The Red Book of C.G. Jung: A Journey into Unknown Depths by Walter Boechat

Author:Walter Boechat [Boechat, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Karnac Books
Published: 2016-08-31T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

The legacy of the dead

“These figures are the dead, not just your dead, that is, all the images of the shapes you took in the past, which your ongoing life has left behind, but also the thronging dead of human history, the ghostly procession of the past, which is an ocean compared to the drops of your own life span”

—Liber Secundus, “Nox Secunda”

“Immortal mortals, mortal immortals, one living the others’ death and dying the others’ life”

—Heraclitus of Ephesus, “The Obscure”,

Fragment 62 (Bornheim, 2002)

The dead appear in a range of forms at various moments in The Red Book, always as part of an imaginary dialogue with Jung. In one example, the soul of a woman is anxiously seeking a talisman that will answer her questions. She reminds Jung of one of his former patients who had passed away. There are other examples, such as in the intriguing Chapter 13 of Liber Secundus, “The Sacrificial Murder”, in which Jung discovers a dead child and speaks with its soul, giving him a nearly impossible task to complete. Another important confrontation with the dead takes place in Chapter 15 of Liber Secundus, “Nox Secunda”, discussed in Chapter Five. After the librarian gives him The Imitation of Christ by the Benedictine monk Thomas à Kempis, Jung waits in the anteroom of the library. He hears the sound of voices and shadowy figures pass by. One of these looks at him with tired eyes. This man reveals his name, Ezechiel, declaring that he is an Anabaptist,1 leaving together with the throngs around him to seek truths and revelations in Jerusalem. Jung shows an interest in following him to seek these truths, but Ezechiel responds that he cannot, as he still has a body. He then declares, “We are the dead” (p. 294).

Of all the apparitions and interferences of the dead in The Red Book, the most important takes place in the third part, Scrutinies, when Philemon gives the Seven Sermons to the Dead (Septem Sermones ad Mortuos). The hordes of the dead coming from Jerusalem “did not find what they were seeking”, as though they were indoctrinated by Philemon on the nature of God, man, and destiny. The hordes of the dead appeared during Jung's confrontation with the unconscious through a series of psychological phenomena that took place at his house (1963, p. 182). This chapter discusses the possible reasons for this intense presence of the dead in The Red Book and the role that these had in the life and works of Jung.

Ancestor worship and the origins of religion

The dead have always been surrounded by extremely rigorous taboos and rituals. The purpose of these rituals was to separate the realm of the living from the realm of the dead through effective symbols. Propitiatory rituals still exist in contemporary culture through a range of ceremonies, such as the mass of the seventh day in Catholicism and the Matzeiva in Judaism. Judaism also has a traditional custom of covering mirrors for a certain time to stop the dead from staying attached to their image and remaining among the living.

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