SEMINAR | THE SYNCHRONICITY OF THE TWO RED BOOKS: JUNG, TOLKIEN, AND THE IMAGINAL REALM
See also the web page to accompany the seminar: www.jungbythesea.co.uk/cc-beccatarnas

The years leading up to the Great War marked the beginning of a period of profound imaginal experiences for both C.G. Jung and J.R.R. Tolkien. Along separate paths, they each stepped across a threshold and entered into another world: the realm of imagination, the world of fantasy. Jung recorded these initially spontaneous, immersive visionary experiences, which he further developed using the practice of active imagination, in a large red manuscript that he named “Liber Novus”, although usually it is referred to simply as “The Red Book”. The experiences narrated in “The Red Book” became the seeds from which nearly all Jung's subsequent work flowered. For Tolkien, this imaginal journey revealed to him the world of “Middle-earth”, whose stories and myths eventually led to the writing of “The Lord of the Rings”, a book he named within its own imaginal history “The Red Book of Westmarch”.

Drawing from her multifaceted study of these men and their works, Tarnas explores a diverse range of synchronistic parallels between Jung's and Tolkien's Red Books: through their experiences, the nature of their visions and dreams, the style and content of their works, cosmologies, and symbolic representations.

This fascinating seminar offers glimpses into rich imaginal worlds of stories, imagery, and figures. Surfacing implications concerning the nature of imagination and its participatory relationship to the collective unconscious, Tarnas highlights the remarkable ability of both Jung and Tolkien, not only to enter these mysterious realms, but seemingly to have the ability to guide others as well. She asks if, during a time of disenchantment, reconnecting with the imaginal realm can help to build a bridge to our rational everyday world?

Chaired by Chris Williams