Bret Burquest - September 25, 2009

Carl Jung (1875-1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, the founder of analytical psychology known as Jungian psychology.

As a theoretical psychologist and practicing clinician, he explored the psyche through an examination of dreams, mythology, religion and art. He also spent much of his life delving into alchemy, astrology and Eastern philosophy. Some of his notable achievements include the concept of psychological archetypes, synchronicity and the collective unconscious.

Jung emphasized the importance of harmony and balance. The process of “individuation” was the central concept of analytical psychology. For a person to become whole, it requires a psychological process of integrating the conscious with the unconscious while still maintaining conscious independence.

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SARA CORBETT - September 16, 2009

This is a story about a nearly 100-year-old book, bound in red leather, which has spent the last quarter century secreted away in a bank vault in Switzerland. The book is big and heavy and its spine is etched with gold letters that say “Liber Novus,” which is Latin for “New Book.” Its pages are made from thick cream-colored parchment and filled with paintings of otherworldly creatures and handwritten dialogues with gods and devils. If you didn’t know the book’s vintage, you might confuse it for a lost medieval tome.

And yet between the book’s heavy covers, a very modern story unfolds. It goes as follows: Man skids into midlife and loses his soul. Man goes looking for soul. After a lot of instructive hardship and adventure — taking place entirely in his head — he finds it again.

Some people feel that nobody should read the book, and some feel that everybody should read it. The truth is, nobody really knows. Most of what has been said about the book — what it is, what it means — is the product of guesswork, because from the time it was begun in 1914 in a smallish town in Switzerland, it seems that only about two dozen people have managed to read or even have much of a look at it.

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Was Carl Jung’s Ancestor an Illuminatus?