Better Living through Alchemy or Dying with Life, The C.G. Jung Birthday Fundraising Lecture With August J. Cwik, Psy.D.

We began this during the shutdown—if you are in a condition where you need a gift, then please accept this lecture as a gift from us.  If you are in a position to support others (including the Jung Society of Washington!) then please leave a donation.  Every donation is helpful.  Our goals are three-fold:  We want to continue to provide great programs for you and we want to continue to provide Jungian lecturers with a fair recompense for their scholarship.  Finally, we use donations to provide scholarships for people who study Jung, but need some help.  So decide what level of support you are able to give, or what support you need, and proceed accordingly.  We are grateful for all donations!

Program Description:

Alchemy can be experienced as quite esoteric and off-putting.  It is the ancient art of turning lead into gold.  Psychologically, it is turning negative experience into something of great value.  Fear not.  We are going to approach an alchemical series as one might a “symbolic graphic novel,” portraying relational individuation and the embodiment of spirit.

Jung outlined his view of the transference in his essay, “The Psychology of the Transference.”  Using the first series of alchemical plates from the Rosarium Philosophorum, The Rosary of the Philosophers, he explicated the basic form and vicissitudes of the analytic situation.  But there is a second series of 10 plates, which (for whatever reason) Jung found not so interesting.  This series could be understood as an approach to a conscious, mindful death.

The entirety of this alchemical series can be understood as a template, not just for understanding the analytic process, but for the greater dynamic of ‘”dying with life.”  Through this endeavor the Jung Society of Washington might be able to make some gold as we make more soul.  

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Four Tuesdays, August 6 - 27 | 7:00pm - 8:30pm, Eastern Time

Emerald: A Consideration of Poetry and Ideas: A Course With James Hollis

Over four classes we will examine a range of poems and poets whose work raises philosophical and existential questions. 

For the first hour of each class, I will survey the poems and offer a reading and review of them. In the remainder, I’ll invite the class members to ask questions or respond to the issues raised with their own perspectives.

The texts for discussion will be provided upon registration for the course.

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Four Wednesdays, August 7-28 | 7:30pm - 9:30pm, Eastern Time

Personal Narrative: Transforming Haunting Ghosts Into Healing Ghosts, A Workshop With Dennis Patrick Slattery

Rather than conceptualize the power of ghosts that haunt us, I offer a personal narrative of ghost energies that have shaped my life for decades. In the creation of this story, I discovered the single most central archetype that has given this ghostly presence its unlimited energy. James Hollis’s illuminating text, Hauntings: Dispelling the Ghosts Who Run Our Lives, has been a major inspiration in these reflections. It led me to consider an alternative to dispelling our ghosts: inviting them in as guests. The shift from haunting ghosts to healing guests can offer a new story to live by, one that constructs our identity more fully and generously on our individuation pilgrimage. (Read more on his program page!)

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Friday, August 23 | 7:30pm - 9:00pm, Eastern Time

An Evening With John Pellitteri: The Image In The Emotion: An Emotional Intelligence Perspective on Analytical Psychology

Jung noted in Memories, Dreams, Reflections the importance of seeing the “image in the emotion” as a process of his own healing and recognized the “translation of emotions into images” as beneficial in therapy. From this starting point, we will take an emotional lens to Jung’s work, discussing how feelings and emotions are embedded in some of his central ideas, such as “feeling-toned” complexes, the feeling function of his psychological types, and the process of transformation in analytical psychotherapy. 

Jung’s work finds wisdom in emotions and their interconnection with images that predates current theories of emotional intelligence.  Insight into emotions can be a key to the mysteries of the psyche and a path to greater depth-oriented awareness.  Finding the images in emotions indicates a highly advanced understanding of the extensive nature of emotions as dynamic processes and links emotions to metaphors, symbols, and dream material.  (Read more on his program page!)

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Four Tuesdays, September 3-24, 2024, 7:30pm - 9:30pm, Eastern Time

The Red Book: A Course With Nancy Furlotti

The Red Book, or Liber Novus, is C.G. Jung’s seminal work on investigating and experiencing the unconscious firsthand, a challenge that took focus, strength, and curiosity to endure all that the unconscious presented to him. It was no easy task, and as he said upon reflection, it was the basis for all his later work. 

The Collected Works emerged out of these early and personal experiences as a way to describe the process of individuation and Jung’s theory of analytical psychology. What we see in action is the process of active imagination: descending into the vision initiated from the unconscious and entering into dialogue with the many figures that inhabited his inner world, as a way to reveal his shadow and complexes and to establish a relationship with the Self, as he later described it. 

The Red Book consists of visions or fantasies -- what he saw and experienced -- and his understanding of these interactions. It reflects his interpretation and elaboration, subjectively and objectively, of general psychological principles. Then we have the gorgeous paintings, which came later but are an important part of his process.  (Read more on her program page!)

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