Fri, Sept 8 2006
SPIRIT OF THE ROCKS A film & discussion with Megan Biesele
Spirits of the Rocks (Switzerland 2002, US 2005) is a documentary film dealing with the history, religion and art of the San, the Bushpeople of Eastern and Southern Africa. The film was made by Peter Ammann, a Jungian Analyst and internationally acclaimed filmmaker. The extraordinary rock paintings of the Bushpeople lead us back into the world of our ancestors, the hunters and gatherers, into a part of ourselves that we no longer know. Ammann’s journey continues beyond the rock paintings to the Bushpeople who are still alive today in southern Africa. They share with us their tales and myths, their rituals and healing dances. Megan Biesele, an anthropologist who has worked with Bushpeople since the 1970’s and who is interviewed in the film, will be with us to speak about the film and to answer questions.
Anthropologist Megan Biesele is a leading expert on ancient and contemporary San peoples and coordinator of the Kalahari People’s Fund (www.kalaharipeoples.org). She continues to be in contact with the San people and is just back from a visit this summer. She has written a book titled Women Like Meat: The Folklore and Foraging Ideology of the Kalahari Ju/’hoan. She also co-wrote Healing Makes our Hearts Happy: Spirituality and Cultural Transformation Among the Kalahari Ju’hoansi.
Fri, Oct 13 2006
GOETHE’S FAUST and the MYTH of MODERN MAN A lecture by Irene Gerber
In his unpublished 1949 talk, Faust and Alchemy, C. G. Jung calls attention to Faust’s quest as a process of transformation. He explores the alchemical symbolism in Goethe’s opus magnum, in particular the similarity of Mephisto and Mercurius.
Irene Gerber will explore Jung’s thinking, focusing on archetypal figures and events relevant to the individuation process of modern humanity, especially considering our culture of rationalism and causality, and our light and exclusively male God.
Goethe characterizes Faust as a human being who is driven through life by a thirst for knowledge; an urge for respect, power and recognition; and last but not least by an insatiable longing for love. Accountable for this outstanding inner drive is a figure of Faust’s unconscious – Mephisto. He is called the devil, although seen psychologically he equals much more the living spirit of the unconscious that seeks for integration into our collective consciousness. Goethe makes evident that the anima experience is indispensable for Faust. But in the final scene, the redeeming quality of Eros is fulfilled only after Faust’s death, that is, only after the power mentality has come to an end – indicating all the more that its realisation has become an urgent task of our time.
Irene Gerber practices analytical psychotherapy in Küsnacht, Switzerland. She earned a diploma in Jungian Psychology at the Research and Training Centre for Depth Psychology, where she has been a board member since 2004. She has published Goethe’s Faust: An Analytical Study on the Myth of Modern Man. Ms. Gerber will present a workshop extending her lecture for the Boulder Friends of Jung on Saturday, October 14th.
Fri, Nov 3 2006
ARCHETYPAL PATTERNS in BLENDED FAMILIES A lecture by Eleanor Alden
With 50% of all marriages ending in divorce, and others ending in the death of one of more parents, almost everyone in this culture will experience a stepfamily experience either in their immediate nuclear family or among extended family, and certainly friends. Addictions increase the percentage of those who divorce and complicate the stepfamily situation immensely.
Step-parenting is not new, and myths and fairytales about step-parents abound, most of them describing immensely difficult emotional situations. The majority of step-families in the past were created by the high mortality rate of parent-age adults, not divorce, but the observations of the myth makers who were in many ways the psychotherapist of their time (healers of the soul), are as accurate today as they were thousands of years ago.
Ms. Alden will examine the themes and guiding ideas of mythic and fairytale themes as they pertain to archetypal patterns around step-parenting, and combine newer family systems research, evolutionary psychology, and ancient observations which help and guide the blending and restructuring of families.
Eleanor Alden, LCSW, BCD, has been a Clinical Social Worker since 1968, and has an MSW from the University of Washington, and an MBA from the University of Puget Sound. She has been in private practice for 20 years, and is a professor at Naropa University where she has taught Jungian Approaches to Mythology and Storytelling, Marriage and Family Therapy, and Jungian Dream work for over 15 years. She is past President of the Jung Society, past Director of Education for the Jung Institute of Denver, and has been a member of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine.
Fri, Dec 8 2006
“DONE MADE MY VOW:” The Ancestors, the Spirit, and the Evolution of The Spirituals Project A lecture and a musical presentation by Arthur C. Jones
The Spirituals Project is a non-profit organization based at the University of Denver that has as its mission the preservation and revitalization of the music and teachings of the songs called spirituals, created and first sung by enslaved African peoples in North America in the 18th an 19th centuries. The Project includes a number of initiatives, including a 70-voice multi-ethnic, multigenerational community choir, an oral history project, a variety of educational programs, and a comprehensive multimedia educational website. Officially established as a federally recognized non-profit agency in 1999, the origins of The Spirituals Project go back nine years earlier, when Dr. Jones began a series of public lecture-concert programs, first locally, and then in venues around the country.
In this presentation Dr. Jones will explore the psychological underpinnings of the spirituals and will share his thoughts about his personal work in analysis in the late 1980s that spurred his interest in the spirituals and eventually the founding and evolution of The Spirituals Project. He will also describe some of the important teachings of African American ancestors and share his ideas about how those teachings have been transmitted through the spiritual song tradition. He will punctuate his presentation with musical illustrations, including some group singing.
Arthur C. Jones is a clinical psychologist and professional singer who is currently Senior Clinical Professor of Psychology at the University of Denver. He is also the Founder and Chair of The Spirituals Project (www.spiritualsproject.org). A former Board member of the C.G. Jung Society of Colorado, he has had a longstanding interest in Jungian psychology, dating back to his undergraduate years at Drew University in the 1960s, where he got his introduction to Jung in a course taught by Ira Progoff. For the past 15 years he has been deeply immersed in the personal, scholarly and musical understanding of the African American spirituals tradition. He is the author of the award-winning book Wade in the Water: The Wisdom of the Spirituals and the co-editor, with his brother Ferdinand Jones, of The Triumph of the Soul: Cultural and Psychological Aspects of African American Music.
Jung Society of Colorado 