindrance or let.