JUNG SOCIETIES and Friends of JunG Organizations

“Developing an Archetypal Eye”
Pacifica Graduate Institute, July 2022

Taking psychology to the streets challenges us to develop an archetypal eye through which we attend to the beauty, suffering, and soul in the world. What are the qualities and inclinations of the archetypal eye? First, it is drawn to depth, moving toward understanding but wary of explanation. The archetypal eye notes all expressions of psyche in the world because the world is full of soul, and it acutely trained in pattern recognition—across time and across culture. Finally, the archetypal eye asks who?—not what or why—because the ever-present gods want our attention. They seek us out, draw us in, act as mentors and guides. And they will tune our voice to a worldly key since “To speak, to ask to have audience today in the world, requires that we speak to the world, for the world is in the audience; it too is listening to what we say.”

“The Mythic Soul“
Next Level Psy, Moscow, February through May 2022

The Mythic Soul describes the Jungian roots and core ideas of archetypal psychology, including the reality of the psyche, its plural nature, its foundation in myth, and its influence in culture. Above all, we will explore archetypal psychology’s devotion to the image—its autonomy and aliveness, and its individuation. We find these images in myth, “the primary and irreducible language of archetypal patterns” that shape human existence. Turning to myth for archetypal patterns places psychology in the cultural imagination and returns depth psychology to the ancient notion of a world soul, the anima mundi, which asserts soul is in all things. The task is to recover an animated sensibility so that we pause, reflect, imagine, and thereby attend to the world’s deep and limitless interiority, its soul.

“Transforming Scholarly Research into a Mainstream Book”
Pacifica Graduate Institute, February 2022

If your completed thesis or dissertation still feels vitally alive and relevant to contemporary culture, this 12-hour seminar will help you begin the process of reworking your research so that it may become “the ideal text” that publishers seek and very rarely find: solid works of scholarship that hold wide appeal for a general audience. In a lively combination of short lectures and guided breakout groups, participants learn how to transform the research question and outcomes of the study into the book’s central promise; think about different ways to organize the content so that it has narrative drive; reflect upon audience and consider the issues of voice, tone, and style; and discover strategies for preserving the depth of the original scholarship while speaking in language that appeals to non-specialists.

“Pandemic as Teacher“
Pacifica Graduate Institute, Fall 2021

A key principle of Hillman’s archetypal psychology is that psyche, or soul, shows up in arts and culture, in disease and medicine, in how we treat each other and how we treat animals, in the health of our institutions and the health of the earth. He made a number of cogent comments about symptom and cure and the correspondence between our own souls and the soul of the world. In words that have fresh meaning in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hillman asserted “We now encounter pathology in the psyche of politics and medicine, in language and design, in the food we eat. Sickness is now ‘out there.’”  The pandemic has shown that “out there” and “in here” are hardly distinguishable. The coronavirus is a message and a messenger. Students of the soul are invited to pay attention, notice, listen, observe. Move toward understanding but we wary of explanation.

“Shadow Vows: What we don’t say when we say I do”
Next Level Psy (Moscow), Winter 2020

By the time a marriage is in crisis, partners often ask, What did I get myself into? and When was the beginning of the end? as they struggle to live their wedding vows. This presentation argues that the beginning of the end is rooted in shadow vows—unacknowledged assumptions, agreements, and obligations—that painfully bind the partners to each other and to the marriage. The workshop, intended for analysts who counsel suffering couples, illuminates shadow vows through additional lecture material interspersed with individual reflection, dyad work, and lively small- and large-group discussion. It also explores marriage as a metaphor for other kinds of durable commitments participants have made, for example to a family system, a profession, an organization, or a creative project.

“Real or not real? Pandemic, Protest, and the Spooky Relevance of The Hunger Games”
Myth Salon webinar, July 2020

At a time when the “real world” is convulsed by pandemic, protests, and rebellion against privileged elites, when we confront yet again systemic racism, systemic misogyny, and the obscene concentration of material wealth in the hands of the few, and when tyrannical leaders stupidly sow discord, it may seem wasteful to give serious attention to fantasy literature. Yet stories are vital, the third circulatory system of human life, as important to communal health as are the flow of blood and lymph in the individual body, because stories connect us economically, politically, culturally, and spiritually. In this webinar, Dr. Elizabeth Nelson shows why Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games is freshly relevant.

“Digital Life and the Soul: The Extended Body in Cyberspace”
Pacifica Graduate Institute, October 2019

Augmented Intelligence, a symbiosis of human and machine cognition, is a potent aspect of contemporary embodied life, decisively shaping our self-concept, well-being, and professional practices. Consider, for instance, the number of people who report “phantom limb syndrome” when they are deprived of their smartphone or who are incapable of navigating city streets unless Siri coaches them step-by-step. This lecture and workshop adopts key ideas from interpersonal neurobiology and archetypal psychology to map the extended body in cyberspace, examine the technology we love (and sometimes hate), and consider the benefits and the costs of living in homes filled with devices—and never leaving home without them.

“The Rise of the Fierce Feminine: Archetypal Faces of Power and Toxic Masculinity”
Atlanta Jung Society, May 2019

In the last two decades, fierce young women have taken center stage in popular culture, no longer content to be accommodating sidekicks to a strong male protagonist. The activation of an ancient archetypal pattern, the female warrior, is on display, commanding critical attention and earning billions of dollars. As an archetypal pattern, the female warrior need not be violent but she does take a stand, devoting time, energy, and resources to upholding her beliefs. She is called forth by cultural struggle such as the profound divide in America today, joining women’s marches around the world and the #metoo movement. She exemplifies the crucial point made by Dr. King: love without power is anemic.

“Love and the Right Use of Power”
San Diego Friends of Jung, February 2017

Jung once said, “Where love reigns, there is no will to power; and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking.” He borrows the phrase “will to power” from Nietzsche but, as Nietzsche scholars point out, the phrase is frequently misunderstood as domination or tyranny. It is not. It is closer in meaning to personal power, reflecting Nietzsche’s views on value of conflict and the meaningfulness of the difficult life, which challenges each person to love their fate (amor fati) and to live into it fully. Power, in the Nietzschean sense, is closer to the English word potent, from the Latin potere: the agency to act, to do, to be. When we examine the small and slippery word power to reflect on the many ways someone can be potent, key questions come into focus: Who and what do I serve? What effect am I creating? How far does my influence extend, and can I live with the consequences? Power always reveals one’s deep ethical stance in the world, which includes what we love as well as what we neglect—for better and for worse.

“Time, Psyche, and Creative Process”
International Forum for Psychological Education, Fall 2017

When engaged in creative process, three kinds of time, figured as archetypal images, influence the writer’s life: old man Saturn, the senex, an image of structure, limitation, and necessity, who lends his gravity to deadlines; Demeter and her Roman counterpart Ceres, who form the archetypal background to cyclical time and teach the wisdom of patience and sacrifice as well as the promise of rebirth; and Kairos, the god of the opportune moment, moments that sometimes appear as synchronicities. The presentation finishes with a meditation on the Moira or Fates, extending the conception of time to wonder about the ancestral roots of the work we do.

“Awakening the Somatic Imagination in a Wounded World”
Riverside Initiative for Alexander Technique, NYC, Fall 2016

The somatic imagination is an embodied approach to emotional, physical, and spiritual distress and a set of skills to help practitioners address them. In a larger sense, somatic imagination is a way of being-in-the world and a response to its suffering, which manifests among individuals, families, communities, and in the environment we share. This workshop describes how the somatic imagination is inspired by, and fits within, the interconnected traditions of depth psychology, somatics, and phenomenology. Three questions focus the presentation: How are each of us distinctively called to care about, witness, and alleviate particular forms of suffering? How is this suffering experienced in the human body? Finally, how might the relief of individual suffering become an ethical communal action to help the fatigued, ill, and wounded world?

“Shadow Vows: What we don’t say when we say I do“
Los Angeles Jung Institute, Spring 2014

Jung published only one essay on marriage, yet marriage is a leitmotif that appears throughout his works, particularly in the alchemical texts. There, he uses the metaphor of marriage to speak about processes of individuation in which the opposites both attract and repel one another. This presentation examines Jung’s marriage essay in relationship with the 2,000-year-old tale of Eros and Psyche. The tale illuminates the journey of the soul in relationship to eros and poses disturbing questions about conflict, separation, and solitude in the opus of marriage. When couples promise to love, honor and cherish, what needs fall into shadow? How might articulating shadow vows bring clarity to the relationship? The seminar also proposes marriage as a metaphor for other durable commitments—to family, profession, organization, or a creative project—exploring how many “marriages” any of us can sustain and which take priority.

“Voice in Psychological Research: Working with Activated Images in Scholarly Writing”
International Forum for Psychological Education, Fall 2014

Depth psychological research, in its capacity to express, explain, and translate, honors Hermes, the Greek god of writing. The encounter with the blank page or screen ultimately produces the researcher’s voice. But who, we may ask, shapes that voice? The answer is something, or someone, deep, interior, and prior, the archetypal figure who has called us to the work. This presentation elaborates on Jung’s statement that creative work “consists in the unconscious activation of an archetypal image and in elaborating and shaping this image into the finished work.” Depth psychological researchers enter into profound relationship with an archetypal image, not an “it” but a “Thou” who becomes their companion and their guide.

“Unspeakable Wisdom in the Cells of her Body: Honoring Marion Woodman”
Pacifica Graduate Institute, October 2011

Marion Woodman, a pioneering Jungian thinker, is a lovely and loving incarnation of the archetypal crone, one who “holds an unspeakable wisdom in the very cells of her body.” The crone is vital, formidable, frank, and full of joy. She understands the central importance of the expressive body in psychological wisdom. She knows how much strength is required to surrender to fate and transform it into destiny. And, finally, the crone recognizes the world’s hunger for a true marriage of the bold feminine and the vibrant masculine and, through the example of her own life, shows us that it is possible. Above all, Woodman’s passion for a truly somatic depth psychology teaches how to find our own archetypal images in the body and discover the body of our own images. She is the one who inspires my theory of the Somatic Imagination and how to awaken it. I will forever be in her debt.

“Monstrous Desire: Love, Death, and Psychological Vampirism”
Mansfield College, Oxford, September 2009

Myth and literature provide us with rich depictions of the vampire, presenting to the critical eye both the persistent archetypal qualities of this monster as well as the unique embellishments that captivate contemporary audiences. Such is the case with the stories of Eros and Psyche, the Greek god of love and the young woman he is sent to destroy and instead falls in love with, and Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, from the Twilight series of young adult novels. More than 2,000 years separate these stories and only one is ostensibly a vampire tale. Examining them side-by-side illuminates the relationship among love, death, and marriage, prompting an interesting question: Why do we fail to recognise the psychological vampires in our midst–especially when they come disguised as beautiful lovers–and what are the implications of our blindness? This presentation explores the answers from literary, psychological, and feminist perspectives.

“Archetypal Hermes and Astrological Mercury”
Casa de Maria, Santa Barbara, October 2008

In this one-day workshop, Elizabeth Nelson and Laurence Hillman combine their expertise in archetypal psychology, astrology, myth and literature to describe the significance of the sign and house position of Mercury in the natal chart. Mercury, the Roman counterpart of the Greek god Hermes, is an agile messenger who can transverse multiple worlds with ease and grace. Classical sources for these divinities are plentiful and varied, providing a rich source of imagery to inspire all forms of communication, including speaking, writing, and teaching. Understanding the unique placement of Mercury offers robust insights into how people express themselves in the world—including areas of flow as well as creative tension.