Jung’s Borderland: The Red Book on View

When Carl G. Jung Broke with Freud and withdrew from the Burgholzi just after the turn of the last century, he was thrust into a borderland of sorts, reaching out with his imagination to reconstruct his world and his understanding of it. During this period, when he sat with the images percolating up from his unconscious as he undertook imaginal exercises, he commenced with his life’s work. It was during this time that he secured his place in history, and it was during this time that he began The Red Book.

“The years… when I pursued the inner images, were the most important time of my life. Everything else is to be derived from this. It began at that time, and later details hardly matter anymore” wrote Jung later in his life.

Not that long ago there were few who had actually laid eyes on this mysterious work by Carl G. Jung. It was his special secret red leather “journal” a gilded bible of sorts, a place he recorded his reflections, dreams, imaginings, and thoughts… many in images.

Now the pages and images from this fantastic creative exploration, hidden in a vault for decades, are on view for the first time in the United States in the form of a Fine Art exhibition of First Generation Art Prints at Pacifica Graduate Institute’s Ladera Campus, with the exhibition just extended through May 4th. The images are vivid, powerful, and spiritual, drawing viewers into their intricate details.

“These images remain powerful because they echo or mirror images from dreams or imagination alive in each of us:’ explained Pacifica Graduate Institute’s Founder and Chancellor Dr. Stephen Aizenstat, in an email interview. “When our eyes are closed something else comes awake and we gain access to a realm of imagination with an intelligence of its own. These figures muse our creative life, inform our intuition, and, in fact, shape in many ways our behavior. Developing relationship to these inner figures of dream or imagination opens us to a deeper understanding of ourselves and to our authentic calling.”

The Red Book prints making up the Pacifica exhibition have only previously been displayed at the International Association of Analytical Psychology Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark and at the 2013 Venice Biennale. Currently there are 23 of 77 curated images on view.