Friday, September 8, 2023
7:00-9:00 pm Eastern

Jung’s Shamanic Journey and The Red Book: Panel, Film, and Discussion

Penelope Tarasuk, Jungian Analyst
Ed Tick, Archetypal Psychotherapist
Erica Lorentz, Jungian Analyst
(For more about these presenters, see Nov, March, and April, respectively)

When Jung broke with Freud in 1910, a series of visions, dreams, and internal pressures from the unconscious obliged him to look for and follow his soul into the inner world. This “most difficult experiment,” (Jung) or shamanic journey, became his Rosetta Stone, spurring him on to develop his theories and therapeutic work. For this program, Ed, Erica, and Penelope will briefly speak about his journey, followed by the commentary of James Hillman on film. Audience discussion will give us time to share how Jung’s journey might affect our own lives.

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Friday, October 6, 2023
7:00-9:00 pm Eastern

Jung in Athens: Myth, Masks, and Archetypes in the Theatre of Dionysos

Robert Emmet Meagher

The ancient Greek theatre (qevatron), as its name suggests, is a “seeing place,” a place of revelation, where we see what is normally unseen and where what we normally see is hidden. Actors and dancers are all masked. At first, their identities are hidden, and all we see “onstage” are archetypes: gods and mortals, male and female, young and old, powerful and powerless. The rituals of Dionysos are also all about civic unity and human friendship. Indeed, friendship is the bond of the polis, and, as Euripides was so singularly aware, the bond of the human community. The plotline of each Greek drama is its mythos, the source of our word and understanding of myth. The dramas that unfold before our eyes in the Greek theatre reveal the commonalities, not the idiosyncrasies, of the human condition. Surely, Jung would be right at home in the theatre of Dionysos and know just what to make of its myths, its masks, its archetypes, and its all-too-human characters in our turbulent world.

Robert Emmet Meagher is Emeritus Professor of Humanities, Hampshire College. In fifty-two years of teaching, he also held numerous visiting chairs and professorships in Religion, Philosophy, Classics, and Theatre, including at Trinity College Dublin and at Yale. His publishing career includes over twenty books, translations, and original plays, most recently, Albert Camus and the Human Crisis. He has offered courses and workshops on the translation and contemporary production of ancient drama and has directed productions at such venues as the Samuel Beckett Centre Dublin and the Nandan Centre for the Performing Arts in Kolkata, India. For decades, he has directed and participated in a range of events and programs concerned with healing the spiritual wounds of war.

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Friday, November 3, 2023
7:00-9:00 pm Eastern

We Are Dreaming Animals

Penelope Tarasuk

“Dreams are impartial, spontaneous products of the unconscious, outside the control of the will. They are pure nature; they show us the unvarnished, the natural, and are therefore fitted, as nothing else is, to give us back an attitude that accords with our basic human nature when our consciousness has strayed too far from its foundations…” Jung, Volume X (paragraph 317)

Drawing on the series of animal dreams & visions from a woman artist over a period of eight years, we will talk about the symbolic meaning and instinctual support that animals provide in our individuation process and ways they can assist in life completion. Epiphany, the direct experience and realization of divinity, came to this individual via dreams and a vision of an animal near to the time of her death. I invite you to re-member animals you’ve known, dreamed of, or encountered in non-ordinary states. Is there an animal especially sacred for you? It is said that companion animals are one of the last deep connections to nature that many people have in this lifetime.

Penelope Tarasuk, Ph.D., is a Jungian Analyst (Jung Institute Boston,1988). She has served on the boards of the C.G. Jung Institute NE Training Program and the Jung Association of Western MA. She teaches, supervises, consults with those integrating non-ordinary experiences, practices Tibetan Buddhism, wanders in nature, and is a lifelong artist. Her book, Polishing The Bones (Muswell Hill Press, UK), is the story of a Jungian analysis that included assisting in the patient’s death. She was a consultant and volunteer at the Santa Fe Animal Shelter and Humane Society for six years. She is certified in Grof Holotropic Breathwork and, most recently, in Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy and Research with the CA Institute of Integral Studies. Penelope has a private practice in South Deerfield, MA.

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Friday, December 1, 2023
7:00-9:00 pm Eastern

Synchronicity and Death: Liminal Experiences at a Time of Transition

Robert Hopcke

In his work on synchronicity over the years, Rob Hopcke has explored the specifically liminal quality of meaningful coincidences, and the way such events occur with surprising and enlightening frequency at times of transition in our lives. There is no more profound and archetypal transition each of us faces than death, be it the passing of loved ones or our own. In a presentation rich with stories, Rob will be exploring the peculiar nature of how chance events surrounding that passage we all must sometime face, come to symbolize and guide us on our journey through bereavement, mortality, and ultimately wisdom.

Robert H. Hopcke is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice in Berkeley, California. Along with his numerous articles and reviews published throughout the world, he is the author of the national best-seller, There Are No Accidents: Synchronicity and the Stories of Our Lives, which has been translated into over two dozen languages. His scholarly work in analytical psychology, published by Shambhala, includes: Jung, Jungians and Homosexuality; Men’s Dreams, Men’s Healing; A Guided Tour of the Collected Works of C. G. Jung; and The Persona: Where Sacred Meets Profane.

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Saturday, January 13, 2024
11:00 am – 1:00 pm Eastern

Exploring the Russian Psyche: Light and Shadow

Natalia Pavlikova with Ed Tick

How does an understanding of the Russian collective psychological field guide us in grasping the depths and complexities manifesting in the politics of the country, region, and world today? What is the cultural complex of Russian citizens: its peculiarities, its historical roots, the way it was recreated during the existence of the USSR, and reformulated after its collapse? We will consider the influence of the country’s territorial and geographical location on the formation of its cultural complex and describe the archetypal features incarnating the Great Mother and Great Father archetypes and their shadows. What is the psychic tension between this collective complex and the individual? This presentation will address these questions and themes, and will fit the national complex of Russia into the global dynamics of cultural complexes now present in the world.

Natalia Pavlikova is a Jungian Analyst in Moscow. She is a clinical psychologist, graduate of the Psychology Department of Moscow State University. Following graduation, she worked at the Scientific Center for Mental Health and at the Clinic for Medical Nutrition as a medical psychologist. She received additional training in Psychodrama and Eriksonian hypnosis and in 2010 was certified as a Jungian Analyst. Natalia works with adults and has been in private practice for more than 20 years. For the Russian Society of Analytical Psychology, Natalia served as Vice President (2012 – 2015) and President until 2023 and now serves on their Training Committee. Throughout her official work, Natalia has developed connections between international colleagues and professional societies of different countries. She lectures on Jungian typology and psychosomatics at the Moscow Association of Analytical Psychology. In 2022 she assembled a group of psychologists to work with combatants, their families, and civilians who found themselves in the territory of military action traumatized by war.

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Friday, February 2, 2024
7:00-9:00 pm Eastern

Emily Dickinson and C.G. Jung: Soul Mates

Kaye Lindauer

Both Dickinson and Jung were on a quest for self-discovery. Both wrote from their own experience of understandings that came to them from a deeper knowing, or in Jungian language, from the Self. They knew how to listen and how to reflect on the messages, accepting the complexity of the human psyche. What came to them was a ‘gift’, but giving a voice to their intuitions and imaginations in their writings, required intelligence and focus. Topics concerning soul, hope, possibility, mystery, and transformation will be discussed as Dickinson’s poetry will be studied ‘side by side’ with writings of both Jung and post-Jungians.

Kaye Lindauer, MS, MLS, M.Div., has had an interest in literature and psychology for the past fifty years. She has earned a Divinity degree from Syracuse University and has taught at the graduate level at Syracuse for thirty years. She’s also taught adult education courses and coordinated conferences and retreats. For the past thirty-three years she has taught day classes during the summer at the Chautauqua Institute in New York State. Dickinson’s and Jung’s writings on soul and the dualities of life have been a focused interest of Kaye’s. She has attended the New York Center for Jungian Studies Ireland Programs over the years, and has studied at the Jung Institute, and at the International School of Analytical Psychology in Zurich, Switzerland.

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Friday, March 1, 2024
7:00-9:00 pm Eastern

The Way of the Wise Elder in Film: Exploring Conscious Aging Through the Mythic Power of Cinema

Terry Ebinger

This program will be presented on Zoom ONLY

The most powerful movies about wise eldership serve as journeys into mythic territory, with its daunting trials, tests of character, turning points and healing transformations. Moving pictures bring the archetypes to life, gracing us with vivid and wide-ranging characters embodying essentials of authentic eldership: generatively, integrity, reflection, reconciliation and receptivity. Depth psychology, mythic imagination, and the cinematic language of symbol and dream will inspire our consideration of remarkable elders, as we use films to identify and amplify the values, attitudes, and tasks of later life individuation. This presentation will include multimedia lecture, depth analysis of film clips and images, and group discussion.

Terry Ebinger, MS, is a passionate film scholar and retired psychotherapist with nearly four decades of experience as a depth psychological practitioner, educator, dream consultant, spiritual director, and multidisciplinary group leader. Her film studies programs synthesize psychology, myth, film history, cultural anthropology, and the symbolic language of cinema. Terry’s approach to teaching is dynamic, scholarly, practical, and playful. She teaches at San Francisco Jung Institute, Houston Jung Center, Mythica Institute, Myth Salon, American Academy of University Women Forum, The Dream Institute, several Bay Area Lifelong Learning programs and her own Cinema & Psyche online salons.

cinemaandpsyche.com

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Friday, April 5, 2024
7:00-9:00 pm Eastern

Ma’at’s Wisdom: Renewing Balance, Harmony, Order & Justice

Dr. Laurie Larsen

This program will be presented on Zoom ONLY

Over the course of their long history ancient Egyptians faced many of the same challenges facing our world today and they learned to recover from setbacks by creating a resilient cultural model that endured cycles of growth and decline for over 3,000 years of recorded history. Their culture perpetuated while adapting and transforming. In their surviving records are myths, principles, and practices that provide us with much-needed perspectives that may contribute to our own renewal and capacity to regenerate our culture.

Our time together will include a slide presentation illustrating how ancient Egyptian wisdom practices are portrayed in their exquisite art, architecture, sacred texts and literature. A guided meditation will activate your personal imagery and we will conclude with a Q&A.

Dr. Laurie Larsen is a mythologist, visual artist and independent scholar currently pursuing her passion for ancient Egyptian art and culture through research, travel, and creating media presentations. Laurie earned her Doctor of Philosophy in Mythological Studies with an emphasis in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2018. Her research reveals that many ancient Egyptian wisdom practices are pertinent for our contemporary world. Making use of rich visual examples she has gathered in her travels to Egypt, excerpts from the sacred texts, and storytelling she delights in drawing others into relationship with what ancient Egyptians eagerly offer us.

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Friday, May 3, 2024
7:00-9:00 pm Eastern

The Therapeutics of Extinction Anxiety: A Depth Psychological Approach

Randy Morris

This program will be presented on Zoom ONLY

As a culture we are swimming in a psychic soup of apocalyptic stories, images and symbols of nuclear war, social injustice, anthropogenic climate change, and global pandemics. As a result, we are experiencing high levels of anxiety about the human future, which I am calling ‘extinction anxiety’. This anxiety is so strong and pervasive that mighty engines of cultural repression are at work to numb our feelings and prevent recognition of the object of our fear and our worst nightmare — the extinction of the human species. But if we are willing to turn toward this psychic soup, if we can learn how to ride the dark emotions that arise rather than turn away from them, then, I suggest, we will be given the seeds of a new revelation. I want to make the claim that apocalyptic imagery and extinction anxiety are promptings from the sentience of the earth herself, inviting human beings to walk through a threshold toward personal, cultural and planetary renewal. Jungian depth psychology offers a therapeutic frame of reference to understand how to navigate these rough waters with courage, resilience and grace.

Randy Morris, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus at Antioch University Seattle where he taught in the BA Liberal Studies Program for thirty years and was the coordinator of the Psychology and Spiritual Studies concentrations. Prior to his career at Antioch University, Randy taught K-12 students for 10 years, including 3 years at the Hiroshima International School in Hiroshima, Japan. He was a vision quest guide for many years and is a Certified Sage-ing Leader with Sage-ing International. Currently he is the Co-President of The C.G. Jung Society of Seattle, bringing the insights of depth psychology to bear on global rites of passage and the dark night of the species soul.