Season: Spring 2002

When Jung published in 1920 the first edition of Psychological Types, he wrote in his Foreword: “This book is the fruit of twenty years’ work in the domain of practical psychology.” This dating places the inception of the work near the beginning of his long career, and though later editions would include an Appendix of four short essays on the subject, they do not add to the original work. He had had his say on this complex topic, and was not influenced by a very large body of commentary on his theory.

The work has evoked a wide range of responses, including several attempts to develop tests by which a person can be “typed” as Introverted/Thinking/Sensation/Judging or Extroverted/Feeling/ Intuitive/Perceptive – and so on. (“Judging” and “Perceptive” were additions by Myers and Briggs to the original scheme.) These tests have introduced Jungian thought to a much larger public than has been reached by his other works, and devout Jungians have varied widely in their estimation of this part of his collective opus.

This lecture will focus upon negative aspects of each of the types, as Jung himself tended to do, asking the question: If one is, say, an Introverted Intuitive, what is the price one must pay for this fate? Hence: Ways of Being Inferior.

The archetype of the sacred circle, as well as feminism, Jungian psychology, and Rupert Sheldrake’s Morphic Field Theory come together in Dr. Bolen’s current book The Millionth Circle. Drawing on the story of “the hundredth monkey” which inspired anti-nuclear activists, “the millionth circle” depends upon a simple hypothesis: when a critical number of people change how they think and behave, the culture will also. In this talk, she will describe her concept of a Zen of Circle Maintenance and the Jungian analytic vessel, the connection between morphic fields and the collective unconscious, and the connection between the Grail Legend, the feminine principle, and a shift in planetary consciousness.

After a brief explanation of C.G. Jung’s concept of archetypes, the topics of magic, magician, transformation and wonder will be explored. Examples used will include dreams, synchronistic events, symbols from the Tarot and from the arts, and passages from the works of Jung. Based on his research at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zürich, Dr. Granrose will compare the concept of the magician with those of the shaman, the trickster, and the fool. He will also examine some of the ways in which Jungian analysis incorporates elements that were once part of traditional magic.

“The main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neurosis but rather with the approach to the numinous…(which) is the real therapy.” C.G. Jung in a letter to P.W. Martin.

In this lecture, Claire Dunne will present a human spiritual portrait of Jung and the core of his work, with some emphasis on the late years of his deepest flowering, and amplified by symbolic images from her book, Carl Jung: Wounded Healer of the Soul. Jung’s work, powered by a vision that is essentially evolutionary in spirit, points to a breadth and depth of life that is prophetic for our time and is inextricably linked with the unfolding nature of man himself.

Haiku is a treasure Japan has given the world. These short poems offer us extraordinary moments of insight about ordinary things. Haiku, linked to Zen, embodies egolessness, aloneness, acceptance, universality, humor, silence, awakening, love and death. Haiku usually concerns nature and an image created out of a few words. Haiku ( a form of Jung’s active imagination) is a spiritual art form that promotes healing. As the poet W. H. Auden said (quoting his father who was a physician), “Healing is the intuitive art of wooing nature.”