“This life is the way, the long sought-after way to the unfathomable which we call divine.” The Red Book pg. 232

Around the time of WWI, Carl Jung commenced on an extended self-exploration that he called his “confrontation with the unconscious.” During this period, Jung developed his principal theories of the collective unconscious, the archetypes, psychological types and the process of individuation, and transformed psychotherapy from a practice concerned with the treatment of pathology into a means for reconnection with the soul and the recovery of meaning in life.

At the heart of this endeavor was his legendary Red Book, a large, leather bound, illuminated volume that he created between 1914 and 1930, and which contained the nucleus of all his later works.

While Jung considered the Red Book, or Liber Novus (New Book), to be the central work in his oeuvre, it has remained unpublished until the end of 2009, and unavailable for study and unseen by the public at large. The work can be best described as a work of psychology in a literary and prophetic form. Its publication is a watershed that inaugurates a new era in the understanding of Jung’s life and work.

In the introduction to the Red Book, editor Sonu Shamdasani summarizes the importance of the work: “The overall theme of the book is how Jung regains his soul and overcomes the contemporary malaise of spiritual alienation. This is ultimately achieved through enabling the rebirth of a new image of God in his soul and developing a new world view in the form of a psychological and theological cosmology.”