Black Books (Jung)

The Black Books are a collection of seven private journals recorded by Carl Gustav Jung principally between 1913 and 1932; they have been referred to as the "Black Books" due to the color of the final five journals' covers (the first two journals actually have a brown cover; the first of the seven journals was recorded prior to 1902 and has not been made available for study).

The portion of the journal account that is of main interest begins in the second of the seven journals, on the night of 12 November 1913; journal entries continue over several following years and fill the next six notebooks. In these notebooks C. G. Jung recorded his imaginative and visionary experiences during the transformative period that has been called his "confrontation with the unconscious." This ledger of experiences was the foundation for the text of Jung's Red Book. The majority of the journal entries were made prior to 1920, however Jung continued to make occasional entries up until at least 1932. Though the "Black Books" are referenced and occasionally quoted by Sonu Shamdasani in his editorial apparatus to The Red Book: Liber Novus, the journals have otherwise previously been unavailable for study.

Jung referred to his imaginative or visionary venture recorded in the "Black Book" journals as "my most difficult experiment." This experiment involved a voluntary confrontation with the unconscious through willful engagement of what Jung later termed "mythopoetic imagination". The events and visions were recorded nightly in the "Black Book" journals. The journal record of this experience begins on 12 November 1913 with this petition, penned by Jung:

My soul, my soul, where are you? Do you hear me? I speak, I call you–are you there? I have returned, I am here again. I have shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet, and I have come to you, I am with you. After long years of long wandering, I have come to you again....

Do you still know me? How long the separation lasted! Everything has become so different. And how did I find you? How strange my journey was! What words should I use to tell you on what twisted paths a good star has guided me to you? Give me your hand, my almost forgotten soul. How warm the joy at seeing you again, you long disavowed soul. Life has led me back to you. ... My soul, my journey should continue with you. I will wander with you and ascend to my solitude.

The record continues with increasing intensity through the summer of 1914. A hiatus in the journal entries came between June 1914 and late summer of 1915. During this period Jung drafted his first manuscript of Liber Novus.

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