Fall 1998

These perceptual theological questions will be explored through the lens of contemporary cinema and Jungian psychology. If cinema is the most attended modern Synagogue/Mosque/Cathedral-of-Presence and depth psychology its contemporary therapeut and liturgist, then this discussion is long overdue. This seminar proposes no solutions to these questions but promises a lively exploration of them through the multitudinous images of the soul in modern film.

Friday night’s lecture will present an outline/overview of the model which will be fleshed out more in-depth during the Saturday workshop. There will be frequent use of video and audio clips to illustrate the paradigm’s terrain.

Terry L. Gibson, Ph.D., is a diplomate pastoral psychotherapist and diploma Jungian analyst who practices individual and family therapy with Pastoral Therapy Associates in Tacoma, Washington. He lectures and writes widely on the basic theme of the integration of psychotherapy and spirituality. He has been a frequent consultant, faculty, supervisor, and facilitator for a variety of Pacific Northwest universities, social service agencies, corporations, and religious congregations. He has a passion for the blues, film, and sea kayaks. A book he co-edited with Laura Dodson, Ph.D., Psyche and Family, by Chiron Press, is his most recent publication.

This program is a joint presentation of the Oregon Friends of C.G. Jung and Looking Glass Bookstore.

Workshop: "Dead Drunk, Good God!" Cultural sharing. Cultural Crossfire.
This workshop will continue from the basis of an understanding of how ancient aboriginal creation stories work, but take it into the European domain by introducing participants to the way ancient European creation stories operate in ways similar to the aboriginal. This will include showing a video performance and documentary video of The Sugarman Project, a retelling in Central Australia of the ancient Greek Dionysos epic in terms of contemporary cultural dismemberment and alcohol and drug intoxication and recovery. Craig will show how the European story is helping Aboriginal people to come to grips mentally with the impact of alcohol, but carry the paradigm further to show how Dionysos as a "dreaming story" has potential especially for use as a participatory initiation drama for young people of Australia or even America. He wishes to invite you to consider that we may have available to us a tool which can help handle both the creative and destructive sides of intoxication, by a radical new interpretation of our own cultural source material, in much the same way as the aboriginal people rely upon their creation stories for survival. The workshop will include a showing of the video, a display of paintings made for the project, and some rehearsal workshop performance of selected parts of the Dionysos/Sugarman script.

Craig San Roque, Ph.D., is a Jungian analyst trained in London who currently lives and works in Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia. In addition to his psychoanalytic practice he works in alcohol and substance abuse treatments with the indigenous people of his native land. He is currently serving as president of the Australian/New Zealand Society of Jungian Analysts.

The story of how Kore becomes Persephone and is ransomed back from Death to Life by her Mother has many meanings. It depicts an experience all too familiar to us — ‘going under’ to the shadow side of patriarchal power, a ravaging that occurs not only between and within men and women today but even between nations. But it also offers hope in the face of these ‘goings to hell’; it shows us an archetypal Feminine force that is stronger than patriarchy and can transform and redeem it, a force that meets the forces of Death with an unabashed passion for Life as well as the power to gestate and transform the death experience.

Using slides of beautiful ancient Greek art, Kathie’s lecture will tell the story of the grain goddess Demeter and Her daughter Persephone as well as overview some of its myriad meanings for us today.

The workshop will explore applications of this myth for both men and women: for women, we will look at how today we live the myth ‘backwards’, beginning psychologically in Hades and having to find the wholeness and powers of the Mother/Daughter archetype before we can deal with the cultural shadow that Hades represents; we will also look at men’s experiences of this shadow side of the patriarchal Masculine and at the Hades-identified man and his transformation through the Eleusinian Mysteries. The format for the workshop will be both didactic and experiential, allowing ample time for exchange and discussion.

Kathie Carlson, M.A., studied extensively at the Jung Institute in New York City and has practiced psychotherapy for over 22 years, currently in New Haven, CT. She is the author of In Her Image: the Unhealed Daughter’s Search for Her Mother [Shambhala, 1989] and Life’s Daughter/Death’s Bride: Inner Transformations Through the Goddess Demeter/Persephone [Shambhala, 1997].

Wholeness is the goal of Jungian analysis. Indeed it is the psychological goal of life itself. It is also something that one must practice daily and in many ways. This workshop/seminar will be based on Murray Stein’s bookPraciticing Wholeness and will also focus on:

• Human nature and the practice of wholeness
• Wholeness and the shadow
• Dream work and active imagination
• Realtionships in depth

The format of the workshop will be lecture, discussion, and experimental exercises.

Murray Stein, Ph.D., is a training analyst at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago and is currently Vice President of the International Association for Analytical Psychology. He has written many articles and books, includingPracticing Wholeness, Jung’s Map of the Soul, and Transformation – Emergence of the Self. He received the NAAP’s "Vision Award" for 1988.