Before Jung’s work was about the Shadow and the Self, it was about Salome: the young, sensual Jewish woman, the dancer, who requested the head of John the Baptist from the transfixed King Herod. Jung met this disheveled, discarded woman in the depths of his own psyche and withdrew in horror. “Let me be,” he tells her when they first meet, “I dread you, you beast.” But, Jung had embarked on this journey in order to pay attention to what arose. So over many nights of his descent into the unconscious (and his many years of exploring these early visions), Jung came to acknowledge Salome’s divine power. He experienced Her divinity within his own body, not as he had once understood the divine feminine in Mother Mary, but as Kali, the dark goddess of Hindu mythology. He wrote: this “many armed bloody Goddess—it is Salome desperately wringing her hands,” and in the face of his fear, he strained to witness her presence and power. She transforms, as he does, and finally, Jung comes to love her: “[she] takes hold of me, she is my own soul.” He discovered that She is him. She is that which brings him life and joy, the capacity to feel, to create art, to deeply connect, and to trust. 

In this Talk, we will explore Jung’s encounter with his discarded and blind feminine, and Her development throughout The Red Book. We’ll also explore how this core aspect of The Red Book has been neglected—both by Jung himself, as his understanding of the Feminine became eroded again by social norms, and by scholars since its publication. In this time of renewed feminist awakening, perhaps the most critical social work to be done by all of us is to understand the way the Feminine has been devalued and discarded within our own psyches, and how She can be recovered and revalued. 

This talk will be given by SKYPE from Dr Byock’s home in Oregon, USA.