The Red Book Reading Group: A Closer Look at Book Two, the Liber Secundus.

The C G Jung Institute of Chicago has proudly invited George Bright, a Jungian Analyst from the United Kingdom and IAAP recognized expert on The Red Book to join the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts, which he has accepted.  His intense work on The Red Book over several years and his teachings of the connections between The Liber Novus and Jung’s later writings are invaluable.  For the last two years we have engaged George in leading, along with Boris Matthews and Daniel Ross, a series of salons on the Red Book. We first began with a six-month overview of the whole of the Liber Novus.  This ignited a desire to go deeper and slower and so this past year we focused chapter by chapter, month by month on only the Liber Primus.  Due to popular interest, we have decided to continue the series with Book Two, The Liber Secundus which is much longer and would take us from September 2025 to May of 2026.

The Liber Secundus continues Jung’s journey to discovering “The Way” which later would be called Individuation. This is his way, as he reminds us often, not our way.  We must find our own way.  In this second book, George Bright tells us,

“Magic, as Liber Novus makes clear, is an innate capacity in all of us, but to have the use of it requires initiatory processes. Jung describes his own in this work, and implies that it is now up to each of us to find his or her own initiatory rites by which we may join the invisible church (LN p. 486ff). I suggest that a common form of such initiation is engagement in psychotherapy” (Bright, 2025).

NOTE: The final session of the series, on May 23, will meet in-person at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, but Zoom will be available for those who cannot meet in-person.

Learning Objectives

At the end of the series, attendees will be able to:

1. Verbalize how Jung’s “I” changes in relation to the Red One and Ammonius throughout the Liber Secundus.
2. Discuss how Izdubar and Jung’s “I” are opposites in Book Two.
3. Describe how Jung proceeds to heal Izdubar after “poisoning” him with Western knowledge.
4. What does Jung take from his encounter with Death in Cap. vi..
5. Explain what Jung is told to do by his soul to atone for the murder of a child in Cap. xiii. And why must he?

Required Reading

Each salon will focus on a section of Liber Novus as outlined in our course description. We expect that you have and will be reading Liber Novus along with us. The facsimile which includes the paintings is more expensive but not necessary for our discussion, as it is quite expensive. We will present and discuss the images from Liber Novus during the salon sessions, so you have the option of purchasing the less expensive Reader’s Edition.

• Link to purchase The Red Book: A Reader’s Edition: https://amzn.to/4aPQZlX

Speakers

Daniel Ross, PMHNP is a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and Diplomate Jungian Analyst. He brings a medical, psychiatric, and analytical perspective to the field of end-of-life care. As he searched for a deeper understanding of his hospice work and his own personal life journey, he first completed the two-year Clinical Training Program at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago in 2008; then went on to complete the Analyst Training Program. Daniel is in private practice in the northwest suburbs working with adults seeking Jungian psychoanalysis. He has been Co-Director of the Jungian Psychotherapy Program and Jungian Studies Program (JPP/JSP) (2021-2023) at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago and a Training Analyst for the Analyst Training Program (ATP) at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago. He has presented widely on Death and Dying from a Jungian perspective. He has also presented at 2022 IAAP conference, Death and Immortality: From Gilgamesh to Frankenstein.

Boris Matthews, PhD, LCSW, NCPsyA graduated from the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, and maintains a practice of analytical psychology in the Milwaukee and Madison, WI, areas. He is particularly interested in working with persons who recognize need to develop a balanced adaptation to the “outside” and to the “inside” worlds, work that involves awareness of the individual’s psychological typology. Dreams, active imagination, and spiritual concerns are integral elements in the analytic work, the ultimate goal of which is to develop a functioning dialog with the non-ego center, the Self. He is former Director of Training of the Analyst Training Program, regularly teaches classes for analytic candidates, and conducts study groups in Madison as well as by video conference.

George Bright was educated at Cambridge University and The London School of Economics. He is a Training & Supervising Analyst of the Society of Analytical Psychology and a co-founder of The Circle of Analytical Psychology, a London-based group engaged in the study of Jung’s Liber Novus and Black Books. He works in private practice in London. His 1997 paper Synchronicity as a basis of analytic attitude won the Michael Fordham Prize.