Spring 1998

The fundamental experience that people make houses and houses make people expresses a process moving from the inner world into the outer world, and from there, it reflects back to act again on the inner world of people. This means that people get stamped by architecture, and if we think further, many people can be stamped by one person, namely, by the one who imagines and constructs the building.

This thought alarmed me. I asked myself: Who are these people who build? What image do they have of the people for whom they build? How much do they know about the souls of the people? How much about the interchange between the built outer world and the humane inner world? Are they aware enough of the responsibility they have for people and their environments?

The evening lecture will address the relationship between psychology and architecture, the symbolism of the house, and the inner-outer world process of "making houses." The workshop will deepen the discussion of these questions and look into the symbolism of the house in our dreams, as well. Slides will be shown at both the lecture and workshop.

Ruth Amman is a native of Zurich, a Jungian analyst in that city, and a practicing architect. She is a graduate of the C. G. Jung Institute in Kusnacht, where she is now a lecturer and training analyst. She studied with Dora Kalff, the pioneer of therapeutic sandplay, and is a member of the international Society for Sandplay Therapy. She is the author of Healing and Transformation in Sandplay – Creative Processes Become Visible, and The House in Dreams, forthcoming in English.

The engaged and considered life demands many beginnings. The multiple creation myths of the most mindful of peoples, the ancient Egyptians, not only addressed their questions about the origins and nature of the universe and human life, but offered stirring images for the first and continuous emergences of physical awareness, psychic consciousness, creative reflection and expression. Images similar to those we will view and discuss from Egyptian art and myth often appear in the dreams of modern women and men in moments of inner pressure and outer crisis, when growth, restoration and renewal are essential for on-going life.

Workshop: The Depth Psychology of Ancient Egypt

Five thousand years ago, vital Egyptian minds were expressing humankind’s concerns about the know, the unknown, and the unknowable. Just as we do, they confronted tensions between order and chaos, and sought balance between harmony and tension, attraction and aggression, good and evil, life and death, light and dark, mortal time and a timeless eternal.

The great conceptions of Egyptian myth, such as Hathor, Maat, and Thoth, reached toward the comprehensive understanding which gives breadth and depth to our interface with the universe. The story of Isis and Osiris dramatizes the intra-psychic struggles, interpersonal intensities, and transformative possibilities of a depth connection to experience. Using Egyptian images and texts, this seminar offers a glimpse into the resonance between the Egyptian sensibility and the Jungian understanding of the inclusive life.

Beverly D. Zabriskie, CSW, NcPsyA, is a Jungian analyst in New York City. She is on the faculty of the C. G. Jung Institute of New York, and the C. G. Jung Center of Mexico City. She is an assistant editor of The Journal of Analytical Psychology, and past president of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis. She has lectured extensively in the United States and Europe on the psychological valance of Egyptian myth, the alchemical nature of psychic images, and on analytic thought and practice. Her recent publications include Thawing the Frozen Accidents, Fermentation, and The Matter of Psyche.

In the beauty and grace of their art, the ancient Egyptians created images which expressed some of the simple truths about the well-lived life and the most profound hopes about an ongoing life after death. The objects of their daily routines, their animals, and their gods were imagined and approached as vital representations of the wonders and mysteries of a meaningful existence. Through understanding the Egyptian sensibility, we come to appreciate their world and our own.

We are pleased to co-sponsor this special lecture with the Portland Art Museum, as part of our mission to present a Jungian perspective to the wider community. We invite you to support this effort by attending the Sunday lecture, which will complement the Friday and Saturday programs and the Portland Art Museum’s special exhibit: The Splendors of Ancient Egypt.

From Heinrich Zimmer’s The King and the Corpse: Tales of the Soul’s Conquest of Evil, this lecture will make a first attempt to explore the story of Merlin’s enchainment by the goddess with that of Jung’s enchainment by the anima.. What relationship, if any, does this phenomenon play in the connection that a man has with this soul and in his relationships with other men and women?

Workshop: In Search Of

There are multitudinous ways in which the soul reveals itself for each individual. During the day-long workshop, we will journey into the past as a way of bringing to consciousness the ground out of which one’s individual soul – one’s individual myth – emerged. Each participant is asked to bring a journal and some form of drawing material.

Pauline Napier, a licensed psychologist, is in private practice in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She received her "Diplomate in Analytical Psychology" from the C. G. Jung Institute, Zurich. In one form or another, she has taught from pre-school through graduate school, including eleven years in the Behavioral Sciences Department of Point Park College. For a number of those years she also held the position of Director of psychological Counseling Services. Among other commitments, she has served as a consultant to Project 60, a Pennsylvania maximum security prison program, and in a medical hospital setting for groups with psychosomatic illness. Her greatest challenge and source of energy comes from her family connections, both personal and archetypal.

Please bring your favorite dish to serve 6 to 8 people, and your own table service. Coffee and tea will be provided.