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Jung’s Inner Guides: The Secret of The Red Book · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: In 1957, Jung wrote the following, The years of which
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: I have spoken to you, when I pursued the inner images,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: were the most important time of my life. Everything else
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: is to be derived from this. It began at that time,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: and the later details hardly matter anymore. My entire life
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: and and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: to break me. That was the stuff and material for
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: more than only one life. Everything later was merely the
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: outer classification, the scientific elaboration, and the integration into life.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: But the numinous beginning, which contained everything, was then. And Jung,
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: of course, is talking about his confrontation with the unconscious,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: which we have mentioned numerous times on the podcast, that
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: began around 1913. He had broken with Freud, which had
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: been very difficult for him. His whole kind of persona
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: that he had built up for himself, his marriage, his
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: work at the Bercow Sleeve, Everything kind of wasn't working
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: for him anymore. And he was having some very disturbing
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: visions that were breaking through. And what he decided to
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: do was to drop into the unconscious and begin dialoguing
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: with those images. He kept these journals, known now as
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: the Black Books, in which he cataloged these active imagination experiences.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: And then eventually he copied them into a leather-bound folio
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: with red leather. And they're beautifully calligraphied writing and almost
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: like a kind of book of Kells with these incredible drawings.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: And it was hidden in a vault for decades. It
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: was finally published in 2009. And we're going to talk
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: a little bit today about Jung's Red Book. And one
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: of the important things about the Red Book is the
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: connection between exploring the unconscious and art, using drawing and
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: other forms of creative expression to dialogue with the unconscious.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: And we'd like to invite you to consider joining us
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: on September 13th for a special free seminar in which
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: we're going to talk about a new addition to Dream
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: School that we're calling Dream Studio. It's going to be
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: a program that will unfold from this September through December
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: of 2025 as our kind of first pilot in which
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: we will explore the use of art in dialoguing with
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: our dreams. And we're taking our inspiration from Jung and
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: the Red Book. So let's begin our exploration of this
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: very important part of Jung's history.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: So there's a couple of things that I think the
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Red Book introduced to us as Jungians, because it was
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: held in reserve by his descendants, is that in part,
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: these images broke upon Jung. Yes, it happened around the
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: time that he had separated from Freud, but also Jung
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: was courting a way to observe the unconscious without any
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: interference from the ego. So he was also experimenting with
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: methods to listen deeply, to capture images that aren't being
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: contaminated or manipulated by the ego, and that That also,
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: as well as the stress separating from Freud, courted and
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: invited this upwelling of unconscious material. And then he'd kind
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: of harpooned a whale, so to speak, and he was,
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: you know, kind of crashing through the waters, being dragged
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: and driven by this incredibly powerful force. But I don't
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: think he really understood what he was signing up for.
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: No, I agree that we don't know, you know, exactly
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: what we're going to get into. And Jung talks about that,
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: that this was so big and, you know, can I
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: go there? Should I go there? What are the risks
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: in going there? But he says that one of the
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: greatest difficulties was dealing with my negative feelings and I
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: was voluntarily submitting myself to emotions of which I could
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: not really approve, writing down fantasies that struck me as
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: nonsense and toward which I had strong resistances. As long
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: as we don't understand their meaning, such fantasies are a
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: diabolical mixture. It cost me a great deal to undergo them,
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: but I'd been challenged by fate. And then he talks
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: about only by extreme effort was I able to escape
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: the labyrinth, which calls up the myth of the Minotaur.
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: You can get into the labyrinth, but you can't get out,
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: at least not without help from Ariadne. But he finally,
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: things came to such a crux of intensity that he
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: said on December 12th, to be exact, I resolved once
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: upon the decisive step. I was sitting at my desk
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: once more, thinking over my fears, and then I let
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  Speaker 4: myself drop. And it was as though the ground literally
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: gave way beneath my feet, and he had a fantasy.
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: And I think really what he's talking about is, and
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  Speaker 4: it's hard to really understand it and accept it, is
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: how powerful the unconscious is. and that it can make
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: an unrelenting demand that will take you to the depths,
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: which is what Jung did. And where we have the
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: Red Book and Memories, Dreams, Reflections about his journey. Mm-hmm.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting sort of reading a little bit
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: about the Red Book and prep for this. I found
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: myself thinking about... the echo to an earlier time in
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: his life when the unconscious made an unrelenting demand in
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: the form of an image. And it was his teenage
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: experience of being in front of the main cathedral there
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: in Basel and having an idea, an image that wanted
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: to emerge that he was fighting against. And finally, he
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: couldn't fight against it anymore. And the image emerged of
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: God sitting above the cathedral there letting out a giant
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: turd that shattered the roof. But it has a similar
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: feeling that there was something pressing on him from within
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  Speaker 2: that seemed absurd or heretical or nonsensical, and he had
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: to let himself have that inner experience and then contend
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: with it. So he, you know, he talks about the
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: need to make sense of these images or at least
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: to engage them so as not to be destroyed by them.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: So now when we read the Red Book, I mean,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: I have a colleague who's a psychoanalyst in a different tradition,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: different psychoanalytic tradition. And he was taking a class or
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: something and had been assigned parts of the Red Book.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: And he said, what is this?
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: And I said, oh, my God.
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  Speaker 2: You were assigned that? Like, that's not a good place
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: to start. So I said, you know, just let it
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: wash over you. But, you know, the truth is that
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Jung apparently wanted the Red Book to be published in
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: his lifetime, but it wasn't. And his heirs, as we've
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: referred to, they locked it in a vault. And they
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: had a lot of trepidation about allowing this to come
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: forward because it is fairly bizarre. It is difficult to understand.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: It's strange. You find yourself wondering, what was he smoking
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: when he was writing this?
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: His pipe.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: What was in the pipe, though? No, I mean, that's,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: you know, in all seriousness, I think there's some debate
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: about whether or not there were substances involved, and I
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: personally don't think so. But I know that Jungians like
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: to speculate about that. But in all seriousness, the content
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: is fairly bizarre. It's not your typical psychoanalytic treatise. And
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: so the family, they were really concerned about what it
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: might do to his reputation. There were many people who
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: wanted to see it, but the family kept it held
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: really fast until Jungian scholar Sonu Shamdasani was able to
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: to negotiate with the family to allow this to be published.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: And what I think is, it's really interesting because Norton
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: and Company published it in 2009. And I actually have
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: my copy here. And it was, I think the original
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: cost was like $ 200. It's big. It's big. And I
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: think they initially, Deb, was it 6,000 copies that they published?
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: Yes. Six was the original run because of the expense.
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: And now something like 50,000 have been sold and still
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: going strong.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It still sells well. There's still a fascination with it.
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  Speaker 2: People find it moving. And I think the reason for
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: that is we all have a red book in us.
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  Speaker 2: We all have A rich inner life. And it's so
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  Speaker 2: extraordinary that he took the time, he valued his inner
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: life and took the time to make this beautiful document
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  Speaker 2: that brought it to life.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: And I think you've just said it, and I'm just paraphrasing.
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  Speaker 4: What Jung gave us is a portrait of the unconscious.
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  Speaker 4: The art and the paintings, the visions, the calligraphy, the verbal,
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  Speaker 4: the actual printed content, there is the unconscious that was
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: in Jung and in all of us. It will come
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  Speaker 4: through to each of us differently, but there it is.
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  Speaker 4: That's part of our human condition. It's huge. It's a
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: huge question as to how much of it Can we experience?
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  Speaker 4: How much of it can we record? How much of
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  Speaker 4: it can we make meaning of? How much can we
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  Speaker 4: render into consciousness?
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: So just throwing up one of the images from the
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Red Book, and we'll do this a few times throughout
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  Speaker 2: the podcast, just to give you a sense of what
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: the images look like. And you can see here some
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: of the calligraphy. And, you know, some of it really
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: actually looks like a sort of illustrated manuscript from the
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  Speaker 2: Middle Ages. So let's stop for a minute about some
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  Speaker 2: of the main ideas that come out of the Red Book.
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  Speaker 2: There are two principal figures that Jung winds up dialoguing with.
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  Speaker 2: One of them is Salome, and the other is Philemon.
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  Speaker 2: And Philemon kind of becomes a sort of... ghostly guru
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  Speaker 2: who guides Jung. And curiously, you know, Philemon refers to
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  Speaker 2: this story of Philemon and Baucus that is in Ovid's Metamorphosis,
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  Speaker 2: and they're a married couple. Somehow Baucus, the wife, doesn't
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  Speaker 2: make it into Jung's imaginations, but Philemon becomes extremely important.
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  Speaker 4: The myth of Philemon and Baucus, just to quickly retrace it,
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  Speaker 4: is that Zeus and Mercury Hermes were in disguise as
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: just visitors looking for a place to spend the night.
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: And in ancient Greece and around the Mediterranean, hospitality was
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: an incredibly important value. You really needed, as a traveler,
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  Speaker 4: to be taken in or you might not survive. So
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: they go into this town and nobody will take them in.
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  Speaker 4: And they finally go into the outskirts and this very
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  Speaker 4: poor couple, Philemon and Baucus, take them in and offer
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  Speaker 4: them the best that they have. She scrubs the table,
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  Speaker 4: wipes it down with fresh herbs, prepares a meal. She's
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: about to go out and slaughter their only goose in
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: honor of honoring the guest and hospitality. and they stop her.
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  Speaker 4: And at the meal that is then served, at some point,
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  Speaker 4: they notice that the pitcher holding the wine has never emptied.
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  Speaker 4: And they realize that they're in the presence of gods
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: who reward them by turning their home into a temple
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: with two trees overarching the temple whose branches intertwine They
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: asked to die at the same time, and the wish
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: was granted.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: And they were turned into these two trees.
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: Ah, you're right. The trees came later. Sorry about that.
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: But it's interesting that of all of the figures that
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: could have populated Jung's fantasies, it was Philemon.
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  Speaker 2: And we have this image of Philemon here that I'll share.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: This is this image that came to Jung in one
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: of his dreams or active imaginations of Philemon with these
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: enormous kingfisher wings. So this is one of the figures
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: that he dialogued with in these active imaginations.
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  Speaker 4: And Jung said that as he walked up and down
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: in his garden in active imagination, talking with Philemon, that
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: Philemon told him things that he could not possibly have
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  Speaker 4: known from personal experience, which is a really radical thing
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  Speaker 4: to say about the unconscious and the collective unconscious, that
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: there is something universal and something beyond personal experience that
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: we can nevertheless access individually.
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  Speaker 3: So Jung was discovering something which I think has been
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: experienced for perhaps even thousands of years prior, that in
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: this mundus imaginalis, in this imaginal world, that there are
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: inner figures that have an autonomous, independent life from the ego.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: And while Jung was aware of this kind of archaeologic
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: and anthropologic and religious texts, he himself hadn't experienced it
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: for himself beyond just what happens in dreams. So this
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: was Jung's initiation into this profound autonomy of these psychological figures.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: And as you were saying, Deb, that can know things
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: which Jung in no credible way could have known himself,
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: and that Jung took in and saw as fodder for
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: his entire psychological theory and his own process of becoming whole.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: So one of the core ideas of individuation is that
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: the psyche is holding in reserve essential information, and if
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: we can engage it in a meaningful way, that the
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: personality is enlarged, that we come to hold consciously things
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: that we could know if the ego could find a
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: way to set its defenses aside and to look and
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: hear more deeply. Now, Jung came to think that this
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: ultimately was more powerful than dream work, that going in
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: in this dialectic with the inner figures caused these remarkable
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: changes and ultimately a kind of healing and restoration of
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: his true personality. with a speed and intensity that dream
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: work didn't seem to bring to him. Dream work, my senses,
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: dream work for him became a kind of softer second
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: cousin to active imagination work. But he also recognized that
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: active imagination is difficult. It's difficult to cultivate that liminal
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: thin place in the psyche.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: So in addition to Philemon, the other important figure was Salome.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: And of course, this becomes an image of his soul.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: And his experiences with Salome form the basis of his
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: later thinking about the anima. And I just want to
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: read one of the passages that occurs early in the
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Red Book, because it really does, in some sense, it
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: is the theme of of the book is the sort
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: of redemption of the soul. This is from the Red Book.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: He says, when I had the vision of the flood
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: in October of the year 1913, it happened at a
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: time that was significant for me as a man. At
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: that time, in the 40th year of my life, I
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: had achieved everything that I had wished for myself. I
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: had achieved honor, power, wealth, knowledge, and every human happiness.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: So at this point, remember, he would have been Freud's
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: heir apparent. Then my desire for the increase of these
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: trappings ceased. The desire ebbed from me and horror came
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: over me. The vision of the flood seized me and
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: I felt the spirit of the depths. but I did
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: not understand him. Yet he drove me on with unbearable
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: inner longing, and I said, My soul, where are you?
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Do you hear me?
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: I speak.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: I call you. Are you there? I have returned, and
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: I am here again. I have shaken the dust of
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: all the lands from my feet, and I have come
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: to you. I am with you. After long years of
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: long wandering, I have come to you again. Should I
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: tell you everything I have seen, experienced, and drunken? Or
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: do you not want to hear about all the noise
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: of life and the world? But one thing you must know,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: the one thing I have learned, is that one must
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: live this life. So that's just so, so beautiful and
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: moving to me. you know, just to think that that
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: was sitting in a vault for decades and what must
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: it have been like to fish that out and to
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: find that so poignant that here at this kind of
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: midpoint in his life when he was such in a
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: crisis to realize that he had abandoned his soul. And,
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: you know, I think that's something that probably a lot
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: of us can relate to.
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: Very, very much so. And the He says in other places,
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: you know, he doesn't want people to follow him and
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: to do as he did. He wants people to live
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: their own lives, which, of course, ties in with his
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: concept of individuation, of if you come with a blueprint
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: for what your fullest development is, to find and follow
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: and fulfill that blueprint for becoming the most biggest, most
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: whole you that you can be. But what an amazing
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: injunction to say, live your life. What does that call
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: us to, aside from, you know, getting the oil change
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: in your car and keeping up with the mortgage payments?
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: It's a huge question.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: He writes, there is only one way, and that is
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: your way.
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: Hmm. And I think that when we get to the end,
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: and I always like what Jung says at the end
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: of his life, it's so incredibly moving because whatever else
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: anybody might ever want to say about Jung, he lived
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: his life.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: And he says it's been bountiful and given me a
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: great deal. How could I ever have expected so much?
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: I'm disappointed, not disappointed. I've learned amazing things. The older
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: I've become, the less I've understood or had insight into.
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: So I don't really quite believe, but that's okay. I'm astonished, disappointed,
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: pleased with myself. I'm distressed, depressed, rapturous. But there is
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: someone who lived his life, and he's writing this at
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: the very toward the very end of his life. And
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: I would imagine that we all might like to be
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: able to say such similar things of, man, I lived it.
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: I made the most of what life offered me. I
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: made the most of myself and my inner self. I
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: really was in touch with my own depths.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: So in this period, Jung is having dreams, he's having
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: these visions, he's engaged in active imagination, and he's writing
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: them down, the dreams and the visions, and he's drawing them.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: So he is using art, he's using visual imagery as
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: a way to come into relationship with these images, he
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: really felt that he might be destroyed if he didn't
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: find some way to relate to them. And he felt
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: such pressure to respond to these visions that he thought
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: to himself that he would commit suicide if he couldn't
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: find a way to live with them. And he kept
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: a loaded revolver in his night table drawer. So the
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: way that the unconscious can come to us, can exert
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: all of this pressure, whether it's in a dream or
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: a vision, and that we can find a way to
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: dance with them through the use of visual imagery. And
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: of course, Jung had some artistic talent. I mean, some
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: of these images that we've been showing are quite remarkable.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: But It's not about the artistic rendering. It's about the
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: act of engagement. And I think that that's one of
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: the things that we want to explore in Dream Studio.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: So again, we invite you to come join us on
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: September 13th for a free webinar about creativity and the
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: unconscious and then to consider joining Dream School where we're
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: going to make this an offering. But I want to
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: talk a little bit about one of the kind of
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: principal incidents in the Red Book. One of the important,
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: maybe I shouldn't say principal, because there were several and
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: they go into great depth. But one of the really
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: important visions that he had, he titled it The Murder
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: of the Hero. And of course, he does talk about
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: this also in Memories, Dreams, Reflections. But I thought we
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: could read a little bit of this just to kind
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: of give you a sense of what are some of
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: these images that he's having. So he says, On the
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: following night, however, I had a vision. I was with
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: a youth in high mountains. It was before daybreak. The
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: eastern sky was already light. Then Siegfried's horn resounded over
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: the mountains with a jubilant sound. We knew that our
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: mortal enemy was coming. We were armed and lurked beside
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: a narrow rocky path to murder him. Then we saw
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: him coming high across the mountains on a chariot made
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: of the bones of the dead. He drove boldly and
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: magnificently over the steep rocks and arrived at the narrow
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: path where we waited in hiding. As he came around
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: the turn ahead of us, we fired at the same
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: time and he fell slain. Thereupon I turned to flee
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: and a terrible rain swept down, but after this I
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: went through a torment unto death and I felt certain
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: that I must kill myself if I could not solve
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: the riddle of the murder of the hero. Then the
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: spirit of the depths came to me and spoke these words,
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: The highest truth is one and the same with the absurd.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: This statement saved me and like rain after a long
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: hot spell it swept away everything in me. which was
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: too highly tensed. So we know that he considered this
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: vision to be incredibly important. And as I mentioned, he
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: also writes about it in Memories, Dreams, Reflections. But what
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: on earth does that vision mean?
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, what Jung talks about, I mean, first
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: of all, he talks about... this intense pressure from the
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: unconscious demanding that he pay attention to this. And he,
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: he woke up and, uh, a voice said, you must
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: understand this dream and must do so at once. And
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: that he had the loaded revolver in his, uh, bedside table. And,
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: and the voice said, if you don't understand this dream,
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: you must shoot yourself. Well, of course, Jung chose to
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: understand the dream. And, uh, the understanding that ensued was
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: that the attitude embodied by Siegfried, the great Germanic hero,
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: no longer suited me, says Jung. Therefore, it had to
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: be killed. And he said he felt the grief a
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: man feels when he's forced to sacrifice his ideal and
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: his conscious attitudes. The identity and heroic idealism had to
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: be abandoned. for there are higher things than the ego's will.
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: Of course, I'm thinking about his relationship with Freud as
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: he embarked on this awful and momentous and revelatory period
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: of his life that resulted in the Red Book, and
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: he talks about it in MDR. What a huge thing
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: this was, spurred by the break with Freud, was a
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: huge turning point. And what that father-son relationship and Jung's
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: designation as Freud's crown prince, he was Siegfried to Freud
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: in many ways.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: In the Norse myths, the name of Siegfried's father was Sigmund.
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: You know, there are facets, permutations, layers and depths to
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: all of this. And that turning point from the heroic
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: to psyche, to what is going on within, what is
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: wanted for Jung and from Jung besides achieving. And you
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: read that part, Lisa, before about where he said, I've
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: had everything. I've had the acclaim, the success, the power,
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: the intellectual knowledge. I think this, for me in a way,
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: is the heart of Jung's journey as portrayed in the
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: Red Book, memories, dreams, reflections, all kinds of his writings.
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: What is it all about? It's a huge search for
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: meaning in the modern world and how necessary, I'm not
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: going to say important, necessary, It is to go within
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: and rediscover, let's call it God or the God archetype,
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: the source, the self, goes by many names, but we
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: must discover it within ourselves.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: Part of the discovery of that interiority and its autonomy
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: is that all of us, when we're young, that the
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: unconscious provides a lot of energy for us to take risks.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: to be full of ourselves, to develop some swag, to launch,
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: to go out there in the world and try new
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: and big things. And it is a kind of inflation
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: that carries us out of the nest and into the
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: hard work of being in life. And when Jung was
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: touring with Freud in the United States, he kind of
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: took this steamliner across there were lots of accounts of
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: Jung being really very difficult. He was kind of strutting around,
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: he was kind of full of himself, he was making
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: a lot of big, broad pronouncements, and was hard to like, actually,
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: during that lecture, apparently. And that's a natural part of
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: kind of being a little big for our britches, kind
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: of having the audacity to do the things that he
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: was doing and to put them forward. But One of
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: the transitions that Jung talks about is when the time
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: is appropriate in midlife, that the heroic inflation where this
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: archetypal energy carries us into life has to be set
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: aside for wisdom to then present itself. So one way
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: to summarize the killing of Siegfried, which he experienced as
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: a kind of order, that he was given the order
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: to do this even though he didn't understand it, is
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: that by killing off that heroic self-inflation that he had
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: learned to serve images rather than rule them. And that
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: was an enormous change in humility. So at first there's
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: the exaltation of the hero, then there's the killing of
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: the hero, And then there is the resurrection of a
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: God image in a form that the ego can tolerate
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: without becoming overwhelmed. And he suggests that that's where his
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: mature creativity had come forward. It's when he realized that
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: his creativity was not private property, but a kind of
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: collective energy that moved through him, and that his creativity
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: was demanding relationship, not appropriation. And that when he really
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: experienced that, there was a whole new level of creativity
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: and productivity at a different dimension in himself that came forward.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: I just want to throw up a picture of maybe
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: an image of the hero. Deb, go ahead and say
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: what you want to say.
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: Well, what I'm thinking about is, oh, I love that one.
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: as what Joseph said, and realizing that there is something
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: that undergirds and guides and is much bigger than the ego,
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: you know, of the mystery of how we talk about,
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: you know, the self or the God within or on
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: and on. Maybe it can be summarized as what is
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: it that you're really serving in your life? What are
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: you serving? What are you giving yourself to? And is
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: it your own idea of status, glory, power? The list
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: goes on and on. Or are you living for something
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: greater than yourself? It could be for your family. It
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: could be to move something in the outer world forward
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: that you really believe in. an organization, some kind of service.
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: But what are you in service to?
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Or you could be in service to the job of
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: individuation and attending to the inner life.
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: And I think they work together, that what you're in
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: service to in the outer world gives you an idea
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: of where your own individuation is taking place in the
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: inner world. But individuation, as Jung says, takes us out
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: into the world. So there are clues about, you know,
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: what's really important to me? What am I really doing?
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: Am I trying to dominate and be Siegfried and be heroic?
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: Or am I giving myself to something that I believe
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: is greater in some sense?
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: Just to elaborate on the Siegfried imagery in Jung's particular
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: biography at the moment as well. You know, what I
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: imagine is that to have risen so far, I mean,
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: he certainly had a reputation of his own by the
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: time he met Freud, but his cachet kind of went
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: up a lot when he became the crown prince. But
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: he had to sacrifice his own convictions to be in
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: that relationship in that way. And this does come across, Joseph,
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: you referenced their trip across the Atlantic together. There was,
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: you know, he talks about it in Memory Streams Reflections,
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: that there was some real tension there. But he had
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: to really compromise himself in some sense to be in
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: that relationship in that way. Freud really kind of demanded
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: a certain submission to his doctrines. And so there were,
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: I think, many different levels in which, you know, the 39,
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: 40-year-old Jung had abandoned himself and betrayed himself. In some ways,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: as you were alluding to, Deb, focusing more on these
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: sort of outer world projects and leaving his soul behind.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: But also, very importantly, you know, he had a vision.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: of the psyche, of what was required of us for
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: psychological growth and wholeness, that he was not developing as
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: he was in Freud's shadow because Freud basically forbade it
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: and kind of demanded adherence to his own views. And
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: that is what kind of caused the split, which resulted
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: in You know, Jung lost a lot of professional cachet.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: He lost a lot of connections. He was effectively kind
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: of like canceled. And that can be, and was for him,
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: really quite devastating. So being the hero had come at
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: a cost in this very kind of specific way that
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: it had cost him his own convictions and it had
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: required a sort of self-betrayal.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: So I think that whether it's killing off the way
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: that Freud's ideas had colonized him, as well as killing
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: off a general heroic attitude in himself that might even
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: be normal for a young man, that Jung was required
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: by something deeper than himself to separate out from these
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: highly influential ideologies and people and be cast into a
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: kind of internal cauldron, so to speak. And if we
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: think about the heroic attitude versus something that Jung cultivated
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: subsequent to these inner experiences, is the hero thinks that
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: he's the one doing it. that the hero is someone
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: that I'm going to go and do this amazing thing
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: and I'll climb that mountain and I'll overturn this terrible
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: regime or whatever it is or take the culture by storm.
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: So there's a lot of support for that and we
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: like to see heroes in our movies. We like the
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: idea of ourselves being heroic. Joseph Campbell in The Hero
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: with a Thousand Faces venerates heroes the idea of the
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: hero to a remarkable degree. And that was good for Jung,
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: I think, for the amount of time that it was
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: good for him. But Jung, like all, I think in
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: my estimation, like all mystics at a certain point are
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: forced to recognize that they are not a person, that
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: they are a field within which events occur, that the
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: human personality is a space and that a play of
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: forces enter into it. One of the ways that he
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: communicates this, there's many ways he communicates a bit, but
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: one is when he talks about thoughts, that thoughts were
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: like birds that have their own independent life and that
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: they might land in his mental landscape He would very
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: hurriedly record them because he had a sense that they
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: could fly away at any point, that they had an
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: autonomous energy in and of themselves. Now, that may sound
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: like a cute, poetic image, but for Jung, he really
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: believed that, and he behaved in a way that was
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: congruent to that, that his role was to be the
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: scribe and, in some ways, the translator. of these autonomous
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: experiences into a language that the culture or his culture
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: could relate to. Now, it's one thing to say that
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: thoughts are like birds or that the human personality is
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: actually a field, not a singular thing, but to actually
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: experience that as true so that he could then speak
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: to it with authority involved a massive deconstruction of who
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: he thought he was and how he thought he functioned,
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: and the great crucifixion that he refers to on and
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: off throughout his language, that whatever he used to be,
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: he had to suffer that extraction of what he thought
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: he was and to yield into this relationship with these
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: other factors inside of himself, some of which were collective.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: The collective unconscious, when he would brush against it, could
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: threaten to overwhelm him, as well as some intimate and
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: personal things, like Salome, who was an intimate, intimate part
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: of his own psychology. And interestingly, Salome first presents as blind,
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: that his soul is symbolized as a wise but blind figure,
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: and over the course of his engagements, Salome's sight is
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: returned to her. Now, one way that we can imagine
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: that is that when we are trapped in the young
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: and heroic position, there's a way in which your soul
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: is dependent on the personality to tell it what is true.
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: And then it elaborates on that. And that can trap
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: us in a kind of echo chamber that I tell
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: the anima what's true and the anima then elaborates that.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: And then we have a kind of masturbatory creativity. For
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: the soul to rediscover its own eyes means that the
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: soul as a linking function can see things that the
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: ego has never considered or conceived of And then she
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: would share that with Jung, and that was a revelation
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: that she was going far beyond what he was providing.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: And that was so beautifully symbolized in the return of
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: vision to that part of himself.
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: I really like and want to just kind of go
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: back to highlight it, this idea of the personality as
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: a space. And the space that Jung had the ability
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: to go to in his act of imaginations and encounters
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: with Philemon and Salome, and to risk all that and
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: translate it for us in the Red Book with all
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: the accompanying art. And it doesn't look scholarly. It doesn't
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: look linear. It doesn't make sense, you know, and that's
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: partly why it was so sequestered for so long, as
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: Jung was, you know, certainly wanted to be seen as
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: a scientist, a phenomenologist, and a psychologist, and a doctor,
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: which he was. And this stuff, from the point of
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: view of standard Western perhaps heroic ego, does look wild,
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: and it does look kind of far out there.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: Here's one more image that I just thrown up on
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: the screen here. You can see the serpent at the
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: roots of the tree, and there's this sort of mandala here.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: It's an extraordinary image. You know, I think that, again,
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: the importance of the Red Book to the Jungian community,
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: to Jungian scholarship, to our understanding of the development of
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: his ideas is, you know, it's just extraordinarily significant. And
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: we're so grateful that it was published. I remember I
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: was in training when it was published and how excited
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: we all were.
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: Oh, it was huge.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: It was on display at the Rubin Museum in Manhattan,
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: and I trekked up there to see it. But I
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: think that it's also so important for all of us,
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: as we said before, because it illustrates sort of a
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: method for engaging with the inner life. You know, Jung
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: kept it on a stand in his office for his
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: patients to see. And I think it was instructive. And
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: here's how you can do this. It doesn't have to
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: look like this. We all might have our our own
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: red books, and they might not all be red, and
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: they might not all have similar drawings, but a testament,
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: a document of our commitment to our inner life.
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: And how vibrant, how real, how prolific, how generative. We're
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: not talking about something incidental, something small. But here's how
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: deep you go. Here's how much there really is. This
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: landscape is vast and huge and rapturous and distressing and
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: difficult and rewarding. And I think very, very, altogether, it
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: is very reassuring. to know that we do live, whether
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: we know it or not, in this kind of landscape.
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: We are part of something that we'll never comprehend fully.
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: It's also a question as to how much we ever
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: really get in touch with some of it. But there
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: it is. We live in a landscape that is more
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: than our conscious selves. It's just a fact.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: And is influencing us, which I think is so important,
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: that this isn't just navel-gazing, but that as you're walking
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: around and you're feeling very intensely about any number of things,
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: to be able to pause and to wonder, what is
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: happening inside of me? And so people will do that
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: all the time, but often, for instance, somebody will be uncomfortable,
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: and then they will scan the outer environment, And if
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: they notice something in their proximity, they will attribute their
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: discomfort to that thing that's in proximity. You know, I
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: was feeling panicky and I looked up and I saw
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: my neighbor's dog off the leash. It's the dog! It's
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: the dogs off the leashes. That's got to be the cause.
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: But central to all psychodynamic work, but certainly Jung, is
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: to decide, no, no, no, that there is something going
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: on which can be an elaborate internal fantasy that Now,
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: for Jung, fantasy didn't mean kind of self-constructed, but something
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: happening that is fantastical inside of the internal environment. And
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: if we can catch a glimpse of that and not
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: truncate it, that we can come to understand something at
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: play inside of ourselves that is independent of the external
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: environment and, more importantly, independent of who you think you are.
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: And that takes an enormous discipline to be able to
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: see that we are a small thing in a vast
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: starry canopy that lives inside of us and outside of us.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: That's beautiful, Joseph. So Heung's invitation to us is to
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: make these images come alive. And our invitation to you is,
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: is to join us on September 13th for a taste
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: of Dream Studio, our new addition to our Dream School.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: So I hope you'll come along and hear more about
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: how creativity can support engagement with the unconscious. And I
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: also want to just sort of let people know that,
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: you know, the Red Book is for sale. It's not cheap,
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: but it's beautiful. It's a wonderful thing to have. However,
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: there's also a reader's edition. So you can simply buy
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: the text, and that is also edited with an introduction
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: by Sonu Shamdasani. And, you know, it's a little bit
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: easier to read because it's certainly difficult to read something
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: this size. And at the same time, it's pretty easy
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: to find the images from the Red Book online. So
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: you can Go in search of those and enjoy those
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: even without buying the big folio book. Although if you
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: have an itch to own it, of course, I support that.
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: It's pretty splendid.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: It is. And so perhaps we'll now switch to a dream.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: And for our Dream Studio Dreams and Creativity webinar on
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: the 13th, we've been soliciting from you your dreams. and
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: images that you may have made from those dreams. And
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: we've gotten so many fascinating dream images sent for the
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: Dream Studio Seminar. So we thought we'd share some on
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: the podcast today to give you a flavor of that session.
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: So for this week's dream, in addition to the usual dream,
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: we also have an image. Okay, so the dreamer is
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: a 44-year-old woman who is a stay-at-home mother and an artist.
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: And here's the dream. I'm in a green field with
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: a friend who has a beautiful, chubby toddler with her.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: I have to make them dinner. I turn to a
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: large wooden structure with a thatched roof and dirt floor.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: I think it's an ancient Celtic structure. Inside the dark
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: room is an enormous cauldron suspended from the ceiling. much
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: bigger than I am, and beneath the cauldron is white-gray
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: ash where a fire would be. It is vast and
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: still and silent, and I am awed by it. I
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: don't know how to make dinner with it, nor how
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: to get the fire started. As I stare, it slowly
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: starts to move like a pendulum, making a deep, metallic
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: scratching sound.
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: I panic.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: Thinking that my staring has caused it to move. Then
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: I turn and my friend is by the cauldron, which
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: is now much smaller. She is thrusting her hands into
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: bubbling primordial slime emerging from the cauldron. She is pregnant
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: and smiling. I tell her not to do that, alarmed.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: She smiles and says, sorry, but I know she doesn't
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: mean it. So, For associations, the dreamer notes, the friend
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: is a real person who I was friends with at uni,
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: but we are not in touch now. She was very
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: beautiful and desired, and she went on to marry and
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: have four sons. I would say she probably represents fecundity. Context,
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: she says, I had this dream after Christmas, having run
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: numerous Christmas fairs. I had not prioritized my creative work
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: in months. I'm a mother of three kids and I
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: care for elderly parents too. Christmas is joyous but depleting
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: on every level. I was feeling lost creatively and burnt out.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: And for feelings, she says, I felt happiness in the
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: green field, then awe and dread at the sight of
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: the cauldron and physical anxiety when it started to move.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: Annoyance at my friend for messing things up and saying
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: sorry but not meaning it. And then she offers us
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: a note about her process. She says, I drew the
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: image in charcoal first very soon after having the dream.
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: I then drew it digitally and had it printed A3 size.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: I then drew over the print in charcoal again, made
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: ash out of ground pastels and made a roof out
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: of cardboard and twigs collected from the garden. This process
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: highlighted how deadened the image was. and thinking about it,
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: a reference to something having once grown or been on
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: fire and now extinguished. That certainly wasn't immediately apparent to
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: me when I first had the dream. So we can
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: see this really compelling image that the dreamer has offered us.
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: What I'm really paying attention to is the contrast between
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: the image that the dreamer drew, which is, you know,
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: in grays, earthy materials, the shadow inside the cauldron and
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: the white ash. And the images in the dream of
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: generativity and growth and life and just aliveness, it starts
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: out with, I'm in a green field with a friend
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: who has a beautiful, chubby toddler with her. So green
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: field is where things are growing. A chubby toddler is
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: bubbling with life and health and all of that good stuff.
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: And then our dream ego is seized with, you know,
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: oh my gosh, you know, how do I do this?
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: I have no idea what to do. There's a gray ash.
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: I don't know how to make dinner with this. I
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: don't know what to do. And then at the end,
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: this The dream is bracketed by these two things at
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: the beginning and at the end. Her friend is by
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: the cauldron, which is now smaller, more approachable, more doable,
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: more available to working with. And the friend is thrusting
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: hands into this primordial slime and is pregnant, which reiterates
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: the image at the beginning of the dream where she
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: has a chubby toddler. So she's also about to have
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: another baby. And the dream ego says, wait a minute,
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: don't do that. But we have the contrast between the
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: dream ego and perhaps some of the image that's rendered
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: in this picture that the dreamer sent and the shadow
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: figure who is well at home in the green field,
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: has a toddler, is pregnant, and is very comfortable putting
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: her hands into the primordial slime.
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Deb, I think you've lifted up this sort of
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: chief tension or contrast between the dream ego and the
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: other woman that you identified as a shadow figure, and
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: I would agree with you there. And you're right, you know,
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: it's sort of like, I mean, dreams often tell us
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: about the relationship between the conscious attitude and the other
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: parts of us within. And this dream does that, you know, fabulously, right?
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: The ego is in a place that feels lifeless, desiccated, dark,
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: there's no fire. But there is another part of the dreamer,
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: and it's not even that far away or hard to access.
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: It's a friend.
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: And of course, what I'm also really struck by, in
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: addition to everything that you lifted up, is that she
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: has a task. Her task is to make dinner for them.
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: So I kind of like that, that the ego needs
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: to be in service to this other part.
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: The ego needs to feed them, needs to nurture them,
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: the ego needs to be able to go toward them
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: and doesn't know how to do it. I don't know
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: how to do this. And I also like very much
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: about here we're talking from the dream ego's point of view,
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: we're talking about I have to make dinner. And from
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: the point of view of the unconscious, what is in
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: the cauldron is primordial slime. It's not beef bourguignon. It's
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: not some sort of fabulous sauce of some kind. It's slime.
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: And we often turn away from those images that are
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: aversive to our ego stance of bugs and mud and
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: slime and ooze and spiders. And I don't want that.
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: But Everything, you know, this is classic Jungian stuff. It's
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: the prima materia. It's the primordial chaotic gunk. You know,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: the lotus blooming in the mud.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: What I'm hearing from you guys makes sense. As always,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: I'm asking myself, where is the medicine for the dream ego?
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: Where is the medicine in the dream? And where is
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: the conflict there? So I think that you were leaning
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: into that. There's a primordial substance that has been discovered
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: in the cauldron that the friend is able to thrust
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: hands into the unconscious, the prima materia, the primordial, and
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: is smiling about it. And the dream ego says, don't
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: do that. So that's the tension between the two figures.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: But figure number two is pleasurable for her to put
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: her hands into the primal substance and tactilely and sensately
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: engage it. But the dream ego thinks that's something that
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: should be stayed away from. Now, we don't have her
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: here to know what's alarming about this. Is it because
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: it's bubbling? Is she worried she's going to get sick
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: or that it's too hot? That would all be interesting
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: information if she had recorded that. And then the other
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: woman mollifies her in a way that the dream ego
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: knows is not sincere. But the alarm is what I'm
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: really interested in. Why is it alarming to touch the
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: primordial level inside of herself, which is what we would
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: say is a collective unconscious, and is the realm of
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: the archetypes? So when we are divorced from that layer
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: of the psyche, it can be quite difficult for us
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: to feel creative or to feel like we've got a
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: lot of energy beyond what our egos can drum up metabolically.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: But that's where we get the big ideas, the big
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: energies to carry us into big tasks, for instance. So
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: whatever is causing the alarm, I think, is the place
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: to lean into and wonder What is the attitude that
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: makes that so alarming and that the dream friend has
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: somehow overcome that alarm inside of her and seems to
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: be having a good time? Seems to be experiencing pleasure
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: with the ooze.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: You know, another important element of this dream, of course,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: is the cauldron, which is sort of a huge image, right?
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: We associate cauldrons with witches. But they are very feminine
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: and round. They're generative. It's where something happens. It's kind
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: of like the alchemical vase. It's where things are transformed.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: It's where things are cooked. So it's... And of course,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: it seems very positive in the dream that there is
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: this huge cauldron. There's like a space to really cook something.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: The problem is that there's no fire there now. But... Joseph,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: and I think this kind of goes back to something
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: that you were saying earlier in the episode, the cauldron
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: also begins to move like it has an autonomy. If
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: the cauldron is in some sense an image of a
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: creative function, it responds to the conscious ego, but it's
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: not under the ego's control. It's not simply inert, right?
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: It has a kind of life and will of its own.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: And it is interesting that it kind of shrinks down
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: to a more manageable size when the friend is there.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: It's sort of like, I mean, this does feel a
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: little daunting and we really get that in the image.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: That would be too big to try to cook something in.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: You'd at least need a ladder. But it becomes something
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: that we could really work with. When the shadow energy
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: is relating to it, then it becomes more generative. And
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: as you both pointed out, then it's got this wonderful
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: slimy ooze that could give rise to any number of things.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: And just as an aside, and I'm imagining as a
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: stay-at-home mom she may have come across this, there is
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: this playful substance called slime. You can buy it, like
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: it's next to the Play-Doh in the toy store. And
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: kids love it. It's this big gelatinous wad that you
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: can slop out of a little bucket. And kids stick
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: their hands in it. They love to play it, throw
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: it around. But there is something very tactilely fascinating about
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: this gooey, slimy toy.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 4: And parents are at the very least ambivalent about it.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: Because it gets all... From the point of view of grandchildren,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 4: it gets all over everything. Parents, okay, that's enough. That's enough. Okay,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: put it away.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: Right. Just like the dream ego.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: Stop that.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: Right. Don't be messy. But creativity is messy, isn't it?
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: And it's lovely that the dreamer let herself, I'm imagining,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: be a little messy when she made this drawing. You know,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: she's crushing the whatever it was that she said, the
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: pastels to make the ash, and she's finding stuff from
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: the garden.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: Another piece that also is subtle but could be helpful
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: in the dream is just something, the shrinking of the cauldron,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: just that one thing. Because for context, she says, I
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: had this dream after Christmas. Having run numerous Christmas fairs,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: I'd not prioritize my creative work. I'm the mother of
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: three kids caring for elderly parents. Christmas is joyous and depleting.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: So if we take the cauldron as a symbol of
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: the great mother, that it's too big, that there's so
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: much mothering and caregiving that's going on in her life
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: on so many different domains that it becomes the impossible
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: gaping maw of the cauldron that she doesn't know how
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: to possibly fill, how to cook with it, what to
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: do with it. It's the too muchness of the cauldron.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: And so as the friend starts relating to it with
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: a smile, the cauldron becomes small, smaller, becomes relatable, becomes
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: less mythic. Like, you don't have to feed the masses.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: You don't have to make enough food for 300 people
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: in a cauldron the size of your body. How about
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: you just have a small cauldron and you just make
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: some pudding or make a little bit of something?
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: Get a slow cooker.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: Make it manageable and do it with a smile. So
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: just that shrinking down to a manageable size, I think,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: has to do with mediating the archetype. And maybe moving
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: away from that feeling she's had post-Christmas that she has
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: to provide everything for everyone. And it's just too big
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: a task. So, yeah, shrink it down. Make it ordinary.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: Make it small.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: The other thing I want to do is just to acknowledge,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: given our topic today, this woman is a mom of
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: three kids who's caring for elderly parents. She's, I'm sure,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: got a lot going on every day. And yet she
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: took the time to create this image. And we heard
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: about her process. It wasn't a slapdash process. She really
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: gave herself to this. So she's doing exactly what Jung
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: was doing in the Red Book, which was really devoting
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: herself to the inner life. And it's very moving to
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: me to see this. There's no reason to do this
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: other than to honor that connection with the unconscious. So
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: to remind everyone, we are having a free webinar on
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: September 13th, and you can find more information in the
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: show notes. We're going to be discussing further this very
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: important notion of creativity and the unconscious and how creativity
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: can help us explore our dreams So I hope to
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: see you all there. Thanks for listening. To submit a dream,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: suggest an episode topic or join our mailing list. visit
• 1:09:00
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• 1:09:05
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• 1:09:13
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