WHAT: Special Study Group: Jung's with Jungian Analyst Robert

WHEN: Starts January 19th: Consists of 20 pre-recorded lectures of 1.5 hours each; an 88-page study guide created by, Robert 's colleague, Jill Fischer; and this written online discussion forum. Runs 40 weeks

WHO: Anyone who is interested in Jung's , Robert . Facilitators: Janet Fortess and Chris Doggett


>>>This Special Study Group starts January 19th, 2013. It is an open written discussion forum based on following the pre-recorded 40-hour audio course* with Robert available from Jung Platform.

This is a central place to which you can come and post questions or comments about the designated module you listened to for the 2-week period and interact with others who are doing the same thing. As such, there is no set "time" it occurs, but rather is ongoing and you can post or respond at your convenience. Janet Fortess and Chris Doggett, students and colleagues of Robert will be providing some structure and be on hand to facilitate the discussion, and Robert himself will also be checking in.

*If you're not following the audio course, you're still welcome to engage here in whatever discussion is emerging--though of course you'll likely get far more out of the process if you are able to listen to the course itself.


THREE WAYS TO PARTICIPATE

1. Listen to an interview with Robert on Shrink Rap Radio with host Dr. David Van Nuys to help you get to know Robert better in preparation for the course.

2. Get your copy of this in- audio course from Jung Platform. The course consists of 20 lectures of approximately 1.5 hours each which occur every two weeks. In each lecture Robert addresses a few pages from the . You can read along in your copy of the .
This course comes with an 88-page study guide designed by Robert 's colleague, Jill Fischer, which contains a synopsis of each lecture. After each session, there are questions to help you test your understanding. After finishing the entire 40-week course and tests, you get a CE certificate and a Certificate of Completion from the Jung Platform University.

(Cost FULL COURSE: Lectures 1 through 20 + 30 CEs + Synopsis / Study Guide - $99). members get additional 25% off using the code" "). The course may also be purchased in two individual parts.

3/ Join the online discussion forum in the Psychology online community (HERE!) starting January 19, 2013, where everyone who follows the audio course from Jung Platform can come together and discuss each particular section. This forum will be facilitated by two professionals, Janet Fortess and Chris Doggett, who have been trained in Embodied Imagination with Robert for three years and Robert will be checking in every two weeks as well. (This forum is open to everyone, regardless of whether you follow the audio course or have the )

ABOUT ROBERT

Robert , PsyA, is a Jungian psychoanalyst who graduated from the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich in 1977. Since then he was been in private practice in the United States and Australia. Robert founded the Santa Barbara Healing Sanctuary and developed a method of working with dreams called Embodied Imagination. He has also written several s, including the worldwide bestseller ‘A Little Course In Dreams’.

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    • It didn't take long for "morals" to pop up in the conversation...and soon to follow might be "will"...and we couldn't leave without discussing the "reptilian" aspects...and then top it all off with a discussion of Augustine and predestination! Yep, Peter, fascinating might have been a good choice of words. The field of neurology has started making some pretty strong arguments that we don't have free will. Maybe Augustine was on to something.

      The Self Illusion - Bruce Hood

      Thinking Fast & Slow - Daniel Kahneman

    • Funny you should mention Augustine in this context. He was famous for saying "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet"... According to the book, and recent movie, 'A Dangerous Method,' Sabina Spielrein was Jung's first mistress. At the end of the film, Jung confesses to Sabina that he has a new mistress, Toni. She hopes the women in his life can help him find his way. We are essentially left, at the end of the film, on the brink of the work we are now reviewing.

      I have now read Sonu's introduction, and listened to most of CD1. I am re-reading Liber Primus along with the first CD. I took copious notes on the plane. The one that struct me most was the image of the Collected Works as midrash to The Red Book. Unbeknownst to us, all we have heard and known until now were commentaries on a secret book. We now have the original text and can re-read everything from 'Symbols of Transformation' on in a new context. It reminds me of all the many posthumous works of Tolkien. 

    • I had been reading Deidre Bair's 2003 biography of Jung prior to joining this study group.  As I began reading the Red Book, I was reading of what was transpiring in Jung's life at the time he had his important dreams and visions and began the Red Book. The biography gives a good picture of how the three-way relationship of Jung/Emma/Toni was enacted in the public and how others reacted to and managed their reactions to that relationship.

      As to the deeper motivations, Bair says: "Jung described his adulterous behavior during this period at varying times throughout his life in a variety of ways.  Referring to his theory that an element of the feminine exists in every man (just as an animus is found within every woman), Jung was dismissive about taking responsibility for his actions: 'Back then I was in the midst of the anima problem.'  At other times he was sheepish and apologetic, making comments such as, "What could you expect from me? -- the Anima bit me on the forehead and would not let go.'  But most often he was filled with anguish over being caught in a situation he felt he could not control and made no attempt to offer either rational or self-serving explanations.  He merely kept on doing what he felt he had to do in order to explain himself to himself."  

      I do not know about Bair's formulations.  What I did resonate with was Jung's comment that something bit him on the forehead and would not let go.  He called it the Anima.  I might call it something different. I definitely have projected my soul onto outer beloveds before waking up to that reality.  Another way to say it is that I was courted by the soul through an outer beloved and only at a certain point in my life recognized the truth of it.  I avoid making the judgement of improper.

      Bair did not have access to the Red Book, though she knew of it and references what was known of that work before it was published in 2009.  It is facinating to me to read how Jung was conducting his public life at the time that he was writing the Red Book.    

    • I just wanted to add that at that time period in Switzerland, it was quit common for a man to have a mistress. It was a strongly patriarchal society, like Italy and France, its neighbors. About the comment about being bit on the forehead, I am reminded of Woody Allen's comment about his relationship with his adopted daughter, now his wife of many years " The heart wants what it wants" .

    • Interesting question.  

      Perhaps his unconscious was leading him in this direction because his Soul needed him to experience this type of situation and live it and learn from it.  The "using" the dream as an excuse for him to have an affair, is insightful and yet rubs our societal norms the wrong way.  I will ponder this.  Thanks for the opening.  

    • I agree! We don't know enough about why he chose to get into a more intimate relationship with Tony....he does not elaborate. Perhaps, as he was using himself as an experiment, he wanted to go to a place he had not yet been, and she was the road he found available for the quest. The questions always seem more interesting to me than the answers we come up with in the moment.

  • I am thinking too that we are the descendants of the figures we meet during the descent; figures that originated from the past and still need to be spoken to. My siblings have recently been researching our family tree since my parents are gone we grew up without knowing grandparents and knowing nothing about great grandparents and not realizing the impact that the people in the stories we heard had on our parents' psyche and thus on our own. Starting to make connections between the past and the present is changing my experience of myself.

  • Lament and longing are feelings we experience, but are also those of the images and daimons who are waiting for us to talk to them, like the young woman in The Castle in the Forest (262/223) who exclaims, "Finally a word from a human mouth!"  It strikes me that The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is an extended active imagination through the Wedding Guest: "It is an ancient Mariner,/ And he stoppeth one of three,/ 'By the long grey beard and glittering eye, / Now wherefore stoppest thou me?"  James Hillman in his lecture on Jung and Active Imagination is eloquent: http://www.depthvideo.com/store/Video_Hillman02.html, or sections of his Healing Fiction are helpful in reading the Red Book and also beginning your own practice. 

  • Thank you, Ann

    The spoken voice stirs in me the powerfully embodied nature of this expression of lament and longing.  I often feel that expressions of grief and longing, especially those spoken aloud on the land, are among the most potent ways I have of courting the soul.

  • Harvey Chapter II

    I sent the text below to Bonnie not knowing if it's appropriate to the forum. She suggested I post it. Here we go:

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    Harvey suffers! I view this photo and wonder what similarities there might be between Harvey's psychological state and the Jung state that prompted the Red Book? Hmm! Harvey gets a teat and is quelled for a while...Jung has a dream that might afford him a respite...or not. Harvey's life is all one big dream right now. Was Jung's? Harvey's brain is growing like "who'd a thought it" right now piecing together a giant jigsaw puzzle. Jung's brain is fully developed, working on another jigsaw puzzle. Or is it the same puzzle not yet finished?

    Bonnie,

     Below you will find a letter I have written to Harvey our grandson born Dec. 10th. I have taken to writing him letters and putting them in a "file for Harvey." My record in discerning your goals and Robbie's goals for this forum is mixed at best. However, one thing I have taken from Robbie's talks is an animated view of suffering. The word "suffering" takes on a life beyond its definition. It's like a bundle of neurons is barrelling down a highway in the brain and suddenly comes to a fork in the road and takes it. It is then that everything turns from black & white to technicolor.  After that, for a while, everything is tinted by the experience. And so, the letter to Harvey below is tinted by The Red Book. The suffering of the father and the son enter me in "technicolor" and I am compelled to write Harvey a letter. 

    How do I know what I think unless I read what I write. ~E.M. Forster

     Jan. 26, 2013 >  
    >  
    >  
    > Harvey,
    >  
    > Your Dad called today. It seems the two of you were out cruising in the new VW, listening to a few tunes, and dreaming while you're awake. It seems the sound of the tires meeting the road, the engine, and the tunes, end the awake part for you pretty fast.
    >  
    > Your Dad was in one of his talk moods today. He was waxing eloquent about the life of a father & mother, a new father and mother, he & Naomi. You see, Harvey, people think they know what they want, prior to having a kid so they have one. Then the kid shows up and it is 100 times better than they ever thought...and 100 times worse! Your Dad told a story about you waking up at 3:30 am and not wanting to go back to sleep. So he took you downstairs put on some Bach (he says you like Bach) and watched the sun come up. Then within an hour you shit yourself and pee in his face. The first experience is magic; the second experience is just new. You're a little thief Harvey and you are stealing your parents' ego. That's what you are suppose to do! It is absolutely necessary! You can't imagine how much fun I am having watching it happen. Some parents never let it happen. Some parents never surrender. Some parents can't take the suffering. It ain't easy, Harvey, but it is necessary. Why? Because without it you can't hear the Bach. It is just a sound without magic. Keep at um' Professor Harvey, you are doing a good job.
    >  
    > And keep making your Dad take you cruising in the VW.
    >  
    > Granpa D


     

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