Jung’s Red Book for Our Time Searching for Soul Under Postmodern Conditions

The spiritual malaise regnant in today’s disenchanted world presents a picture of “a polar night of icy darkness,” as Max Weber wrote already a century ago. This collective dark night of the soul is driven by climate change-related disasters, rapid technological innovations, and opaque geostra­tegic realign­ments. In the wake of what policy analysts refer to as “Westlessness,” the post­modern age is characterized by incessant distractions, urgent calls to responsibility, and in-humanly short deadlines, which result in a general state of exhaustion and burnout. The hovering sense of living in a time frame that is post-histoire induces states of confusion on a personal level as well as in the realm of politics. Totally missing is a grand nar­rative to guide humanity’s vision in the midst of a world crisis. Thinkers, scholars, and Jungian analysts are increasingly looking to C.G. Jung’s monu­mental oeuvre, The Red Book, as a source for guidance to re-enchant the world and to find a new and deeper under­standing of the homo religiosus. The essays in this series on Jung’s Red Book for Our Time: Searching for Soul under Postmodern Conditions circle around this objective and offer countless points of entry into this inspiring work.