Another Red Liber
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Curious if any here are familiar with Jungs "Red Book" aka Liber Novus. It's beautifully illustrated with amazing imagery painted by Jung. Jung made a point of delving deep into Alchemy and collected a copious amount of ancient alchemical grimoires of which many are being uploaded as high resolution PDFs.
Anyway, Jung made contact with two entities he titled Philemon and Salome. They articulated the contents of the Red Book and guided him towards his system of analytical psychology. He made sure his book was not released until approx 60 years after his death which came up recently which is why the book is now finally available to the public. Thought I'd supply a quote from his grimoire. I'm posting this to "Thelema" because he definitely provided a new perspective for humanity that i find parallels thelema in many ways. Move if needed."Man is a gateway, through which you pass from the outer world of Gods, daimons, and souls into the inner world, out of the greater. into the smaller world. Small and inane is man, already he is behind you, and once again you find yourselves in endless space, in the smaller or inner infinity.
"At immeasurable distance a lonely star stands in the zenith.
"This is the one God of this one man, this is his world, his Pleroma, his divinity.
"In this world, man is Abraxas, the creator and destroyer of his own world.
"This star is the God and the goal of man. This is his lone guiding God, in him man goes to his rest, toward him goes the long journey of the soul after death, in him everything that man withdraws from the greater world shines resplendently.
"To this one God man shall pray. Prayer increases the light of the star; it throws a bridge across death, it prepares life for the smaller world, and assuages the hopeless desires of the greater.
"When the greater world turns cold, the star shines.
"Nothing stands between man and his one God, so long as man can turn away his eyes from the flaming spectacle of Abraxas.
"Man here, God there.
"Weakness and nothingness here, eternally creative power there.
"Here nothing but darkness and clammy cold there total sun." ~Carl Jung, Red Book, Page 354.http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lluuvvuvrs1qc9jvmo1_500.jpg
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A few years ago my sister and I visited the Buffalo chapter of the O.T.O for a special discussion of the tarot. Afterwards I was browsing the bookshelves in the main room when the head of the order came over to me and said he wanted to show me something special. (
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He went into a back room and came out with this book, and another and proceeded to sit me down and look through it page by page with me. It truly is one of the most beautiful books I have ever seen. ( hard core bibliophile here
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I distinctly recall that picture you shared, it's very moving...as were most all of the rest of them. It's on my wish list.Thanks for sharing the image and the beautiful passage.
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My wife got me it a few years ago as a present. It's pretty amazing, and the sort of text that I can only read a page at a time, because of the way it overwhelms the senses.
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"...It's pretty amazing, and the sort of text that I can only read a page at a time, because of the way it overwhelms the senses."
Yes. For me, each page is like interpreting and assimilating an intensely powerful dream. I'm nowhere near finishing it.
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I love the paintings. I haven't read any of the text though.