The C.G. Jung Society of Queensland
Newsletter
July - September 2004, No 40
Presidents Letter
Dear Reader,
Alchemy and Inspiration
Although there have been many passing
references to alchemy in our talks over the years, Jonathan Marshalls presentations in July may be the first, at least in
recent years, to focus solely on alchemy. Another modern proponent of alchemy as a therapeutic process, Robert Bosnak, will
present a workshop on dreams in April, 2005.
Alchemy was originally a process
in the middle ages whereby chemists, in their laboratories, sought to find a way to transmute base metals into gold. Jung
realised that their work was as much or more about entering a process in which they themselves became transformed. The mixing
of substances in the laboratory provided a language and an outer world ritual that reflected the inner process. (The Catholic
mass, with its transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ is an example of the alchemical process.)
The metaphorical concepts of the alchemists are a core element of modern analytical psychology.
The study of alchemy occupied much
of Jungs thought in the latter part of his life. Alchemy for him filled the missing link in his theory of the evolution of
the Western psyche. Jungs personal and professional relationship with Toni Wolf was profoundly changed when he insisted on
making alchemy the primary focus of his work and she felt that the study of alchemy would be a mistake for him. Jung himself
knew he was going out on a limb with alchemy even for him, already on the outer of conservative Swiss society. I think his
foray into alchemy showed tremendous courage and commitment to his own inner journey.
That type of commitment seems to
me to be the essence of Jungian psychology. After all, what was his life except a commitment to his inner journey? His psychology
provides a map of the psyche that any of us may use but the journey is still an individual one for each of us. I believe Jung
said he never wanted to be a Jungian just as Karl Marx never wanted to be a Marxist. (His namesake, Groucho Marx, never wanted
to belong to a club that would have him as a member!) What they seem to have wanted was to live their own lives as fully as
possible, to go beyond the restrictions imposed by society or circumstances. Jung certainly did that. I feel this is what
we admire in him. And in turn this is what he inspires in us.
Best wishes,
Frank Coughlan
C.G. Jung Society of Queensland, 74 Camp St., Toowong, Q 4066. Tel: 3371 1285
Upcoming events at the Jung
Society
July
2004
Alchemy,
Jung and History
A presentation
by Jon Marshall
Thursday July 1, 2004 7:30-9:30 pm
St Marys Community House, Merivale St, Cn of Peel St, South Brisbane
Members
and concession: $5; non-members $10
Jung both revolutionized and
made respectable the study of alchemy, by suggesting that the obscurity and oddness of alchemical works expressed universal
unconscious processes also active in contemporary people with no interest in, or knowledge of, alchemy. This suggestion enabled
Jung to further illustrate and develop his ideas about 'individuation' and dreaming, and, as a result, alchemy and its images
became central to his mature work.
Since Jung's day there has been a great deal of research into the history of alchemy
and it is now helpful to see how well Jung's ideas hold up in the light of this research. This talk aims to sketch some of
the ways that Jung and the Post-Jungians (such as James Hillman), refer to alchemy in their writings and work, and to elaborate
these ideas within more recent developments in the understanding of alchemy.
Jon Marshall is a researcher who focuses primarily on the analysis of underground, or hidden,
traditions in the West. He has written an M.A. on the history of alchemy, and a Ph.D. on the ways that people have used the
Internet as a base for new kinds of social activity. He has long been interested in exploring the social implications of Jung's
thought.
Workshop
Jonathan Marshall and
Sally Gillespie
Alchemy and the Material Imagination in Transformation
Saturday 3 July, 9:30 am to 4:30 pm,
Hillbrook
Anglican School, 45 Hurdcotte St., Enoggera
Cost: Members and concession - $60; non-members
$70; Very low income - $40
Please bring lunch to share and an esky if you
have one.
The Workshop will be divided into four sections:
1) The development of Jung's theory. This will consider how Jung's theory of alchemy developed across his work,
and how he used it to solve problems of psychological transformation.
2) The Materiality of Alchemy. We shall look
at a series of alchemical images and the text that accompanies them to get a sense of how we might work with alchemical images,
and the senses of substance, to embody forth the imagination.
3) Furthering imaginal work. We shall explore the ways
that certain types of material effect the imagination. The tools of the psyche are images and associations. We access them
through smells, sounds, tastes, touch and memories. Even dreams are embodied through these forms. The imagination
is both limited and transformed by the elaboration of these kinds of material.
4) Matter as transformative. For this
section we ask people to bring with them an object or image which symbolises an important aspect of their lives. We will experiment
with what happens when we work with this object through an imaginative and alchemical process. Other kinds of art materials
and substances will be provided to help people experience the transformative creativity of their psyches.
August 2004
Money
and Psyche
A presentation
by Janeil Smith
Thursday
August 5, 2004 7:30-9:30 pm
St
Marys Community House, Merivale St, Cn of Peel St, South Brisbane
Members
and concession: $5; non-members $10
Money is a psychic reality and as such gives rise to divisions and oppositions about
it, much as other fundamental psychic realities of love and work, death, sexuality, politics and religion are archetypal dominants
which fall easily into opposing spiritual and material interpretations. Moreover, since money is an archetypal psychic reality,
it will always be inherently problematic because psychic realities are complex and complicated. Therefore money problems are
inevitable, necessary, irreducible, always present and potentially if not actually overwhelming. Money is devilishly divine.
James Hillman
This
evening will be an opportunity to focus on our relationship with money. Janeil will present information from a variety of
sources relating to money from a Jungian perspective. The evening will allow the vexed question of money to be discussed in
an interactive open forum type format.
The
aim of the presentation is to facilitate a greater awareness of the role that money plays in peoples lives. As money is a
medium of exchange, there is a need to examine more deeply the other aspects of the financial interaction that happens between
the people involved. We will examine what cultural influences, shadow material, complexes and archetypes are at play in our
psyches when money is an issue.
Janeil
Smith has a degree in
Financial Administration from the University of New England, a Graduate Diploma
of Education (Adults) from the University of Technology, Sydney and a diploma in the Artistry of Psychotherapy. She has a
passion for Jungian Psychology and has continued private study in this field for the past 12 years, as well as being in therapy
with Dr. Anne Noonan, Jungian Analyst in Sydney over a six year period. Janeil is the mother of three grown up children and
lives on the Gold Coast.
September 2004
Psychological Types
A
presentation by Don Siebert
Thursday September 2, 2004, 7:30 9:30
St. Marys House, Cn Merivale and Peel Sts, South Brisbane
Cost:
Members and concession: $5; non-members $10
Carl Jungs work Psychological
Types was published in Zurich in 1921: the English translation was published in 1923. In Jungs countless impressions and
experiences as a psychiatrist over twenty years, he abstracted from this practical work an understanding of certain patterns
operating in the individual person.
In Psychological Types Jung presents two attitudes oriented towards the
outer world: Extraversion is an outward turning of psychic energy towards the outer world, whereas Introversion is an inward
turning of psychic energy into the subject, which is self.
There are two processes for perceiving reality:
these are the functions of Sensing and Intuition. In coming to conclusions on the data the individual has gleaned there
are the judging functions of Thinking and Feeling.
The Individual has an innate preference for one of the alternatives
of the orientation and two of the functions. Each choice is dichotomous: one is preferred to the other at a point in
time. Yet there is a tension between the opposites and psychic energy flows in movement and counter-movement by way of compensation.
The evening will present an opportunity to explore Jungs exposition of Psychological Types.
Don Siebert
has undertaken post-graduate studies in Religion and Religious Education and in Interpersonal Psychology at Fordham
University in New York.
Don has worked professionally in Tertiary and Adult Education for over 25 years. During that
time he has conducted Personality Type Workshops for over 10,000 adults. Don was foundation President of the Queensland Region
of the Australian Association for Psychological Type and national President of the Association. For eight years he conducted
one of four Accreditation Training Programmes in Australia for presenters of Psychological Type using the Myers-Briggs self-report
Type Indicator.
JUNGIAN ANALYSIS IN BRISBANE / GOLDCOAST
AREA
Patrick
Burnett is a Jungian analyst (ANZSJA, IAAP, PACFA) from Sydney who is
moving to live in the Byron Shire in September. He completed his analytical training at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich
and is currently the vice-president of ANZSJA and a supervising analyst with the ANZSJA - C.G. Jung Institute.
Patrick intends
working one day a week in the Brisbane/Gold Coast area in individual therapy and analysis. He is also interested in setting
up an on-going analytical psychotherapy group. For more information call 0439945042.
September 2004
Intensive Journalâ Depth Contact Workshop
A Weekend Workshop led by Kate Scholl
Saturday and Sunday September
4 and 5, 2004
Time: Saturday 9 am to 5 pm,
Sunday 10 am to 4:30 pm
Where:
Hillbrook Anglican School, 45 Hurdcotte St., Enoggera
Cost
Members and concession $130, Non-members $150
This workshop
follows the Life Context workshop that Kate conducted here last year. It is open to those who have already done the first
workshop, either last year or on another occasion. Discover the wisdom deep within you and the beauty of your
life in the company of others. The workshop introduces the Ira Progoff method of journal writing that opens up new insights
and enables you to live more deeply connected to your centre.The Intensive Journal offers a means of making our
inner life real and actualised in our outer life. We do this by exploring our life in its many aspects, our life history,
our relationships, our work, the groups and organisations and hobbies that we give our energy to or have given
energy to in the past. It is by exploring these in an 'atmosphere of depth' where
each person does their own writing and includes in that time 'twilight imagery' and meditations which access the depth.
Ira Progoff
wrote the first doctoral dissertation in the USA on Carl Jung at the New School for Social Research in the 1950's and then received
a fellowship to study in Zurich with Jung. Jung was most impressed with his work and encouraged him in the development of
the Intensive Journal.Kate Scholl is the executive director of the Eremos Institute and the only active accredited Intensive
Journal Consultant living in Australia. She invites people interested in knowing more about the Intensive Journal to visit the
website of Dialogue House in New York for more information on Progoff's work (www.intensivejournal.org), or visit the Eremos Institute website (www.eremos.org.au) for the workshops on offer in 2003.
â Intensive Journal is a registered trademark of
Ira Progoff and is used under license by Dialogue House
For more information please
phone Marie on 3371 1285. To reserve your place, please return the booking form on page 11 of this newsletter. Morning and
afternoon tea will be provided. Please bring lunch to share (and something to keep it cool).
Book Review
The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga:
Notes of the Seminar given in 1932 by C. G. Jung
Editor: Sonu Shamdasani
. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. 1999. Bollingen Series XCIX 192 p.
In his introduction,
Sonu Shamdasani says that, Kundalini yoga presented Jung with a model of something that was almost completely lacking in Western
psychology - an account of the developmental phases of human consciousness. (p.
xxiv)
Jung tells us that Tantric yoga, the elaboration of thousands of people and untold centuries .. is a really invaluable
instrument to help us in classification and terminology and to create concepts. (p. 97)
He elsewhere says
that the understanding of the chakras, Gives us the most differentiated forms and concepts by which we are able to express
the chaotic experiences that we are actually undergoing. (p. 99)
The evolution of consciousness is
one of Jungs fundamental concepts, and is in evidence explicitly and implicitly throughout his work. And while there are many
Western sources such as biology, palaeontology and geology that imply that consciousness evolves, it was Jungs study of the
chakras that provided him with a model by which consciousness can be seen to emerge in stages, following a recognizable and
coherent evolutionary pattern. It was this understanding that provided the basis for one of Jungs most illustrious students,
Eric Neumann, to write his Origins and History of Consciousness, which is the seminal work in this area.
Whilst
Jung saw the transformation of consciousness as one of continuous development, (p. 58) he explains that, each cakra is a whole world (p. 13) and that we human beings occupy one of the intermediate worlds in the overall evolution of consciousness.
Anaharta, the heart chakra, with its characteristic ego consciousness, has awakened in association with the
emergence of urban culture. Post-industrial, post-modern culture has seen the opening of Vishuddha, which is about
intuition, communication and coming to recognise our neighbour as our self. But Jung points out that particularly in the West,
our ego-consciousness is not well integrated and with the consciousness of the preceding three chakras, let alone with the
higher three, so that our awareness exists as a series of complexes, of which the ego is the dominant one. He says:
Taken
from the standpoint of the chakra system, then, we can see that .. our culture is only a personal culture, where the gods
have not yet awakened from sleep. Therefore we have to awaken Kundalini in order to make clear to the individual spark of
consciousness the light of the gods. (p. 68)
He adds:
Our actual existence, this world, is a sort of a womb,
we are mere beginnings, less than embryos, we are just the germs that have still to become. We are not meant to stay in this
condition. (p. 24)
The medium through which the overall process works itself out is the individual. This is true for
all levels of consciousness, including human evolution, where each individuals development repeats the whole evolutionary
process up to and including the conscious level of the culture in which the individual lives.
In the very center of
this field of consciousness are germs of something that points to a different kind of consciousness, the spark that points
to another conception of life... and the great, important things are high above it and are still to come... The unconscious
contents are slowly
becoming conscious. (p. 25)
Jungs own experience, and his study of wisdom of the mystical traditions
such as Kundalini, gave him the awareness that the incomplete consciousness associated with each chakra eventually drives
individual and culture to transform to a higher level. He tells us that there is:
Something in you, an urge .. a leading
spark .. that forces you .. toward the next center. And that is Kundalini .. something which is superior to your will. If
that living spark, that urge, that need, gets you by the neck, then you cannot turn back. One wants to go back .. but .. a
dragon bars the way. The dragon is Kundalini .. the divine urge. (p. 21)
As to the origin of this urge, Jung writes
elsewhere (Jung, 1933, p. 43)
It is from the Self, God within us, that our psychic life seems to have sprung right
from the very beginning, and it is in that direction that all the supreme, ultimate goals in life seem to strive.
At
all times and in all places, the Beloved cries, I seek the one my heart loves. (The Song of Songs)
In the human phase
of the evolutionary process as we have lived it so far, we can watch the unfolding of the Kundalini stages up the chakric
tree to our current state of consciousness.
First the belly-consciousness of the primitive developed, and he only
noticed what set heavy on his belly or in his stomach. Paul still said, The belly is your God. Then the diaphragm-consciousness
of the Homeric person developed, and he felt his emotions. This was expressed in states of respiratory tension and in changes
in heartbeat. ... Only the contemporary person can say, Now I am thinking. The visuddha center expresses the word.
(p. 86)
From that point, Jung goes on to examine in detail the way the evolutionary / developmental levels of consciousness
emerge with the opening of each higher chakra. In the process, he elaborates on one of the vital concepts that his methodology
gave the western world; that symbols are the living energy of the emerging archetypes of a particular chakra:
The
symbols of the cakra, then, afford us a standpoint that extends beyond the (current) conscious. They are intuitions of the
psyche as a whole, about its various conditions and possibilities. They symbolize the psyche from a cosmic standpoint. It
is as if a superconsciousness, an all-embracing divine consciousness, surveyed the psyche from above. (p. 67)
In this
way he shows us that we in the West have evolved to our current state with the first four chakras operating as complexes in
most people, and the fifth chakra being activated to varying degrees in many others. At the same time,
Our Western
symbolism (is) far from the absolute perfection of the East. ...We are at this stage in the rough experience and the raw ordinary
material; we are far from any differentiation - we are only just beginning to see that we have certain experiences that approach
that kind of symbolism. (p. 67)
He points out in this context that:
We are few in number compared with the people
who have an entirely different point of view as to the meaning of the world. (p. 24-25)
Nonetheless, there are also
among us Westerners many people who have the psychic abilities of the sixth chakra. Jung further talks of the experience of
momentary activation of the seventh chakra, which nearly all people have from time to time, as the source of our religious
or spiritual experiences.
Even if we recognise that there is a non-ego experience, it is a long way until we realize
what it might be. These experiences are called mystical because the ordinary world cannot understand them. .. But what it
calls mystical is simply not the obvious. Therefore the yoga way has always been a secret, but not because people have kept
it secret. The real secrets are secrets because nobody understands them. One cannot even talk about them, and of such
a kind are the experiences of Kundalini yoga. (p. 28)
Jung parallels the symbolic systems of the West to transform
consciousness with those of Kundalini yoga.
The cakra symbolism has the same meaning that is expressed in our metaphors
of the night sea journey or climbing a sacred mountain, or initiation. (p. 58)
In our own time, the emergence of analytical
psychology is our perfectly genuine naive attempt in the same field (tantric yoga) with different means, according to our
different temperaments and attitudes, (p. 95) thereby opening Western culture to the understanding necessary to transform
our consciousness.
Rob Brown
References
Jung, C.G. (1999). The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga
Jung, C.G. (1933). Dialectics of the Ego and the
Unconscious
Bible. O.T. The Song of Songs
JOURNEY TO THE INNER SELF
PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVES
BY ROSALEEN MCDADE
The same spirit pervades all seekers
for truth including those seeking scientific truth. The scientist does not begin
with knowledge but with faith that knowledge can be found. Jung himself began
his work with certain intimations of the reality of the unconscious. His own
experiences, his dreams, the intimations from his soul, led him to defy collective opinion, and, with no outward support for
his research, he arrived at a knowledge of the existence of the collective unconscious.
This type of faith is of the soul and not the blind, childlike faith which encourages people to remain ignorant children,
of which Jung was so critical. For Jung the path to healing and wholeness lay
not in blind faith but in the knowledge that comes from faith in the reality of one's intimate inner experiences.
Soul-type faith yearns for knowledge
and impels us to search diligently for truth. Knowledge strengthens faith. That
faith and knowledge are partners in one process is not to be wondered at since they have one and the same source in God, who
inspires the faith of the soul and teaches us the way of understanding.
The spiritual process of development
involves a complex relationship among faith, knowledge and love. It may begin
as the process of acknowledging God within one's innermost being initiated by faith and following the energy and longing of
the soul with perseverance. This process is increased through love and leads to knowledge gained through intimate experience
and a fuller experience of God.
In psychology there is a great emphasis
on knowledge. Both Freud and Jung say that if people only knew what forces shaped
their personalities and knew what lay in the unconscious, healings would result. Making the unconscious conscious is the hallmark
of all depth psychology and "the truth will make you free" is the maxim under which the psychotherapist proceeds.
In contrast, for the most part, faith
is disregarded as a factor in psychotherapy, as psychotherapy is regarded as a science and faith is a religious term. Faith is often seen as the enemy of attempts to come to self-knowledge. Jungian psychology,
which stresses the merits of arriving at inner knowledge and identifies it with the meaning and purpose of life in contrast
with faith, often sees faith opposed to knowledge. Faith is seen in its narrower
context of emphasis on blind belief, and equally blind repression, and is contrasted with the interior insight and transformation
of the depth-psychological process.
With the spiritual journey, the inner
experience of love, which draws the soul on in the search for meaning and purpose in life is the grace of God. This is a freely given power, which restores our relationship with God, heals the soul and comes as a free
gift. In the Christian perspective, God saves us from a psychological moral condition
from which we cannot extricate ourselves. The idea that Christ died on the cross
for our sins and weaknesses is a powerful statement about the grace of God. The symbol of the cross, forgiveness and love
are mysteries to be grasped and accepted as one goes through a process of change and a renewal of consciousness that amounts
to something like a transformation into the likeness of God. These are mystical teachings, which say that we are mysteriously
transformed by a profound union with Christ. To be transformed via a mystery is highly experiential and occurs through the
life-giving change of one's being and consciousness in an individual way.
The cross points to the central Christian
mystery, which is like a developmental progression into the fullness of our humanity and toward a union with God, these two
processes being inseparable. In Jungian terms, the cross in its fourfoldness is a mandala, a symbol for wholeness. The pain of the cross expresses the difficulty and painfulness of the process of psychological and spiritual
transformation. Each one must carry his or her own psychological burden and suffering
in order to become conscious. With the concept of Christ's atonement and union
with Jesus, the Christian goes through this process with, in and through Jesus, as a safe container which helps to avoid the
danger of ego inflation.
God's gift of healing the soul is
visible to the psychotherapist who, if not succumbing to inflation and managing the transferences appropriately, realises
there is grace which comes from a Higher Power that can heal what no human being can heal. Psychotherapists, therefore, can
lead clients to trust their own inner self with faith, knowledge and love.
Talk to me
Dadet@austarmetro.com.au
From the Librarian
Marie Sinclair:
mbsinclair@optusnet.com.au
Additions to the Library
·From Spring Publications:
Title
Author
Power
in the Helping Professions
Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig
·Jill Mellick, Jungian-oriented
psychologist in private practice in Palo Alto, California, donated the following while on a recent visit to Queensland:
Coming
Home to Myself
Marion Woodman & Jill Mellick
The Worlds
of P'Otsunu
Jeanne Shutes & Jill Mellick
·And a few selected by the
committee:
The
Hero Within
Carol Pearson
On the
way to the Wedding
Linda Schierse Leonard
Beyond
the Mist
Peter O'Connor
Notes
on Borrowing
Only
financial members may borrow from the library a maximum of two books for a maximum period of two months.
Please
call on (07) 3371-1285 or send an email to the above address, if you would like to come over and browse through the library
or have any of the books brought to one of our monthly meetings.
Marie Sinclair
Bulletin Board
Jeff Power lectures on the Gold Coast, 7
pm to 9:30 pm, C.W.A Hall, Ventura Rd, Mermaid Beach (left off southbound G.C Highway). Cost: $10 per individual lecture payable
on the night.
- Meeting the Soul Bird: An intro to the Empathic Imagination Thurs 22 July
·
Poetry of the Soul: An introduction
to Dream Work Thurs 29 July
·
Revisioning the Darkness: Listening
to Depression Thurs 5 August
·
Damn the Rationalists Full Dream Ahead: Cultural Story as Suicide
Prevention Thurs 12 August
- Trickster and the Subversive Imagination Thurs 2 Sept
- Spirit or Plonk? Towards an Australian Spirituality Thurs 9 Sept
- Politics and Psyche: Bringing together the Inner and Outer World Thurs 16 Sept
- Community Dreaming: What might the Future Hold? Thurs 23 Sept
Phone/email: Please confirm your attendance by phone/sms 0400146120 or via email ratbagmystic@hotmail.com
Animal Imagery
2nd Australian Festival of the Animals,
Camp Bornhoffen, Numinbah Valley, Gold Coast hinterland.
Friday evening
25 June to Sunday 27 June, 2004. Workshops include Yoga, the chakras and animal imagery, Art and animal imagery, Origami
and animal imagery, and Embodied Dream Imagery.
Cost: $170 covers delicious meals and accommodation.
Contact Frank Coughlan on (07) 3356 1127; e-mail
frankacoughlan@bigpond.com
Kate Scholl Intensive Journal workshop Saturday and Sunday September 4 and 5
I wish to reserve a place at the Kate Scholl workshop.
I enclose a cheque payable to the C.G. Jung Society of Queensland for $ ___________
(Members
of the C.G. Jung Society of Queensland: $130, Non-members: $150; Concession:
$130)
Name: ____________________________________________________________________________
Address: ____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________ Postal code: ______________
Telephone: Work:_____________________________
Home: ___________________________________
E-mail: __________________________________________________________________________
Please
return this form and your cheque to: The C.G. Jung Society of Queensland, 74 Camp St., Toowong Q 4066.
About the C.G. Jung Society of Queensland
The C.G. Jung Society of Queensland is committed to furthering awareness of and reflection
upon the writings of the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961). The Society promotes an understanding of Jungs work
through the exploration of its psychological and spiritual applications to the individual journey and interpersonal relationships,
and by considering the ways in which Jungs writings and ideas can contribute to the healing of modern society.
The Society does this through offering monthly presentations, occasional workshops and
small groups, all of which are open to both members and non-members. Monthly
presentations are held at 7:30 pm on the first Thursday of each month, from February to December, at St Marys Church Hall,
corner of Merivale and Peel Streets, South Brisbane. The venue is within walking distance of the South Bank bus station and
South Brisbane station. Off-street parking is available in the churchyard.
