OCT. 20-NOV. 2, 2009 Volume 1, Issue 8 Jay Nordlinger praises opera singer Joyce DiDonato Mamet still rules with Oleanna
A Modern Book of the Dead In C. G. Jung’s The Red Book, the pioneer of psychoanalysis saves his soul n the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, a manuscript that accompanied each person to his grave—and detailed the judgment, journey, rebirth and afterlife of his soul—are the seeds of many mythologies. Gods of the sun, air, earth and sky; those of wisdom, abundance and death; that of the desert, storms, darkness and chaos are all instrumental in the soul’s successful passage from this world to the next. The Book of the Dead, which is also referred to as that of Coming Forth by Day, chronicles the lives of gods through a story of infidelity, incest, jealousy, revenge, murder and resurrection. A prince is purged in an immortal fire. A goddess transforms into a bird. A sun god is conceived, through his mother’s tears, while husband and wife float on a casket down the Nile. In the ancient Egyptian court of the Afterlife, the deeds of one’s mortal life must be accounted for. But there is little to fear. Eventually each soul emerges—transformed and no worse-for-wear—beaming and eternal. The posthumous publication of The Red Book, a modern version of the book of the dead—an autograph manuscript by Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)—beckons judgment of another kind. The book chronicles and illustrates Jung’s own personal journey into the underworld (the unconscious) and the discovery, travails and rebirth of his soul. In Jung’s book, which refers to ancient Egyptian gods, Judeo-Christian prophets, Dante, Eastern thought, Goethe’s Faust and Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra (just to name a few) are the seeds of Jungian mythologies—the interpretation of dreams, the collective unconscious, archetypes and psychoanalysis
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C.G. JUNG on page 6
Reprinted from The Red Book by C. G. Jung (c) Foundation of the Works of C. G. Jung. With permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
BY LANCE ESPLUND
A page from Jung’s The Red Book on view at the Rubin Museum of Art through Jan. 25.