logo
episode-header-image
Nov 2019
1h 15m

11: Carl Jung • The Red Book (Part 1)

MJDorian
About this episode

On this episode we dive into one of the strangest and most enigmatic books ever written: The Red Book. This is a book so infamous that it was kept locked away for fifty years after Carl Jung's death, raising concerns that it might prove that the world renowned psychologist was actually insane. Is it a work of visionary creativity or divine madness? Let's find out.

----------

A full transcript of this episode is available here: https://mjdorian.com/transcripts/

----------

To support the show and listen to exclusive episodes visit: https://www.patreon.com/mjdorian

----------

All music on this episode was written & produced by MJDorian.

Creative Codex is written & produced by MJDorian.

Up next
May 14
54: Hilma af Klint • Painting the Unseen • Part 3: Behind the Forces of Matter
Hilma af Klint's paintings are not an intellectual exercise in abstraction, they are symbolic works encoded with specific spiritual messages. What are the spiritual messages encoded in her artworks? Can they be deciphered? Was Hilma part of a Rosicrucian Order?We will also make a ... Show More
1h 55m
Mar 2026
The 3 Signs of Human Genius • Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation (Video)
Discover the 3 Signs of Genius through a journey into the mind of Leonardo da Vinci. What made Leonardo so brilliant? We will venture deeper than anyone else to find out through the most comprehensive analysis of Leonardo da Vinci's first masterpiece: Annunciation.Support the Cre ... Show More
1h 16m
Jan 2026
The Red Book: The Midlife Catharsis of Dr. Carl Jung (Video Bonus)
Dr. Carl Jung wrote that around the age of 35 we enter "the shadow side of life". Nowadays we call it a midlife crisis, but to Jung, it's a call from the depths of your soul—an invitation for the journey inward. Will you answer the call?Support my work and the Creative Codex visi ... Show More
44m 30s
Recommended Episodes
Feb 2025
109: Carl Jung - Psychology & Alchemy, part 2
<p>Today we continue with Psychology &amp; Alchemy. This week, we'll spend the beginning of the episode considering the parallel between the lapis philosophorum and Christ, and the unusual claim of the alchemists that man can redeem God. The rest of the episode concerns Carl Jung ... Show More
1h 44m
Dec 2004
Jung
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the extraordinary mind of the psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. In 1907 Sigmund Freud met a young man and fell into a conversation that is reputed to have lasted for 13 hours. That man was the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. Freud is celebrated a ... Show More
28m 21s
Apr 2024
90: Carl Jung - Archetypes & The Collective Unconscious
Carl Gustave Jung was a student of Freud, but broke from his mentor in a dramatic way. Jung acquired the reputation of being a mystic, and put forward ideas that pushed the boundaries of psychoanalysis. This is a crash course in Jung’s most important ideas: projection, archetypes ... Show More
1h 26m
Jan 2025
108: Carl Jung - Psychology & Alchemy, part 1
<p>The alchemists claimed that they explained &quot;the obscure by the more obscure, the unknown by the more unknown&quot;, and accordingly, the secrets of the alchemical work have remained largely a mystery to the public consciousness. While most think of alchemy as charlatanism ... Show More
1h 42m
Aug 2009
Is the Necronomicon real?
<p>H.P. Lovecraft's strange, elaborate stories and mythologies have inspired a devoted following. Join Josh and Chuck -- and a special guest -- as they discuss Lovecraft's most famous creation, the "Necronomicon," in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.</p><p> </p> Learn more abo ... Show More
30m 7s
Dec 2021
Ep 507 - If on a winter's night a traveler, by Italo Calvino
Sometimes a book is so meta it sort of breaks your brain! How to talk about a book that is all beginnings and no ends? How to discuss a book that enlists You, the Reader, in its chicanery? We try to get on the wavelength with Calvino's text. You be the judge of if we get there. O ... Show More
1h 6m
Mar 2025
Episode 314 - The Book No One Can Read: The Voynich Manuscript Mystery
Episode 314 - The Book No One Can Read: The Voynich Manuscript Mystery A 600-year-old book written in an unknown language, bizarre botanical illustrations that don’t exist on Earth, and a possible wizard on the run—this episode dives into the biggest literary mystery of all time ... Show More
52m 20s
Jan 2019
The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward
HP Lovecraft's locked-room mystery - in podcast form. 
25m 46s
Jun 2023
518 The Curse of the Marquis de Sade - A Notorious Scoundrel, a Mythical Manuscript, and the Biggest Scandal in Literary History (with Joel Warner) | My Last Book with Diane Rayor
Not even imprisonment could stop the Marquis de Sade from writing his insanely intense, unrelenting erotica - and not even Sade's eventual death could stop his secret manuscript, temporarily hidden in a Bastille wall to protect it from looters and revolutionaries, from haunting i ... Show More
41m 54s