Liber Novus itself has seemingly ended with “The Magician” chapter, in Jung's hesitant and struggling crucifixion/air-hanging experience, and was signed with FINIS at the end.
It seems that this was just a try to make and end for the process, however, for the scrutinies which begin immediately after this are not different in style from the actual chapters. Yet they seem to deteriorate. Scrutinies have not been made into beautiful calligraphy and illustrated, as is the main book. Still the separation of these two parts seems arbitrary. Or perhaps the reason was that Jung had already given splendid outer form to the Septem Sermones, if I recall his words from the autobiography correctly.
Two intervowen symbols seem to be in a process of developing at the turn from the Liber to its scrutinies. First, a ring. This ring is first mentioned to be iron, then of serpents, and after that it becomes the golden circle of the Sun. When this has been developed (in the process of several chapters), it – once again – brings about colour Red, about where the scrutinies start.
In scrutinies 4-6 this Red seems to become an overlaying symbol: it is the Red of dawn, of fire, of blood. These are parapersonal aspects; Jung once again mentions dates in the scrutinies text (page 468). So we are also dealing with the cultural events, not only the ones within the author himself. And isn't it obvious, that these two must always go together in one's process? How to cut oneself off from one's temporal & therefore astral surroundings? It is a futile attempt; one must either be crushed under those or serve their slow process of purification into better tampered shapes. The “I” of the writings faces this challenge in turns with tasteless masculine pride and a bit forced-seeming Protestant humility & scientific scepsis. That is, the equilibrium is sought from the polar opposites, but it seldom finds the exact middle. (It might be that they are these middle places – of pride & humility taken together without theatricals – where the author's torment ceases, and true revelations unveil themselves.)
In part 4, Jung is approached by three shades. One of these turns out to be a vampiress who seeks his vital blood. The latter is connected to the mystery of phallus, which Jung later rewrites as “HAP” (an Egyptian amulet with similar meaning) for obvious reasons. What I just mentioned about the cultural journey to better spiritual shapes gets a good depiction here:
”The Red Book” wrote:But she replied: “I want the church, it is necessary for you and for others. Otherwise what are you going to do with those whom I force to your feet? Thea beautiful and natural will nestle into the terrible and dark and will show the way. The church is something natural. The holy ceremony must be dissolved and become spirit. The bridge should lead out beyond humanity, inviolable, far, of the air. There is community of spirits founded on outer signs with a solid meaning.” (p. 492)
All this is quite familar to the SoA workers. Note the part about “forcing to your feet.” Jung's pride is constantly in the focus here, very much like in his great fascination the Nietzche's Zarathustra and another New Age prophet of about the Red Book's time, Crowley. Jung seems to have wrestled better with the deep problems of apparent freedom of will, however: “A man who goes astray becomes an animal, a lost soul becomes a devil.” (p.496)
The 5th scrutiny is made of quite unpleasant misogynistic ravings, where Jung scold “his soul” whom he sees as a woman who is a “whore“ and “a lecherous bitch.” One might note here once again the same curious projection which often becomes a part of the Red phase, “of scarlet woman,” which is at the same time apparently glorified, and yet most revoltingly enslaved. This “soul” is the same vampire shade to which Jung kept giving his blood in the previous chapter.
In the 6th scrutiny we come to the most famous part of the Liber Novus: the Septem sermones ad mortuos. This text had already been published as an appendix for Jung's autobiography before the Red Book was published quite recently. Here these sermons are not given by Basilides, but Jung's own Mercurial master Philemon. In the first sermon presented here Basilides/Philemon speaks about Pleroma. Jung's idea of Pleroma seems, once again, to be an amalgam of the deep spiritual (here Gnostic) metaphysics and a try to interpret it as the same as the lower astral realities. The latter already familiar problem is not apparent from the sermon itself, but from the added footnote 82. In it the editor mentions Jung's idea that pleroma (the Gnostic fullness of spiritual absolute as the treasurehouse of archetypal perfections) can be identified with the Tibetan Bardo. In the SoA system it is good to understand their difference: Pleroma can be see in the Black astral, where the idea of Bardo pertains to the Red astral. Of course, these overlap all the time; only their central focus is different.
My another criticism is much more important than this tiny semantic difference. Jung's idea about Love seems to require some challenges. He seems not to understand what is meant by it, and takes it either as too abstract a theological concept, or in a very low interpretation of the lowest representations between the sexual lovers (where "love" and "hate" are the same, since they are about the clingings of the poles to each other & rejecting otherness beyond their closed personal union).
Hopefully needless to say, the Red Book is yet a monumental achievement, truly a splendid an opus. No wonder the cult of Jung remains very vital to this day, and one can barely make a discussion with a fellow esoterically inclined person without Jung jumping into its middle after a few minutes.
EDIT: Some typo-weeding.