C. G. Jung Foundation of Ontario

This lecture will explore Jung's technique of active imagination − a method of “wakeful dreaming” − and its role in therapy, analysis and self-growth. Parallels will be drawn between active imagination and modern hypnotic methods. We will look at ways the imagination can be used to alter the structure of complexes and further the individuation process. The lecture will also explore the dynamic underpinnings of imaginal activity using Winnicott's concept of transitional space.

Alchemy and its esoteric imagery can be quite perplexing to the uninitiated.  And yet, Jung found it to be most insightful to analytic practice.  The transformation of lead into gold signified the goals of his analytical psychology and the deepest innate goal of the human psyche. Join us as we attempt to make this arcane science understandable in everyday life and the practice of psychotherapy.  This lecture will provide an overview of the fundamentals of an alchemical imagination by looking at: the dual aspects of the alchemical laboratory, the attitudes necessary in the transformational process, the identity of the alchemist in psychological work, images of the goal, the nature of the container, the prima materia as starting point, and an alchemical look into depression.

The day starts with a long list of things to accomplish. We barely have time to write down a dream, let alone explore it, before we are out the door ready for our tasks in the outside world. In a life of doing rather than being, how can we be present to our inner life and honour its needs? How can we learn to breathe through life rather than “catch our breath” before moving on to the next thing? How can we learn to remain in our body?

This seminar will explore the body-mind-spirit connection. It will offer restorative yoga (gentle stretches that can be done sitting or lying down on a mat), breathing exercises as well as short meditation sessions. These exercises will be interspersed with moments of self-reflection and self-discovery. The seminar will also present some of C.G. Jung’s writings on the body-mind-spirit connection. Please wear comfortable clothing

Subtitled “A Woman In Trouble,” INLAND EMPIRE is best viewed as a series of dream sequences seen through the suffering of the Lost Girl whose life is being destroyed by fantasy and her connection with The Phantom. Although it shares much of the complexity and confusion that belongs to the irrational realm, it tells a story that is deeply familiar to us all. This outstanding film, directed by David Lynch (2006), gives us much to discuss and think about.

N.B.  The film will be shown gratis on Fri. night, and is open to all members of the C.G. Jung Foundation.  The discussion will follow on Saturday.

Come meet and get to know other Members, Foundation staff and some of the OAJA Analysts. Have a peek in the Fraser Boa Library − a great member resource with excellent Jungiana! Browse our Word & Image Bookstore and get the inside scoop on some of this year's new activities. This relaxed social get together will increase your store of friendly faces for future lectures and other Foundation events. Some delectable refreshments will be served.
All are most welcome! No registration is needed!

This season’s readings include two texts: Jung’s “The Symbolic Life” in CW18
and Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology by Sonu Shamdasani. For more details, please contact Schuyler Brown at 416-241-5002.
New members are most welcome

Edward Edinger wrote that, "The historical process can now be understood as the self-manifestation of the archetypes of the Collective Unconscious as they emerge and develop in time and space through the actions and fantasies of humanity." We will examine C.G. Jung's thoughts on history in the light of this idea, and its implications for our life and work. In some ways it is Jung's deepest idea, touching as it does on his discernment of the very purpose of human existence. Helpful reading: Edward Edinger, The Psyche in Antiquity Book 2, and The Aion Lectures.

Oct. 16                         1. Typology                                                       Robert Black
Nov. 6                          2. Jung’s View of Neurosis                       Graham Jackson
Dec. 4                          3. The Symbolic Life                             Jean Connon-Unda

We will continue to discuss The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan as it relates to the individuation process. The text is read as a play, followed by discussion. New participants are welcome. The first session will include a background summary.

Text: John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress in Modern English. Revised and updated by L. E. Hazelbaker. Alacoha-Florida: Bridge-Logos, 1998. N.B. Copies available at Crux Bookstore (Wycliffe College, 5 Hoskin Ave.)

By the end of the daylong seminar on Jung's Answer to Job that was held in May, participants felt that more time was needed to consider the rather large questions that had come up in the course of intensive discussions. For example, we found ourselves wondering what Jung meant when he writes (twice) that “we can love God but must fear him.”  Loving God and fearing him are just two questions that we will continue to address in this sequel to last May's seminar.

Participants are asked to read, if possible, both the Biblical Book of Job and Jung's Answer to Job before the seminar.

This season’s readings include two texts: Jung’s “The Symbolic Life” in CW18
and Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology by Sonu Shamdasani. For more details, please contact Schuyler Brown at 416-241-5002.
New members are most welcome

The Pygmalion myth is easily recalled in this one-sentence synopsis: Pygmalion sculpts a statue, falls in love with it, and Venus brings the statue to life. The

moment of transformation has been a favourite subject in painting and sculpture since the Renaissance. A close reading of the myth reveals less examined details and it is here that an individual who suffers disillusionment with relationships might discover something closer to his/her own experience. This lecture and discussion will consider the Pygmalion myth as told by Ovid, trace the theme to more contemporary narratives, and propose a description of a ‘Pygmalion complex.’ A symbolic interpretation of the myth provides clues toward understanding how individuals living a Pygmalion-like story might gain new perspective and begin to work through their seemingly immovable relationship issues.

This season’s readings include two texts: Jung’s “The Symbolic Life” in CW18
and Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology by Sonu Shamdasani. For more details, please contact Schuyler Brown at 416-241-5002.
New members are most welcome

We welcome you to join with us in honouring Daryl Sharp, mainstay for over thirty years of the
C.G. Jung Foundation of Ontario, a co-founder of the Ontario Association of Jungian Analysts, and publisher of Inner City Books. Details, including costs, will be posted on our website in the Fall.

These two remarkable and evocative films by legendary directors, John Huston and Ingmar Bergman respectively, will be viewed in their entirety and then analyzed in depth. In both cases, the catalyst for change is the recollection of poignant memories. Emphasis will be on the psychological interpretation of the many and varied symbols in each of the films, and on the growth, development, and integration of the anima in each of the protagonists.

How are textual interpretation, historical enquiry, religious devotion and faith related to one another and to the process of individuation?

This season’s readings include two texts: Jung’s “The Symbolic Life” in CW18
and Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology by Sonu Shamdasani. For more details, please contact Schuyler Brown at 416-241-5002.
New members are most welcome

The publication in 2009 of Carl Jung's Red Book has set the field of Jungian studies and Analytical Psychology abuzz. Suddenly, we have a new source for insight into what we've read in Jung's Collected Works, his Memories, Dreams, Reflections and elsewhere. The Red Book functioned as a kind of private diary for Jung from 1914 to 1930. The pages, never published and until now not available to the public, contain images of his inner journey and struggles in his own words and hand-drawn pictures. Through them, we see how he recovered his soul and founded a psychology. The lecture and discussion will be suited to all interested persons, from novice to advanced Jungian − whether you have a copy of the book yet or not. It will note the experiential wellsprings of Jung's theories as well as look at what the Red Book reveals of Jung's own spiritual journey and spiritual legacy.

An illustrated lecture on the symbolism of the horse. Part IV of the
animal-as-symbol series.

"Mother release me, or I die." The Bad Mother is a gypsy folktale about the struggle to wrest life from ties that would hold it captive. The drama centers around a son, a mother, a dragon and a princess.

The tale shows us that the very same dynamics that threaten our lives can help us in our quest to gain a fuller sense of Life. However, this way of things working out depends both on our conscious attitude towards our problems as well as the kind of connection we are able to make with the healing potentials in the unconscious.

This seminar will explore three fairy tales and what they have to tell us about the process of individuation – “Faithful Ferdinand and Unfaithful Ferdinand”, “Faithful Johannes,” and “The Faithful Animals.” We will pay particular attention to the notion of faithfulness: its qualities, its orientation and its role in the context of individuation..

This season’s readings include two texts: Jung’s “The Symbolic Life” in CW18
and Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology by Sonu Shamdasani. For more details, please contact Schuyler Brown at 416-241-5002.
New members are most welcome

It is not unusual for the theme of imprisonment to arise in the individuation process. As one might expect, an expressed feeling of being imprisoned by some situation – inner or outer − is invariably accompanied by a longing for liberation. And it may be the case that the person in question will have to undergo a radical change − in the form of a new attitude − before they can see a possibility of freeing themselves. Drawing on symbolic material including visual art, dreams and literature, this lecture will explore the dynamic tensions between freedom and constraint and the potential for “imprisonment” to serve as a crucible for transformation.

This season’s readings include two texts: Jung’s “The Symbolic Life” in CW18
and Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology by Sonu Shamdasani. For more details, please contact Schuyler Brown at 416-241-5002.
New members are most welcome

The richness of the symbolism of Hinduism and its psychological meaning for Hindus came alive for the presenter during travel in India. A lecture illustrated with photographs.

Myths are stories of archetypal encounters. We do not invent myths but rather we experience them. They are like dreams that we recall even when we do not fully understand them. Somehow, we sense that a deep level of psychological truth has been touched. They originate in the collective unconscious and work on us as symbols, bringing us to something as yet unknown.

The myth of Eros and Psyche is found in the novel, The Golden Ass, by Apuleius, and it has fascinated many modern Jungian writers. It tells the story of a boy and a girl and how their experience of love is put to the test. Powerful themes that still involve us all today emerge, centred on the struggle to turn physical passion into psychic love and relationship. The myth also illustrates how individuation is about bearing the tension of the opposites and suffering the conflict between them in the lifelong quest for wholeness. We will read the myth together and then explore the themes and symbols, which carry the story’s archetypal truths.

Celtic knotwork was pursued as a spiritual as well as visual activity in early western Christianity. We will look at the ability of this graphic form to express and perhaps invoke some of the interconnectedness and coherency of the psyche, and learn the principles behind its creation. More than half our time together will be spent creating works of our own, under the direction of co-presenter Brian Dench, a former priest and author of The Knotty Book.

Marie-Louise von Franz said that to disregard the "numinous powers" is the "essence" of evil. Jung himself said that all analysands past the age of thirty-five needed to develop a religious outlook on life. Famously, he also said that "the approach to the numinous is the real therapy." A certain way of doing religion and of being religious is obviously, therefore, of central importance in what we might call the Jungian project. Doing religion involves religious experiences and approaching the numinous. It does not necessarily require regular attendance at church, synagogue, temple, or mosque. These are just a few of the ideas that will be explored in this lecture.

Anthropological findings are important to the psychoanalyst because of the light they can shed on symbols found in dreams. Rites of initiation, Jung said, are psychotherapeutic systems, which evolved to help people through the difficult transition stages of life. Since such practices are largely absent in our culture, the rites often appear in dreams. In this seminar, traditional rites of initiation for women at the time of puberty among the Nootka Indians will be presented. The Nootka are one of the Tsimshian peoples of the Northwest Coast whose art and ritual, according to anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, had broken through the barrier between the natural and the supernatural worlds with such momentum as to give life to a reality which consists of beings of a third type, neither human nor animal, but both at once. Psychologically this suggests the transcendent third. The rite will be presented with reference to parallel themes in myth, fairy tale and dreams. The focus will be on the psychology of individuation.

This season’s readings include two texts: Jung’s “The Symbolic Life” in CW18
and Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology by Sonu Shamdasani. For more details, please contact Schuyler Brown at 416-241-5002.
New members are most welcome.

The inexorable rise of that form of life that we know as suburban has been one of the unavoidable facts of collective life in North America, and much of the rest of the world in our time. In most big urban areas, such as the Greater Toronto Area, “the burbs” have become such a prevalent phenomenon that many more people live in the suburbs than live in the city per se. The tail, in effect, now wags the dog. This seminar will examine the archetypal roots and history of suburbia, the ways in which archetypal forces give a distinctive shape to contemporary suburbs, the unique impact of suburbia on psyche and the implications for the individuation process.

Following the suicide of his girlfriend, a MOSSAD agent in present-day Israel suffers a nervous breakdown. During his recovery his bosses assign him a “lightweight” job – locating and assassinating a very old Nazi, thought to have been smuggled back into Germany from South America. This involves him in life-changing relationships with the Nazi’s two grandchildren. In this seminar we will look at how director Eytan Fox provides a very nuanced picture of Jung’s concept of Shadow, in both its personal and collective forms.

Mozart’s The Magic Flute, which he composed when very ill and shortly before his untimely death, is a dream-like fairy tale put to music. The music he composed and the images he created on the threshold of the beyond are deeply moving expressions of archetypal dynamics, as relevant today as they were in his time. This lecture will explore the relevance of the images from this opera – fairy tale to the psychological development of men and women today.

We welcome you to come out and participate in a casual but lively panel discussion of a current topic initiated with brief presentations by three analysts. Our “Burning Issues” event is a fun and relaxed affair intended to stimulate camaraderie as well as good ideas and discussion. After short presentations, audience participants will have a chance to express their reactions in small groups before reconvening for a summary round-up. We hope to see anyone who would welcome the chance to spend time with their Jungian friends and enjoy some provocative ideas. TOPIC TO BE ANNOUNCED.

We have noted that the fiftieth anniversary of C.G. Jung's passing at Kusnacht, Switzerland, June 6, 1961, will soon be upon us, and we don't want to let the date pass unremarked. There has been a committee struck to design this event, working mainly in the Winter of 2010-11. It is very open to suggestions. Details will be shared in Chiron and posted on the website in due course. Please feel free to share your ideas!