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The Jung Society Library has been formed over several decades thanks to generous contributions of the members of Jung Society of Washington. It now contains more than 5,000 books, including Carl G. Jung The Collected Works and classics of Jungian studies. It is a serious, scholarly collection with many rare and unusual items, but it also contains more general and popular works, as well as a fair amount of relevant cultural materials. Become a Member of the Jung Society and get library borrowing privileges.
There is now an online catalogue so you can easily find and request a book you need. We are working on an automated check-out system to make it easy to keep track of books. Books may be borrowed for up to 30 days and renewed after that.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
If you are a member of the Jung Society of Washington, you may contact support@jung.org to schedule a time to visit the library.
Use the printed check-out form on the desk in the middle of the library. Please print your name, the author and title of the book, and the number on the barcode which is located on the back of the book at the top and has Jung Society of Washington printed on it.
One month. If you want to keep the books longer you need to contact our librarian. You may only have two books at a time checked out.
You can search by entering the author’s name, the title or part of the title, or important words just as you would on Google.
$2 per book per week. Please use a check, it will be considered a donation to the Jung Society of Washington.
Please be careful with the books, some are quite valuable. If something happens to a book, contact the Librarian. Payment for replacement or repair will be determined by the Jung Society.
No, but the Librarian can search for other libraries in your area that have the book.
Email us at support@jung.org
Below are brief descriptions highlighting the variety of books in the collection.
Marion Woodman, The Pregnant Virgin: A process of psychological transformation.
Woodman, who died on July 9, 2018, was an Analytical Psychologist who focused both on the feminine perspective and gender at large. The Pregnant Virgin, from 1985, deals particularly with personal rebirth and rediscovery. Her image of the pregnant virgin is central to a discussion of an all-encompassing sense of self, with the "all" and the "self" balanced. Along the way she discusses conflict and conciliation, focused on the individual but taking into account cultural forces. Her writing is full of poetry quotes - from T. S. Elliot to Anne Sexton - and allusions to art and she is a considerable stylist herself.
C. G. Jung, et al, Man and His Symbols
Surely the best introduction to Jung’s work, this is also something of a landmark in American and British culture, having been published in English in 1964, just as the baby boom was starting to come of age. Jung wrote the important first section in English, completing it not long before his death in 1961. A masterful summary of his life’s work, he concludes looking forward with concern about the collective dissociation and alienation of the modern world. The book is also a good introduction to other prominent Analytical Psychologists who wrote the four other sections: Joseph Henderson on Ancient Myth and Modern Man; M. L. von Franz on Individuation; Aniela Jaffe on Symbolism in the Visual Arts; Jolande Jacobi on Symbols in an Individual Analysis; and a Conclusion by M. L. von Franz on Science and the Unconscious. It is very authoritative but written for non-specialists; it is also lavishly illustrated.
Carl Jung – The Red Book (Liber Novus)
This is surely the most prominent book in the Jung Society of Washington library. It is a facsimile edition brought out in 2009 by W. W. Norton of a book that Jung privately started compiling, largely in the years 1913-1917. This was immediately after Jung’s break with Freud (and also corresponded with much of WWI), and was a time of extreme mental turbulence for him. It records his thoughts, feelings and imaginings during that time. Reviewer Stephen Diamond writes “Rather than being defeated by it as are most, Jung stared psychosis in the face, unflinchingly confronted and explored what he found there, and ultimately came out the other side stronger, wiser, and more whole.” Jung himself said in 1957 "everything later was merely the outer classification, the scientific elaboration, and the integration into life. But the numinous beginning, which contained everything, was then." The book contains many of Jung’s own illustrations.
[Note: The Red Book may not be checked out.]
Knots, by R. D. Laing
Laing was an influential psychotherapist who, himself influenced by anthropologists like Gregory Bateson, took a social view of mental illness. However, he may be best remembered for a book of poems he wrote - Knots. Most of the poems are short dialogs emphasizing the ironies and paradoxes of traditional western gender roles. Some of the poems are close to being jokes, often very funny, but they have the bite of complicated social realities. At heart the book always has compassion for the difficulty of being human.
C. S. Lewis – The Screwtape Letters
Lewis, who also wrote scholarly works about Christianity, is most well known for his fantasies, The Chronicles of Narnia. However, in the Screwtape Letters he takes a more sardonic and humorous tone, with two devils discussing how to undermine morals (and in the process, darkly outlining true virtue). Despite its discursive nature, it tells a story about a recognizable Blitz London and contains wonderful imagination – at one point one of the devils gets so angry he involuntarily turns into a centipede. Lewis said he didn’t like writing it, that the constant irony and sarcasm were “hard work.” Written during the darkest days of WWII in 1941, it may confront pain more realistically than some of his other fantasies.
INTERESTED? FIND OUT MORE!
The Jung Library exists and functions thanks to our committed Volunteers. Over the years many people contributed to its organization. Before we started creating the online catalogue all the books were logged into a one long spreadsheet and then they were alphabetized. Here are some pictures from the Library ABC project that happened in 2017. At the end of the year, we celebrated with a warm and fun Volunteer Party.
Thank you, Volunteers!
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"It's easy to be a naive idealist. It's easy to be a cynical realist.
It's quite another thing to have no illusions and still hold the inner flame."
- Marie-Louise von Franz
