Some books are meant to be read once and filed away, but Jung’s are rarely like that. His lectures, his poems of the soul, and the Red Book itself tend to give more on the third reading than the first, and more again when someone across the table disagrees with you. Three groups are opening their doors in the coming weeks and months for exactly this kind of reading, on poetry, the Red Book and Jung’s lecture on rebirth.
The first to start is a poetry course with James Hollis, “Lapis Lazuli: A Gathering of Poetry and Ideas”, run online by the Jung Society of Washington. It meets on four Wednesdays, 4, 11 and 18 November and 2 December, from 7 to 8.30pm Eastern. Hollis chooses poems and poets whose work raises philosophical and existential questions. In the first hour of each class he surveys the poems and offers a reading of them. Then the class is invited to respond with questions and perspectives of their own. The texts are provided on registration. Hollis is a Jungian analyst and the author of 18 books, the latest being Living Between Worlds: Finding Personal Resilience in Changing Times. Sessions are recorded, and registration closes at 12pm Eastern the day before the course begins, which is Tuesday 3 November. Register your attendance here.
If you have always meant to read the Red Book, the C. G. Jung Society, Seattle has a seminar you can join at any point. It is led by Bette Joram, a Seattle psychotherapist and the Society’s Co-President, who has taught Jungian subjects since 1989. The group meets online on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, from 7 to 8.30pm Pacific. The next sessions are on 11 and 25 November and 9 and 23 December. The group reads The Red Book: Liber Novus, A Reader’s Edition, edited by Sonu Shamdasani, in small sections, until the whole book is done. No advance reading is needed, and people at every level of experience are welcome. Every session is recorded so you can catch up on the one’s you missed. You can register here.
The longest commitment is next year, at the C.G Jung Club London. Led by Max Noak, “C. G. Jung’s Rebirth (Eranos 1939)” is an online reading group of ten sessions. It meets on Tuesdays from 12 January to 16 March 2027, 7 to 8.30pm London time. In August 1939, weeks before the outbreak of war, Jung arrived at the Eranos conference in Ascona with no written paper. Barbara Hannah described the almost unbearable tension in Europe that summer and the violent thunderstorms that hung over the conference. Stirred by the moment, Jung improvised two lectures on the psychology of rebirth. The group reads the text reconstructed from his students’ shorthand notes. Jung takes up rebirth as an archetype through Qur’anic mysteries, drawing on his work with the scholar of Islam Louis Massignon. He also discusses a dream of a Prince in Tunis, which he had had nineteen years earlier. Noak is a London theologian and Jungian psychotherapist, originally from East Germany, whose training followed an encounter with contemplative prayer under the Jesuit Franz Jalics. The text is out of print, so participants receive a PDF. This is a committed group, you book for the whole cycle, individual sessions can’t be booked, and nobody can join once it has started. You can click here to read more and register.