Public Semester Program
Autumn 2022

Historically, for the most part, people studying analytical psychology have eschewed psychoanalysis, and vice versa. Freudian psychoanalysts not only have rejected studying Jung, but have held biased beliefs born out of a propaganda campaign that began immediately upon the split between the two men.

We will reflect on conscious embodiment and the alchemical process as illustrated in a contemporary painter’s individuation journey. We travel from life’s earliest beginnings through the stages of growth, death, dismemberment, despair and new life as these steps are reshaped by transformative elements.

The story of Prometheus provides a rich mythic narrative that has captured our imagination for over two millennia. Using this Greek myth, I explore the Promethean complex and the origins of our Promethean debt. I conclude with an exploration of how this complex affects our relationship with the natural world.
I will provide a collection of sources of the Promethean myth, including works from Hesiod, Plato, Ovid and Aeschylus.

The mandala is the foremost archetypal image of wholeness. In this course I explore the manifold forms of the mandala and how they may help us heal our split with both our inner and outer worlds. I also explore how emergent mandalas, rooted in the ‘new’ sciences, facilitate the creation of a more meaningful life.
Reading Material: “Intimations of the Self: Jung’s Mandala Sketches for the Red Book”, The Art of C.G. Jung, ed. The Foundation of the Works of C.G. Jung
“A Study in the Process of Individuation”, C.G. Jung, in CW 9i The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious “Concerning Mandala Symbolism”, C.G. Jung, in CW 9i The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

Analytical psychology can be understood as a result of Jung’s “working through” his own Christian faith and tradition. This lecture examines Jung’s wrestling with Christianity, his rendering of imitatio Christi and asks if Jung’s psychology is an attempt to reform or transcend Christianity.

What does our narcissism have to do with the shadow within us? The shadow contains the uncomfortable, unaccepted sides in us; confronting the shadow is a difficult process when working with patients. To compensate for the shadow we may develop negative narcissism.

How do we find the courage to discover our own shadow, to integrate and heal hidden, wounded and dissociated parts of self? What helps us to grow emotionally, find our own path, display compassion for ourselves and others, and live an authentic life?

Jung wrote only one essay on the father, reflecting on his absence. The effects of this absence on the psyche will be examined through clinical examples, taking into consideration the negative complex, dreams, transference and countertransference as well as the French psychoanalyst André Green’s theory on absence.

Fairy tales portray the puer archetype prevalent in Western cultures. It is connected to the senex archetype, and both are aspects of the psychological development for leaving the family and accessing the self. This applies to all people. Jung said: “The archetype persists throughout the ages and requires interpreting anew”. CW 9i

We will look at the art works of some Art Brut/Outsider artists, discussing their lives and personalities. We will examine how their art expresses their suffering and the existential meaning it had in their psychological process.

One simple brush stroke by a Zen painter can open up to a whole unknown universe and thus act as a “transforming node”. We amplify the node with mandalas - from nature (heart, tree, etc.) or geometry (double spiral, double cone); the node and its amplifications reconnect us to a vivifying wholeness and deeper knowledge.

The lectures offer an overview of the hidden pathways of Germanic Mythology, within the context of Indo-European culture. I will be focusing on the Germanic Worldview and its cosmology. This repressed mythology has shaped essential elements of modernity.

This talk suggests that non-dual gnosis can give us insight into deeper structures of consciousness in which head and heart come together, pointing to an overall participatory approach beyond the dichotomy of subject and object.

After a review of the history of the concept and the role played by the transcendent function, we will look at the cultural or collective complex, specifically around mobbing, also soldiers’ experience in war. The Quaker Meeting for Worship and synchronicity will be looked at as collective phenomena.