{"id":105486,"date":"2023-12-29T09:07:47","date_gmt":"2023-12-29T09:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jungian.directory\/fcxfougk\/?post_type=mec-events&p=105486"},"modified":"2023-12-29T09:07:47","modified_gmt":"2023-12-29T09:07:47","slug":"a-fresh-look-at-the-red-book-reading-the-liber-novus-with-jungian-psychoanalysts","status":"publish","type":"mec-events","link":"https:\/\/jungian.directory\/fcxfougk\/jungian-events\/a-fresh-look-at-the-red-book-reading-the-liber-novus-with-jungian-psychoanalysts\/","title":{"rendered":"A Fresh Look at The Red Book: Reading the Liber Novus with Jungian Psychoanalysts"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Red Book<\/em>, and more recently\u00a0The Black Books<\/em>, have led to reimagining Jung\u2019s seminal concepts such as the Collective Unconscious, the Archetype, Individuation, and the Self. In this seminar we invite you to read\u00a0The Red Book<\/em>\u00a0along with us and join in a series of six 3-hour salons in which we discuss and imagine our way into the space that became Jung\u2019s\u00a0The Red Book<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

A leading Jungian Psychoanalyst guest will join Daniel Ross and Boris Matthews in each of the six salons.\u00a0 The first guest will be George Bright, a psychoanalyst from the United Kingdom. Echoing a student in his seminars on\u00a0The Red Book<\/em>, George Bright describes this work as \u201cpsychoactive material.\u201d George Bright has been researching what he calls Jung\u2019s more \u201cesoteric\u201d writings (The Red Book<\/em>\u00a0and Jung\u2019s journals known as\u00a0The Black Books)\u00a0<\/em>with a fresh look at his more \u201cexoteric\u201d writings (The Collected Works).<\/em><\/p>\n

As Jung said in\u00a0Memories, Dreams, Reflections,<\/em>\u00a0what he experienced and recorded in his journals,\u00a0The Black Books<\/em>, provided more than enough material for a life-time of work. Together,\u00a0The Red Book, The Black Books,\u00a0<\/em>and the\u00a0Collected Works<\/em>\u00a0constitute immediate experience and conscious, scholarly reflection over many decades.<\/p>\n

As I (Daniel Ross) immersed myself in Jung\u2019s\u00a0Red Book,<\/em>\u00a0especially the first part, the\u00a0\u201c<\/em>Liber Novus,\u201d I came to realize that Bright\u2019s perspective agrees with Sonu Shamdasani\u2019s view that the decades-long \u201cFreudocentric perspective\u201d of Jung is no longer valid. Bright discovered that writing his 1912\u00a0Psychology of the Unconscious\u00a0<\/em>(translated by Beatrice Hinkel) was for Jung an act of hubris. In the \u201cLiber Primus,\u201d the first part of the\u00a0Liber Novus<\/em>, Jung calls for his soul: \u201cMy soul, where are you? Do you hear me?\u201d By applying the scientific attitude to religion, an act of\u00a0hubris,<\/em>\u00a0Jung had lost his soul: \u201cI had judged her and turned her [my soul] into a scientific object.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the years reading Jung, I (Boris Matthews) have more and more appreciated two of Jung\u2019s early, foundational (circa 1916) statements. In the one, Jung emphasizes the necessity of adapting both to the world in which we exist\u2013\u201couter adaptation\u201d\u2013and to what we essentially are\u2013\u201cinner adaptation\u201d(CW 18, paras. 1084ff). In the second statement, Jung stresses the importance of following one\u2019s own \u201clife line,\u201d i.e. the flow of one\u2019s psychic energy (CW 7, paras. 500ff).<\/p>\n

This salon will be online and live so that participants will be able to converse with the analysts and with each other.\u00a0 Anyone\u2014lay or professional\u2014interested in learning more about\u00a0The Red Book<\/em>\u00a0and how it can be used personally and clinically is invited.<\/p>\n

George Bright will inaugurate our series as our first guest beginning Saturday, January 27, from 9:00am to 12 noon CST.\u00a0 The remaining salons will take place monthly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Salon Schedule<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Monthly Saturdays, 9am-12pm
\nNorth American Central Time<\/b>
\n<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
January 27<\/td>\nIntroduction by Sonu Shamdasani and first guest George Bright<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
February 24<\/td>\nLiber Primus: \u201cMy soul, where are you?\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
March 30<\/td>\nLiber Secundus: The Red One<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
April 20<\/td>\nLiber Secundus:\u00a0The Incantations<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
May 25<\/td>\nLiber Secundus: The Magician<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
June 29<\/td>\nScrutinies<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

Learning Objectives<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the end of the series, attendees will be able to:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Discuss the origins of The Red Book from Jung\u2019s life and lived experience rather than from the Freudocentric historical context in which it emerged.<\/li>\n
  2. Verbalize an understanding of Geroge Bright\u2019s belief that The Red Book came partially as a response to Jung\u2019s hubristic use of science to understand the soul and the \u201closs of soul\u201d that resulted.<\/li>\n
  3. Experience the \u201cpsychoactive\u201d nature of\u00a0The Red Book<\/em>\u00a0and its transformative potential in reading it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Suggested Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n