The Holy Spirit; Hagia Sophia~Sacred Wisdom

"This is a powerful time; scary, uncertain, sacred, and necessary. Stay centered in the present, knowing that what you're experiencing is a process of deep alchemy. It takes courage to be able to exist in a place of unknowing, for “even a coward can endure tragedy but only the brave can endure suspense.” Release old behaviors where you're stale or playing small; trust that which you love and which loves you."

This is a message I received today, and it's timing was perfect as I'm living with a situation that is "suspense-full" in that there is no clear answer. Not yet. When we live in a state of waiting, of having to be patient, or having to endure without knowing answers or even the best thing to do, we have to trust our inner knowing. Not easy. When one is seriously endangered, such as when one is in the hospital, what happens? We wait. We try to be patient. We are a patient. A very hard place to be in psychologically.

A client of mine requested a reading for today which I cannot do. I needed to carve out some space for now to care for some pressing needs in my family and hopefully to find the time to do some of the inner work of writing. I've not been too successful in that yet! Always priorities.....

However, to those people who follow astrology, and to this client of mine, I want to remind her to trust her "inner shaman", her intuitive wisdom, her inner Beloved...her inner astrologer. We have to follow our own way, our own Tao, and I do believe the deepest answers are found in our own hearts. When we cannot connect with others, we can instead create a private ritual of going inside ourselves and asking our questions and listening to the answers that will arise. We can pull a Rune or check our transits or open at random our favorite inspiring book and "listen" for the words we need to hear.

I truly believe that the Holy Spirit (Hagia Sophia; wisdom herself) will arise in some words or form of synchronicity. We will find some answer or wisdom or balm for our Souls if we can make ourselves receptive.

www.elizabethspring.com

Saturn in Libra, with Neptune and Jupiter in Aquarius!

Priorities!

If I were to imagine one word to sum up the work of Saturn in Libra I might say: "Priorities." And perhaps it's prioritizing the relative importance and feelings in all " one on one relationships" in our life that Saturn in Libra speaks to... and so I try....


I try to prioritize and make an effort. For the last 2 months it's been a high priority for me to get to NYC to see Jung's Red Book and to reconnect with old friends there, and twice(!) I've been laid low by sickness that has kept me away.


I sadly gave up on that priority until a few days ago. And then the synchronistic happening occurred that could be seen as part of the "signature" of Jupiter and Neptune in Aquarius--because I let go of my efforting and the need to have something occur the way I wanted it to occur, the Universe arranged--serendipitously (?) through friends (Aquarius) that I should still get my hearts delight to see the Jung exhibit, and so I will be going there, all plans arranged, with little effort on my part.


The point? It's simply to remember the grace of what we used to call "leaving room for the Holy Spirit" which to me is often seen dressed in Uranian fashion with a touch of Jupiter and Neptune. So, we do the intention, we make the effort, we prioritize...all Saturn. And then Jupiter and Neptune in Aquarius say...."leave a little room for us, leave a moment for us to do our magic...it won't come as you expect." And that's a very sweet thing indeed.

Elizabeth Spring www.elizabethspring.com

Venus square Pluto, Venus opposite Pluto, Venus Conjunct Pluto in the Underworld

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What is Venus’ revenge for the suppression of beauty and joyful eroticism? What happens when sexuality gets twisted into pornography? This is when Venus goes down into the underworld with Pluto and erupts with a vengeance for our blatant disregard of pleasure and true relationship. She feels abused and she rebels, with perversion and pornography resulting—with all its emphasis on “power over another,” control issues, and disempowerment. Both men and women get caught in the illusions of control and pseudo-glamour, and unhappiness is often the outcome.

In astrology, we usually see this usually as the negative manifestation of Pluto, Scorpio and Neptune, often with 8^th house undertones. It can also be a lower expression of Mars and Neptune in square or opposition as well. When Venus and Pluto in the birth chart are conjunct, in square, or opposition it doesn’t have to play out as “unrequited love” or unhappiness in relationship, or frustrated sexuality, or a tendency for triangular love affairs with impossible people—but it often plays out that way. Venus Pluto in conjunction, square and opposition challenges a person to explore the deepest dimensions of love, intimacy, and even beauty. Naivete is not welcome here, and relationships cannot be all about the honeymoon stage anymore. Venus/Pluto is truly capable of making true relationships work, when they are willing to do the hard work of relationship--when they have their eyes open.

The intimacy of a high expression of Venus/Pluto is based on love, and a delicate balance of two people as equal supporters of each other. There is often such hope and idealism in this combination mixed with a history of tragedy. It doesn’t have to be this way. Both men and women have Venus in their charts, and Venus doesn't have to be "tormented."

Often a person with the difficult aspects of these planets in their birth chart has had some history of emotional abuse, either early in this life or in their past life. And because they know the territory, they can be the ones who can heal it for themselves as well as others. However, when relationship dynamics remain unconscious, the territory is often played out in the underworld or as an addiction.

So the downside of Venus and Pluto’s expression can be seen as a product of our consumer society, and a symptom of a “loss of soul.” Whether it be an individual or the culture, there’s a loss here—or a fear—of the positive Venus—the Venus that thrives on relationship, equality, and beauty. This is what happens when one cannot "feel" anymore. And of course, like an alcoholic or an addict, one drink or one drug is never enough. Venus/Pluto is not bad; but it has a special mission—it’s a call to take passion and make it real…and good. It can be done! (c) elizabeth spring www.elizabethspring.com

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Oprah's promoting of pornography; internet porn is cited as the number one reason for divorce in America today

Dear Oprah~
If I had been a young woman instead of an older therapist, I would now view the sex industry as a lucrative and exciting career option. Instead, as a therapist who has to deal with the heartbreak and family wreckage that pornography leaves in its wake, I kept waiting, Oprah, for you to balance your Nov 17th show by bringing up "the other side" of pornography--of how porn images effect a wife or young mother or teenager who has just discovered what their father does at night on the internet.



As a psychotherapist, I deal with the young women who feel betrayed when they find internet porn that includes "just click here" options for child porn as well. Mothers look at their children and back to the children on the internet screen. First they call the lawyer, then they call me. Then I try to find them a support group for the disheartened wives of porn watchers.




I kept waiting for you, Oprah to bring in a therapist who would discuss this addiction that pornography creates, and its crushing effects on families, because, according to the mainstream therapists magazine, "Psychotherapy Networker" it is internet porn that is the leading cause for divorce in America today. Or maybe simply someone on your show could have said that the money gained from choosing this career has a downside that is as psychologically damaging to soul as HIV is to the body.

Libra South Node, Libra Moon

In Evolutionary astrology we look at the South Node with eyes that are biased to see what unfinished business, what blockage, what challenge was not met—either earlier in this life or in a former life. So, we read the South Node negatively. To read the “Venus ruled” Libra negatively can be hard, because there is so much charm and personality there. It’s similar to saying “that nice person at the party/the job/the meeting wasn’t really so nice after all.” Too much niceness, too much ‘trying to make the peace at any price’, too much caring what the other person thinks and feels, can make a person appear like a chameleon. Why is there such a desire to please? What woundedness is under that need?

Enmeshment, co-dependence, and a subtle kind of opportunism and neediness are the worse traits of Libra; no matter if it be the Sun, Moon or South Node. In the South Node position or as the Moon, the emotional nature “remembers” on a cellular level an original closeness and unity that is hoped for now, if not expected. Venus wants good relationships, harmony and beauty. Nothing wrong with that. Justice too, and credit for doing a good job. He/she wants to come up smelling like roses, and sometimes Venus bends the truth or takes radical risks to make their dreams come true.

So what is needed here? A healthy dose of its opposite: Mars. Venus needs the independent, assertiveness of its North Node of Aries to create the balance. And whether you have the South Node or Moon in Libra, there’s too much of a default pattern here of the illusive or manipulative feminine—whether you are male or female, we all have our counter-sexual parts within us, and with Libra, you are going to have to assert, fight, survive, and carry the weight of the paradoxes of life on your shoulders. You need to get assertive. Your soul survival may depend on you not depending too much on other people.

As always there’s a delicate crucial balance needed between the opposites. This is the Libra/Aries, “I-Thou axis”-- the relationship balancing “see-saw” between me and you. There’s great gold or goodness embedded in the South Node Libra, or Libra Moon, but if you’re going to learn from this, take a look at how you “act-out” your relationships in your life, and how you respond to beauty. Are you nourishing yourself with “random acts of beauty” and loving kindness? Good, that’s high Libra. Are you finding new ways to nourish your need for true relationships, or are you distracting or deceiving yourself and others? Libra likes the illusions and beauty of Neptunian fantasies, which are fine, but remember to honor the need for confrontation and assertion in your life. Venus needs Mars. The female and male parts of you are all there inside of you, just asking permission to express itself. “Androgyny” can be seen as a kind of wholeness.
© Elizabeth Spring www.elizabethspring.com

South Node Taurus, Moon in Taurus

The South Node represents what we’ve come into this life with---the gifts, the wounds, the challenges. On the most basic level, the South Node is where we are comfortable because we are familiar with the territory, and with the South Node in Taurus, or with the Moon in Taurus, we know the delights of being comfortable, being sensual and sexual, having a sense of financial and emotional security, and enjoying the things in life that make it worth living. Venus rules Taurus, and this is the part of us that values the ground we stand on, our relationships, beauty, good food and drink, and loyal friends. Nothing wrong with that! And we fear not having enough of those things.


Venus is exalted in Taurus, meaning that the planetary archetype of Venus naturally and comfortably expresses itself through the lens of Taurus, and that “she” expresses a type of “life philosophy” that is rooted in a pragmatic and sensual understanding of life.
That is unless you’ve taken it too far. And this may be the case if your South Node is in Taurus. The South Node always represents the area that we didn’t get quite right in a former life, or earlier in this one, so we are called now to release the down side of these habits and traits. Too much emphasis on Venusian security, sensuality and relationships can hint of a touch of laziness or materiality that doesn’t leave room for the depth, painful truth, or edginess that Soul Work sometimes requires.


Have you been living in a world of denial or attempting a false security that isn’t rooted in deep truth? The South Node in Taurus speaks to the need to move away from the over-dependence on personal resources (“He who dies with the most money wins”) or continual security seeking (“This is my house and I don’t ever want to consider moving for any reason.”)


Too great a concern for the comfortable desires of Venus tends towards materialism, if not laziness, and the antidote is to move towards your Scorpio North Node. This is about a willingness to risk one’s present level of security for a deeper, truer level of security and integrity. This is where the balance is brought in by the Scorpio North Node, which continually wants to know “what’s the emotional bottom line truth here? And what do I need to do about it?”


The Moon in Taurus reflects a “blessed” placement because the Moon relates to not only our emotional style but also our way of nurturing ourselves and others. It reflects something of the positive archetype of the Mother. Taurus nurturing is sweet, as long as mothering doesn’t become “smothering.” The Moon in Taurus has less of the downside of the South Node here, but we still need to be continually mindful of balance!
Elizabeth Spring www.elizabethspring.com

Your Moon Sign and Your South Node: the Differences

Here’s a good question a reader asked—“Why are you writing about the South Node and the Moon together?” And I replied: I’m doing this because they mutually reinforce each other and tell more of the story of the heart.

Yes, they each are different—dare I say “slightly?”—in that the Moon describes your obvious emotional and nurturing style in this life and how you relate to all things “maternal” including your Mother. However, the Moon's Nodes—are the Nodes of the Moon! And the South Node specifically holds the emotional memory of the Soul, so the story goes back further in time. It speaks of the emotional memory (not linear or left-brain memory) that is carried over from life to life. I believe this memory is sometimes called "skandas" in Hinduism, or you could think of it as something embedded in your DNA.

So your Moon is more specific to this life and what you are conscious of, whereas the South Node of the Moon is more of the “unconscious emotional memory.” I find that the overlapping and synthesizing of the two is fascinating…have you considered how your Moon sign and South Node sign reflect something of your conscious and unconscious patterns?

Let's say your South Node is in Scorpio, ruled by Pluto, and your Moon is in Aries ruled by Mars. The ancient story embedded in your psyche may be deeply Plutonian, powerful, and perhaps tragic. And so, in this life your Soul chose to be born with a Mars ruled Aries Moon-- maybe your Soul knew in some mysterious way that now you needed to "survive, to have courage, to start fresh, and to be enthusiastic" rather than brooding.....sounds like a description of a life affirming Aries Moon to me. Maybe that Aries Moon person is somewhat irritable, impulsive, and independent--it might just be that the South Node in Pluto ruled Scorpio reflected a heavy karmic maternal inheritance.

So, it's similar to when Sun sign astrologers say: look at your Rising Sign as well as your Sun sign in reading about yourself because each has a message here--and I would add, that when you are looking at your Moon, look at your South Node sign as well...read both.

Three Small Book Reviews; Three Quotable Opinions

"North Node Astrology: Rediscovering Your Life Direction and Soul Purpose"

“The question after all is said and done is just how accurate and satisfying is the North Node section of this book…when I finally read my own North Node analysis, I was happily impressed by the accuracy of its description. For me, it was a true mirror of my past and current life and spoke to me of the transition I find myself in now. I actually brought the book in to discuss with my therapist.

The author studied astrology for the past 40 years but only in the past 15 became fascinated with the North and South Nodes. For her they have provided a reminder of the negative core beliefs that had previously kept her out of alignment, disembodied and not authentically herself. Each of us is a wounded healer, a “Chiron” that knows the best medicine that cures. She calls it the North Node.

Looking at life symbolically invites magic and synchronicity. It disturbs the status quo and renews a sense of faith and trust because you begin to see how your personal life story synchronizes with patterns that are larger than you and touch your connectedness to the whole of life. Meaning underlies apparent chaos. So to answer my initial question, “Can this book be of value?” I would now answer a resounding yes. It combines the wisdom of a visionary psychologist with the synchronicity that astrology and particularly “North Node” astrology offers.”by: Jeff Hutner Full review on: http://newparadigmdigest.com/1498/northnode/

Author and astrologer, Donna Cunningham writes:
“A couple of years back, I happened onto a blog created by astrologer and Jungian therapist, Elizabeth Spring. I was so taken by her wise, insightful, and heartfelt writing that I sent her a fan letter and have followed the evolution of her work since. She has recently published an excellent book, North Node Astrology: Rediscovering your Life Direction and Soul Purpose. It’s clear and readable for students at any level of astrology.”

"This is a remarkable original work by a gifted astrologer, one of the rising “new generation” who are continuing to further the proper use of astrology as a serious adjunct to psychology. Elizabeth's insights about the Nodes are especially valuable in explaining family relationships which give clues to both the problems and the delights these can reveal. Truly a book to own and refer to often! By: Alice O. Howell, author of "The Heavens Declare".

Jupiter Goes Direct; Jung's Red Book Arrives

How does one approach a holy book? Carl Jung's "Red Book" arrived today, and I feel grateful and "graced" to have it here, in my study, on the day that Jupiter has gone direct.

Here's Jung's opening: "The years, of which I have spoken to you, when I pursued the inner images, were the most important time of my life. Everything else is to be drived from this. It began at that time, and the later details hardly matter anymore. My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me. That was the stuff and material for more than only one life. Everything later was merely the outer classification, the scientific elaboration, and the integration into life. But the numinous beginning, which contained everything, was then." C.G. Jung, 1957

My sense is that Jung himself would not want us to rarify this book as much as to inspire each of us to pursue and ponder our inner images and inner life. A worthy ideal in these extroverted times in which we live. This huge book is impressive, yet for those who are somewhat new to Jung, his autobiography is worth reading: "Memories, Dreams, and Reflections." And if you'd like an overview of his artwork and mandalas, here's an excellent biography: "Carl Jung: Wounded Healer of the Soul" by Claire Dunne.

Jupiter is the archetypal planet of grace, expansion, and meaningfulness. I feel honored to have this gift arrive today as Jupiter changes motion from retrograde to direct. May Jupiter's grace and the wisdom of the Inner Self move more directly into our hearts and minds....and in Jupiter's spirit, may we continue to share the meaningfulness of our inner journeys with each other.

~elizabeth spring Oct 13, 2009 www.elizabethspring.com http://SouthNodeAstrology.blogspot.com

Bitterness; The Silent Disease

"Bitterness: The Silent Disease"
"Anger is a short madness." Horace 65 BC

Anger is a short madness, but bitterness is anger that has been boiled, simmered, and then found so unpalatable that it has been thrown into the deep freeze of our unconscious psyches. Recently the “Los Angeles Times” printed an article called: “Bitterness as mental illness?” It stated that:
“Bitter behavior is so common and deeply destructive that some psychiatrists are urging it be identified as a mental illness under the name post-traumatic embitterment disorder.”

How many of us have a touch of this disease? How many people do we know that have it? And towhat degree? Anger is what we feel first in the face of injustice, and repeated anger becomes deep-seated resentment at whoever and whatever is upsetting us. It turns cold and bitter. And the worse part is that it can turn us bitter even when we think we’ve hidden it so well! It can show on our faces, in our expressions, in our tone of voice. It gives us indigestion, insomnia, back pain, and unexplained headaches. We want so much for it not to de-freeze-- we want so much to forgive and forget, but proper disposal of toxic pain isn’t easy. Most of us need help with it.

Bitterness is a crusty disease that grows on unprocessed anger. It is particularly dangerous for us as we age, because many therapists, including myself, believe that it plays a part in heart disease as well. The heart is both a physical and emotional organ that reflects how we treat it. Most of us are trying to exercise away the excesses that have deposited themselves as fat—but what are we doing with all that un-dealt with pain in our hearts? With the years of frozen anger?

First of all, it needs to be acknowledged. Yes, it’s there. Maybe you call it disillusionment with your career, or maybe you say it’s how your sister cheated you out of part of your inheritance, or maybe it’s that romantic love never quite came through for you. You may have the regret of the ‘enabler’ or the one who had to sacrifice a large part of her life for another. Maybe you blame someone or blame yourself. What matters most though, is the story we tell ourselves about it.

We may think that we have done our ‘anger management’ by cooling and repressing our anger, but in most cases, it’s still alive and not well. It needs to be thawed, re-heated, and disposed of properly. Refrigeration doesn’t work well, as cooled anger turns to resentment and bitterness. It has an annoying tendency to leak out at inappropriate times-- upsetting good relationships, disturbing our dreams, and filling us with a vague discontent.


This story needs to be re-told and re-framed. If you will investigate, research, and delve deeper into the place where you hold this bitterness and pain, you can gain a wider perspective and a deeper understanding of the whole picture. You need to have someone who can deeply listen to your story, and whose opinions you trust. Allow them to help you understand it from a variety of different perspectives. Allow them to help you put it into a story that makes some sense (not easy!)

The psychologist, Carl Jung, once wrote that all adult neuroses could only be healed by a spiritual perspective. Perhaps you can find a way to infuse the story with love towards yourself and others. The last step will be to tell the ‘deep freezer of your subconscious’ the new story of how and why it all happened, and how you see it now.

As a psychotherapist and astrological counselor, I often look at what I call the family karmic inheritance. This is the legacy of inherited sins and blessings that get handed down the generations, and I believe it’s responsible for more psychic distress than we realize.

You may notice that you have our mother’s eyes, but have you noticed that you have some of her passive aggressive traits as well? Do you know what she was holding her anger about? Can you discover how far back it goes? Could you be overly sensitive to authoritarian figures like your grandfather, or experiencing a similar conflict between the demands of creativity and family that he once did? How bad did it get? Once you know the nature of the inheritance you can look at it how it’s showing up in your life. Old, long, and difficult inheritances can be particularly insidious. When you become conscious of the “sins of the father’s” you not only begin a healing process for yourself, but you stop the inheritance from infecting your children.

Generations of maternal and paternal legacies influence us in subtle and not so subtle ways. In some families (such as the presidential Kennedy’s) there has been mention of a family ‘curse’. Although that is an exaggeration for most of us, almost everyone inherits a mixture of psycho-spiritual legacies that need to be sorted through. We need to pull out all the stories we can from the family deep freezer.

You can’t be fueled by bitterness, but you can be fueled by anger. Bitterness eats you up, whereas anger can fuel you to do the emotional detective work that heals. It can help you find your voice and your courage. If you are feeling depressed, stuck, or cynical its time to do the psychic de-freezing. This is the time to act, not to “depress.” You may have to admit that your attempts to sublimate and distract yourself from your difficult moods aren’t working any more. This is a good thing, because it means the time is right for you to make a positive and perhaps radical change.

As an astrologer and counselor, I find that there is a grace and energy that shows up when we do things at the right time. If you have no family members who are alive, or who won’t tell you true stories; you can find powerful hints as to this inheritance on your astrological chart. And when you allow yourself to feel strongly about your feelings, rather than freezing them, you allow an opening for grace and serendipity. Call it what you will: God or chance or synchronicity, but whenever you decide to melt the frozen chunks of bitter memories with the healing warmth of tears and heartfelt stories, you invite in powers and graces beyond your rational mind. I believe we ‘summon the Gods’ with our open hearts, and that the Soul is ruthless in finding its way home.

Elizabeth Spring, MA, has a new book out on www.amazon.com called: “North Node Astrology; Rediscovering Your Life Direction and Soul Purpose.” She can be contacted through her website: www.elizabethspring.com
Mandala: Carl Jung, from "The Red Book"

South Node Virgo, Moon in Virgo

The Moon in Virgo and the South Node in Virgo hold the emotional memories from your childhood and from the forgotten “emotional memories” of past lives. From the re-incarnational perspective, the Moon and South Node show the particular emotional “hangover” that’s most impacting you in this life now. We don’t usually clearly remember “facts” from very early in life, nor do we usually remember our past lives. What we feel instead is an emotional undertone—a lunar feeling—and perhaps a sense that something in our past is unresolved and still needing healing…and loving.


So the South Node holds the forgotten memory and feels a bit like waking from a dream but not remembering the storyline. By describing some of this South Node and lunar “story” we bring it into consciousness, thereby allowing our present life story to change. We may recognize something of the old patterns and emotions that no longer serve us now. We can learn to love and be loved differently.

In the past you may have felt that you were the person who always had to do the right thing, and because you were being observed, you had high expectations of yourself and others did too. You may have been a doctor, priest, or skilled craftsperson in a previous life—someone who was expected to be precise and perfect. You may have had competitive siblings or demanding parents…or you may have been under the strict eye of someone older and more controlling--- or even a cultural system (Puritanism or Nazi-ism) that disempowered you in setting strict standards of behavior.


In a former life, or in some ways in this life, there may be a tendency to still want to continue to do things “just right.” And this perfectionism is a harsh standard to live up to it—in attempting to be perfect you inevitably fail; and thereby internalize a feeling of inadequacy or shame….this could also have come from the results of living under the ego-shattering impact of discipleship under an exacting master, guru, or person who had “power over you” (even sexual abuse).Having been the one who was duty-bound and played according to the ‘Rules’ in a former life (or earlier in this one) you now have the chance to relax your linear mind and move towards your heart’s true desires. What is it you truly long for now? Is it love, beauty, imaginative creativity? Or is it simply the chance to relax your guard and take in the view from the mountaintop? Now you have the chance to unite the impulses of your head with those of your heart. You can dare to be gentle with yourself now, and dare to make mistakes, to be imperfect and to let some details go; being compassionate and forgiving with yourself as well as with others.


It’s a good idea to practice getting out of unpleasant situations gracefully rather than being duty-bound or judgmental. You don’t “have to be right” now or confrontational, and you can dare to use your intuition and take action even when you don’t have all the answers. You don’t have to over-analyze things any more. You don’t have to struggle so much now to survive or evolve—instead you are called to move beyond “scarcity mentality” and a self-limiting place of “humble exactitude”. Part of your soul-yearning in this life is to learn to simply trust in the process of life and to surrender your anxieties to a higher power. You are more loved than you realize.

So in love relationships, you will find “soul medicine” in the soft edges and accepting ways of your Pisces North Node. Compassionate, imaginative, inclusive, and—even boundary-less at times, this Pisces/Virgo axis calls for rounding the edges of your psyche so that you are neither critical of yourself or others.


Neptune rules Pisces, so all Neptunian activities are good for you…whether it be walking along the beach by the ocean, meditating, having a glass of wine, or playing imaginatively like a child. Love relationships are healing when they move away from the humble, disciplined and earth bound nature of Virgo to the realms where the head and the heart unite in the less discriminating waters of Pisces. ~ Elizabeth Spring www.elizabethspring.com http://SouthNodeAstrology.blogspot.com

the unearthing of Carl Jung's Red Book

“This Jung, he was a bodhisattva,” Martin said to me that day. “This is the greatest psychic explorer of the 20th century, and this book tells the story of his inner life.” He added, “It gives me goose bumps just thinking about it.” He had at that point yet to lay eyes on the book, but for him that made it all the more tantalizing. His hope was that the Red Book would “reinvigorate” Jungian psychology, or at the very least bring himself personally closer to Jung. “Will I understand it?” he said. “Probably not. Will it disappoint? Probably. Will it inspire? How could it not?” He paused a moment, seeming to think it through. “I want to be transformed by it,” he said finally. “That’s all there is.”

IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND and decode the Red Book — a process he says required more than five years of concentrated work — Sonu Shamdasani took long, rambling walks on London’s Hampstead Heath. He would translate the book in the morning, then walk miles in the park in the afternoon, his mind trying to follow the rabbit’s path Jung had forged through his own mind.
Shamdasani is 46. He has thick black hair, a punctilious eye for detail and an understated, even somnolent, way of speaking. He is friendly but not particularly given to small talk. If Stephen Martin is — in Jungian terms — a “feeling type,” then Shamdasani, who teaches at the University College London’s Wellcome Trust Center for the History of Medicine and keeps a book by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus by his sofa for light reading, is a “thinking type.”

He has studied Jungian psychology for more than 15 years and is particularly drawn to the breadth of Jung’s psychology and his knowledge of Eastern thought, as well as the historical richness of his era, a period when visionary writing was more common, when science and art were more entwined and when Europe was slipping into the psychic upheaval of war. He tends to be suspicious of interpretive thinking that’s not anchored by hard fact — and has, in fact, made a habit of attacking anybody he deems guilty of sloppy scholarship — and also maintains a generally unsentimental attitude toward Jung. Both of these qualities make him, at times, awkward company among both Jungians and Jungs.

The relationship between historians and the families of history’s luminaries is, almost by nature, one of mutual disenchantment. One side works to extract; the other to protect. One pushes; one pulls. Stephen Joyce, James Joyce’s literary executor and last living heir, has compared scholars and biographers to “rats and lice.” Vladimir Nabokov’s son Dmitri recently told an interviewer that he considered destroying his father’s last known novel in order to rescue it from the “monstrous nincompoops” who had already picked over his father’s life and works. T. S. Eliot’s widow, Valerie Fletcher, has actively kept his papers out of the hands of biographers, and Anna Freud was, during her lifetime, notoriously selective about who was allowed to read and quote from her father’s archives.Even against this backdrop, the Jungs, led by Ulrich Hoerni, the chief literary administrator, have distinguished themselves with their custodial vigor. Over the years, they have tried to interfere with the publication of books perceived to be negative or inaccurate (including one by the award-winning biographer Deirdre Bair), engaged in legal standoffs with Jungians and other academics over rights to Jung’s work and maintained a state of high agitation concerning the way C. G. Jung is portrayed. Shamdasani was initially cautious with Jung’s heirs. “They had a retinue of people coming to them and asking to see the crown jewels,” he told me in London this summer. “And the standard reply was, ‘Get lost.’ ”

Shamdasani first approached the family with a proposal to edit and eventually publish the Red Book in 1997, which turned out to be an opportune moment. Franz Jung, a vehement opponent of exposing Jung’s private side, had recently died, and the family was reeling from the publication of two controversial and widely discussed books by an American psychologist named Richard Noll, who proposed that Jung was a philandering, self-appointed prophet of a sun-worshiping Aryan cult and that several of his central ideas were either plagiarized or based upon falsified research.

While the attacks by Noll might have normally propelled the family to more vociferously guard the Red Book, Shamdasani showed up with the right bargaining chips — two partial typed draft manuscripts (without illustrations) of the Red Book he had dug up elsewhere. One was sitting on a bookshelf in a house in southern Switzerland, at the home of the elderly daughter of a woman who once worked as a transcriptionist and translator for Jung. The second he found at Yale University’s Beinecke Library, in an uncataloged box of papers belonging to a well-known German publisher. The fact that there were partial copies of the Red Book signified two things — one, that Jung had distributed it to at least a few friends, presumably soliciting feedback for publication; and two, that the book, so long considered private and inaccessible, was in fact findable. The specter of Richard Noll and anybody else who, they feared, might want to taint Jung by quoting selectively from the book loomed large. With or without the family’s blessing, the Red Book — or at least parts of it — would likely become public at some point soon, “probably,” Shamdasani wrote ominously in a report to the family, “in sensationalistic form.”

For about two years, Shamdasani flew back and forth to Zurich, making his case to Jung’s heirs. He had lunches and coffees and delivered a lecture. Finally, after what were by all accounts tense deliberations inside the family, Shamdasani was given a small salary and a color copy of the original book and was granted permission to proceed in preparing it for publication, though he was bound by a strict confidentiality agreement. When money ran short in 2003, the Philemon Foundation was created to finance Shamdasani’s research.

This October through early January, the book will be able to be seen at the Rubin Museum. The Philemon foundation finally raised the money for the research and we can now see the book (as well as buy a copy from amazon.com).

Written by Sara Corbet for the NYTimes, and reprinted here by Elizabeth Spring http://www.elizabethspring.com/ http://carljungsredbook.blogspot.com/