C.G.Jung - The Red Book

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I just found Carl Jung's 'Red Book' in the local library and am reading it rather fast because it is fascinating. Has anyone else read this book?

I haven't got to the actual book itself; the Introduction is long an interesting in its own right.

I have read the Red Book. It has some interesting concepts. Sometimes it's too religious like for me.

I never know how to take Jung. For example, when he claims he is talking to Elijah or Philemon or he claims he is channeling the gnostic sage Basilides and that God is a giant chicken type creature called Abraxas, am I supposed to read this at face value? Or is he telling some type of allegory that conveys some meaning about human nature and I am not supposed to read it at face value?

The odd symbols are factual in that they are psychological fact but it is quite hard to look into the mind of another and take their particular crowd of symbols seriously. I had to laugh when reading in the introductory section of a very large terd being done upon a church. I mean, is this to be taken seriously? Then again I think of some of the more lurid elements in my own dreams and waking imaginations and Jung's symbols are quite normal in comparison. I always remind myself that the persons and symbols in the psychic realm are 'the thing' clothed. The collective unconscious is brought into the conscious realm as symbols and the persons Jung appears to have been channelling are really symbolic persons rather than actual ones. That does not make them any less real in psychic terms.

Jung did make frequent use of archetypes in his more traditional psychology literature, so it makes sense he would use them in his other writings.

I really do wish the large turd was literally true.

I am always surprised by the effects such imagery/symbolism has on myself and try hard to take time to think through its portents. I mean that the effect of such imagery on my mind is always 360 degree/3-dimensional. Your wish for the turd on the church to actually occur says as much about your own mind as it does about the nature of churches. In that way, it suggests areas in your/my psyche that are worth exploring.

In my case, I have many dreams about thieves/rascals/jokers who are 'coming to get me'. These are so vivid that I find myself sleepwalking trying to lock doors, standing behind doors with a trouser belt in hand to act as a strangulation device when the said persons come through the door. No such fiends exist (other than in my dreams) and I have not been the subject of any violence to my person so I am not traumatised. I always wake up wondering what I am doing out of bed and often I have to work through the fact that I am not in the place I thought I was. These dream persons are clearly aspects of my personality that are repressed and need attention and integration into my conscious personae. In some cases, a confrontation with these characters is unavoidable and on each occasion they transform into quite harmless people or become some other person. I remember once, a character in a jokers costume (stripy bright coloured) admonished me for being so silly and why was I avoiding and running from him.

Needless to say in real life I don't joke much, if ever. While I engage others in conversation, I try to laugh (when required to be regarded as well mannered) at humour, but I always drag conversations back to the business-at-hand.