How To Connect With Your Deeper Soul: Reflections on Carl Jung’s “The Red Book”

I’ve recently dived into Carl Jung’s “The Red Book,” which I can only describe as a work of madness or brilliance. Or maybe both. Part mythological, part mantic, part dream journal, and part ravings similar to Nietzche’s Zarathustra, “The Red Book” defies easy explanation.

Because of Jung’s writing in particular, “The Red Book,” I’ve been wrestling with my own mythological and internal journey, partly because of Jung’s writings, which allowed me to enter my unconscious in ways I have never fully explored. I’ve experimented with Buddhist Chod practice and Tibetan Buddhist visualization practices and mantras; I recently used magic mushrooms, and I’ve been experimenting with Active Imagination (I give more detailed instructions here on active imagination).

It’s been an interesting experience. It has somehow made me more introverted than ever. I don’t necessarily think that’s a great thing, because I do need people. But this feels like a very internal, exploratory part of my life, and I am just letting it take me where it must. I am now 41 and have a real sense that the first half of my life is over, the part that was active and seeking and always wanting more and more and more. The remnants of that consciousness are still with me. But a shift has started to happen.