Quantum Drummer

Introduction

Jung’s Red Book is a description of his encounter with his soul, of struggling with the irrational and unconscious, and with the impossible task of describing it by the way of language and writing, therefore making it objective and somewhat rational in order to be read by others. One cannot avoid to imagine if this work was ever meant to be shared by others, because no matter what was the intent of Jung himself, his views to his soul and his documented experiences will always far short from the real experience. It is, however, a very courageous journey by a man of great sensitivity, allowing all of us to question our own soul, our own unconscious and our meaning. The soul, as Jung describes, possesses qualities that are complementary to the persona, containing those qualities that the conscious attitude lacked. The soul gives rise to images that while are assumed as worthless by the rational mind, they can be used in several ways, such as artistic, philosophical speculation, quasi-religious, and also by “employing the dynamis of these images to squander it in every form of licentiousness”, and also to have some type of psychological utilization of these images.
This paper takes just a few of the concepts presented by Jung in his path of encountering his soul, as described in the Red Book, and will describe some of my reflections and experiences as well, trying to walk the path of “philosophical speculation” which seems to be the path that serves my calling.

Liber Primus – The Spirit of this time and the Spirit of the depths

Very early in the Red Book, in the Liber Primus, Jung talks about the spirit of this time and the spirit of the depths. The description of the spirit of this time corresponds to the spirit of the material world, the modern world, in which technology and economics advances have given humanity the condition that we live today. But, Jung describes how he learned that there is another spirit at work, which “rules the depths of everything contemporary”. Jung describes how “Filled with human pride and blinded by the presumptuous spirit of the times, I long sought to hold that other spirit away from me. But I did not consider that the spirit of the depths from time immemorial and for all the future possesses a greater power than the spirit of this time, which changes with the generations. The spirit of the depths has subjugated all pride and arrogance to the power of judgment. He took away my belief in science, he robbed me of the joy of explaining and ordering things, and he let devotion to the ideals of this time die out in me. He forced me down to the last and simplest things. The spirit of the depths took my understanding and all my knowledge and placed them at the service of the inexplicable and the paradoxical. He robbed me of speech and writing for everything that was not in his service, namely the melting together of sense and nonsense, which produces the supreme meaning.” (Jung, 2009, p.229).

The previous reflection represents a very powerful detail of Jung’s struggle to deal with the scientific views and the forces of the spirit. Initially he uses a dualistic view, in which he implies the existence of the two sides, rational and irrational, possibly hinting on the practicality of one side and unknown value of the other. And in a very intimate way, he describes how the spirit of the depth robbed him of “the joy of explaining and ordering things.” In reality he continued explaining and ordering things all his life, just not all under the current scientific method structures, simply because the scientific method lacks a structure to fit the forces of the spirit. But the most important concept on these reflections is when he describes that the purpose of the spirit of the depths is the “melting together of sense and nonsense, which produces the supreme meaning.” Simply put, what is nonsense today is just something that science cannot yet explain, but is as much part of nature as what has been already explained. The irony of the spirit of this time is that humanity does not much care about explaining things as much as cares for the practical application of things. We do not care to understand how electricity works, but we care that electricity can be transported through wires, and provide light and heat and energy to houses. As long as the side effects of natural phenomena provide some practical application, we are happy. Perhaps the faster way for humans to accept the existence of the forces of the spirit is by showing simple and practical application of them, that can be used to make our world more confortable, and mostly that can generate economic value.

I have lived the same struggle that Jung describes, for more than 40 years in my life I have been living in the modern world, focused in working with technology and for technology, sometimes preferring to spend my days mostly with machines than with humans, and finding joy and comfort in order and structure. I have however always perceived that there is something else in nature, something powerful and invisible, and have even witnessed how the world of spirit influences the material world and technology itself, and how humans have much more power in our minds and consciousness than we even want to accept. I know that someday in the future, the spirit of this time will evolve and become one with the spirit of the depths, in which sense and nonsense are part of the same truth, and part of the same meaning, but in reality they already are, they are the same and part of the same, the spirit of this time and the spirit of all times are one with the spirit of the depth, is just the human ability to understand and to accept that is missing, and is through brave humans such as Jung that showed us the way to look for the truth in the invisible and irrational, that we have the opportunity to consider following the path of knowledge.

Liber Primus – The SoulWhen Jung was forty years old, at the peak of his career, and after having achieved power, wealth, knowledge and honor, as well as what he describes as every human happiness, he describes that his desire to continue increasing those things had ceased, and after having a vision of a flood, he felt he was in contact with the spirit of the depths. While being under this influence he said: “My soul, where are you? Do you hear me? I speak, I call you – are you there? I have returned. I am here again. I have shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet, and I have come to you. I am with you. After long years of long wandering. I have come to you again. Should I tell you everything I have seen, experienced and drunk in? or do you not want to hear about all the noise of life and the world? But one thing you must know; the one thing I have learned is that one must live this life.” And later on he continues: “ Life has led me back to you. Let us thank the life I have lived for all the happy and all the sad hours, for every joy, for every sadness. My soul, my journey should continue with you. I will wander with you and ascend to my solitude.” (Jung, 2009, p. 232)

With this description, written by Jung while under the influence of the spirit of the depths, he acknowledges several important aspects. First of all, he realizes that at some early point in time he was in contact with his soul, and then he lost this contact and became involved in the material world for many years. His wanderings through the material world were done out of touch with his soul. He talks to his soul as if this was a separate entity, and as if the soul had not been with him during his life. But one must wonder, was the soul separated from Jung at that time? Or was it just that Jung was not aware that his soul was with him? Most probably was his focus on the external world that made him blind and deaf to his own internal world, in which his soul had always been present. As he describes later in the book, the spirit of the depths considers the soul as a living and self-existing being, in contradiction with the spirit of the times which sees the soul as something that depends on man, which “lets herself be judged and arranged, and whose circumference we can grasp.”

On a later dialogue with his soul, Jung acknowledges that his soul had been with him all along his journey, he say: “I am weary, my soul, my wandering has lasted too long, my search for myself outside of myself. Now I have gone through events and find you behind all of them…. I found you where I least expected you. You climbed out of a dark shaft. You announced yourself to me in advance in dreams. They burned in my heart and drove me to all the boldest acts of daring, and forced me to rise above myself. You let me see truths of which I had no previous inkling. You let me undertake journeys, whose endless length would have scared me, if the knowledge of them had not been secure in you.” (Jung, 2009, p. 233). So with this reflection, Jung acknowledges that his soul had been with him all his life, silently

guiding him and giving him support to embark on his actions, and silently providing him with his internal compass to pursue his mission in life.

Liber Secundus – The Red One

In this section Jung describes a vision in which he is a tower guard, and is standing on the highest tower of a castle. From that place he sees a red horseman that is coming to the castle from afar, the red horseman enters the castle and gets up to the tower to meet Jung. At this point Jung describes that he feels fear and that he believes this red character must be the devil. They get into conversation about theology, Christianity and even the morality of dancing. At an important moment in the conversation, Jung tells the red character: “I would before God always like to be a serious and true to myself as I try to be. However, that certainty becomes difficult in your presence. You bring a certain gallows air with you, and you’re bound to be from the black school of Salerno.” Where pernicious arts are taught by pagans and the descendants of pagans.” (Jung, 2009, p. 259).
In the end, Jung concludes that this red devil represents joy. He describes: “Surely this red one was the devil, but my devil. That is, he was my joy, the joy of the serious person, who keeps watch alone on the high tower – his red-colored, red-scented, warm bright red joy.” (Jung, 2009, p. 260).
This description of Jung’s encounter with the red one describes several important aspects of Jung’s personality and thoughts. It is interesting to observe how he must relate joy with the devil, indicating a very rigid Christian idea that joy must me something bad. He describes his joy as “the joy of a serious person”, and how he always wants to be serious and true to himself before God. So, Jung is describing that he always wants to show himself as a serious person, with very little chance of achieving joy, because joy, including as an example the specific activity of dancing is something bad and must be limited. His conversation with the red one brings Jung to the conclusion that he is always rigid in his seriousness and his strict Christian disciplines and he gives little opportunity for enjoying the pleasures of life. However, even if in the end he reflects that joy is important to experience the wholeness of life, he concludes that joy is always “risky to accept because it leads us to life and its disappointments” (Jung, 2009, p. 261).

I can relate to Jung in regards to live always in a way that the rest of the people around me can perceive me as a serious person, as somebody that is reliable and that can be trusted. I can also see how trying to maintain such a rigid image can tend to generate that in many ways, joy is not part of the normal condition, but is something that occurs only in spare time and very seldom, and even believe that feeling joy is something that has no real practical use and can be considered a waste of time. In regards to relating joy with the devil, and to consider that joy is something bad, I believe this is strictly representative of Jung’s Christian tradition which is somewhat extremist, to the point in which dancing can be considered something that is bad, and that tends to involve negative feelings and emotions.

Divine Folly – Chaos and more conversations with the soul

In the Divine Folly section, and the Nox secunda, tertia and quarta, Jung starts by visualizing himself entering a library, and has a conversation with the librarian in regards to the book ‘The Imitation of Christ’” by Thomas a Kempis. Throughout these sections Jung’s unconscious struggles with the teachings of this book,

including detailed conversations with other characters, such as a fat woman cook, that describes how her mother use to read the same book and left it to her after she died. Jung deals with the issues of chaos, the past which he refers to as the dead, and many reflections in regards to Christianity and Christ himself. In Nox quarta, Jung has another important direct contact with his soul, and he mentions, “My soul speaks to me in a bright voice: ”The door should be lifted off its hinges to provide a free passage between here and there, between yes and no, above and below, between left and right. Airy passages should be built between all opposed things, light smooth streets should lead from one pole to the other. Scales should be set up, whose pointer sways gently. A flame should burn that cannot be blown out by the wind. A stream should flow to its deepest goal. The herds of wild animals should move to their feeding grounds along the old game paths. Life should proceed, from birth to death, from death to birth, unbroken like the path of the sun. Everything should proceed on this path.” (Jung, 2009, p. 302).

This is a very important passage in which Jung defines a dualistic paradigm, when he describes the different pairs of opposites, but the most important aspect here is to see how Jung describes that there must be free movement between the two opposites, rather than remaining tied to just one of the poles. He defines the need to find a balance even with the detailed use of a scale. This reflection determines how there is a continuous and smooth flow between the two opposites. When he describes the flow of life from birth to death but then from death to birth he is providing the idea that this flow can be in both directions, and not just in the direction of birth to death. In a way, Jung is raising the possibility that time flows in two directions, and not just only from past to present to future.

The Magician

In this section of the Red Book, Jung meets Philemon, who is an old magician, and enters in a conversation with him in regards to the nature of magic. Philemon describes magic as being “everything that eludes comprehension” and Jung struggles with this concept because he tries to use reason to understand it. Philemon tells Jung that reason declines with old age, therefore giving more space to magic later in life. After his meeting with Philemon, Jung continues to reflect about magic, and he says: “The practice of magic consists in making what is not understood understandable in an incomprehensible manner. The magical way is not arbitrary, since that would be understandable, but it arises from incomprehensible grounds. Besides, to speak of grounds is incorrect, since grounds concur with reason. Nor can one speak of the groundless, since hardly anything further can be said about this. The magical way arises by itself. If one opens up chaos, magic also arises.” (Jung, 2009, p. 314).

Philemon helps Jung to understand the existence of things outside of the explanations provided by science. Being that Jung was a scientist he tried to apply reason to any subject, and tried to always maintain the reference toward the scientific method when observing nature. This seems to be the paradigm in which young individuals operate in the world today. In today’s society, the rational view and scientific methods are needed for individuals to maintain credibility, grow, be accepted and achieve success, at least certain type of materialist success, as a natural expectation of a career path for most everyone.
Philemon indicates that magic tends to appear in individuals at an older age, once reason is not as important to compete in the world. It appears that with age the individual stops being concerned about his or her credibility, finding less necessary to prove anything to anybody and has less issues entering a space as subjective as magic. The older individual is more open to accept the existence of hidden things in the world, and does not seem the need to force the issue into reasoning and structure.

I have seen this pattern in the space of business education. In the traditional MBA programs, that are more directed toward younger students, the content of the classes follow traditional methods, and it is the strict transition of knowledge from teacher to student. However, in executive programs and seminars, which are directed toward older students, it is not unusual to find that some topics such as meditation, intuition and other subjective elements are part of the programs. These topics happen to be presented only to older audiences, which seem to have less trouble to learn them and use them, even if they don’t fit the objective view of the world. Top business programs at Stanford and MIT, presented by the leader professors in the field, approach creativity through meditation and inner awareness exercises, and promote the connection of the individuals to the larger community and to nature in a holistic way. It is most probable that these teachings and topics are not part of the standard study curricula for younger students because in general they might not be at a maturity level that is necessary to understand them. Perhaps this maturity comes only during the second half of life, in line with Jung’s observations.

Conclusion – My experience with the Red Book

Jung’s Red Book is a fascinating description of his contact with the soul, the unconscious and most certainly with the universal consciousness that is part of all humankind and that in the future perhaps could be accessible by every individual. With this in mind, Jung was a pioneer in discovering a new world, a world that is much more larger than the physical world. The Red Book is by far the most complicated work of Jung, and it shows some of the elements and characteristics of the work of individuals that through history might have been identified as being illuminated. This book has only been recently published and is just starting to be studied by the experts in the field, most probably it will take a few years to achieve understanding of it, but most certainly it will position Jung as one of the brightest minds in human history.

My experience with the Red Book has been complicated and confusing. Sometimes when trying to read it, has been a very easy engagement, and the reading has been clear and simple, perhaps too simple, as when reading a children’s book. Sometimes it has been extremely hard, and it has felt like hitting a stone wall, and I have been required to stop and leave the reading for some other time. Most of the time, however, when I have been able to focus and engage properly in the readings, I have felt a very close connection to Jung, and have become a participant in his journey, particularly when he describes his reconnection with the soul, and when he engages and has conversations with all the different characters. In all fairness, this is

just a humble beginning in a long process of learning from the Red Book. I am certain that it will require me to study it in much more detail, and that every time I will find many new things to understand and expand upon. I am certain that it will also be a guide for me to determine my own path in searching my own connection to the soul and to the collective unconscious.

References

Jung, C. G. (2009) The Red Book, Liber Novus, Edited by Sonu Shamdasani. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company