Jungian Psychology and the Mystical Tradition
Opening panel discussion with Murray Stein, Ann Chia-Yi Li, Roderick Main

Welcome and moderation by Stephen Anthony Farah, HOD, Centre for Applied Jungian Studies

The Mystical Self in Jungian Psychology
Presented by Prof. Leslie Stein

In most schools of psychology, the common term “self” refers to an integration of thoughts. William James explains: “What we mean by personal selves are thoughts connected as we feel them to be connected.” Jung however had a different concept of the Self as that which lies at the centre of psyche and is beyond ego consciousness. Its mystery gives it a transcendent quality and he compared it to the Hindu Atman, an aspect of the divine that dwells within us. It is the realisation of that mysterious Self within us, and observing that Self in all things, that is the goal of Jungian psychoanalysis.

Synchronicity and Mystical Experience
Presented by Prof. Roderick Main

Jung developed the principle of synchronicity—acausal connection through meaning—as an attempt to broaden what he considered to be the unnecessarily restrictive and culturally deleterious understanding of science prevalent in his day. Although not a primary focus of Jung’s writings on synchronicity, one phenomenon that such restrictive science seems particularly unsuited to explain is mystical experience. In this lecture, we shall consider what role Jung’s concept of synchronicity can play in accounting for mystical experiences. We shall first tease out some of the conceptual implications of synchronicity and then, in light of these implications, shall examine the mystical experiences Jung himself underwent following his heart attack in 1944, as recounted in Chapter 10 of Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

Where the Golden Flower is Blooming: The Resonances of Daoist Alchemy and Jungian Psychology
Presented by Ann Chia-Yi Li, MA

Jung encountered the Daoist treatise The Secret of the Golden Flower in 1928. He claimed that this treatise gave him the undreamed-of confirmation on his understandings about the circumambulation of the center and mandala. However, Jung did not explain further how the content of this treatise resonates with his thoughts. In this presentation, we will start with a short introduction on the background of this Daoist treatise The Secret of the Golden Flower, and on Jung's encounter with this Chinese text. We will mainly focus on the phenomenon of 'circumambulating the center.' These four images, which were placed into this text, will be taken as examples to formulate the Jungian individuation process in terms of Daoist alchemy. We will retranslate and clarify specific Daoist alchemy terminologies to help support the arguments.

The 10 Ox-herding pictures: How to Understand the Symbolic Meaning of This Famous Zen-Buddhist Picture Series
Presented by Paul Brutsche, PhD

The 10 Ox-herding pictures illustrate the Zen-Buddhist path of awakening. They go back to an 800-year-old pictorial tradition and show the basic ideas of Buddhism in a very simple way. They represent the basic program of a spiritual path of experience. In the lecture we will study the 10 plates very carefully with the intention of translating their pictorial meaning into modern language. By using Jungian picture interpretation we may discover that these pictures speak to us deeply in spite of their great distance of time, culture and religion.

Imagining the Imaginal: Jung and Corbin on the Imagination
Presented by Tom Cheetham, PhD

Henry Corbin, C. G. Jung both place the Imagination at the center of human life. And yet their styles and orientations difer, sometimes radically. Understanding their differences is important because our fundamental assumptions about the nature and function of the Imagination affect how we in fact imagine and how we conceive of and interpret our imaginings. In 1949 Corbin made his first appearance at the Eranos Conference. Jung was the dominant figure there until his death in 1961. Corbin, who would in 1954 replace Louis Massignon as Professor of Islam and the Religions of Arabia at the Sorbonne, was invited in his place, and from 1949 until his death in 1978 he was a speaker at almost every Eranos Conference. In this talk we will explore some of the basic diferences in their approach to the nature and function of the imagination and how these might afect our own practice.

Jung and the Evolution of God: Christ, Abraxas, Phanes and the Coming New Aeon
Presented by Dr. Lance S. Owens, MD

In the Red Book: Liber Novus, and in the Black Book Journals, one encounters C. G. Jung struggling with his understanding the nature of divinity. The words Christ, Christian, and God are some of the most frequently encountered words in Liber Novus. Jung sensed the image of God would undergo a transformation and renewal in the coming age, which he thought was then just beginning. Beginning intensely in the Black Book journal entries from early 1916 and continuing on through 1918, Jung struggles with his understanding of God, past and future. He questions his Soul, and She responds. He struggles with Her revelations. During early 1918, in an incredible series of dialogues, Jung records a complex revelation about nature of God, and the essential role of humankind in helping God become conscious. These revelations, spoken by his Soul, later became the theme of his book Answer to Job, published over three decades later. They reverberate throughout his mature writings. In this lecture, we will together delve into the evolution of God, as his Soul revealed it to Jung in Liber Novus and in the Black Books journals.

Androgyneity in Kabbalah and Psychoanalysis
Presented by Prof. Moshe Idel

Kabbalistic literature was influenced not only by rabbinic literature but also by Greek thought that helped introduce a wider understanding of eros. This lecture will address topics ranging from cosmic eros and androgyneity to the affinity between C. J. Jung and Kabbalah to feminist thought.

Beyond Night and Day: Parmenides on Being
Presented by Prof. Dylan Futter

Parmenides of Elea is, it is said, both the founder of logic and a prophet-healer who led souls to see cannot be said. He advances the first a priori deductive arguments in Western philosophy; and yet, he does not speak at all. His poem tells a story of a young man’s journey to the gates of Night and Day, and beyond, where a muse or Persephone, the goddess of the underworld, waits for him. “Taking his right hand in hers, kindly” (1.22-2), the Goddess tells of two routes available for thought: “the one – that it is, and that it cannot not be, / is the path of persuasion, for truth is its companion; but the other, that [it] is not and that [it] must not be/ this is a path wholly without report” (2.3-7). Yet since the road of non-being cannot be travelled, only one road—the road of Being—is left. And upon this road there are many signs: Being is un-generated for it cannot be born from non-being; it retains its character through division and cannot be delimited from without. It is eternal, changeless, undifferentiated, and whole (8.2-4). In this talk, I begin with an overview of Parmenides’ poem, before focusing on the relationship between the mythical motif of the hero’s story and the logical deductions about Being that characterize the goddess’s revelatory speech. I give an account of the difficulties that arise for understanding, not with a view to resolving them, but penetrating more deeply into the wisdom of the Eleatic sage.

Jung’s Mysticism: Living between Realms
Presented by John Hill, MA

Mysticism can be found in all cultures: from indigenous and folk religion, to the organized religions and would also include modern New Age spirituality. In order to limit the scope of this talk I will focus on the original quality of Jung’s mysticism. I will dwell on certain parallel and contrasting features of Jung’s mysticism with the Christian mystical tradition. I will propose that Jung’s mysticism is less about union with the Godhead but one that focuses on the intermediate realms between heaven an earth as expounded in Neo-Platonism and Persian mysticism. I will then focus on Jung’s concept of individuation and will outline its similarities and differences with the various stages of mystic ascent as outlined by Evelyn Underhill. Finally, I will focus on the mystical context that bridges the living and the dead, as found in Jung and mystics such as Swedenborg and Joa Bolendas. If time allows, I will speak about mystical dreams of people that I have worked with.

“An Opening in the Hedgerow”: Women’s Mysticism in the Christian Late Middle Ages
Presented by Dr Maria Grazia Calza, PhD

Carl Kerenyi asserted that in order to understand God (theos) we don’t need to introduce a known or unknown god-concept or an ‘idea of god’. All that we need, he says, is an experience, an encounter, “in which this word is spoken predicatively”. To be sure, the God of late medieval mystical women has lost the robe of a metaphysical concept or an abstraction to become an immediate experience of a love relationship. Their encounter with the Divine (always understood as Christ, the Love-made-Flesh) was so emotionally intense, intimate and even exclusive that it over-flowed their consciousness and transmuted it in a substantial way that was grounded in the body. Seen rather as a “continuum with” than an “opposition to” their ordinary feminine experience of embodiment, Christ was often envisioned by them as feminine. Through this embodiment, these mystic women were able to birth and nurture a new, radical theology, a practical and directly experienced knowledge of God.

Jungian Psychology and the Alchemical Imagination
Presented by Prof. Stanton Marlan, Ph.D., ABPP, FABP

Jung came to understand alchemy not simply as a protoscience of chemistry but also as a psychological and symbolic art of transformation. Alchemy enriched his understanding of the unconscious and of the individuation process. The goal of alchemy and of Jung’s psychology are intertwined. For Jung, the idea of the Self was resonant with the alchemist’s vision of the Philosophers’ Stone. In my lecture and seminar, we will explore this transformation process from its darkest depths in the alchemical Nigredo to its opening into the illuminated and mysterious goals of the Self and the Philosopher's Stone. These goals have parallels in a number of mystical and sacred traditions as well as in clinical practice. If there is time and interest, we can consider some of the archetypal connections to both these traditions and to the work of analysis.

Jung, India, and the Mysteries: The Origins of Eranos and Jung’s Indian Sources
Presented by All Collins, PhD

The question of Carl Jung’s relation to European esotericism and Asian thought is still widely debated. In particular, his ambivalent—but always intense—relationship to India provides both an image of fear and one of deep attraction. Elaine Molchanov and I have found the Indian mythical trope of “poison and nectar” to sum it up neatly. India gave Jung the idea of two levels of the self, ego and deep Self (Sanskrit ahamkara and atman or purusha) as well as that of psychospiritual work to integrate the two by practices taken from his understanding of yoga and meditation (he called the process “individuation”). Europe before and after the Great War had sprouted schools of “mystery” and “wisdom,” including several that flourished in Ascona, Switzerland. Eranos developed from these in the life of Olga Froebe-Kapteyn who brought Jung in as the central guiding force or guru. The first meeting, in 1933 (the same year Hitler took power in Germany), was devoted to “Yoga and Meditation in East and West.” Much of the program centered on India. Eranos was part of a movement that aimed beyond the “daylight” (Enlightenment) world of science and rationality. Called “shadow culture” by Eugene Taylor, Jung was part of this movement at least from the time of his Red Book fantasies in 1913-1914. He balanced daylight and shadow but, I will argue, opted finally for the mystery (or mystical) side of the psyche.

Mysterium Coniunctionis: Jung’s Visionary Testament
Presented by Murray Stein, PhD

In his late work, Mysterium Coniunctionis, Jung gives an alchemical account of late stage individuation. The work is based on decades of thought and study. And it is grounded in Jung’s personal visionary experiences during his life-threatening illness, which are poetically described in Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Mysterium speaks of the culmination of a process begun at midlife and recorded in his Red Book. This lecture will outline the argument in Mysterium and offer some examples of the process as found in world literature and clinical work. Individuation is based on archetypal patterns of development that are evident in lives ancient and modern. The key to advancing the process with intent and conscious purpose lies in the practice of active imagination.