ABSTRACT

The previous analysis of Jung’s fantasies has argued that they appear to be memories of an excruciating initiatory process based on abusive versions of Masonic rites. However, this chapter tenders a number of other possible explanations such as whether Jung was insane, whether he was a Freemason consciously veiling his Masonic initiations for some purpose, whether the fantasies represent some form of ‘channelling’, or whether they were all based on his reading. Prior to the development of his theory of the Collective Unconscious in 1912 Jung had proposed an earlier theory of ‘Cryptomnesia’ in which he argued that the experiences of mediums and the creative work of poets and artists were the product of the unconscious processing of previously learned but forgotten information. The argument presented in this study is that Jung’s earlier theory of cryptomnesia may be a better explanation for the content in The Red Book than the Collective Unconscious, not because he had read about initiation practices but because he had undergone them.