Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
The Red Book
The seed-text of Jungian depth psychology — Jung's personal record of the active-imagination experiments that produced the archetypal framework
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | The Red Book (Middle (the personal experimental record from which all of Jung's later theoretical work emerged)) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Cyclical |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Space · Curvature | Undefined |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Non-local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Partial |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Partial |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Both |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Cosmic-ordering |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Experience |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Reversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
The Red Book
The autobiographical time of Jung's 1913-30 personal crisis; the apocalyptic-prophetic time of the war-haunted opening sections.
Space
The Red Book
The inner-space of active imagination, populated by personified figures (Philemon, the Anchorite, Salome, Elijah, the Dead) who are real interlocutors to the imaginal Jung.
Matter
The Red Book
The illuminated material book itself — the calligraphic-painted artefact is the work, not just its record.
Observer
The Red Book
Jung the experimenter and his many inner interlocutors — the relation between conscious ego and unconscious figures is the central structure.
Energy
The Red Book
The libido / psychic energy mobilised and redirected through active imagination; the visions are the work of that energy.
Information
The Red Book
The dialogic and pictorial content of the inner experiments — non-discursive in form but cognitively serious in intent.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Whether the Red Book is a literary-religious masterpiece, a psychiatric document of a near-breakdown, or both, divides Jung's readers since its 2009 release. Shamdasani's scholarly edition argues it is the missing key to Jung's entire later career; sceptics (notably Hayman's 1999 biography prefigured the worry) see a clinically borderline document Jung himself never trusted to publish. Either way, its release in 2009 reopened scholarly Jung studies on a new footing.