From Nietzsche’s Zarathustra to Jung’s Philemon: Should Everyone Have a Red

Book…?

In this session we shall explore the rich variety of philosophical and spiritual traditions surrounding analytical psychology. Although he is perhaps best known for proclaiming the “death of God,” Nietzsche also revived the ancient figure of the prophet Zarathustra (Zoroaster) — or was it the case that, as Swami Devageet wonders, Zarathustra “reached across the eons of time and gave new hope to Nietzsche”…? And Jung is recorded by Christiana Morgan as telling her to “put all [your fantasies] down as beautifully as you can—in some beautifully bound book,” promising her: “For you it will be your church—your cathedral—the silent places of your spirit where you will find renewal.” What does Jung’s Red Book mean for us today?

Paul Bishop was born in 1967 in Southend-on-Sea. From 1994 to 2024 he taught German and Comparative Literature at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where he is currently Honorary Professorial Research Fellow. His research examines the history of ideas and the histories of psychoanalysis and analytical psychology, with particular emphasis on Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche, C.G. Jung, and Ludwig Klages.

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