I haven't read the Red Book, but I would be interested to know what makes you draw such a drastic conclusion. What is "failed individuation", anyway? If "completeness" is the goal of personality, then Jung's oeuvre stands out as a particularly complete life. He was unusually successful, both in the inner and outer aspect. But completeness is a questionable notion.
My reasoning is maybe a bit complicated, but I have written about the component issues often in various places. Some of my takes on the Red Book are on my blog site (as linked above). As for the subject of individuation, it has always been my primary focus, and this forum is chock full of various (albeit not in any way organized) reflections. I'm currently at the beginning of an effort to more formally organize some of my writings on individuation. I started a series of essays for the blog site called Deconstructing and Reconstructing Individuation. So far, all I posted was a fairly length introduction. Two subsequent essays have been drafted, but I never got to go back and revise them.
A few years back, I also recorded and analyzed (and expanded upon) some of the pivotal dreams I had 20 years ago during a period of turmoil and transformation that I now call the anima work, the first and initiatory stage of individuation (and the one that Jung and Jungians have begun to imagine but always struggled to actualize and comprehend). Beyond the anima (or animus) work, I have written in various places about the Work, a period of more disciplined and ethics based psychic reorganization and tending that involves the facilitation of the Self and the practice and refinement of the valuating attitude. Much of this writing may have come in the context of dream work discussions. I'm not sure all of it is public.
There is some slightly dated writing on the forum about shamanism and individuation . . . most of it done before I really started reading about shamanism directly (as opposed to through Jungian and other interpreters).
And of course my critiques of Jungian thought and culture are numerous. All of these scattered ideas and more come together to construct the logic of my critical review of the Red Book. But the gist of my critique is quite straight forward. The Red Book does not portray a successful individuation event, because successful individuation is a mysticism. That is, it requires the passing through of a threshold of initiation or the completion of a "mysterium". Jung (in the Red Book) does not succeed in developing the attitude toward the Other necessary to make the initiate's sacrifice. Jung is a psychologist, not a mystic.
As a psychological case study, the Red Book is quite successful . . . and I think very important to Jungian thought (and utterly essential to any psychological study of the individuation process). But it doesn't satisfy the necessary criteria for a mystical/initiatory text. Yet, because of Jungian expectations (and inflation), most Jungians have approached the Red Book as if it was Jung's sacred initiation guide. They want it to be a totem, just as individuation has always functioned as a totem to Jungianism. They want to project their exaltation fantasies into this totem. That is what Jungians have always done instead of actually individuating.
That is, they are acquiring tribal identity from participating mystically in the totem of individuation. It is one of the Jungian identity totems that gives Jungians a meaningful sense of self, anchors a belief in the validity of Jungian identity. It is manufactured to approve of that identity . . . so long as it is believed in, it approves of you.
It's a lot to see through for any indoctrinated Jungian. That seeing through would be a precursor to genuine individuation.
Although I think Jung went farther in his own individuation journey than other Jungians seem to, he was the one who established the precedent of conflating individuation with participation in an image or idea (totemic participation). You see a certain kind of mandala in a vision, or a green Christ, or an Indian guru, or a hieros games ceremony . . . and you have "individuated". This notion infuses Jungian notions of mysticism: to see the numinous image is to be transformed.
But that is not how legitimate mysticism or transformative initiation actually works. Initiation is accomplished by significant, often self-sacrificial acts, not by observations, not by "just showing up" ready to believe. And the content of these acts is ethical, not transcendent. The process of individuation demands more integrity than it does faith.
Jung imagines the Red Book experience as a journey, and it sometimes involves acts (like transforming Izdubar into an idea so he can be reborn). But mostly it is a catalog of encounters. Various characters show up and present Jung with what amounts to arguments for the existence of their otherness (within the psyche Jung feels is his). Jung generally interprets these encounters as unfair demands or even temptations or attempted deceptions of him. It's always about him.
Does the appearance of these Others mean he is crazy, he wonders? Do they try to lead him astray? Do they have something to give him (magic, mana, etc.)? The ultimate value of these psychic Others in the Red Book to Jung is a matter of the power (mana) they "offer" to Jung, if he can figure out how to be clever and tough enough to take it. He treats these Others as tests he must pass by remaining at least partially inviolable. They all want to change him, and he treats these efforts like Satan's temptations of Christ (whom he identifies with on multiple occasions). But imagine an initiate treating his or her initiators in this manner.
This is not the mystic's or the individuant's attitude. It's a bit of magical thinking along the lines of "my enemy is strong and terrifying. But if I kill him and eat his heart, I will become stronger and more terrifying". This is essentially how Jung describes it in Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. The individual who "assimilates the unconscious" and "conquers the anima" takes on the magical power the anima possessed (what Jung calls "mana"). Absorbing that won mana, one becomes a "mana-personality".
Exactly as he described it in Two Essays (I believe with the later revision in 1928), so he enacted (or at least imagined) it in the Red Book. These two writings of Two Essays (1917 and 1928) function like bookends for the Red Book project. Two Essays is Jung's attempts to explain what he experienced in the Red Book. They are inseparable texts, really. Two Essays is the analysis of the case study Jung called Liber Novus. He just doesn't overtly confess that he is or was the experimental test subject the analysis is based on . . . but that conclusion was perfectly obvious, even before the Red Book was published.
The prototype for Jung's idea of the mana-personality is, of course, Philemon the magician (who has notably been detached from his traditional partner and wife, Baucis* . . . just as Jung has been detached from his Soul). And in Two Essays, Jung remains equivocal about the mana-personality. He half-recognizes that it is an archetype and is not fit for egoic identification, yet he can't entirely get over the idea that the ego has acquired some kind of genuine "mana" from its "conquering of the anima".
* an note on the whole Philemon and Baucis image in the Red Book. As the Wikipedia article states, Ovid's tale of Philemon and Baucis demonstrates "the pious exercise of hospitality, the ritualized guest-friendship termed xenia, or theoxenia when a god was involved." That xenia is indeed the functional (mystical) attitude the initiate needs to take toward the Other. I suspect these figures emerged into Jung's consciousness in part because they represented the proper welcoming attitude for the stranger gods. But Jung (through further "active imagining") entirely destroys this functional and meaningful symbol by conflating the Ovid's story with Faust, where Philemon and Baucis, a pious old couple who have a chapel on the land Faust has been "reclaiming from the sea". The tolling bell of the chapel annoys Faust, because it reminds him that he doesn't yet own that small piece of land (and also that his power and wealth have come from unholy means). He has Mephistopheles get evict them, which Mephistopheles does through murder.
When Jung makes Philemon into a wizard and mana-personality, he has infused Faust (and Faust's will and power to ward off or conquer Otherness) into Philemon. Essentially, Faust conquers Philemon from within . . . and the conquering is every bit as Demonic as when Mephistopheles murders Philemon and Baucis. Jung was actively identified with Faust. Over the gate on his tower at Bollingen, Jung hung a sign that read (in translation from the Latin) "Philemon's Shrine - Faust's Repentance". The figures are intimately connected for him. But is Faust's repentance adequate for enshrining one of his murder victims? Especially when Faust's power and desire and fear of Otherness are installed in Philemon? I don't think so.
Jung saw the evils and limitations of Faust as superman. He knew Faust was corrupt. But, like Faust, Jung hoped he could be magically or spiritually redeemed even without ceasing to be Faust. That is, with unapologetic recognition of his evils, Jung felt those evil could be redeemed. In other words, instead of conventional repentance or repayment of a kind of karmic debt, Jung sought to satisfy himself with the personal/psychological recognition and acceptance of his evils and his capacity to to do evil. As long he he understood the full extend of his sins, he believed he was free. Just like Faust.
But that is a superman's Demonic version of repentance. It is not good enough because it still rejects all Otherness. This attitude is evident in Jung's life in various ways, perhaps most clearly in his lack of repentance for contributing to anti-Semitic Nazi philosophies in a few of his writings. He felt he had to apologize to no one . . . although it seems he recognized (and at one point privately acknowledged) that he had slipped up". He is truly Faustian in this approach to apology. It doesn't matter what he does or how he treats others . . . so long as he knows in his own mind the full extent his actions. Total bullshit.
I found a website that gives a fairly extensive commentary on Act V of the second part of Faust, where Faust has Philemon and Baucis kills and dies shortly after (blinded by Care). It is well worth reading as a parallel to the Red Book's conclusion and the attitude Jung/Philemon adopts toward his "reclamation" project with the unconscious or with Otherness.
The genuine mystical attitude is nothing like the conquering and power seizure Jung describes. Traditionally (and cross-culturally) mysticism is about surrender to the Other. That surrender involves the acceptance of ego dissolution and sacrifice. Such is the case with what is probably the prototype of all mysticism, the shamanic initiation. The shamanic initiate doesn't go "to the other world" and deliver the smack down to the spirits or gods. S/he is dismembered and reconstructed anew (often with special components added to his or her body . . . one of the classics being iron, the original sacred metal from the heavens).
The shamanic initiate submits to this and does not resist it or bargain for how its done. A variation of this symbol is also used in the story of the passion and crucifixion of Christ.
But in the Red Book, Jung identifies with Philemon, the mana-personality, who conquers "the dead" (the devalued remnants of the psychic Others that previously had presence in Jung's visions . . . most importantly, "the Soul") with word magic . . . with pseudo-gnostic sermons.
Most Jungians have a hard time seeing this, because it amounts to a realization that would violate tribal taboos, would see through the totem of individuation. But Jung, I think, understood perfectly well that Philemon was not an ultimate solution. I believe there are some footnotes of Shamdasani's that say as much. He didn't completely see through Philemon or understand precisely what was wrong with Philemon's treatment of the dead. There was always an identification with Philemon for Jung that was never entirely resolved.
Jungians generally try to see Philemon as a Self figure. That is wholly wrong. Philemon is an amalgam of the hero and the Demon . . . is the hero hijacked or impersonated by the Demon. This mana-personality is an inflation. It seeks to increase its "power" in the psyche by conquering Otherness. The true hero seeks to valuate and facilitate Otherness, to repair and redeem and maintain it. Jung does not accomplish this at the end of the Red Book. He merely comes to a figuration of the Demon (as Philemon) that he fails to see through because he too badly wants to be it, longs for its power, its cleverness.
Around 1930, Jung abandoned the Red Book project . . . supposedly (as he claims in an unfinished comment following the main text of the Red Book) because he had discovered alchemy and sought to continue his search (and perhaps his individuation) through that. I have no doubt that he did look on alchemy in that way. But his treatments of alchemy lack some of the same comprehension of genuine mysticism (as surrender to the Other) that was lacking in the Red Book. He fails to understand alchemical symbols like the Coniunctio and the Nigredo/prima materia properly. He appropriates them to accord with his notion of the conjunction of opposites into a consciously held state of close tension. He conflates Coniunctio with hieros gamos and exalts the image. but in alchemy, Coniunctio is not some kind of exalted mystical marriage that stands as a symbol of attainment. It is a death and utter dissolution resulting in blackness . . . the true prima materia from which the Work can begin. I.e., it is not an end, not a static state to set upon a pedestal.
Coniunctio is a death that marks the end of solid ego identity, but it is also a conception that can lead to the growth of new life.
As many faults as I find in Jung's constructions of individuation, I still feel his grasp of individuation was much more sophisticated than that of other Jungians. Individuation was not a mere totem for Jung. He may never have become a mystic, but I do think he was an individuant. That is, he was significantly differentiated and dissociated from participation in his tribes: medicine/science, Christianity (especially Swiss Protestantism), even mysticisms and the occult and German romanticism. He only ever had one foot in any of these traditions or tribes. I don't think he ever took many identity constructions blindly form these tribes. He did not really participate.
And what's more, he was also always an outsider in the tribe that formed around him. Even as a "Jungian", he was dissociated and alone, often not wholly participating. At the end of his life, he often seemed disappointed with what other Jungians had done with his ideas.
I think Jung the individuant is still miles beyond conventional Jungianisms. But what I am opposed to perpetuating and seek to criticize is the idea of Jung the mystic. Jung was always more of a scientist than a mystic (even when his science was mediocre). But the modern world doesn't need mystics. Mystics (in the form of shamans) are functional only in tribal cultures, where they work to maintain and restore "soul" or the connection of tribal identity with the principles of the Self system.
That Jung was more scientist than mystic is the real foundation of his importance to modern thought and culture. He was a first rate scientist of mysticism, but only a second rate mystic (at best). Jung the mystic cannot treat the modern soul, but Jung the scientist still can.
Regrettably, Jungians are remiss to valuate Jung the scientist. They want their totemic prophet . . . as to believe in that prophet makes them feel righteous and special . . . "chosen". To adopt Jung the scientist as guide and inspiration would mean that Jungians would have to finally get to work, learn to fix things, learn to build, learn how to change and heal themselves. That is a great labor. And Jungians never wanted a great labor. They want a perfect ideological solution. They wanted and continue all too often to want providence. Providence and responsibility don't mix.
That's what it boils down to for me. If Jung can be made into a mystic, Jungians have no responsibility to the soul (or to their own tribe and identity). But if Jung can be understood as a scientist, then, through acceptance of responsibility and integrity, Jungians can work and create and rebuild the Jungian tribe and Jungian thought. It is an ethical issue . . . because Jung the mystic leads to feelings of chosenness and righteousness. But Jung the scientist means embracing and reckoning with some fairly unsound scientific roots and striving to make amends.
Taking Jung for a mystic is self-serving. But taking him for a scientist is a process of valuating the devalued Other. It requires ethical consciousness and sympathy with the shadow.