Did Jung and Tolkien Enter the Same World?

Two fantastical red books... An interview with Becca Tarnas...

Becca Tarnas is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, an editor of Archai: The Journal of Archetypal Cosmology, and the author of Journey to the Imaginal Realm. Her doctoral dissertation, The Back of Beyond, put C.G. Jung’s Red Book beside J.R.R. Tolkien’s.

In 1913 Jung began recording the visionary experiences he worked with through active imagination. At the same time, before he had written any of his stories, Tolkien was filling a sketchbook he called The Book of Ishness with images carrying titles like Beyond.

We cover:

• Jung and Tolkien both drew a red eye. Tolkien’s is the Eye of Sauron. Jung’s is what he calls the eye of the evil one.

• Jung, frightened and pushing back, tells the prophet Elijah and his blind daughter Salome that they are symbols. Their reply: You can call us symbols if you want in the same way that you could call your fellow human beings symb…

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