Spring 1995 Programming

Lecture: Modern medicine has a highly developed technology, but it has forgotten the quality of sacredness which was once its heritage. Shamanism and tribal medicine, without the benefits of scientific knowledge, have yet been the means of healing through centuries (even millennia) of human life. Using myth and ritual and a highly developed sense of wholeness, they have promoted true holistic healing-the harmony of mind and body-through the intense experience of the sacred. 

The only psychology of our time that honors this dimension is the analytical psychology of Carl Jung. His concept of individuation offers a way for the modern mind to preserve the wonders of scientific progress, and yet experience the healing values of ancient ways that are archetypally based, and so, universal. 

Workshop: The workshop will take up the more experiential side of the preceding lecture, demonstrating some of the ways in which shamanic medicine brought healing to its tribal patients. Tribal healing was always archetypal, using by means of myth and ritual, the basic archetypal pattern of death, dismemberment, and rebirth. This pattern was, and is, universal. 

We will venture a bit further by extending Jung’s method of active imagination with ethnic amplification-the use of simple ritual drumming and rattling, in order to gain some idea of what this kind of healing was like. Both the lecture and the workshop will include slides. 

Donald F. Sandner, M.D., has practiced as a Jungian Analyst in San Francisco for over thirty years, and he has been president and a continuing member of the teaching faculty of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. He has lectured in most of the Jungian training centers and has written more than 25 articles and book chapters on Jungian psychology and cross-cultural healing. His book, Navaho Symbols of Healing, is now in its second edition. Dr. Sandner is a graduate of the University of Illinois School of Medicine and had his residency in Psychiatry at Stanford University. He studied at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich and was certified as a Jungian analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco.

Lecture: Conceiving the Motherline

Mother is the first world we know, the source of our lives and our stories. Embodying the mysteries of origin, she ties us to the great web of kin and of generation. Yet the voice of her experience is unknown in our culture and she is objectified in our psychology. This lecture will articulate the concept of the Motherline, and how it is vital to the understanding of our lives, whether we be men or women. 

Workshop: Stories From Our Motherlines

Everyone has a Motherline to follow, a set of family stories to remember, a human history that goes back for generations. Often these stories are filled with grief and with shadows; to remember them is to honor the depths of the human experience. In the ancient world both men and women participated in rituals which drew them into the underworld and the sacred feminine. In this workshop, men and women are invited to reflect on the mysteries of origin. Poetry, personal memories, and Motherline stories from many sources will help us find our way. Bring a photograph, a piece of jewelry or clothing, or any other article that carries the mana of your Motherline. 

Naomi Ruth Lowinsky Ph.D., is a Jungian Analys in private practice in Berkely, and a member of the San Francisco Jung Institute. She is the author of The Motherline: Every Woman’s Journey to Find her Female Roots, numerous articles and reviews, and is a published poet. She is on the Adjunct Faculty of The Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara. 

Lecture: Human consciousness, the scientific understanding of our world, and our material world itself are in a state of rapid change. By synthesizing the highly symbolic, esoteric systems of the Tarot, Kabbala and Alchemy, not as an academic study but rather as a way of experiencing our daily life, we can understand more clearly the nature of this change. The most sacred text of the alchemist, the Emerald Tablet of Hermes, is no less than an alchemist’s opus, a recipe for the second creation of the world. It begins:

“True, without falsehood, certain and most true,

that which is above is as that which is below

and that which is below is as that which is above

for the performance of the miracles of the One Thing…”

When we truly know the meaning of this text we can fully comprehend the unity of mind, body and spirit in the souls of human beings.

The lecture will discuss the fundamental basis of Alchemy as interpereted by Carl Jung, and the principles of the Tarot and the Hermetic Kabbala. The by looking at the images presented by men and women from thier dreams, body experiences and synchronistic events, we will see how these esoteric mysteries are present in everyday life. 

Workshop: Metaphor and symbols are the great transformers, the bridge between the levels of mind, body, and spirit. This psychological understanding of the Alchemical opus will provide the container and the integrity to lead into the Saturday workshop, which will be directly experiential and allow individuals to have an opportunity to experience the working of the alchemical process within their own bodies. 

The Eugene program will lead directly into the program presented in Portland the following weekend. The final work of the opus is the conjunctio, the union of opposites. The social manifestation of this final alchemical process is the changing images in the relationships between men and women. We hope that this program will offer individuals a greater understanding of themselves and their parts in changing consciousness. 

Eleanora m. Woloy, M.D., is a psychiatrist, Jungian Analyst and Associate Professor of psychitry at the Eastern Virginia Medical School. She is a graduat of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and a training analyst. She received her medical and psychiatric training, including child psychiatry, at the University of Michigan and for the past 20 years she has conducted a private practice in Virginia Beach, Virginia. She has written a book entitled Psyche and Dog, and was a contributing writer to the book, Closeness in Personal and Professional Relationships. 

Joseph Lee. B.A. Drama, is a certified Alexander Technique teacher. He has led workshops with educational and arts organizations throughout the southeast United States, and conducted numerous master classes for theater, music, and performing arts groups. 

Lecture and Workshop: For the last 3000 years, the “battle of the sexes” has raged between men and women. In this no-win war, both sides have been scarred. But we stay in the game because we instinctively sense that there must be something more. So how can we experience oneness in a relationship and not lose ourselves in the process?

Men and women have pursued the answers to this question on their own, but have met with only limited success. More men are learning to claim their feelings. More women are learning to claim their power. But while understanding grows, union remains elusive. 

Dr. Woloy suggests that a new model of relationship is needed, one that will come from the images in the unconscious of men and women. These images will guide us to a new vision of partnership, based in freedom, safety and love. This lecture and experiential workshop will explain old myths and explore new possibilities for relationships, and use images that arise through drawings, sound and movement. 

Eleanora m. Woloy, M.D., is a psychiatrist, Jungian Analyst and Associate Professor of psychitry at the Eastern Virginia Medical School. She is a graduat of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and a training analyst. She received her medical and psychiatric training, including child psychiatry, at the University of Michigan and for the past 20 years she has conducted a private practice in Virginia Beach, Virginia. She has written a book entitled Psyche and Dog, and was a contributing writer to the book, Closeness in Personal and Professional Relationships. 

Joseph Lee. B.A. Drama, is a certified Alexander Technique teacher. He has led workshops with educational and arts organizations throughout the southeast United States, and conducted numerous master classes for theater, music, and performing arts groups. 

Lecture: Spiritual Psychology of Love

Love must not forget that she is Wisdom’s sister. This lecture explores this enigmatic statement, developing an archetypal picture of Wisdom, Sophia, as the intelligence of the cosmos and how love is meant to develop in close connection with World Wisdom. We will consider love’s long but necessary separation from Wisdom and a path of return. We will describe the multifarious ways in which the human soul is beset with the sufferings and joys of love-sexual love, love as a force in the blood, emotional love, self-love and love resulting from work towards individuation. We will see how love interpenetrates all aspects of human reality, bringing about the ever-present possibility if identifying one realm of love as the totality, leading to tragic consequences. The future of love will be explored from the viewpoint of archetypal psychology.

Workshop: Love, Intimacy and the Imagination of the Heart

We will extend the understanding of the evolution of love developed in the lecture to a consideration of love between individuals and love for the sake of the world. In our time, relationships of an intimate nature are becoming more and more difficult. We will explore some of our cherished illusions concerning love, see what is involved in creating love rather than expecting to fall in love, and work towards developing an imagination of the heart.

We will explore the loss of the soul in the senses in the modern world, and how love becomes ever more difficult in a simulated world in which images are readily given rather than created through inner soul work. Meditative soul practices for recovering the soul of inner senses through developing a conscious imagination of the heart will be suggested. The special difficulty of obsession as an opening of the heart without proper preparation is explored and a path of healing suggested. The format will be conversational.

Robert Sardello, Ph.D., is co-founder of the School of Spiritual Psychology based in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, a traveling school that offers courses founded in archetypal psychology. Dr. Sardello worked for a number of years with James Hillman and Thomas Moore, and practiced psychotherapy for over twenty years. He teaches at the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture and at the Chalice of Repose Project, a training program in Missoula, Montana, for working with the dying through sacred music. He is the author of Facing the World with Soul and Love and the Soul: A Guide to Creating an New Future for Earth. 

Lecture: The three great interrelated questions of our time are egotism, evil, and community. This lecture develops an imagination of community out of archetypal psychology, one that can adequately meet and challenge egotism and evil. 

Many people today search for a sense of community and, in truth, are often disappointed when this deep desire meets only groups of conforming individuals instead. In this presentation we will look to the Grail legend as a prototype for an imagination of community that does not annihilate individual soul life. We will work with the following soul conditions necessary for development of community: the capacity to confront one’s soul in solitude; developing a right relationship to desire; the centrality of conscience of the heart; the will to be completely human; radical receptivity; moving among soul planes; living with the three Grail questions. 

Robert Sardello, Ph.D., is co-founder of the School of Spiritual Psychology based in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, a traveling school that offers courses founded in archetypal psychology. Dr. Sardello worked for a number of years with James Hillman and Thomas Moore, and practiced psychotherapy for over twenty years. He teaches at the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture and at the Chalice of Repose Project, a training program in Missoula, Montana, for working with the dying through sacred music. He is the author of Facing the World with Soul and Love and the Soul: A Guide to Creating an New Future for Earth. 

Lecture: The Conspiracy of Silence: Secrets, Confidentiality and Trust

The idea of silence is rarely addressed in Jungian or Freudian psychoanalytic literature. There is almost a silence about silence, and yet that phenomenon plays a crucial role in the dialogue and dialectic of therapy and analysis. The sacred trust in the confessional or doctor-patient relationship is being lost in the present computer age and in third-party treatment in health care. The story of “secrets” and honoring and betrayal of trust is at the heart of human relationship. The meaning of silence beyond words and images is the basis of this presentation. 

Workshop: Silence: Art and the Art of Healing

The dream world is an ultimate creative art, as is the interperetation of dream on a symbolic and archetypal basis. The dream world of images is largely silence and represents that “emptiness” which transcends words and images. It is the wholeness which is sought in meditation and the ultimate silence as “expressed” in poetry, music, and the visual arts. Select parts of some great motion pictures and of dreams will be presented. The ultimate silence has been said to be the voice of God. It is associated with noise, pandemonium, space between “things” and the healing force of life itself. Silence is not an archetype, but for some “reason” is taboo in modern civilization. 

Harry Wilmer, M.D., Ph.D.,  is a senior Jungian analyst in private practice in Salado, Texas. He is also president, director and founder of the Institute for the Humanities at Salado. He is the author of Practical Jung: Nuts and Bolts of Jungian Psychotherapy, and Understanding Jung: The Personal Side of Jungian Psychology. He has published 12 other books and over 200 articles, has authored a play, several PBS TV documentaries and a film. He and Jane have just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. 

Keith Scales presenting “The Fool in the Forest”, retelling a version of the Grail