The Black Books: 1913-1932, Notebooks of Transformation

In 1913, C.G. Jung started a unique self-experiment that he called his “confrontation with the unconscious”: an engagement with his fantasies in a waking state, which he charted in a series of notebooks referred to as The Black Books. These intimate writings shed light on the further elaboration of Jung’s personal cosmology and his attempts to embody insights from his self-investigation into his life and personal relationship. This edition of the Black Books in seven separate volumes confirms the occult side of Jung, and the cultural importance of the esoteric in the twentieth century featuring a revelatory essay by noted Jung scholar Sonu Shamdasani illuminated by a selection of Jung’s vibrant visual works. The first volume is a stand-alone Introduction which will repay careful reading and re-reading for contextual guidance through the six notebooks. Each of these is presented without the original writings in German.