ABSTRACT

C. G. Jung and the Dead: Visions, Active Imagination and the Unconscious Terrain offers an in-depth look at Jung’s encounters with the dead, moving beyond a symbolic understanding to consider these figures a literal presence in the psyche. Stephani L. Stephens explores Jung’s personal experiences, demonstrating his skill at visioning in all its forms as well as detailing the nature of the dead.

This unique study is the first to follow the narrative thread of the dead from Memories, Dreams, Reflections into The Red Book, assessing Jung’s thoughts on their presence, his obligations to them, and their role in his psychological model. It offers the opportunity to examine this previously neglected theme unfolding during Jung’s period of intense confrontation with the unconscious, and to understand active imagination as Jung’s principle method of managing that unconscious content. As well as detailed analysis of Jung’s own work, the book includes a timeline of key events and case material.

C. G. Jung and the Dead will offer academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian studies, the history of psychology, Western esoteric history and gnostic and visionary traditions a new perspective on Jung’s work. It will also be of great interest to Jungian analysts and psychotherapists, analytical psychologists and practitioners of other psychological disciplines interested in Jungian ideas.

part I|53 pages

Defining the terrain

chapter 1|8 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|9 pages

The literal and the symbolic

chapter 3|9 pages

Jung’s ways of seeing

chapter 4|2 pages

Jung’s primary orientation to the dead

chapter 5|9 pages

The big dream

chapter 6|14 pages

Death dreams

part II|41 pages

Liber Primus

chapter 7|5 pages

The Red Book

chapter 8|7 pages

Introduction to Liber Primus

chapter 9|11 pages

Descent into hell in the future

Jung’s first active imagination

chapter 10|5 pages

Siegfried and the merry garden

chapter 11|11 pages

Mysterium Encounter

Elijah and Salome

part III|35 pages

Liber Secundus

chapter 12|13 pages

The Red One, the tramp and Death

chapter 13|16 pages

Divine Folly

chapter 14|4 pages

Philemon and the poisoner

part IV|30 pages

Scrutinies

chapter 15|12 pages

Scrutinies

chapter 16|13 pages

The Septem Sermones

chapter 17|3 pages

After the last sermon

Death, Elijah and Salome

part V|10 pages

Beyond The Red Book

chapter 18|3 pages

Post-Red Book implications

chapter 19|3 pages

Contemporary context

chapter 20|2 pages

Concluding thoughts