The book that is your soul

A new book, or rather an old one that has been stored away in a bank vault in Switzerland, is soon to make its appearance in the public marketplace. It's Jung's Red Book. The review in the New York Times is long and fascinating, and is less a review than the story around the book itself and its publication.

I'm only halfway though the review and found this passage particularly interesting. It is an excerpt from something written by one of Jung's patients. It was Jung's advice to her for how to deal with some of the more frightening things that went on in the far recesses of her mind:

“I should advise you to put it all down as beautifully as you can — in some beautifully bound book,” Jung instructed. “It will seem as if you were making the visions banal — but then you need to do that — then you are freed from the power of them. . . . Then when these things are in some precious book you can go to the book & turn over the pages & for you it will be your church — your cathedral — the silent places of your spirit where you will find renewal. If anyone tells you that it is morbid or neurotic and you listen to them — then you will lose your soul — for in that book is your soul.”