Red Book

It was the split between Jung and Freud that led Jung to embark on a "descent into the unconscious," a harrowing journey into the deepest recesses of the psyche, where he gathered insights into the collective unconscious that inspired his school of "analytical psychology." He fell into a "creative illness," unsure whether he would go mad. In October 1913, not long after the split, Jung had, from our perspective, a vision or hallucination. While on a train, he saw a flood inundating Europe from the North Sea to the Alps. When the water reached Switzerland, mountains rose to protect his homeland, but he noticed debris and bodies floating in the waves. Then the water turned to blood. This vision lasted an hour and seems to have been a dream that haunted his waking consciousness. Having spent more than a decade treating mentally ill patients suffering from precisely these symptoms, Jung had reason to be concerned. Ironically, his fears diminished the following summer when World War I broke out and he realized that the vision was a precursor.

The psychological strain, however, persisted. Eventually, a moment came when Jung felt he could no longer fight the feeling of madness. He decided to let it run its course. When he did, he found himself in a strange underworld where he encountered strange intelligences that "lived" within his mind. The experience was so unsettling that for a time, Jung slept with a loaded pistol by his bed, ready to blow out his brains if the stress became too great. In his "Red Book," Jung described, in words and images, the objective, independent beings he encountered during his "creative illness"—beings who had nothing in common with him personally, yet who shared his inner world. These were Elijah and Salome, two biblical figures accompanied by a serpent. There was also a figure Jung called Philemon, who became a kind of "inner guru" and whom he depicted as a bald, white-bearded old man with bull horns and kingfisher wings. One morning, after painting this figure, Jung went for a walk and stumbled upon a dead kingfisher. These birds were rarely seen in Zurich, and Jung had never seen a single dead bird. This was one of many synchronicities—"significant coincidences"—that occurred at the time. There were others. In 1916, still in the grip of his crisis, Jung again felt something inside him trying to break free. A strange fear filled his home. He felt the presence of the dead—and so did his children. One of his daughters saw a strange white figure; another had her blanket snatched away in the night. Jung's son drew a picture of the fisherman he had seen in a dream: a burning chimney grew from the fisherman's head, and above him hovered the devil, cursing the fisherman, wanting to steal his fish. Jung had to tell everyone about Philemon. Later, one night, the doorbell rang loudly, but no one was there. Jung asked, "What in the world is happening?" The voices of the dead replied: "We have returned from Jerusalem, where we have not found what we sought," these words became the introduction to Jung's strange "Seven Sermons for the Dead," an effect of "spiritual dictation" or "channeling," which he dedicated to "Basilides of Alexandria, the City where the East met the West."