Friday, January 28 |  7:30pm - 9:00pm, Eastern Time

Jungian Archetypes in Film, an evening with Julia Vickers

Why do we forget some films as soon as they are over, but others stay with us a lifetime?

From femme fatale to Frankenstein, there is no art form that expresses the magic and the mystery of Carl Jung’s archetypal psychology better than film. We sit in the dark with anonymous others and watch the fantastical images and age-old stories. Like dreams, films can be both personal and collective. From The Trip to the Moon (1901) to Star Wars, technology allows us to move into the world of our imagination, a leap that Jung would say is every bit as dramatic as the physical landing on the moon. Jung saw fantasy as a form of energy—the potential in all of us to fulfill our lives. And this can be expressed so beautifully in film.

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Three Thursdays, February 3 - 17  |  7:30 - 9:30pm, Eastern Time

Regardless of your age, please join me in a discussion of life’s later years. James Hillman wrote: “It is an enormous mistake to read the phenomena of later life as indications of death rather than as initiations into another way of life.” 

We will consider the meanings and experiences of aging as we read Jung, Hollis, and Hillman. Discussion of The Tempest will address how we deal with our inner Ariel and our inner Caliban.

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Friday, February 18  |  7:30 - 9:30pm, Eastern Time

What Shapes a Life: The Symbolic Life, a workshop with Michael Conforti

Only the symbolic life can express the need of the soul.

-C.G. Jung, The Symbolic Life, C.W. Vol. 18

From the very beginning of life, we are involved in traditions and rituals, each of which is replete with their own unique meaning: from being welcomed into the world to rites of passage into adulthood; we fall in love, we marry, we bring new life into the world. Far a secular repast, our ancestors understood the spiritual and archetypal significance of these rituals.

These issues will be explored by examining humanity’s innate need to find inner representation for what we experience within the inner and outer worlds, including our dreams, relationships, fantasies, and more. Of special importance in this lecture is an understanding of what we love, what it is that draws us.

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Saturday, February 19  |  1:00 - 4:00pm, Eastern Time

Rilke's heart and soul were deeply touched through his relationship with Lou Andreas- Salomé. Struggling to find the voice for the creativity living within his soul, he writes to Salomé, “You see, gracious lady, through the unsparing severity, through the uncompromising strength of your words, I felt that my own work was receiving a blessing, a sanction." Was it Salome, his own soul, or both who he embraced in this sacred and unholy union?

Drawing on the experiences of Rilke, Nietzsche, Jung, and Toni Wolff, we will look at the power of such attractions to a muse, and the challenges inherent in such relationships for men and women to re-collect and re-integrate these projections.

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Friday, February 25 |  7:30pm - 9:00pm, Eastern Time

People often come to an analysis in despair because their sense of self, their self-image, no longer seems real, accurate or trustworthy. It is as if their ‘self-portraits’ no longer look like them.  Analysis offers a mirror, a possibility to face oneself and  see and be seen. The analytic process itself provides a model for the courage and willingness required to experience one’s Self anew, with the hope of true reflection both outwardly and inwardly.

Following the tradition of Self-portraiture in the West from the Renaissance to today, we will look at many self-portraits as works of art and also as icons of the profound experience of looking deeply at ones’ Self.

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Five Thursdays, March 3 - 31  |  7:30 - 9:00pm , Eastern Time

The Olympian pantheon resembles actors within our own psyches.  How do we recognize what characters or stories may be pulling the strings in our own personal drama?  Do any of these stories speak symbolically to the conflicts and struggles within the challenging times in which we find ourselves today?

We will explore the stories of the ancients and experience them with music, poetry, and art through the lens of our own generation.  And, we will give a supportive nod to the future generations who have inherited the task of bringing forth transformational consciousness to a planet in stress.

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Four Tuesdays, March 8 - 29  |  7:00 - 8:30pm, Eastern Time

So you don’t like poetry because it is intimidating? Trivial? Affected? In this course we will explore four poetic explorations of human perplexity: beginnings, love and hate, relationships, and end things.  (The poems to be read will be sent to your computer well before the course begins so you can have them available for this Zoom class).

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Four Alternate Mondays, April 4 - May 16  |  7:30 - 9:30pm , Eastern Time

Mysterium Coniunctionis (Volume 14), a course with Cathryn Polonchak

This program is an ongoing reading and discussion class from previous semester(s), and we are welcoming newcomers. 

The reading material is Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14. 

Please note, familiarity with Jung's previous works is recommended but not necessary. 

The course is thorough, progressing slowly, and with a lot of discussion for each paragraph. If you believe this style is for you, join us!

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Four Thursdays, April 7 - May 19  |  7:30 - 9:30pm , Eastern Time