CATAFALQUE (2-Volume Set): Carl Jung and the End of Humanity Hardcover – 1 Nov. 2018

To do its work of changing my mind, a good book has to immerse me in an unfamiliar world or point of view, by creating a new temporary mind to "see" it with. Choosing the mind of Jung made this book irresistable to me. I am delighted to have stumbled on this book, and to have immersed myself further into Jung's work and thought. Whilst the book's insight into Jung is nothing short of revelatory, it does strike me in retrospect (I finished it a few days ago) as necessarily one-sided, of which I'll say a bit more below.The icing on the cake is Kingsley's masterful prose. This is as far away from a dry scholarly text as you will ever find. It manages to bring back to life the fossilised papyrus minds of forgotten alchemists that lived thousands of years ago. Kingsley lends us not only his wise scholar's eyes, imagining for us what prophets of any era have always seen and experienced, but he uses his words with persuasive power and precision to pursue his goal of having us experience the world as the Gnostic prophets taught their own disciples to see it.The tone and attitude of the book is that of a revolutionary movement, fighting back the tides of modern thought to reveal a lost source of wisdom. A movement that is so convincingly full of energy and spirit, that the reader is left wanting to join! The wisdom here is of the simply profound sort, whose source is nature, both the nature that surrounds us and that pervades within us as "our nature" as seen by the brilliant Carl Jung.This revolutionary call-to-minds will appeal to anyone who frets about the state of our modern world, and who feels "thrust into this apocalyptic turmoil." As we all know, this archetypal experience is a familiar one that repeats itself throughout history. My quote is not from Catafalque, but is taken from another book by another "translator" of revolutionary history: Viktor Shklovsky (1893-1984). Shklovsky participated in Russia's "February Revolution" of 1916, and theorised about "art as device" in his studies of the literary greats of his time, that coincides with Jung's time.Benjamin Sher translated Shklovsky's critique of literary history in 1990, titled "Theory of Prose". Perhaps it's just a "meaningful coincidence", but Sher's "Translator's Introduction" to that book describes almost exactly the attitude, plot structure and literary "devices" adopted by Kingsley in Catafalque. This takes nothing away from Catafalque as a brilliantly insightful and beautifully crafted work. But I did wonder if the striking resemblance warrants at least a note somewhere on the literary history Kingsley seems to draw on for his stylisation of Jung's "mind" in book form.Those notes, by the way, are a gold mine that will guide you expertly through the life and work of Carl Jung. The breadth and depth of Kingsley's knowledge of Jung is nothing short of astounding.Which brings me to the only criticism I have of the book: its one-sided telling of the Jung story from the imaginal mind's point of view. The book's revolutionary mindset makes for a fabulous story and a wild ride, casting Plato and Aristotle as villains in an epic who-dunnit that points a sharp knife at the modern "rational mind" and its wisdom-lacking "logic" and "reasoning" that are a product of Artistotle's "murder" of wisdom, and of the imaginal "magic" that has been cast aside as mere fictional nonsense. The conclusion is one I happen to agree with, but the story leaves out his fascination with quantum physics.Kingsley "consciously" leaves in the shadows what is surely a key set of documents that shed light on Jung's thinking about "synchronicity" or "meaningful coincidences". I refer to the letters exchanged over a near thirty year period between Jung and theoretical quantum physics professor - and Nobel Prize winner - Wolfgang Pauli. Kingsley never explores Jung's scientific thinking, and how his scientific mind was "talking" to his prophetic, alchemistic, imaginal mind.Pauli gets a mere "walk-on" part alongside Henry Corbin, which does at least position him as someone on the author's side. But there is a four year period leading up to Jung finally publishing his 30-year-work-in-progress called Synchronicity, in which Pauli and Jung exchange letters on the dreams Pauli was having about his theoretical work on quantum physics, which Jung acknowledges as helping him to work out his ideas about synchronicity.Pauli was more than a "mere" rationally-minded scientist. He himself was a student of alchemy, revering the earlier work of the alchemist Kepler who had also inspired Newton's discovery of gravity (Newton too was an "enlightened scientist" fascinated by the alchemists). Pauli was obsessed with alchemy's cosmological insights, leading back to the mathematics of Pythagoras. In fact, Jung writes to Pauli (letter 64J in Maier's compilation "Atom and Archetype") of the mutual challenges of quantum physics and psychology:"In consequence of the indispensability of the psychic processes [Jung here is referring to Pauli's prior letter talking about the quantum strangeness that means the effect of an observer - ie presence of a "mind" - can never be separated from a physics experiment], there cannot be just one way of access to the secret of Being; there must be at least two - namely, the material occurrence on the one hand and the psychic reflection of it on the other (although it will be hard to determine what is reflecting what!).""Given these circumstances, the task facing these two disciplines is to locate and describe that region which is indisputably common to both. My dreams and my intuition have both referred me to natural numbers. These seem to be the simplest and most elementary of all archetypes."Kingsley's omission of any number-talk seems to stack the deck unfairly in his narrative's favour. Moreover, it is odd given that Kingsley clearly states that the alchemists were not only philosophers and the original psychologists, but were also the original scientists. Geometry was regarded as sacred knowledge, "of" the stars. They saw their mathematics as the only absolute knowledge that pre-dates human minds: the mathematical reality "out there" was just ready-and-waiting for us to discover it in nature.So do I recommend Catafalque? Absolutely. Next time I read any of Jung's words, my understanding will be deeper as a result of the insights I've learned. But if you value a balanced perspective, perhaps read those Pauli letters and Jung's original paper on Synchronicity for yourself. Then draw your own conclusions.

I was wondering would it be more appropriate to begin or end this review with a big THANK YOU to Peter Kingsley. So it begins with words of thanks. And follows with compliments and admiration for his courage – both academic, the fruits of witch we benefited from in his first books…and bare human, for writing this one: daring to write with open eyes and show us all what is there in plain sight if we bother to open ours. A courage, daring, borne out of the deepest inner necessity, and honest integrity. A willingness to face the anger of all who prefer to sail through life with their outer and especially inner eyes shut, albeit they may pretend the contrary is true.It is a tremendous eye-opener indeed, and it shows the elephant – i.e. the Catafalque – in the drawing room of Western civilization. It brings back Jung, majestic, terrifying and terrified, and true – teaching with his thunderous prophetic voice de profundis . Threads together countless filaments, and weaves together the story of truth, unpalatable and jarring as it might be, in the beautiful narration of Mr Kingsley.A series of synchronicities led me to Catafalque, and that is how it should be (I believe Peter Kingsley would say).If you trust that inner sense, it has brought you here to read this review, go for the book (it is beautifully produced, in two volumes, and a physically very comfortable read with footnotes in the second volume). The rewards may be considerable though probably not so for those faint of heart, and travelers too keen on ego-creature comforts. You can read it after you have read other books Mr Kingsley has authored, but that is not a prerequisite, they would then probably come later.As a closure, I can honestly say that I was not so marked by a book I have read in decades.Vladimir

To pick up and read Peter Kingsley’s book “Catafalque”, is to be willing to have a nuclear hammer applied to the Soul.Whilst reading, one is at once inclined to rush, to gorge, to consume the wisdom within as quickly as possible. To attempt to bring to an end as quickly as possible the searing pain of the words written within, in the manner of a child ripping off a plaster.Yet if one heeds the wisest part of one’s self, one takes time. Slows. Digests and allows, in sacred stillness, for the God’s to arise. And in doing so, one can allow the care that they require of us to be made know.This is not a book for the faint hearted. Mr. Kingsley offers no salve to relieve the sting of the pain, rather he demand we witness without rushing to fix anything. This is a love letter of pure grief. That spans the trauma of modern civilisation, heading back through the eons. So far back that we have forgotten how traumatised we are, and continue to live as if “this” were normal.Through it all we are led to a deeper understanding of Jung, and what happened when he was writing The Red Book. Mr Kingsley shines a light into the shadows of how things were changed, altered, by those who loved Jung and perhaps feared the stigma of such a man of science relating so deeply with Magic, in the deepest and truest sense of the word.The heartbreak and grief that arise when one opens to this is immense. And not to be ignored or denigrated.This book is immense. In every plane. And if you love life, love this planet, love your fellow man with true compassion, then you will read it, and weep and laugh and learn to love all over again. You will allow it to change you, both when you dream and when you are awake. And you will never be quite the same again.

I am hugely grateful to Peter Kingsley for this book. I've lived with it nightly since it was released, and it has engaged my attention throughout that time. The insights are littered throughout the text and it is written in a unique style which rewards close study. It has also revealed the Red Book to me as a trove of jewels. It may or may not speak to you, but if it does, you will be well rewarded.