ABSTRACT
Carl Gustav Jung himself felt that the reading of The Red Book was critical to the understanding of the development of his theory of what has come to be called analytical psychology. It is the author's contention that the reading of it is an important key to the understanding of Jung himself, particularly regarding his relationship to the feminine and his concept of the anima. In her reading of The Red Book and particularly of the vision Jung had with Elijah and Salome, she was struck by his later commentaries on it in which he seemed to fall short in his interpretation, to her, especially of the figure of Salome. In his Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung himself admits to an early distrust of women, pointing to his mother’s absence, felt as a desertion, during a prolonged hospitalization when he was quite young.
