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Caves of the soul
November 17, 2000 @ 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm PST
The metaphor of the cave that one enters bearing only the modest candle of one’s intention to light the unknown depths and darkness is a very apt image of the exploration of self. With that image in mind, this lecture will retrace a recent pilgrimage to the Dordogne region of southwestern France to explore prehistoric caves and rock shelters of Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon humans where painted images suggest early stages of mankind’s differentiation. We will also re-trace the traveling group’s visit to the great Cathedral at Chartres to experience another kind of “cave” made by men above the ground. These sites of exploration offer similar impressions of the perennial search in the deep places of the soul for, and the experience of, a transcendent Other. The lecture will discuss some of these cave sites and show slides of some of the surviving paintings. Using these images we will “go into the caves” together to examine the process of opening oneself to the personal depths of Psyche, to the experience of the mysterium tremendum et fascinans. We will explore the psychological meanings of sacred space and the “thin places” in the world where the ego and Self, the human and the Divine, meet in fruitful exchange.
Related Workshop: Caves of the soul
Alden Josey, Ph.D., educated at the University of Illinois and at Cornell University, was awarded a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry in l957. He retired in 1985 after a 27 year career in chemical research with the DuPont Company. In 1989 he received his Diploma in Analytical Psychology from the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich and is a past Director of Studies at the C.G. Jung Institute of Philadelphia and a Training Analyst of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. He is in private practice in Wilmington, Delaware.