My (Carl Jung’s) Most Difficult Experiment [P. 2]

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What fascinates me about Jung is his commitment to self-exploration and his use of analysis to discover his Self through the interpretation of dreams. He dedicated his life to this pursuit with genuine honesty and sincerity. Today, I present another section of The Red Book, Liber Novus, by Carl Jung, from Sonu Shamdasani’s Reader’s Edition.🙏

The following month, on a train journey to Schaffhausen, Jung experienced a waking vision of Europe being devastated by a catastrophic flood, which was repeated two weeks later, on the same journey. Commenting on this experience in 1925, he remarked: “I could be taken as Switzerland fenced in by mountains and the submergence of the world could be the debris of my former relationships.” This led him to the following diagnosis of his condition: “I thought to myself, ‘If this means anything, it means that I am hopelessly off.’ ” (Introduction to Jungian Psychology, pp. 47-48). After this experience, Jung feared that he would go mad.
(Barbara Hannah recalls that “Jung used to say in later years that his tormenting doubts as to his own sanity should have been allayed by the amount of success he was having at the same time in the outer world, especially in America” [C. G. Jung: His Life and Work. A Biographical Memoir/ New York: Perigree, 1976/, p. 109]. )
He recalled that he first thought that the images of the vision indicated a revolution, but as he could not imagine this, he concluded that he was “menaced with a psychosis.” (Memories, p. 200). After this, he had a similar vision:

In the following winter, I was standing at the window one night and looked North. I saw a blood-red glow, like the flicker of the sea seen from afar, stretched from East to West across the northern horizon. And at that time, someone asked me what I thought about global events in the near future. I said that I had no thoughts, but saw blood, rivers of blood (Draft, p. 8).

In the year directly preceding the outbreak of war, apocalyptic imagery was widespread in European arts and literature. For example, in 1912, Wassily Kandinsky wrote of a coming universal catastrophe.
From 1912 to 1914. Ludwig Meidner painted a series of works known as the Apocalyptic Landscapes, featuring scenes of destroyed cities, corpses, and turmoil (Gerda Bauer and Ines Wagemann, Ludwig Meidner: Zeichner, Maler, Literat 1884-1966 / Stuttgart: Verlag Gerd Hatje, 1991). Prophecy was in the air!
In 1899, the renowned American medium Leonora Piper predicted that in the coming century, a terrible war would erupt in various parts of the world, purging the world and revealing the truths of spiritualism. In 1918, Arthur Conan Doyle, the spiritualist and author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, viewed this as prophetic (A. C. Doyle, The New Revelation and the Vital Message / London: Psychic Press, 1918, p. 9).

Dream _ A Great Work Of Art Is Like A Dream.
Artwork: Henri Rousseau
From the Carl Jung depth psychology site

In Jung’s account of the fantasy on the train in Liber Novus, the inner voice said that what the fantasy depicted would become completely real. Initially, he interpreted this subjectively and prospectively, that is, as depicting the imminent destruction of his world. His reaction to this experience was to undertake a psychological self-investigation. In this epoch, self-experimentation was used in medicine and psychology. Introspection had been one of the main tools of psychological research.

Jung came to realise that Transformations and Symbols of the Libido “could be taken as myself and that an analysis of it leads inevitably into an analysis of my own unconscious processes” (Introduction to Jungian Psychology, p. 28). He had projected his material onto that of Miss Frank Miller, whom he had never met. Up to this point, Jung had been an active thinker and had been averse to fantasy: “as a form of thinking I held it to be altogether impure, a sort of incestuous intercorse, thoroughly immoral from an intellectual viewpoint” (Ibid.). He now turned to analyse his fantasies, carefully noting everything. He had to overcome considerable resistance in doing this: “Permitting fantasy in myself had the same effect as would be produced on a man if he came into his workshop and found all the tools flying about doing things independently of his will” (Ibid.). In studying his fantasies, Jung realised that he was examining the myth-creating function of the mind (MP, p. 23).

Jung picked up the brown notebook, which he had set aside in 1902, and began writing in it (The subsequent notebooks are black, hence Jung referred to them as the Black Books). He noted his inner states in metaphors, such as being in a desert with an unbearably hot sun (that is, consciousness). In the 1925 seminar, he recalled that it occurred to him that he could write down his reflections in a sequence. He was “writing autobiographical material, but not as an autobiography” (Introduction to Jungian Psychology, p. 48).
From the time of the Platonic dialogues onward, the dialogical CE, St. Augustine wrote his Soliloquies, which presented an extended dialogue between himself and “Reason,” who instructed him. They commenced with the following lines:

When I had been pondering many different things to myself for a long time, and had for many days been seeking my own Self and what my own good was, and what evil was to be avoided, there suddenly spoke to me – what was it? I myself or someone else, inside or outside me? (This is the very thing I would love to know but don’t.) [St. Augustine, Soliloquies and Immorality of the Soul, ed. and tr. Gerald Watson (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1990), p. 23. Watson notes that Augustine “had been through a period of intense strain, close to nervous breakdown, and the Soliloquies are a form of therapy, an effort to cure himself by talking, or rather writing” /p. v/).]

While Jung was writing in Black Book 2:

I said to myself, “What is this I’m doing? This certainly is not science. What is it?” Then a voice said to me, “That is art!” This made the strangest sort of impression upon me, because it was not in any sense my impression that what I was writing was art. Then I came to this: “Perhaps my unconscious is forming a personality that is not I, but which is insisting on coming through to expression.” I don’t know why exactly, but I knew to a certainty that the voice that had said my writing was art had come from a woman … Well, I said very emphatically to this voice that what I was doing was not art, and I felt a great resistance grow up in me. No voice came through, however, and I kept on writing. This time, I caught her and said, “No, it is not”, and I felt as though an argument would ensue. {Ibid., p. 42. In Jung’s account, it appears that his dialogue took place in the autumn of 1913, although this is not certain, as the dialogue itself does not occur in the Black Book, and no other manuscript has yet come to light. If this dating is followed, and in the absence of the other material, it would appear that the material of the voice is referring to the November entries in Black Book 2, and not the subsequent text of Liber Novus or the paintings.}

To be continued!💖

The image on top: Pang Torsuwan -WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING!

25 thoughts on “My (Carl Jung’s) Most Difficult Experiment [P. 2]”

  1. “Jung used to say in later years that his tormenting doubts as to his own sanity should have been allayed by the amount of success he was having at the same time in the outer world, especially in America” – To Dr. Jung I must profess now that in 2025, that outer world success, especially in America, brings me NO comfort or assurance whatsoever about my sanity In fact, if our leaders and celebrities are any indication, one should become quite worried if one is having worldly success!😜😁

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Great reading, Aladin. I do like all the things you write about Jung and his dreams.

    I suppose that’s because I dream a lot (even awake)and am still waiting for one from about 30 years ago to make sense… which seems to be appearing now.

    I look forward to part 2, when this is all pulled together. (esp. the art part)

    You must be feeling quite well, dear Aladin, as you are back writing abut Jung! (esp. the art part!)

    🌟❦🌹❦🌟

    Liked by 2 people

    • Thank you so much, dear Resa, for your warm encouragement. I’m gradually recovering from my earlier struggles, although I still feel somewhat more fragile—perhaps due to ageing as well. 😁

      During the school holiday season, my wife, who is a teacher and much more energetic than I am, didn’t let me hide away in my little corner of my room. As the holidays draw to a close, I look forward to gradually returning to my usual rhythm and writing more, just as I love to do.

      Sending gratitude.💖🙏🥰

      Liked by 1 person

  3. Not science. Science is repeatable, measurable, useful to make actual decisions – and, most importantly, INDEPENDENT of the scientist.

    It is a mistake to think of psychology/psychiatry/philosophy as science. Though they seem to like to think of themselves as sciences. There is cachet and determinism in science. Proof. A feeling that something is real.

    These others are more akin to spiritualism and belief in other unprovables.

    There are many interesting observations to be made, and protocols which are useful for a time, so they have their place (much like art). And opinions. But only wiggly temporary ‘facts’.

    Science grows by learning more deeply – there is often a layer where it’s hard to tell because, at that scale, the differences between theories don’t matter/aren’t measurable.

    Art grows by changing completely, leaving discarded exoskeletons behind littering the landscape like abandoned periods in music, etc., which may end up being mined again.

    It is interesting having a brain which is capable of both kinds of thought. But my preference is for science (while I write fiction).

    I have to laugh at myself: I’m also a practicing Roman Catholic.

    Liked by 2 people

    • One can approach psychology by studying the Noumena – the thing it itself, or the Phenomena – the experience of it (Kant, 1796)). I majored in psychology and I can attest Jung is eschewed by most scientists / academic psychologists. The short explanation for this is because Jungian research won’t receive grant$ money. The psychology students who survive to grad school and beyond are students that are effective at producing scientific, data-driven (independent of the researcher) publications. Because again, scientific publications receive the funding that keeps psych programs at universities operating… This is why Cognitive Behavioral research models dominate in the West… The great irony is that these models remove the individual experience from equation entirely… They try desperately to make psychology a science. But it is not. The human experience is infinitely complex. And will defy quantification ultimately. The psyche wiggles out of the chains we place upon it. You are practicing Roman Catholic, I assume because you believe there is more the human experience than just science. I envy Jung because he was one of the few psychologists who ever got paid for introspection into his own mind. But as Lamp Magician can attest, he was remarkably good at it.

      Liked by 1 person

    • Oh, my dear Alicia, it truly concerns mixing up the brain (logic) with the heart (intuition); we may need to find the right balance!
      Jung wasn’t a scientist or philosopher, but a fully qualified psychologist, and he had plenty to say about the Catholic Church.
      I also share your view on art.

      Liked by 1 person

  7. I just read The Moses Code for the first time and have been experimenting with the “I AM THAT I AM” mantra. It’s quite powerful, I believe, and can really help get to the heart of who I am. More details to follow after I practice more, Aladin. ;0)

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Pingback: My (Carl Jung’s) Most Difficult Experiment [P. 3] – lampmagician

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