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Jung's Red Book, finally published only in 2009, is a highly ambiguous text describing a succession of extraordinary visions, together with Jung's interpretation of them. Red Book, Middle Way offers a new interpretation of Jung's Red Book, in terms of the Middle Way, as a universal principle and embodied ethic, paralleled both in the Buddha's teachings and elsewhere. Jung explicitly discusses the Middle Way in the Red Book (although this has been largely ignored by scholars so far) as well as offering lots of material that can be understood in its terms. This book interprets the Red Book in relation to the archetypes met in its visions - the hero, the feminine, the Shadow, God and Christ, and follows Jung's process of integrating these different internal figures. To do this Jung needs to find the Middle Way between absolutes at every point, in a way similar to the Buddha.
Red Book, Middle Way: How Jung Parallels the Buddha's Method for Human Integration, Robert E. Ellis, Equinox Publishing, Paperback, 224 Pages, $32.00
Robert M. Ellis is the creator of Middle Way Philosophy, a practical philosophy working out the implications of human uncertainty and embodiment for every aspect of our lives. The Middle Way is neither a compromise nor a 'reality', but rather an principle of judgement that moves us into the uncertain experiential zone between opposing absolutes of false certainty. It is also not a Buddhist monopoly, but a basis for human practice that aspires to universality.
Robert is the founder of the Middle Way Society. He has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Lancaster and has earned a living as a teacher, lecturer and tutor. He now runs Tirylan House Retreat Centre in Wales. He has learnt much from Buddhist tradition, but is not solely committed to it, and draws inspiration from many sources in addition to Buddhism, including the arts, Jung, and Christian tradition. His work is highly cross-disciplinary, and draws extensively on psychology, Western philosophy, systems theory, embodied meaning and neuroscience as well as practical Buddhism.
His most recent books, published by Equinox, offer a detailed and updated account of Middle Way Philosophy. Of these, 'Absolutization' explains the human problem of thinking we have the whole story that the Middle Way is needed to solve, and 'The Five Principles of Middle Way Philosophy' gives a positive practical account of the Middle Way as a response to that problem. Other books such as 'Migglism', 'Truth on the Edge', and 'Parables of the Middle Way' provide more accessible introductory material. 'The Christian Middle Way' and 'The Buddha's Middle Way' apply the Middle Way Philosophy approach to the two different religious traditions of Christianity and Buddhism, showing how in both traditions helpful beliefs need to be distinguished from dogmas. Robert's fascination with Jung's Red Book as a source of inspiration for the Middle Way is also reflected in his 'Red Book, Middle Way', and his engagement with Jung has also produced a wider theory of archetypes as an aspect of Middle Way practice - 'Archetypes in Religion and Beyond'.
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