Carl Jung's Secret Book

In midlife, he looked for his own soul and found nothing. Dug deeper, for years, late at night, recording wild visions: gods and demons, winged snakes and crocodiles. Found his soul’s footing, but feared he’d be called insane.

Jung said his “red book,” in which he recorded his visions, was the base of everything else he did. But it was locked away for years in a Swiss vault. Now it’s out. We have it.

This hour, On Point: Carl Jung’s red book.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.Guests:

Joining us from Portland, Maine, is Sara Corbett, contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. Her article “The Holy Grail of the Unconscious,” about Carl Jung’s "Red Book," appears in the September 20 issue of the magazine. The book will be published by W.W. Norton next month.

And with us  in our studio is David Oswald, a licensed Jungian analyst and graduate the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. He is a member of the New England Society of Jungian Analysts and the International Association for Analytical Psychology.

More links:
The New York Times Magazine offers these color photographs of several facing pages from Jung's "red book."
We've posted some more images of individual pages, courtesy of W.W. Norton.