CATAFALQUE: Carl Jung and the end of humanity

CATAFALQUE: Carl Jung and the end of humanity

Starting 1 May 2020 The New Jungian Book Club will be reading Peter Kingsley’s new book.

CATAFALQUE offers a revolutionary new reading of the great psychologist Carl Jung as mystic, gnostic and prophet for our time.

“This book is the first major re-imagining of both Jung and his work since the publication of the Red Book in 2009—and is the only serious assessment of them written by a classical scholar who understands the ancient Gnostic, Hermetic and alchemical foundations of his thought as well as Jung himself did. At the same time it skillfully tells the forgotten story of Jung’s relationship with the great Sufi scholar, Henry Corbin, and with Persian Sufi tradition.

The strange reality of the Red Book, or “New Book” as Carl Jung called it, lies close to the heart of Catafalque. In meticulous detail Peter Kingsley uncovers its great secret, hidden in plain sight and still—as if by magic—unrecognized by all those who have been unable to understand this mysterious, incantatory text.

But the hard truth of who Jung was and what he did is only a small part of what this book uncovers. It also exposes the full extent of that great river of esoteric tradition that stretches all the way back to the beginnings of our civilization. It unveils the surprising realities behind western philosophy, literature, poetry, prophecy—both ancient and modern.

In short, Peter Kingsley shows us not only who Carl Jung was but who we in the West are as well. Much more than a brilliant spiritual biography, Catafalque holds the key to understanding why our western culture is dying. And, an incantatory text in its own right, it shows the way to discovering what we in these times of great crisis must do.”

(https://catafalque.org)

CATAFALQUE SYLLABUS

Module 1: Chapter One: Mystical Fool

Readings:  Catafalque (pages 7-91)

Module 2: The Things Forgotten…

Exercise: Art or writing regarding the inexplicable and irrational images or words of the unconscious.

Module 3: Chapter Two: Back to the Source

Readings: Catafalque (pages 92-208)

Module 4: Student research involving personal ancestry; pre-Christian myths, religious rites, and beliefs prior to conversion.

Module 5: Chapter Three: The Sunset Way

Readings and Discussion: Catafalque (pages 209-358)

Module 6: Chapter Four: Catafalque

Readings and Discussion: Catafalque (pages 359-445)

Module 7: The World We Used to Live In: Remembering the Powers of the Medicine Men, Vine Deloria, Jr (2004)

Exercise: Understanding the Native American Experience and Indigenous Psychology

Module 8: Connections to the past and the dead…

Exercise: Personal Ritual Making

Module 9: Human meaning, powers, talents and purpose in indigenous Cosmology.

Readings: The World We Used to Live In

Module 10: Endings, Apocalypse and Transformations

Exercise: The Red Book, Catafalque, and personal student introspections on death, change and transformations.

Module 11: The Red Book, Catafalque, and Western Psychology versus Indigenous Psychologies.

Readings: Summaries

Module 12: What Kingsley gets right and what he got wrong.

Exercise: Reflections on this Course

The New Jungian Book Club

is an ongoing study group dedicated to the close reading of iconic Jungian texts, hosted on Facebook. This involves a hermeneutic study of the text in question, group discussion and applications for the purpose of psychoeducation and self-analysis. The book club is led and facilitated by Dr Shayne Eynon and Stephen Anthony Farah MA and falls under the institutional auspices of The Centre for Applied Jungian Studies.

Membership Includes:

An overview and detailed synopsis of the book being read.

A section by section, detailed and hermeneutic reading of the text.

Applications for those interested in engaging their own creative and psychodynamic process.

Links to studies, lectures and videos that expand on the reading of the text.

Live webinars – offered monthly and recorded for the benefit of those unable to attend live.

Participation in a facilitated Facebook forum set up expressly for this purpose, where you will be able to engage with other students from around the world, post any questions or thoughts you have on the text and your own applications.

Guest lecturers – with ever text we study we invite either the author or other specialised subject matter experts to speak on the text.

Your facilitators

Dr Shane Eynon

a Licensed Psychologist with over 15 years of experience in psychotherapy and specialize with Neuropsychological evaluations of adults and children with autism. He completed his doctorate in psychology at Temple University and had completed my residency at Moss Rehabilitation/Einstein Hospital- Child Neuropsychology. A former Military Officer, supervisor, consultant, and the father of autistic children. Most recently, Shane served on faculty for the U.S. Navy’s APA internship at the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, MD. I was also deployed as a Neuropsychologist with the Marine Corps in Afghanistan in 2010 and reported to the UK’s Trauma Center at Camp Bastion and Camp Leatherneck.

Stephen Farah MA

is the co-founder and head of learning and research at The Centre for Applied Jungian Studies South Africa. He is an executive member of the International Association of Jungian Studies. Stephen holds an honours degree in analytical philosophy from the University of the Witwatersrand and a Master’s degree in Jungian and Post Jungian Studies from the University of Essex. Stephen’s areas of interest include psychoanalysis, film, the philosophy of language, consciousness, individuation and the simulation hypothesis. His paper ‘True detective and Jung’s four steps of transformation’ was published in The Routledge International Handbook of Jungian Film Studies. He is currently compiling and editing an anthology of papers for ‘The Spectre of the Other: crises and opportunity‘.