《紅書》是榮格于1913—1930年圍繞自己的夢境、幻象等心靈意象而展開的自我試驗,是寫給自己的私人日記,也是一部文學題材的心理學著作,被公認為榮格所有著述中最難解的部分。《紅書》的內容構成了榮格后期著作的關鍵來源。《紅書》的主題,是對深度精神的勘察和找回靈魂的努力。無論是深度精神的勘察,還是找回靈魂的努力,《紅書》都不是通過邏輯思維,而是借助意象或隱喻的方式呈現出來的。榮格認為,時代精神看似強大,卻迫使人們用眼前的東西去填補當下,導致心靈的貧瘠、懶惰,遠離神圣和平凡。在深度精神的引導下,榮格選擇了一條回到內心世界的道路:不再渴望從外部尋找自己,而是轉向內部。

The Red Book is the most difficult work among the oeuvre of C.G. Jung(1875-1961), and it is Jung’s "self-experiment" on his "inner images" from 1913 to 1930, a "personal diary" written to himself, and a psychological work on literary themes. It "contains the nucleus of" and is "the key" to Jung’s later works. The theme of the book is an exploration of the "the spirit of the depths" and the exertion of "refinding the soul" by means of images or metaphors rather than logical thinking and intellectual intervention. Jung held that "the spirit of the times" seemed powerful, but it forced people to fill the present with "trivial things [and] small matters from our... daily life," which would eventually lead the barren, lazy soul straying far away from the scared or even the ordinary. Guided by "the spirit of the depths", Jung chose a way to return to the inner experiences, not to finding the self from the outside but from the inside.