February 2010

The Strange and Beautiful Red Book

Suzanne Davidson, Anne Di Lauro, Marie Makinson

Thursday 4th February 2010 7:30 - 9:30pm

St. Mary's Parish House

cnr Merivale and Peel Sts.

South Brisbane

Members and concessions $5, non-members $10

I wrote these fantasies down first in the Black Book; later, I transferred them to the Red Book, which I also embellished with drawings.

 C. G. Jung – Memories, Dreams, Reflections

From 1912 until the 1920’s, Jung undertook what he called in Memories, Dreams, Reflections a “confrontation with the unconscious.”  While maintaining contact with the every-day world through his family and his work with his patients, he would retire to his study in the evening to explore a world of images that came to him spontaneously through dreams and fantasies – “material that burst forth from my unconscious, and at first swamped me.” 

“All my works, all my creative activity, has come from those initial fantasies and dreams... Everything that I accomplished in later life was already contained in them, although at first only in the form of emotions and images.”

Thanks to the efforts of the Philemon Foundation and of the historian of psychology Sonu Shamdasani, theRed Book, a large folio red leather bound volume, has finally “come out” into the wider world. Consisting of a facsimile of the original hand written pages, and accompanied by a translation into English and an introductory essay, it is a marvel of beauty, otherworldliness and strangeness.

We shall introduce and explore the Red Book and a copy will be available for you to look at.

Panel Members: Suzanne Davidson is currently undertaking post-graduate studies in depth psychology and mythology at the Pacifica Graduate Institute, California; Anne Di Lauro practises psychotherapy from a Jungian perspective in Brisbane; Marie Makinson is a Jungian analyst  in private practice in Lismore and Brisbane.