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r/Jung•
SomePolack

Read some of Jung's works (listed), looking for recommendations on what to read next and where to go from here

Question for r/Jung

So far I've chewed through Psychology and Alchemy, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Man and His Symbols, and a few random chapters or assorted essays. I'm really into what I've been reading, especially everything that has to do with spirituality and his analysis of various symbols from the past. I was thinking about reading Psychological Types or Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious next, but I'm not sure what direction I should take.

Any thoughts/comments/etc...? I feel like I've had a good primer with what I've read so far, though I struggled to get through Modern Man in Search of a Soul. I say that only because it gave me such a sense of hopelessness and dread, which was the opposite of what I had hoped to gain from the book.

Posted May 13, 2020, 6:38 AM UTC

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Tommonen•

Psychological types is great and definitely one of the essentials. I think its really important to understand Jungs theory on personality, as it can teach a great a lot about you and also how the ego works in relations to type etc. which is quite essential in this individuation thing.

It also has a great section on definitions, which is something that everyone reading Jung should have by their side at all times.

Jungs idea on personality goes waaaay deeper than MBTI or other things derived from Jungs theory on psychological types. However some of the newer theories can open up some things and its good to also read other theories on personality, like big 5 etc mainstream ones not related to Jung. They can offer good perspectives on personality as well, but for me Jungs work is in the core of it all. And for example some new theories derived from MBTI say silly things like there being 8 functions where 4 are in the shadow and other nonsense like that, which are not compatible at all with what Jung said if you understand the basic terms like what function actually is and what are psychological attitudes, what introversion and extraversion are etc properly.

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SomePolackOP•

Thanks for the advice! What kinds of definitions are you talking about?

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Tommonen•

Here is a pic of one page as an example:

https://imgur.com/2A7QRhu

​

The definitions section is 79 pages, so its quite a lot of stuff explained :)

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SomePolackOP•

Oh my that's a ton, thanks for sharing I appreciate it!

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JGolden33•

Some may disagree (which is fine), but The Red Book is essential to getting at the heart of Jung’s own psyche and how he came up with his theories of psychology. It will be a difficult read though, but if you read it with Khartoum published commentaries, it would be a fruitful read. But it is definitely something you need to take in small bites rather than swallow whole.

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SomePolackOP•

I've been debating The Red Book, but don't want to find it too difficult and end up lost in it. What do you mean when you say it is a difficult read?

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JGolden33•

It is difficult because it reads like a Gnostic text. Jung called it his own journey into the unconscious, so it does not read like a scientific text—it is mythological in nature. The text is immensely important for understanding Jung because it is what inspired is own detailing and understanding of the unconscious. Essentially, Jung underwent a psychosis and was able to recover from it.

An excellent resource for digging into The Red Book are listening to and reading Lance Owens’ lectures. He is the moderator for the gnosis.org website and has become one of the best interpreters of the import and contents of The Red Book. You can access those here, everything is free!

http://gnosis.org/Lance-Owens.html

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SomePolackOP•

I've been looking to get into gnostic texts for a while, but have been holding off until I read some more Jung and a couple other classical works. That sounds great, though, and exactly what I am looking to read right now. I've been doing some background research on the book, so I am really interested in actually reading it, as well as Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, to get a better sense of Jung's inner world/life.

Thanks for the resource!

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Tommonen•

I wouldnt call it psychosis, even tho there were some of the same elements in it for sure.

The thing with psychosis is that basically brains have created wirings around that should not be there. basically you grow all sorts of weird connections all over all the time, but then the faulty ones gets trimmed off. In normal healthy brains at least. But with psychosis(and also schizophrenia) these faulty connections dont get trimmed off, instead they stay there to cause all sorts of problems with cognition. With psychosis its temporary triggered by something, but with schizophrenia this trimming system is more damaged.

Now naturally psychosis expresses some inner images and things that have to do with the mind. BUT with psychosis its not so much about the Self wanting to regulate itself, but maladjustment to an external stimuli or perhaps drugs that caused brain chemistry to go off and not trim properly.

With Jung it was about the self-regulating factor of the psyche that pushed these things to the surface. And yes they disturbed his consciousness similarly to what psychosis could do. But it wasnt about the lack of trimming of weird thought patterns, but about the contents of the unconscious being soooooo strong and forceful that they took over the consciousness in a way.

It was that there was stuff wanting to come out very badly, not that Jungs brains would had all of a sudden starting to make weird random connections, in response to drugs or trauma etc, that leads to psychosis.

The difference is very subtle on the surface, but fundamentally quite different.

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Brazzers22•

I am currently making my way thru E. M. Cioran' s works. You can give it a try if you find it interesting.

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SomePolackOP•

What does his work focus on? I'm not familiar with him.

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deathstar107•

Maybe reading his memories, dreams and reflections might help you gain some meaningful insights on how Jung arrived to his psychological theories. It's an autobiography that involves experiences that had a decisive influence on his life and consequently shaped his opinions. If you get an idea about Jung's personal life, it may prove helpful in understanding his sophisticated ideas.

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SomePolackOP•

That's very helpful, thank you! It always helps to get insight about the person behind the ideas.

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Brazzers22•

Philosophy. Nihilism to be more specific. It's pretty grimm but offers a different perspective to life

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