Jungian Odyssey
June 2023

The genius loci remains to be our customary guide as we set out for Davos and the famed “Magic Mountain,” home to the historic Belle Époque Hotel Schatzalp. It was this erstwhile sanatorium, opened in 1900, that set the scene for Thomas Mann’s renowned novel, Der Zauberberg. In this iconic autobiographical work, Mann envisions a cauldron of relationships inhering in painful conflicts of bourgeois morality and persona versus the captivating allure of forbidden erotic desire, the quest for true love and eros, and acute consciousness of ever-looming death. At this Odyssey we want to delve into such individual and collective relationships that drive us to “do or die.”

What are we willing to live or die for—love, dignity, politics, justice, freedom, equality? Can we discern if (or when) the struggle is fueled by ego-inflation, delusion, grandiosity, shadow, evil, etc.—or by a genuine individuation impulse arising from the Self? Do the perils and havens of relationship suggest a koan—a puzzle that can’t be solved with the rational mind?

Is a conventional Jungian approach sufficient to guide us today? Are we prepared, for instance, to deal with contemporary challenges to our binary notions of the archetypal masculine and feminine, anima/animus, heroism, man/woman, gender, and sexuality? Might the current era demand a sacrifice of our rather entrenched essentialist, dualistic views? Might a reappraisal offer fresh insights into relationships as they are evoked in fairy tale, myth, dream, religion, the arts, and in the analytic consulting room?

View the full program details here and/or in the downloadable brochure.

Elizabeth Éowyn Nelson, PhD (USA)
George Taxidis, MSc (UK)
Phil Goss, PhD (UK)
Heba Zaphiriou-Zarifi, MA, DEA (UK)

[email protected] • Fax +41 (0)43 268 5619

Academic Chair
Ursula Wirtz, Dr.phil.

Co-Chairs
Stacy Wirth, MA
Susanna Bucher, Dr. sc. nat. ETH