|
The Jungian Odyssey is approaching its 8th year of success as an English-language retreat and conference. At this event ISAPZURICH opens its post-graduate program to all with interest in CG Jung and Analytical Psychology. “The earth has a spirit of her own,” Jung mused, and elsewhere he called it the genius loci, the spirit of the place.(1) It is this, the particular genius loci, that infuses each Odyssey as it leads us to a different place in Switzerland each year and inspires each Odyssey’s topic. So, too, it imbues our presenters’ analytic views on contemporary research in a variety of fields, and as well, their handling of traditional areas of Jungian interest—fairytale, dream, myth, art, religion, personal and collective experience, clinical practice.
(1) C.G. Jung, Visions. Notes of the Seminar Given in 1930–1934, Vol. 1, ed. Claire Douglas (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 133.

The Odyssey 2013 invites your immersion in the spirit and place of Kartause Ittingen, a retreat center and former monastery founded in 1150. Ittingen is located in the rural lowlands of Canton Thurgau, lying some 30 miles (ca. 50 km) from Jung’s birthplace, Kesswil. Nestled amidst its own forests, fields, vineyards and orchards, the monastery served for centuries as the tranquil refuge of a community of Carthusian monks. In 1524, at the hands of Protestant Reformists, the entire monastery was set in flames and silenced. Restoration was begun in 1531 when the Carthusian Order returned, to remain until 1868. “The monks took all meals except Sunday lunch alone in their cells, with each day divided into strict periods of work, rest and prayer (including a 3-hour service every night from 11:30 pm, and never more than 4½ hours’ sleep at a stretch), and remaining committed by oath to silence at all times.”(2) We will not seek to emulate their life of austerity—but we may find its resonances at the core our experience!
(2) Carthusian practice, description accessed 10 Oct., 2012 at http://switzerland.isyours.com/e/guide/northeast/kartause.html
Photo Credits: View of the Former Cloister Grounds from the East [Übersicht über die ehemalige Klosteranlage von Osten], by © Memori, accessed 19 April 2012 at http://commons.wikime dia.org/w/ index.php? title=File:Kartause_Ittingen_1.tif &page=1 / View of the Thurgau Landscape [Der Blick über die Thurgauer Landschaft], by ©Walter45, accessed 11 Oct., 2012 at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pano-Häuslenen-Burg-02.jpg
|