Cornel West Reacts to Jung's Red Book

from Red Book, by Jung. Dragon illustration.

I've been considering my dreams today. Not just a daily thought to what happened last night, but more the reflection on recurring dreams that I've had over the past few years. I can't draw conclusions except for personal assumptions based on the metaphors that my dreams have presented to me over time. What got me thinking so deeply about it is a short audio interview with Cornel West. During a lecture series titled "The Red Book Dialogues" Dr. Cornel West and Dr. Ann Belford Ulanova discussed one of the folio images from Jung's Red Book which I'm finding is a fascinating book, as is Jung. As one reviewer put so well on Amazon:

The Red Book is not "personal" as we use that word now. It is "personal" in the sense that it details one individual's very unique experience of coming into relationship with what Jung termed the Self, and in prior times was referred to as God, but it is at the same time very impersonal, and actually universal, in cataloguing the drama inherent in any person's formation of that relationship. The book is at home with The Odyssey, The Divine Comedy, Goethe's Faust, and, as much as anything, The Red Book is Jung's response to Thus Spoke Zarathustra and to Nietzsche's proposition that for modern man, God is dead. The response is that God is neither dead nor to be found in outer religious, national or political containers, but is to be discovered and struggled with in the living of each individual life.

A not uncommon dream is of stumbling upon a previously unknown addition or wing of one's dwelling, which addition is found to be many, many times the size of the existing structure, and to contain objects and treasures of previously unimaginable value, interest and numinousity. One is filled with awe and wonder at the new found wealth and possibilities. The experience of encountering The Red Book after spending 30 years in Jung's existing body of work is equally stupefying. That there could be so much more that Jung had to share and communicate about the human soul seems not just improbable, but impossible. Yet The Red Book is that much, much larger, more nuanced and tremendously numinous structure that is behind, under, around and the foundation for all of Jung's subsequent ideas, theories, publications and works. Extraordinary.
By: B. Hill of Pasadena, California

It's an expensive book to own, though it would be something great to view it in person, but it's also another addition to the base of knowledge we have on Jung. Since contemporary times seem to be divisive, I wonder what our dreams might tell us about the larger world we live in? How might my dreams reflect the outer world, where people staunchly differ in opinion, beliefs, and things only seem to get more divided?