A Dream - Mandala, Drawn By Jung (Photo: L.A. Times)
Beginning in 1914, Carl Jung kept an artistic journal of his own dream imagery, determined by maintaining that record to look into his own visions from the collective unconscious, a term Jung created and which we now take for granted.
Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)
It was Jung's deep belief that each person carries from birth, as part of their genetic and spiritual inheritance, ancestral memories and general human experience. His therapeutic practice as a psychiatrist included this dimension.
Jung had been a pioneer in developing psychiatry, along with it's originator, Sigmund Freud -- but Freud's concept of the mind were more practical, more classically-oriented, and Jung broke with him at the turn of the last Century. In Freud's opinion, Jung had descended into mysticism. For Jung, he was bridging dimensions in the human psyche which Freud's practice could not explain.
Not A Fillmore Poster: Detail Of Art By Jung From Another Dream
The journal was kept in a large, red-leather-bound book, and was referred to as 'The Red Book' by Jung's intimates in his work in Switzerland. After his death in the 1960's (his last words were, "Let's have a really good red wine tonight" -- a man after my own heart), the Red Book was placed in a Swiss bank vault for over forty years, until several years ago.
Many images in it were published in a coffee-table version in 2009 -- but the actual Red Book is currently on display at the Armand Hammer Museum in the Westwood district of Los Angeles (I'm not an L.Alien, but, hey; if you're in the neighborhood, ya oughta seek da kultcha, bud).
Think about it: Here's a private, seminal document, created by an important figure in Western medicine and philosophy -- and you can walk into a museum, and see it. I may be a Dog, but still capable of being amazed at the world we continue to create, and live in.
Frequently, I'm also aghast and horrified by that same world, but that's easy. Jung might have agreed that you have to work at it to continue seeing the magic.
* "Called Or Not Called, God Is Present" -- comment in Latin, carved over the doorway to Jung's home.
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