Jung and Neumann:
Truth & Ethics in Times of Collective Division
October 5th-November 16th
Friday mornings, 9:30-11am
with Satya Doyle Byock
Reality is in question. Truth is being weighed against “alternative facts.” And everyone seems certain that they are “good” and their opponents are “evil.”
Whether it be from the White House, the Kremlin, various media sources, or the internet, there are various, active efforts to undermine our capacity to see and know reality.
What do we do about it?
Our understanding of “good” and “evil” needs to get a lot more psychological. Our understanding of ethics needs to get a lot more personal.
There are two books from the Jungian canon that should be required reading these days: Erich Neumann’s Depth Psychology and A New Ethic (1948), and Jung’s long essay The Undiscovered Self (1956). We'll read both books and discuss their history and implication in this seminar.
“We have all seen how not a finger is lifted on behalf of ’the Good’, unless that finger happens to belong to a body whose own existence is directly threatened.” -Erich Neumann
Both books are deeply contemplative responses to WWII and the shift of reality that any “ism” can bring. They provide solutions to the burning question so many of us have these days: "what do I do?" They present an evolving notion of ethics, born from the deepest reaches of Analytical Psychology. They help to answer the plaguing moral questions of our times.
This from Sonu Shamdasani’s introduction to the re-issue of The Undiscovered Self:
“In the aftermath of World War II, with the advent of the Cold War, the erection of the Berlin Wall, and the explosion of the hydrogen bomb, Jung found himself once again confronted with 'An apocalyptic age filled with images of universal destruction,' as he had been when he composed Liber Novus during World War I. Articulating there a direct linkage between what took place in the individual and in society at large, he argued that the only solution to the seemingly catastrophic developments in the world lay in the individual turning within and resolving the individual aspects of the collective conflict…."
“...he argued that only self-knowledge and religious experience could provide resistance to the totalitarian mass society. In this regard, the individual had been failed by modern science on one side, and by organized religion on the other…"
Join us in this critical discussion!
Seminar details:
Dates: Oct 5th-November 16th -- Friday mornings, 9:30-11am
Location: Inner NE Portland, address provided to registrants
Cost: $170 for six-week seminar