FREE ONLINE EVENT
Sunday, December 12, 2021, 11 am - 1 pm PST (UTC -8)
REGISTRATION with your email address is required. After registering, you will receive an email containing the Zoom link.
This program will not be recorded.
This presentation will provide an experience of the dreams and paintings of the Swiss artist Peter Birkhäuser (1911-1976). A unique aspect of Birkhäuser’s paintings is that they express a modern individual’s call by the inner world.
During his life, the neuroses and depression that afflicted him became an opening to the creative power of the objective psyche. Birkhäuser was given new life and meaning by allowing this unknown factor to express itself on canvas. Who is this unknown guest, that sometimes takes the shape of an insect? It turns out to be the completely “other” who fertilizes the soul. Its dark eye seems to be the sun in its nocturnal state when the light is reborn.
Marie-Louise von Franz had this to say about one of Birkhäuser’s dreams:
“A wonderful dream! These dream images show impregnation by the dark god. The dark chthonic god is trying to make the soul fecund. We are living in outwardly evil times, but underneath great things are in motion, as at the time of Christ's birth. This underlying process, the hieros gamos, is being illustrated here. It is the fundament of the world, but it is taking place in you.”
Birkhäuser’s work is thus a dialogue with the unknown “other,” and their mutual transformation. The “other” turns out to be the creative spirit of nature, of our instinct, the bringer of renewal. The artist’s own individuation process can be seen as a pregnancy depicted in pictures, bringing forth a new myth.
Eva Wertenschlag-Birkhäuser, born in Basel, Switzerland, is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Berne. She received her diploma as an analyst from the C.G. Jung Institute Küsnacht (Zürich) and is President of the Research and Training Centre for Depth Psychology (Zürich) where she is also a faculty member and a training analyst. She has published several books on the religious and healing dimensions of her father’s artwork. In her forthcoming book on the creation myth of the West African Dogon people, she explores their archaic vision of the creation and transformation of consciousness.
English language book on the artwork, with plates: Windows on Eternity
Peter and Sibylle Birkhäuser-Oeri Foundation website
THE C.G. JUNG CLUB OF ORANGE COUNTY
The C.G. Jung Club of Orange County provides quality educational programs designed to promote the study and discussion of Jungian Psychology, also known as Analytical Psychology. The programs elaborate and amplify the ideas of C.G. Jung by exploring diverse perspectives of Jungian Psychology, as well as a wide range of subjects studied by Jung and his followers, such as mythology and comparative religion. We seek to understand the human psyche through the psychological theories and therapeutic methods pioneered by C.G. Jung and the current use of Jungian concepts by contemporary Jungian analysts.
For information about obtaining CEs for this program visit our Continuing Education page
For more information about the Jung Club of Orange County, visit the Club's website
photo title: Sun of the Night, 1966 - 72
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