In this workshop, we will explore the many-splendored nature of the Dionysus-Pluto archetype, surveying its evolution over time and providing vivid illustrations of the varieties of Plutonic-Dionysian experience drawn from film, music, and comedy. Because discerning the archetypes is not just a conceptual task of the intellect but requires our full humanity, with all our faculties working together—emotional, imaginative, aesthetic, somatic, intuitive—the arts are especially helpful in revealing the planetary gods in action. Video and audio clips of artistic performances will be introduced to serve as windows into some of the many ways these primordial energies can express themselves in different individuals and in different eras.

Richard Tarnas is professor emeritus of cultural history and psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he founded the graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness. He has taught courses in the history of ideas, archetypal studies, depth psychology, and religious evolution. He has also frequently lectured on archetypal studies and depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute and was formerly the director of programs and education at Esalen Institute. He is the author of The Passion of the Western Mind, a history of the Western world view from the ancient Greek to the postmodern widely used in universities. His second book, Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View, received the Book of the Year Prize from the Scientific and Medical Network and is the basis for the just released 10-episode documentary series The Changing of the Gods. He is a past president of the International Transpersonal Association and long served on the Board of Governors for the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco.