Jung’s Red Book

In every civilization, man has planned villages, towns, and cities according to a mandala structure that acts as a projection of his psychic structure onto the outer world.
– Nise da Silveira

The Red Book may be considered one of the most revolutionary publications in contemporary psychology. It is a journey into the inner world of Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung himself. The book can be said to contain two layers of text, one in which Jung’s doubts, dreams, premonitions, and visions—his unconscious in writing—may be read, and another that represents the interpretation of this content. Jung started writing the book at the beginning of the 20th century, at a time of considerable theoretical doubt. However, he kept it for years inside a safe in Switzerland. The book was not published until 2009, more than 40 years after the death of its author.
The record of Jung’s personal experiences, in light of the development of science at the time, would place him in a condition of heretic, insane, or mystic. That might be the reason behind the psychoanalyst’s choice not to publish the book. However, it seems that it was by means of this book that Jung developed his process of individuation towards self-realization.