Philosophers Series · Part 5 of 12
C. G. Jung: The Red Book and the Journey Inward
Carl Gustav Jung’s best-known legacy is not one of his theories, but a book he wrote for himself. Part 5 of our Philosophers Series.
The path to the self
C. G. Jung, born in Switzerland in 1875 and died in Küsnacht on Lake Zurich in 1961, founded analytical psychology. Concepts such as the archetype, the collective unconscious, introversion and extraversion go back to him.
At the heart of his thinking is individuation: the lifelong process of becoming a whole person. For Jung, this is above all the task of the second half of life. In the first half we build a place for ourselves in the world. In the second, the point is to look inward and understand who we really are.
The Red Book
From 1913, after his break with Sigmund Freud, Jung went through a deep inner crisis. He began to write down his dreams, fantasies and inner images systematically – first in notebooks, later transferring them into a large volume bound in red leather, in calligraphic script and with his own paintings.
Jung worked on it for many years and kept the book private. Only in 2009, almost 50 years after his death, was “The Red Book” published. Today it is considered a key to his entire work. Jung himself saw this period as the origin of everything he later explored.
The final account
His last major book is also a personal one: “Memories, Dreams, Reflections”, recorded and edited by his colleague Aniela Jaffé and published in 1962, shortly after his death. In it, Jung tells his life not as a sequence of outer events, but as the story of his inner development.
The logical conclusion
A person’s inner life is invisible unless it is recorded. Jung’s most valuable legacy exists because he wrote down what was happening inside him – at first only for himself.
There are two insights in this. Writing is a tool of self-knowledge: putting inner images into words helps you understand them. And what you write for yourself can later become a gift to others – provided you consciously decide who should receive it, and when.
Three questions to think further
- Which dream or inner image has stayed with you for a long time?
- Which half of life are you in right now – and what is your task there?
- Which side of you does nobody know yet?