Jungian Odyssey
May 2020

The whole world is anxious today because of political uncertainty, a beautiful planet in distress, and concern for the future. The obvious problem is a loss of soul in all aspects of life. Living in a shallow culture is bound to cause breakdown and subsequent worry. Individually first we can focus on those things that serve our soul and then apply them where possible to the society. In modern times we want information, high-tech tools, frequent entertainment and mathematical certainties. The values of soul are softer and go deeper.

Soul is not abstract. You cultivate soul in your life through food and cooking, family gatherings, meetings with friends, intimate letters (emails, etc), reading for pleasure, and art and music. Soul is concrete and intimate. Society needs these values, too, to help govern itself as a community and deal with the anxieties of modern life. We can ensoul technology and slow life down to let the soul catch up.

I will share methods from my personal practice stemming from projects in retreat centers, detention centers, and various countries, discussing strategies and outcomes of healing oneself and one’s communities.

For the early Greeks a temenos was an area set apart from everyday life, a holy precinct or sacred ground. Following C.G. Jung’s metaphorical use of the image, our temenos offers for all who wish to join a protected space for the sharing of personal experience, insights, and questions related to the conference. Facilitated by Ursula Wirtz and contained in mutual respect and confidentiality, this is an open exchange that can deepen our spirit of community. Offered also on Monday and Thursday.

In this lecture I explore anxiety’s role in normal development, in dealing with trauma, in boundary formation/separation, and in intimacy and “being seen.” Viewing such dynamics through the lens of individuation, I touch as well on the idea that the suffering of anxiety may be necessary for re-connecting to soul. Poetry and vignettes will help to illustrate.

Fear of annihilation, or death anxiety, is prevalent both in individuals and in our collective. Clinical case material illustrates how death anxiety can initiate a self-search and processes of change, which lead toward new connections with soul and individuation. At the same time, I ask if, within the collective, we might find ourselves in near-revolutionary process of change. Is it the beginning of a new era, as Jung posits in Aïon? If so, the outer and the inner worlds can feel especially polarized and anxiety-provoking. In such circumstances gentle summonings of soul may not suffice. Rather, soul-seekers may be called to submit to initiation rites, to a rebirthing of soul, such as Jung describes in his vision of sacrificial murder in The Red Book.

Our temenos offers for all who wish to join a protected space for the sharing of personal experience, insights, and questions related to the conference.

The word “anxiety” has shifted its denotation and connotations over the five successive editions (1948-2013) of the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM. Most recently, the fifth edition defines generalized anxiety as a disorder that manifests as a period of involuntary anticipatory worry accompanied by three or more persistent problems including restlessness, fatigue, irritability, muscle tension and sleep disturbance. Treatment strategies range between correcting anxiety as a chemical imbalance to addressing anxiety psychoanalytically as meaningful to the privileged few. As much as we recognize generalized anxiety as profoundly disordering, as clinicians we sometimes move with analysands towards an ironic revaluing of anxiety, in a way that takes us back to Kierkegaard’s mapping of that place: “learning to be anxious so as not to be ruined either by never having been in anxiety or by sinking into it.” When does individuation involve, among other tasks, letting go of a collective dream of safety and learning how to be anxious?

From the ancient Egyptians’ concerns about the afterlife to Gogol’s novel Dead Souls, soul and death were in many ways deeply connected. Our core reflections will circle around the question, is this still the case today? If so, in what ways?

Anxiety is not fear, eagerness, or worry. Anxiety does not know its object, and so, cannot know its meaning. We live in The Age of Anxiety, personal, cultural, and existential. The current epoch follows on the Age of Definition, and now runs concurrently with the Age of Anxiety. This is where depth psychology comes in, and to which we can be grateful for disclosing the meaning of anxiety. My lecture will examine the interplay between personal, cultural, and existential anxiety, from both archetypal and psychological perspectives.

Anxiety signals too great a split between the inner and outer realms. As psychosomatic symptom, anxiety exposes the vulnerability of an overvalued ego state defensively twisting its own interiority into a rejected and irrational shadow. Following his break with Freud, Jung suffered from just such anxiety that initiated a decade long search for his “lost soul.” As unconscious symbols spontaneously expressed themselves in his fantasy, play, and images, he eventually realized the healing method of “active imagination.” My lecture will explore how active imagination may help resolve psychic splits and foster individuation as told through the creative lens of Jung’s Red Book, the building of his tower at Bollingen, and as illustrated by the drawings of some of his earliest analysands.

Gather at 10:00 to walk from the hotel
• 10:30 – 15:30 Museum and Guided Walking Tour of Zermatt
• 10:30 – 14:15 Train Trip to Gornergrat and the Summit Observatory
• Alternative: Stroll Pension Path on Your Own

* Box lunch on this day is for everyone, with or without excursions.
We will make our own box lunches during breakfast, selecting from the buffet.

Music by Lewis Larke Originally from the UK, Lewis has lived for many years in Switzerland, where he has earned acclaim as solo musician, as a member of the Fluhalp Band, and for his artistic collaborations with others. Those who heard Lewis and danced to his music at our last Odyssey in Zermatt will fondly remember his broad musical spectrum and extraordinary rapport with his audience.