Volume 39 Newsletter #4, January 2014

From Tozeur I went on to the oasis of Nefta. I rode off with my dragoman early in the morning, shortly after sunrise. Our mounts were large, swift-footed mules, on which we made rapid progress. As we approached the oasis, a single rider, wholly swathed in white, came toward us. With proud bearing he rode by without offering us any greeting, mounted on a black mule whose harness was banded and studded with silver. He made an impressive, elegant figure. Here was a man who certainly possessed no pocket watch, let alone a wrist watch; for he was obviously and unself-consciously the person he had always been. He lacked that faint note of foolishness which clings to the European. The European is, to be sure, convinced that he is no longer what he was ages ago; but he does not know what he has since become. His watch tells him that since the “Middle Ages” time and its synonym, progress, have crept up on him and irrevocably taken something from him. With lightened baggage he continues his journey, with steadily increasing velocity, toward nebulous goals. He compensates for the loss of gravity and the corresponding sentiment d’incomplétitude by the illusion of his triumphs, such as steamships, railroads, airplanes, and rockets, that rob him of his duration and transport him into another reality of speeds and explosive accelerations.

—C. G. Jung: Memories, Dreams, Reflections, (MDR) Chapter 9: Travels.

This incident took place during a trip by Jung to North Africa in 1920. This passage leads into an account of a dream about a confrontation with an Arab, obviously growing out of this incident, that Jung had just after this encounter, and which I wish I had the space to include here. This passage, as Jung himself indicates, tells us more about Jung and Western culture than it does about non-Western, and in this case, Muslim culture.

I choose this passage from Jung’s autobiography partly because Western and Islamic cultures are again in confrontation in the world—and here in Quebec, in the debate over the Charter of Quebec Values. These confrontations are no doubt fuelled by deficiencies in the attitudes of some Muslims.

But they also reflect a blindness on the part of many of the rest of us that make Jung's attitudes in 1920 (or in the early 1960s, when MDR was published) seem relatively sensitive, at least by comparison.

I also choose it by way of introduction to the first two events of our society in 2014. These events, like Jung’s encounter in North Africa and the Charter of Quebec values, will not tell us much about Islam but they might say something about our reaction to Islam.

On Thursday, January 23, we will gather in the Westmount Public Library to view a segment from the Stephen Segaller trilogy, "The Wisdom of the Dream." Like the above-cited passage from his autobiography, “Inheritance of Dreams” turns the spotlight on Jung’s encounters with other cultures.

Then, on February 7 and 8, we will return to our new venue at the John Molson School of Business to hear David L. Miller, a perennial favourite of our society, Watson- Ledden Professor of Religion, emeritus, at the University of Syracuse and retired member of the core faculty at the Pacifica Graduate Institute. His topic: “C. G. Jung’s Warning about Faith: The Psychological Danger of Belief.”

The Wisdom of the Dream is a three-part documentary series from 1989 that provides a wonderful introduction to, or review of, Jung’s life and ideas. The films draw on rare interviews and footage of Jung, as well as interviews with prominent psychologists, some of whom knew Jung personally.

We will be watching Part 2: “The Inheritance of Dreams,” which looks at the collective unconscious through myths shared by different world cultures.

The film does not deal with Jung’s encounters with Muslims but does look at his encounter with Africans and with Pueblo Indians in New Mexico, both also discussed in the chapter of MDR where Jung describes his encounter with the mysterious Arab. Along with fascinating cinematographic footage from Jung’s era and our own, there are interviews with eminent Jungians and others, James Hillman among them, about the role of myth in ancient cultures and our own and how the similarities and differences helped to shape Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious. Among those interviewed is the late Michael Edwards, whom some of us remember from his time as a professor of art therapy at

Concordia University. Edwards led workshops for the C. G. Jung Society of Montreal and later became curator of the picture archive of artwork by patients of Jung in Zürich.

We will be watching these accounts in a world different from Jung’s time and some things may seem a bit dated. This will add another perspective, but I expect we will still agree that Jung’s response to the cultures he experienced was wise, powerful and prophetic.

In the introductory material David Miller has sent us, he comments that it has become apparent since the World Trade Centre trauma of September 11, 2001 that religious belief can be politically dangerous. Dr. Miller adds that it can be psychologically dangerous as well. He refers to a warning about religious belief found in Jung’s recently published Red Book. The passage was probably written a few years before his above-mentioned visits to Africa and America.

I don’t think I am sticking my neck out in predicting that Dr. Miller’s presentations will bring no aid and comfort to anyone who thinks that what the world or Quebec needs at this point is more severe restrictions on religious practice and the “ostentatious symbols” (using that word in its Quebec Charter sense) of devout Muslims and other religionists.

I am not going to try to predict what Dr. Miller will say but I am pretty confident that it is our own views and not those of others that he will be inviting us to question.

Perhaps some of his comments will be along the lines of these from a lecture “A Myth is as Good as a Smile! ...” that he delivered in 1999 at the Pacifica Graduate Institute (and which I found on the website of the Imaginal Institute at www.imaginalinstitute.com):

We now need to know and think through the myths that divide, and understand the mythology that unites ...

We have no choice, for mythology there will be, with its ideology and theology and philosophy, for which many will kill. Our only choice is whether or not to educate our youth and ourselves in that which divides and separates, so that it can be also the weave whereby we begin to imagine and discover the threads which unite and connect. Mythology can be an antidote for literalism, humorlessness, overseriousness, fundamentalism, dogmatism, and hate.

I mentioned James Hillman above. A small group will be meeting Wednesdays, January 15 and 29 and February 12 to discuss his 1999 book The Force of Character: And the Lasting Life. Call (514) 485-0263 for details and to reserve your spot at this salon.

—Harvey Shepherd

Volume 39 Newsletter #3, November 2013

How many of you readers remember the cover of the Beatles’ 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band?

A great many, I suspect. I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, it is nice to share cherished memories. On the other hand, these shared memories reflect the fact that much of the membership of our society is made up of what is known in some circles as an aging demographic. I would like, in a way, to be able to write that many of you are too young to remember Sgt. Pepper well, but that would probably not be true.

Still, I should recall for those few of you who do not remember the album that the cover features a collage of about sixty people including The Beatles themselves, but also people who they felt had had a significant impact on them, cultural or otherwise. Among them are such people as Frank Sinatra, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Marilyn Monroe, Aleister Crowley, Mae West, W.C. Fields, Bob Dylan, Aldous Huxley, Sri Paramahansa Yogananda, Karl Marx, and on and on.

Including Carl Gustav Jung. Ah, those were the days.

Carl Jung and his work have not exactly dropped from the public eye a little over a half-century after his death in 1961, six years before Sgt. Pepper came out. The recent attention to the publication of his Red Book and the release of David Cronenberg’s movie A Dangerous Method are evidence for that.

But one does not have the feeling of riding a wave in quite the way one did a few decades ago. It would be nice to report that there is a little photo of C. G. Jung on the website of Lady Gaga or Avril Lavigne or Lissie, but I haven’t heard of such a thing.

There are no doubt a number of reasons for the fact that the popular memory of Jung has faded. In academic and clinical circles, the place of psychoanalysis in general— not just Jungian analysis—has faced major challenges, partly because it does not offer the kind of quick fix our society seems to favour. Spiritual and religious approaches in general also face cynicism and hostility in some quarters, of which the “Quebec values” debate is, in part, an example.

Our movement—and the C. G. Jung Society itself—face big challenges as we ponder whether and how we can preserve our legacy and pass it on to another generation.

All this seems particularly relevant (surprise! surprise!) to our next couple of programs.

In a lecture to our society Friday evening, November 22, Montreal analyst Yvon Rivière will focus on the challenge that the frenetic pace of our post-modern life poses to the psychoanalytical method. As the flyer enclosed with this newsletter notes, he will ask whether, in an era of instant gratification and multi-tasking, there is still time for the long-term exploration of the inner world that analysis provides.

While his past lectures to our society have been illuminating, Yvon is especially known to some of us for his sand-play workshops, and it is gratifying to see that his presentation will also explore an approach to psychoanalysis that includes non-verbal communication.

Another Montreal Jungian analyst who has presented successfully to us in the recent past, Denis C. Adams, is convinced that the erosion of the place of religion in our modern society, and more specifically in Quebec with the desertion of churches, is leading to an increasing amount of individualistic faith and self-created religious practices. He will discuss the importance of evil possessions as an archetypal resurgence and the current situation of possessions and exorcisms in the world today, in Canada, and in Montreal.

Dr. Adams is broadly familiar with today’s issues in psychology as a licensed psychologist as well as a Jungian analyst and senior analyst in the analytical training activities of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts.

His presentation on Friday, December 6, “Evil Possessions: A Jungian Reading” will, in part, explore a sociological approach to phenomena associated with modern religious pilgrims and newly converted believers.

Note that these two programs will be in our new venue this year—the John Molson School of Business, across from the Guy-Concordia Métro station. See the enclosed flyers.

That subject leads me to one or two practical challenges our society faces these days—ones with some relation to the frenetic pace of life today and our aging demographic. Firstly, the reasons for moving many of our programs from Dawson College to the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University are complex, but please feel free to let any member of our planning committee,

particularly myself, Mary Harsany, Murray Shugar, Molly Baker, Patricia Coon, Ted Fillery, Susan Meindl, Artemis Papert, or Roman Rogulski, know what you think of the move.

In particular, what do you think of the site of our opening event in September? The event and the reception that preceded it were quite pleasant, but making the arrangements was quite onerous and we would be interested in alternative suggestions.

Our society could use some volunteers to help in dealing with practical matters such as making physical arrangements for programs and looking after financial matters. (The financial state of the society is reasonably good; the problem is just with the task of taking care of it.)

And anyone who has not yet renewed his or her membership for this program year should do so now.

Looking forward to seeing you soon.

Returning to the subject of shared memories: it is with sadness that we join Lila Stonehewer, who was a key member of our society’s planning committee for many years, in mourning the death of her husband Edward Clark Over on September 14 in his 78th year. We remember Ed as a scholar and dedicated and devoted musician and, so far as we are concerned, a gracious but ever witty and frequent co-host with Lila to members of our committee on many occasions. In his own right he was a sharp and amused observer of the Jungian scene, especially in some of its quirkier aspects. We treasure his memory. Our condolences go out to Lila and Ed’s sons Adam and David, his step- daughters Christine and Judith, as well as his grandchildren Charlotte, Sophie and Stephanie.

—Harvey Shepherd

Volume 39 Newsletter #2, November 2013

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean— neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."

—Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass

The C. G. Jung Society of Montreal promotes study and reflection on the works of C. G. Jung, Eric Neumann, James Hillman, Joseph Campbell and many others as they affect both the general culture—the soul of the world, if you like— and the practice of psychotherapy.

Our society is especially concerned with the social and cultural impact. Our intended audience is the general public. We do not licence therapists. We applaud the efforts of professional organizations such as the Association des psychanalystes jungiens du Québec (APJQ) and, for example, advise people interested in undertaking a Jungian analysis to consult the association, through its website or otherwise.

Still, professional and social concerns do, of course, overlap. Our activities are often of interest to therapists and their patients. We sometimes collaborate with professional groups and their members on particular projects. We have an obvious interest as citizens in the role of psychotherapy in society.

Our society should also have a particular concern, I am increasingly convinced, with making the case that myth and symbol are important for the mental health of individuals and society. We should be doing our modest part to offset the cultural impoverishment associated with such trends as the decline of organized religion and pressure on universities to cater to the job market.

All this is relevant to the upcoming attractions on our schedule.

James Hillman, the founder of archetypal psychology, was concerned about the relevance of psychology to social and cultural problems, to the point of sometimes seeming ambivalent about the value of individual psychotherapy. Yet Ginette Paris, a Montrealer, honorary member of our society,

and member of the core faculty of the Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California, which is dedicated to archetypal psychology, has long been a knowledgeable and eloquent advocate of the idea that archetypal psychology can have a valuable place in individual psychotherapy.

In a one-day seminar on Saturday, October 26, she will explore what archetypal psychology is and how it is practiced, with particular reference to theoretical and philosophical commitments including personifying, pathologizing, psychologizing, de-humanizing and “seeing through the myth.” While this seminar will be of benefit to everyone, it is likely to be of particular interest to practicing psychotherapists and will entitle them to continuing education credits. For details, please consult the enclosed flyer or call us at (514) 481-8664.

The relation between Jungian psychology and contemporary culture, particularly movies and TV, will be explored in a series of seminars led by two members of our society’s planning committee—Ted Fillery, a Jungian analyst, and Roman Rogulski, an insurance underwriter and film buff—on four Wednesday evenings, November 6, 13 and 20 and December 4, from 6:30 p.m. These seminars will be at Ted’s office at 1000 Amherst St., Suite 301.

This series will be a rich experience for people familiar with Jung, but will also be valuable for people relatively new to Jung, as an introduction to such concepts as transference, countertransference, animus and anima, transformation and individuation.

Since it is so relevant to what I am discussing here, let me mention that Montreal analyst Yvon Rivière will discuss the question “Is there a future for psychoanalysis in our time?” in a lecture Friday evening, November 22. See the next newsletter for details.

The Ginette Paris and Yvon Rivière events will take place in the attractive new venue for most of our activities, the John Molson School of Business, across from the Guy/Concordia Métro station.

I have used the terms psychotherapist and psychotherapy quite a bit in these notes. I use the term in the same broad sense that ordinary mortals usually would: to refer not only to people who use these terms to identify their practice but psychologists, psychiatrists, Jungian analysts, art therapists, and a range of other therapists with various professional affiliations or none.

The Ordre des psychologues du Québec uses these terms differently.

They tell us that: “Since June 21st, 2012, the title of psychotherapist and the practice of psychotherapy are now reserved in Québec. This means that any person who wants to practice psychotherapy and use the title of psychotherapist and who is neither a doctor nor a psychologist must hold a permit of psychotherapist issued by the Ordre des psychologues du Québec.”

This, it seems to me, purports to extend the regulatory reach of the Québec government and the Ordre des Psychologues over professional practice and language itself far beyond legitimate limits. It is one example of a trend toward attempts at bureaucratic regimentation of life, professional practice and language that is not limited to psychotherapy or to Québec. It should be resisted. Perhaps it would be an acceptable compromise if legislation were to set up a class of accredited and regulated psychotherapists, defined by some appropriate adjective, as we have registered nurses, chartered accountants and professional engineers.

Another concern, which strikes me as similar but seems to put me on the same side as various mental health associations, has to do with a piece of federal legislation called Bill C-54 or the Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act, which purports to protect Canadians from individuals who commit violent offences.

According to a note last June from the Schizophrenia Society of Canada, that body, the Canadian Psychiatric Association, the Canadian Psychological Association and other groups have formed a coalition to press for changes in the bill.

“What this bill has done is tell Canadians that they should be afraid of people with a mental illness!” writes Chris Summerville, chief executive officer of the Schizophrenia Society of Canada.

“We are concerned that in its present form, Bill C-54 will ... unjustifiably increase the stigma towards people with mental illness. Too many elements of the bill are simply not science or evidence-based.”

Meanwhile if you have not renewed your membership in our non-professional society, please do so.

—Harvey Shepherd

Volume 39, Newsletter #1, September 2013

We will begin the 39^th program year of the C. G. Jung Society of Montreal with reflection on what may be, as I think about it, perhaps the central theme of Jungian psychology and its most important challenge and offering to the wider world today: the wounded healer.

This reflection will be guided at our opening event on September 27 by two Montreal analysts who have been deeply involved with this theme: Guy Corneau and Jan Bauer.

Dreams, images, the unconscious, active imagination and various insights and techniques are very important, to be sure. But, to take therapy for example, perhaps the distinguishing mark of a Jungian healer is that he or she is not just a skilled professional calibrating the prescription that may cure a passive patient, a Sherlock Holmes diagnosing the patient’s unconscious from a position out of sight behind a couch, or a guru dispensing divine wisdom. (I am, of course, indulging in generalization and caricature to make my point.)

The image of Jungian therapy par excellence is analyst (or other healer) and patient sitting face to face. It is not an alliance of complete equality; the relation is still one of therapist and patient, largely subject to the conventions and ethical norms that govern other therapies. For example, it would be highly unusual for the patient to comment on the dreams and life issues of the therapist. But it is nevertheless a mutual relation between two people both of whom are affected by the alliance and both of whom give to it and receive from it. Both suffer. Both are wounded.

Outside the analytical encounter too, Jungian psychology at its best offers, through reading and various activities, an encounter not with a series of dogmas but with a tradition well acquainted with suffering and wounds.

The student of Jungian psychology encounters such mythological, archetypal and literary wounded personages as the Fisher King, Asclepius, Chiron, Oedipus and Lear.

He or she may also find new insights in contemplating wounded religious figures like the peacock-eyed Krishna, Job, and the Suffering Servant of Isaiah. And of course Jesus Christ—who, according to the Gospel of Luke, says, “You will undoubtedly quote me this proverb: ‘Physician, heal yourself.’”

The history of Jungian psychology is itself the history of therapists and teachers who have drawn their insights and their ability to heal in large part from their own neuroses and other illnesses. Jung himself was the first and greatest of these but others who have drawn healing from their own wounds, sometimes physical as well as mental, are legion. Their stories have furnished detractors of Jungian psychology with abundant material for their criticisms and scorn, but Jungians tend to see these journeys into the underworld as sources of strength.

The two Montreal analysts who will lead our discussion on September 27 are in this tradition. Guy Corneau’s encounters with his own wounds, including life-threatening physical illnesses, have been an important source of his ability to bring healing to his patients and, in more recent years, readers and listeners. An important part of Jan Bauer’s study and reflection has been her focus on alcoholism and in particular Alcoholics Anonymous, with its tradition—intertwined with Jungian psychology in the early years of both—of a healing relation between people in the throes of alcoholic dependence and people who have managed to control it.

This session will be in a new venue for our society’s activities, the John Molson School of Business of Concordia University at 1450 Guy St., right across the street from the Guy-Concordia Métro station. We expect to be using this new, attractive and convenient site for most of our activities from now on. As has been customary for our first event of the new year, this will also be a social occasion offering a chance to renew old acquaintances and make new ones over light refreshments.

The second big weekend event of the program year will feature another wounded healer: Ginette Paris of Montreal and the Pacifica Graduate Institute in California, whose experiences after a concussion furnished materials for recent publications and a presentation to our society. This encounter may be less central to her upcoming presentation, however, although it may not be far below the surface.

Dr. Paris, a leading interpreter of archetypal psychology—the offshoot of Jungian psychology associated with the late James Hillman and the Pacifica Institute—will be leading a day-long seminar on Saturday, October 26 on archetypal psychology and how it is applied in practice. This event will be of particular interest to those in the “helping professions.”

Participants will hear about, and participate in exercises illustrating, the four basic ideas of archetypal psychology: personifying, pathologizing, psychologizing, and de-humanizing.

Issues of wounding, healing and pathologizing will continue to characterize our programs for the rest of the fall. Montreal analyst Yvon Rivière will look at whether there is a future for psychoanalysis in our time in a lecture on Friday evening, Nov. 22.

Montreal analyst Denis C. Adams will wind up the fall season with a lecture on Friday, Dec. 6, with the title “Evil Possessions: A Jungian Reading.”

We are also looking forward to a movie seminar series this November led by Montreal analyst Ted Fillery and Roman Rogulski. See our calendar for details; a flyer will follow in newsletter #2.

Let me also remind you of our society’s collection of Jungian books, which is now housed at the Westmount Public Library and available for public consultation. You need to be a Westmount resident or member of the library to borrow books directly, but you can make use of the Quebec inter-library loan system by asking for the titles you want at the public library in your own community.

Please remember as well that membership renewals in our society come due in the fall. See the enclosed calendar for details.

And remember to check out our website at sites.google.com/site/cgjungmontreal.

—Harvey Shepherd

2012-2013

Volume 38, Newsletter #5, April 2013

A Note From the Co-President

“The sailor cannot see the north—but knows the needle can.”

James Hollis, the Zürich-trained Jungian analyst and prolific writer, chose these lines from a letter by the 19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson as the theme for the lecture and workshop Friday evening and Saturday, April 19 and 20, that will wind up our 2012-13 program of larger public events.

They could also serve as a theme for the presentations with which Dr. Hollis has richly blessed our society in previous years, as well as his many books from which he has drawn much of his material. Both have left many of us feeling that they have helped us find a sense of direction in a bewildering and often discouraging world.

Let me quote a sample of his wisdom from his website, drawn from one of his recent books.

If we fail to engage in some form of cogent dialogue with the questions which emerge from our depths, then we will live an unconscious, unreflective, accidental life ... Having a more interesting life, a life that disturbs complacency, a life that pulls us out of the comfortable and thereby demands a larger spiritual engagement than we planned or that feels comfortable, is what matters most.

(What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life, 2009)

A selection of books by James Hollis published by Inner City Books of Toronto will be available at the lecture for purchase, along with a selection of other books from surplus items in our society’s collection. Unfortunately, we will not have the title just mentioned, published by Gotham Books.

Dr. Hollis’s contribution to helping bring Jung’s thought more fully to the world have not been confined to speaking and writing. His training in Zürich as a Jungian analyst followed twenty-six years teaching the humanities in various colleges and universities. From 1997 to 2008 he served as Executive Director of the Jung Educational Center of Houston, which offers a range of programs addressing contemporary issues. He lives with his wife Jill, an artist and therapist, and together they have three living children. He is vice president emeritus of the Philemon Foundation, which is

dedicated to the publication of the complete works of Jung (more complete than the Collected Works with which many of us are familiar). Additionally, he is a Professor of Jungian Studies at Saybrook University in San Francisco and he teaches at Pacifica Graduate Institute near Santa Barbara.

Goodness knows there is much around us to give the impression that the world needs this sort of wisdom. Our political institutions, not least here in Quebec, have been rocked by corruption scandals. Many have lost faith in the church as a source of direction. The controversy around university financing that was in full swing as I wrote these notes can only further undermine confidence in universities as centres of culture and reflection.

(May I mention that it sometimes occurs to me that one modest role for a group like the C. G. Jung Society of Montreal might be, through our interest in classical and other mythology, for instance, to keep alive an acquaintance with cultural tradition that educated people had as a matter of course in the days of Freud and Jung?)

I am not just making a plea for rectitude here. Our current difficulty in seeing the north seems to be marked not only by misbehaviour of one kind and another but also by frantic efforts to rectify matters. The “nanny state” comes up with ever more rules and regulations and the media and others strive to single out villains to purge from our society, sometimes with too little regard for due process.

The search for some sort of compass—and the hope that Jung’s ideas and the archetypes may have a part in helping us find one—seem to me to be a theme not only of the coming weekend with James Hollis but of other programs in our schedule. We have just devoted a weekend, with the help of Michael Vannoy Adams of New York, to exploring the contribution of the late James Hillman, one focus of which was how psychology might more effectively help to heal society and not just individuals.

Our spring reading seminar at the Westmount Public Library is looking at one ancient idea given new prominence by the work of James Hillman, that of the anima mundi, the soul of the world, and how its, or her, health may be challenged or strengthened by attention to another ancient archetype, that of the hero.

In these seminars, members of our society moderate discussion of readings from the writings of Jung and other leading thinkers. On Monday, March 18, Roman Rogulski will lead discussion of writings by Jung, Joseph Campbell, Emma Jung, Marie-Louise von Franz, and Erich Neumann on the hero.

Some of you may have missed this session by the time you read this newsletter, but newcomers are welcome at subsequent sessions, which in this series are several weeks apart. On Monday, April 8, Molly Baker will help us look at some of the ideas of Edward Whitmont, Clarissa Pinkola Estès and Thomas Berry that bear on how we might move to a more sustainable future. On Monday, March 29, we will return to some thoughts of James Hillman with the help of Murray Shugar. And finally, on May 13, Ted Fillery will lead discussion of readings that deal with how we might be creative as individuals in trying to help save the world.

Readings will be available at the Michael Adams event on March 16 or by calling (514) 481-8664. Most of you should have received the flyer for this series a few weeks ago by email or by post, but you can always take a look at our website (a good idea anyway) at http://sites.google.com/site/cgjungmontreal.

The challenges we face as individuals in a broken world will be explored further in the following program year. Details for the year are still being worked out, but the event that opens our season in September will probably be on the theme of the wounded healer.

A little over a year from now, we anticipate a lecture and workshop on the topic of creative depression led by Kathryn Madden. A psychoanalyst of Jungian/psychodynamic focus in private practice in New York City, she teaches at the Pacifica Graduate Institute and is a lecturer at Union Theological Seminary of Columbia University and the editor-in-chief of the journal Quadrant. This will be her first visit with us.

As I think of our yearning for a needle to help us find the north and the contribution our programs may make to satisfying it, I recall two other passages of poetry. One is from W. B. Yeats’ The Second Coming, written in 1919:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

The other is from W. H. Auden’s September 1, 1939:

Defenceless under the night

Our world in stupor lies;

Yet, dotted everywhere,

Ironic points of light

Flash out wherever the Just

Exchange their messages:

May I, composed like them

Of Eros and of dust,

Beleaguered by the same

Negation and despair,

Show an affirming flame.

I hope to see many of you in the next few weeks and wish you an enriching summer ahead. In the meantime, we will be gathering on Friday, April 26 for a soup night to digest some of the ideas discussed at the Hollis event and to socialize in the friendly ambience of some of our members. Call (514) 481-8664 to reserve your seat.

—Harvey Shepherd

Volume 38, Newsletter #1, August 2012

A Note From the Co-President

The programs that will open our 2012-13 year at the C. G. Jung Society of Montreal are topical — in one respect unfortunately so.

The year will begin Friday evening, September 21, with a screening of David Cronenberg’s recent historical film “A Dangerous Method,” a fictionalized account of the origins of psychoanalysis and especially the relationships between Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and Sabina Spielrein just before World War I. The movie is based on Christopher Hampton’s 2002 play “The Talking Cure,” of which our society presented a reading at that time.

We have decided to accompany this movie with a discussion between a Jungian and a Freudian. The Jungian will be Ted Fillery, who practiced as a Jungian analyst in Toronto from 1996 to 2007 before moving his practice to Montréal. He is on the planning committee of our society.

What little I know of the Freudian, William J. Massicotte, has greatly whetted my appetite. He is extremely active in the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society and related organizations and has an important role in presenting their concerns to the public. He is in private practice in Montreal and also has been involved with the philosophy departments of both McGill and Concordia Universities. The philosophy of psychoanalysis is one of his main interests.

The brief but cogent discussion between Ted Fillery and Bill Massicotte will be moderated by another mental health professional and member of our planning committee, Susan Meindl, a licensed psychologist in private practice in Westmount.

The connection between psychology and the surrounding society will be a focus in the presentations to our society Friday evening and Saturday morning, October 12 and 13 in a lecture and half-day seminar by John Dourley of Ottawa, of whom I have been a fan for years.

Although he is a Roman Catholic priest as well as a Jungian analyst, John Dourley shares many of the concerns of those who see religion as irrelevant at best to today’s world, and at worst a breeder of fanaticisms that even threaten the survival of humanity. But, as he writes in his book On Behalf of the Mystical Fool: Jung on the Religious Situation (Routledge, 2010, 262 pps.) he also hopes that religion might be an antidote for fanaticism and a force for human unity that could enrich human life and even help humanity survive.

He will share some of these ideas on the Friday evening and continue the next morning to explore the influence on Jung of mystics like Mechthilde of Magdeburg, Meister Eckhart and Jacob Boehme, as well as what they have to say to us today.

This is a particularly good time for us to be hearing a range of views like those of Ted Fillery, Bill Massicotte and John Dourley. It suddenly turns out that this may be a bad time for people practicing a variety of psychological approaches in Quebec.

The guardians of the nanny state in the Quebec government and the Quebec Order of Psychologists seem to have decided that psychotherapy may sometimes be a dangerous method indeed. What they have decided to do about it is of grave concern to leading Jungian analysts in Quebec, among others.

Quebec Justice Minister Jean-Marc Fournier and officers of the Order announced in June that, under a law known as Bill 21, the practice of many professions in the field of mental health and human relations in Quebec is being redefined, and “psychotherapy” is being reserved to members of a few designated professional orders. The Association des psychanalystes jungiens du Québec (APJQ) is among those conspicuously absent from the favoured group.

I spoke briefly with Tom Kelly, a leading member of the APJQ and President-Elect of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP), at a time when the association was in the early stages of formulating its response. What follows is a mixture of some of his ideas and some of mine.

The idea of what the government is trying to do in protecting the public is in some ways laudable and part of a trend in a number of countries. However, in Tom’s view, the government of Ontario, for one, has moved with more sensitivity than we are seeing in Quebec.

In what could be seen as a power grab, the Quebec Order winds up with the job of approving anyone who wants to practice “psychotherapy.” Its criteria would be quite different from those used to accredit Jungian analysts.

For example, psychotherapists in training would be required to have many hours of supervised work with patients, as aspiring analysts are already required to do by organizations like the APJQ. But there would be no requirement that the aspiring psychotherapist himself or herself undergo any psychoanalysis. I presume that this would be a sine qua non for both Freudian and Jungian psychoanalytic candidates alike.

Would-be psychoanalysts would also be required to have at least a bachelor’s degree, and more often a master’s, in the fields of mental health and human relations. This seems particularly problematic for Jungians. Aspiring Jungian analysts quite often proceed to grueling training in psychoanalysis after having earned a first degree in some other field like the arts, business or the physical sciences.

Tom tells me that the APJQ made representations to the government when legislation was being considered, but these were ignored.

“The way this has been handled so far does not leave us very optimistic,” he said.

To which I would add that, whatever the effect may be on psychoanalysts and their clients, the new rules could create lots of work for lawyers.

I end with a piece of happier official news.

Our warmest congratulations go to Guy Corneau, a pioneer of Jungian analysis in Quebec, renowned speaker and author and a great friend of our society, who has just been made a member of the Order of Canada “for his contributions as a writer, speaker and radio and television host, helping people to resolve difficulties in their lives.”

—Harvey Shepherd

O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,

Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

(W. B. Yeats: “Among School Children”)

The last two lines, have haunted me for years and came back to me when I started thinking about the fact that, through some play of the dance of synchronicity, dance will be at least in part the theme of the first two programs in the calendar year 2012. For us, as for the two figures who will be in the spotlight of the two programs, and for Yeats, dance will be seen as both literal­—in the body—and as a powerful metaphor and symbol.

Marion Woodman, the iconic Canadian Jungian whose personal visits to us were a powerful fact in the life of our society in bygone years, will be back with us virtually on Monday, January 30, through a presentation of a video about her and her work, Dancing in the Flames. This “return” visit will be followed by a personal visit on Friday, February 17, by a new, but also charismatic friend of our society, David Pressault. He has been a figure on the dance scene in Montreal and elsewhere since the late 1980s. His lecture to us on Inspiration and the Creative Mind will come partly out of that background but will also stem from his relatively new role as a Jungian analyst in Montreal: he is finishing studies in analytical psychology with the Ontario Association of Jungian Analysts (OAJA) and is already practicing in Montreal under supervision.

I am not the dancer in my family, but rather the one with two left feet. My daughter and her partner have a tango studio in N. D. G., which some of our members know through a couple of events we have held there and in some cases through their personal participation. Still, I am looking forward to both of these programs with keen anticipation.

According to its website, Dancing in the Flames, “explores the inspiring life and many ‘deaths’ of one of the western world’s most important wisdom keepers, and sends a clarion call to a planet in the midst of ‘a shedding of its outworn skin.” Renowned as a Jungian analyst and author, the site says, Marion Woodman “is celebrated for her work on feminine psychology and addiction, but her words and her wisdom speak to nearly everyone. With insight from our guide, the brilliant mystic and author Andrew Harvey, Marion explores the mysteries of her soul’s journey and reveals a series of psychological ‘deaths’ and ‘rebirths’ that have made her who she is today. From her battle with anorexia, to her revelatory experiences in India, to her ever-evolving marriage, to her dance with cancer, Marion has ‘died into life’ and thus is a perfect teacher and mid-wife for this critical period in our history.”

Admission is free, in conformity with the policies of the Westmount Public Library, where the presentation will take place. Copies of the DVD will be available at a discount price and I would urge some of you to consider buying one, both so you can enjoy it again and again and because this would help us meet our financial obligation to the producers of the DVD.

Where would we be without the Web these days? From another website, I learned that David Pressault began his career as a dancer in 1987 and danced for Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver-based companies until 2006. His body of work includes more than twenty creations and three short films that have been presented in Europe and Canada. Since the creation of his company David Pressault Danse in 1999, he “has demonstrated a constant evolution and transformation of both the content and the form of his work.” His latest work Corps Intérieur was co-produced by long-time partner Danse-Cité and presented in the 2009/2010 season and again by popular demand in the following season. He “has a growing concern for the precarious condition of contemporary dance and its artists in Montreal, in Quebec and in Canada. His actions have demonstrated his desire for the continuing evolution of the art form and a concern for a psychologically healthier artistic practice of dance.”

In 2010, he completed a master’s thesis at the Université du Québec à Montréal titled “Éros et Pouvoir: Regards Jungiens sur les situations d’abus de pouvoir entre chorégraphes et danseurs contemporains.”

Please note that the Woodman DVD and social event will take place at the Westmount Public Library on Monday, January 30, a departure in time and place from our usual program. (See the enclosed flyer for more details.)

Along with Marion Woodman, another great influence on our society in years gone by was the seminal work of James Hillman. He affected many of us through his writings, through his influence on Montrealers, including Ginette Paris—at that time on the faculty of UQAM—and through a series of presentations at UQAM that she arranged. We were saddened to learn of his recent death.

Our newsletter editor and webmaster, Murray Shugar, has invited members and friends of our society to submit recollections and appreciations of his life and work for publication in these media, and I pass along that invitation. You can send comments, if you wish, to murray.shugar@sympatico.ca

—Harvey Shepherd

Volume 37, Newsletter #3, November 2011

A Note From the Co-President

There is a lot of complex intellectual debate going on in the Jungian world these days and it surely has its place. But I am pleased to report that our own programs this season will be addressing basic themes like dreams and healing. Our feet will be soulfully on the ground.

These programs will be grounded in another way. They will mostly feature people from the Montreal scene.

On November 12 we are trying something new. An all-day Saturday program will be made up of short presentations by several Montreal therapists describing different approaches to dreams. Our speakers will include analysts Yvon Rivière and Ted Fillery, psychologist Susan Meindl, and eclectic dream specialists Layne Dalfen and Diana Ilnicki, all of Montreal. Please note the venue: the comfortable York Auditorium of Concordia University. See the flyer for details.

Healing seems to be a leitmotif of our programs these days. Our fall season opening event featured a stimulating and soulful exchange on creativity between Montreal analysts Jan Bauer and Guy Corneau. They paid a lot of attention to its healing power.

Then, as the weather began to get chillier, Françoise Cloutier of Montreal made use of the Inuit tale of the Skeleton Woman to amplify the subject of healing through relationship.

Another Montrealer—although she spends much of her time at the Pacifica Graduate Institute in California—will also be discussing healing and relationship. Ginette Paris will particularly emphasize healing from the effects of relationships broken by bereavement and betrayal. She will lecture Friday night, December 3, and give an all-day workshop the next day. My review of her book on this subject, Heartbreak: New Approaches to Healing: Recovering from lost love and mourning, is in this newsletter.

Dr. Paris’s past presentations to our society have endeared her to us through her accessible and down-to-earth contemporary approach and the upcoming weekend should be no exception. I suspect that the resemblance of part of her title, “Love in the City,” to a phrase associated with the actress Sarah Jessica Parker is no coincidence.

As you receive this newsletter, our reading seminar series at the Westmount Public Library on “Illness and Healing” will be under way. Members of our society will be animating discussion on selections from the works of Jung and leading Jungian and archetypal writers. The sessions begin October 31 and continue November 7 and continue Mondays, December 5 and 12. Johnny-come-latelies are welcome; for further information see our website or call (514) 481-8664.

We expect that a film night in January will focus on healing and the body in an exciting way. At the time of this writing, we were awaiting confirmation, so stay tuned.

In February, David Pressault, a Montrealer who plans to practice as a Jungian analyst in town and has been deeply involved in the local dance scene, will tell us about how these two spheres can interact. To tantalize you, his subject will be inspiration!

I close on a sombre note. Some of us mourn the recent deaths of two Jungian pioneers, both of whom were eclectic and had particular interest in the interface between spirituality and psychology and in the psychology of self-esteem.

The many friends and admirers of Jean Monbourquette of Ottawa, whose internationally known writing and talks in French and English focused largely on the shadow, self-esteem and mourning, are mourning his own death in August at the age of 77.

His best-known work, How to Love Again: Moving from Grief to Growth, explores the grieving process. Since it was first published in the early 1990s, it has sold over one million copies in Canada and around the world.

John Monbourquette, as he was known in English, was a teacher at St. Paul’s University in Ottawa for more than thirty-five years, a psychologist, and a Roman Catholic priest in the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Our society, alas, never managed to develop direct links with him, but some of our members held him in deep respect and affection.

Mario Jacoby, who met the aging C. G. Jung in Zürich during the early years of his own career as a Jungian analyst, was a living link with him for some who encountered Dr. Jacoby in their own studies and work. He died in Zürich this fall. As a scholar and writer, Dr. Jacoby was especially known for his efforts to compare and reconcile different schools of depth psychology, particularly those of Jung and Heinz Kohut.

Mario Jacoby spoke in Montreal at least once some years ago, sponsored by our French-language counterpart, now unfortunately defunct, the Cercle C. G. Jung de Montréal. Inner City Books of Toronto has published two of his books.

Please remember to renew your membership if you have not yet done so.

—Harvey Shepherd

Volume 37, Newsletter #2, October 2011

A Note From the Co-President

A legend about a young Inuit woman drowned in an Arctic ocean, who later returns to life and becomes the lover of the fisherman who has pulled her bones from the icy water, has fascinated Inuit through the centuries and, in more recent years, many others. The interaction of love, sex, injustice, terror and awe has touched something in many souls.

We will encounter this legend on Friday, October 21, when one of our own Jungian analysts in Montreal, Françoise Cloutier, will explore it in a lecture. No doubt enthralling in its own right, the evening will also be a fitting prelude to our fall reading seminar on healing, which will begin October 31.

Françoise Cloutier, a good friend of our society, will draw insight about healing and relating from the tale of “The Skeleton Woman.” That is the title of the Inuit legend presented by the U.S. analyst and storyteller Clarissa Pinkola Estés in her 1992 best-seller Women Who Run With the Wolves.

Many people are also drawn to another Inuit legend, or perhaps another version, more of a creation myth than The Skeleton Women, in which the heroine, known as Sedna, becomes a sea goddess. (Some people seem to regard the legends as variants of one legend but Estés seems to see them as distinct but similar in motif.) The Toronto Jungian analyst Beverly Bond Clarkson told our society about Sedna some years ago.

Browsing the Web, I was struck by the widespread fascination for The Skeleton Woman or Sedna. Through the miracle of Google, I quickly found myself deluged with references to websites, blogs, scholarly tomes, YouTube videos, animated cartoons, other movies, musical compositions, dance, astronomic and astrological commentary and feminist ritual. I commend the exercise to you as preparation for the lecture.

Sedna even gave her name to a dwarf planet discovered in 2003, with an orbit ranging from about three to about 32 times as far from the Sun as Neptune.

"Our newly discovered object is the coldest most distant place known in the Solar System," Mike Brown, one of the three American discoverers of the planet, wrote on his website, "so we feel it is appropriate to name it in honor of Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the sea, who is thought to live at the bottom of the frigid Arctic Ocean.” (Thank you, Wikipedia.)

While terrifying frigidity is a key characteristic of the Skeleton Woman, many have found her a figure of feminine warmth and love. My blogging endeavours seem to bear out Françoise Cloutier’s suggestion that this tale is very important to many women on their journey. I came across more than one blog in which women reported that they found her to be a source of strength and solace.

Estés sees the two sides of the Skeleton Woman as intertwined, or perhaps, in a way, the same.

“The archetype of the Life/Death/Life force is grossly misunderstood throughout many modern cultures” she writes on Page 135 of Women Who Run With the Wolves. “Some no longer understand that Lady Death is loving and that life will be renewed through her ministrations.”

It is hardly surprising that this theme should attract Françoise Aline Cloutier, who began moving toward a career as a Jungian analyst after a first career in information technology. Since opening her practice in Jungian analysis in 2001, she has made the finding of hope in hopelessness one of the themes of her career.

The Inuit tale of healing leads us to our reading seminar that begins October 31 on “Illness and Healing: Healing the Body-Mind/The Way to Wholeness.” Four members of our Jung Society—Murray Shugar, Molly Baker, Dawn Duquet and Mary Harsany—will lead discussion of readings from the writings of Guy Corneau, Marion Woodman and Edward Whitmont, just to name a few. The sessions will be at 6:30 p.m. on four Mondays: October 31, November 7 and December 5 and 12 in the Westmount Public Library. See the enclosed flyer.

Also stay tuned for an innovation in our programs on Saturday, November 12 when we will be hosting an all-day smorgasbord of presentations by Montreal therapists on “Sampling the Dream World.” Our talented speakers will be Yvon Rivière, Ted Fillery, Layne Dalfen, Diann Ilnicki, and Susan Meindl. See the next newsletter for more details.

On another subject, our society is seeking to cut costs and thereby keep our various fees from rising, and to “go green,” by making more use of electronic communications, including email and our website, and thus cutting down on paper and postage. At least for the time being, the paper newsletter is not being discontinued entirely, but we would appreciate word from you about whether you would prefer to continue to receive the newsletter on paper.

Contact our editor at murray.shugar@sympatico.ca.

We would also like to replace the audiotapes of our lectures that we now offer with something more up-to-date like CDs and add some audiovisual content to our website. Our technical skills in this department are limited and we would like to hear from anyone who could lend us a hand.

Also let me mention that notwithstanding our efforts to control costs, we still depend on fees to put on programs, publicize them and put out the newsletter. Annual dues are payable in the fall. Please renew if you have not done so already.

—Harvey Shepherd

Volume 37, Newsletter #1, August 2011

Creativity.

That will be the theme with which the C. G. Jung Society will begin our 2011-12 program year on Friday, September 23. A conversation on that topic with two outstanding local analysts, Jan Bauer and Guy Corneau, will be the keynote of an evening at the de Sève Cinema in the downtown Concordia University campus that will also provide an occasion to renew acquaintances and make new friendships over refreshments.

There is plenty to discuss. On the one hand, the word can denote a wellspring of energy and insight for those of us associated with the Jungian project. On the other, the word can be used to cover a multitude of mawkish and sentimental sins.

As an old-timer in our society, may I add that the word creativity has a resonance for me from the collage workshops under the title “Opening Channels to the Creative” that the late Edith Wallace led in Montreal over a number of years? They exemplified both sides of the tension I have just mentioned. On the one hand, participants in these workshops often found them moving and rewarding and there were deeply emotional moments. On the other, there was nothing mawkish in Edith Wallace’s manner or how she conducted the workshops.

Pondering how I might stir up discussion on this topic, I turned to the index of a book on my summer reading list: Volume IV of the Collected English Papers of the anything-but-mawkish Wolfgang Giegerich. The volume has the general title The Soul Always Thinks and was published last year by Spring Journal Books of New Orleans.

Wolfgang didn’t let me down. On pages 252 and 253 (well ahead of where my bookmark was at that time in the summer) are some provocative comments on the “great dream.” Commenting on a letter Jung wrote to Sir Herbert Read in 1960, Giegerich takes exception to Jung’s comment that the great dream “consists of the many small dreams.” Giegerich responds:

What a letdown! A few sentences earlier Jung had—correctly, I think—still said, “It is the great dream which has always spoken through the artist as a mouthpiece.” The “great dream” as conceived in this statement is precisely not the sum of the private “small dreams,” but a totally other phenomenon: the work of great art, which is a priori public, belonging to the whole nation, if not humanity, and the product of the whole man (homo totus), including his wakeful consciousness and all his intellectual power. Great art and, by the same token, great thinking, do not come out of “the unconscious” conceived naturalistically and positivistically as a mysterious anthropological constant and a reservoir of timeless archetypes, not out of the personality of the individual (his interior). They come out of the real, concrete historical situation of each respective time, out of the fundamental truths, the open questions and deep conflicts of the age that press both for an articulate representation and an answer. They (the truths, questions and conflicts of the age) are the source, the prima materia and the real subject of production (“creativity”). And they are neither individual nor collective but—logical (which takes us into a wholly other dimension) ... In them and in the great works produced by them, not in himself, not in his “unconscious,” man has his soul and this is why the locus of “the whole weight of mankind’s problems” is in those great works. In them and their succession we find the opus magnum.

… The great artist or thinker is no more than an alchemical vessel in which the great problems of the time are the prime matter undergoing their fermenting corruption, distillation, sublimation and of course articulation.

I don’t know what Jan Bauer and Guy Corneau may think of this or how much it will bear on whatever they have to say to us on September 23. What is sure is that neither Jan nor Guy is any stranger to “the fundamental truths, the open questions and deep conflicts” of our time, as you can see in part in Murray Shugar’s review in this issue of Guy’s latest book, Revivre. As you will also see, Guy has much to say on creativity in this book. Jan’s presentations in Montreal over the years have often focused on what light Jungian psychology may shed on the issues of the day.

Anyway, I hope these notes will help get some juices flowing in anticipation of our season-opening event.

The event will introduce an interesting season. Another local analyst well acquainted with issues of the public world will be our lecturer in October. Now an analyst in private practice in Montreal, Françoise Cloutier has a master’s degree in business administration and worked as a senior consultant in information technology before her passion for symbols and deep respect for the unfolding of the psyche prompted her to train at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich. Her interests include the sometimes difficult experiences of no hope found in depression, in illnesses and sometimes in periods of life transition. Her intriguing topic will be “The Skeleton Woman.”

In November we plan a seminar on dreams that will feature brief presentations by several Montreal analysts and others. Stay tuned for details. The fall program will close in December with a presentation by Montreal semi-expatriate Ginette Paris, who will draw on material from her recent book Heartbreak: Recovery from Lost Love and Mourning brought out this year by Mill City Press of Minneapolis. The book is probably less sentimental than you might expect; its cover advises us to “Look at your broken heart with the curiosity of a naturalist, as you would pay attention to your pet, to understand what is going on.”

Let me close with a reminder that membership in our society is on an academic-year basis. Your membership is probably due for renewal.

—Harvey Shepherd

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2010-2011

Volume 36, Newsletter #1

A Note From the Co-President

You may be surprised to be receiving this newsletter now, during what would usually be the summer lull for our society. We need to tell you about some historic moments that will soon have an impact on the life of the Jungian enterprise in Montreal.

On the one hand, Montreal has the honour of being the host city for the eighteenth congress of the International Association for Jungian Psychology (IAAP), which will bring Jungian analysts and others from around the world to our city August 22-27. Another moment is the publication last October, after more than half a century under wraps, of a sumptuous edition of Jung’s illustrated journal the Liber Novus, or Red Book. Some of those dedicated to carrying on Jung’s work consider this a significant turning point in the ongoing effort to understand Jung and his work.

Inevitably, but in some ways unfortunately, the international congress is a professional event restricted to Jungian analysts and certain others. Only a few members of our society are eligible to attend it. However, organizers of the congress have opened two events to the general public, including members of the C. G. Jung Society of Montreal. For this we are grateful to the Montreal Jungian analysts, and most especially Tom Kelly, chair of the conference program committee.

One session will be devoted to the Red Book. Its editor, Sonu Shamdasani, will present a talk on Monday evening, August 23 entitled “Liber Novus: From Personal Cosmology to General Psychology.”

The other session also stems largely from a recent publishing event. On Thursday evening, August 26, a distinguished group of Jungians will present a dramatic reading based on the correspondence between Jung and the Dominican priest and scholar Victor White between 1945 and 1950. Among the performers will be two of the editors of The Jung-White Letters published in 2007 by Routledge in the Philemon Series. This dialogue is particularly topical today, when the place of religion is a source of controversy.

The Red Book will also be the focus of the event that will launch the 2010-2011 program year of our own society. Two Jungian analysts in Montreal — Tom Kelly and Yvon Rivière — will discuss this book and present some of its images, in the course of an evening in Fulford Hall, downtown in the office tower behind Christ Church Cathedral. The evening will also provide an occasion for socializing.

The enclosed flyers present details of all three of these events. The two public events will take place at the conference hotel, the Queen Elizabeth. (It strikes me as fitting, considering the complex contrasexuality of Jungian thought, that the conference is taking place at an establishment known in French as Le Reine Elizabeth.)

As we take the opportunity to enjoy these two events in company with stars from the Jungian firmament, I urge those of our members who attend to be aware that this will involve some logistical issues. People at the admission desk will have to sort out members of the general public, including members of our society, from participants in the congress. (These will have paid a substantial fee to attend the conference.) Members of the public and of the Jung Society will be required to pay admission. Please bring your current membership card to avail yourself of the reduced fee.

I trust that these events will provide a flying start for our own program year, which will feature another look at the topic of synchronicity, to which we devoted the latest of our reading seminar series last fall. Jean-François Vézina, “explorateur de l’inconscient et peintre du silence,” as he describes himself on his entertaining website and blog at www.jfvezina.net, will discuss this topic (in English) under the title “Necessary Chances” on Friday evening, October 15, and at a half-day workshop the next day on synchronicity in movies.

On November 5 and 6, we will follow up on our enormously successful Ira Progoff intensive workshop of last January with a Level II journaling workshop, again led by Avis Smalley of Vermont. It is a prerequisite of participating in this program that one have completed a Level I workshop like ours of last January.

There may be an opportunity for those who missed the January weekend to attend one in October. At last report, Cedar Park United Church in Pointe Claire was trying to organize a Level I workshop, probably October 1-2. For more information, send an email to Graeme Sutherland of the church at graeme.renate@sympatico.ca. You can also call the church office at (514) 695-3337 or our own number at (514) 481-8664.

It is sometimes suggested that psychotherapy is primarily for “neurotics,” but from the beginning Jungian psychology has also been challenged and enriched by the experiences and visions of those with more debilitating emotional conditions. Some of them too have found Jungian approaches helpful, perhaps as an adjunct to other types of therapy.

Here in Montreal, we in the C. G. Jung Society of Montreal, and people in more than one faith community, mourn Marie-Claire Strickland, who died suddenly in late April at the age of 68, after what her family described in the newspaper announcement as "a courageous lifelong struggle with mental health challenges.”

Again quoting from the newspaper obituary, Marie-Claire, née Charlebois, “was a lifelong learner, an inspirational teacher at Macdonald-Cartier High School (in Saint-Hubert), and a compassionate friend. We will remember her active mind, her heartfelt laughter, and her burning desire to help others.” Indeed. Some of us in the Jung society will particularly remember her abiding interest in spirituality and her ability to laugh at herself.

Donations in her memory may be made to AMI-Québec, Alliance for the Mentally Ill, a grass-roots, support and advocacy organization of families and friends of people with a mental illness; the website is at www.amiquebec.org.

—Harvey Shepherd

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Volume 36, Newsletter #2

A Note From the Co-President

“Everything is connected and the web is holy,” wrote a second-century Roman emperor. In so doing, Marcus Aurelius, revered as an exemplar of the Platonic ideal of the philosopher king, provided our society with a motto for the reading seminar we organized last spring on Jung’s concept of synchronicity.

Our programmes in October will continue to explore some of the interwoven strands in the complex pattern of Jungian psychology and of recent developments in the Jungian world. We began this process late this summer as we lent a helping hand to the gathering of nearly 700 analysts and others from around the world at the XVIIIth congress of the International Association for Analytical Psychology.

In particular, twelve of our members participated as volunteers, performing routine services and in exchange attending sessions of the congress. In reality, this opportunity was out of all proportion to the services we rendered, and I would like to express our appreciation to the Montreal analysts, particularly Tom Kelly, for according us this great privilege. We also want to give Tom our congratulations on his election as president-elect of the IAAP (which means that, barring unforeseen circumstances, he is will become the next president).

Our society co-sponsored two events during the convention that were open to our members and the general public. One of them was an evening devoted to the much-heralded and long-awaited publication of The Red Book, Carl Jung’s account of the seminal and personal exploration of his own unconscious through a pioneering venture in what has come to be known as active imagination. The other event was a dramatic reading drawn from the recently published edition of the correspondence between Jung and the English Dominican priest Victor White between 1945 and 1960, dealing largely with the problem of evil.

The Red Book also provided the theme for our own social gathering on September 24, which launched our 2010-11 season. Tom Kelly and Montreal analyst Yvon Rivière discussed The Red Book at this gathering, which was also the annual occasion for members and friends of our society to renew acquaintances, if they had not already done so over the busy summer.

Synchronicity will be the theme of our first regular lecture-workshop weekend of the fall. Jean-François Vézina, a clinical psychologist in Quebec City, former president of the Cercle Jung de Québec in that city, author, communicator, movie buff, and “explorateur de l’inconscient,” as he puts it on his Web page (which is well worth a visit at http://www.jfvezina.net) has devoted a lot of attention to synchronicity over the years. “Necessary chances: synchronicity in the encounters that transform us” will be the topic of his lecture on Friday evening, October 15. It is also the title of a book he has written.

I had the opportunity to meet him a few times, all too briefly, alas, at the IAAP Montreal congress and am greatly looking forward to deepening this acquaintance during that weekend—his first with our society. His three-hour workshop on Saturday, October 16 will explore synchronicity further with the help of excerpts from movies. (Please see the enclosed flyer for details.)

If our reading seminar series on synchronicity last year probably played a part in our selection of synchronicity as the topic of the Vézina weekend, these series are also responsible in part for putting us in touch with the leader of our other October event. Olga Lipadatova came to the attention of members of our society largely through her participation in some of our previous seminars. The art workshops she will lead on four Thursday evenings between October 7 and 28 represent our society’s continuing concern to balance intellectual and hands-on activity in our programmes. They will also build on a renewed interest in active imagination spurred by The Red Book.

The workshops will take place at her Centre AION at 2902 Lacombe Avenue, near the Université de Montréal Métro station. As with the Vézina weekend, those seeking more details on the Lipadatova series can refer to her website at http://arttherapyolipa.com. Please register early by calling (514) 481-8664 as spaces are limited. Members: $120, non-members: $150.

What goes around comes around, and plans are already well advanced for our next reading seminar series on four Monday evenings November 1 and 8 and, after a two-week break, November 29 and December 6. Members of our society will lead discussions of readings from Jung and Jungians on “The stranger living within us.” Please see the enclosed flyer for more details.

November events will also include a Part II Ira Progoff journaling weekend (building on our Progoff weekend in the previous programme year) November 5 and 6. This is limited to people who have attended the Introductory Workshop (Part I). (Those who attend the event at the Cedar Park Church on October 1 & 2 may be interested in joining us for Part II.) November 26 and 27 there will be a lecture and workshop on Mary Magdalene with Ingrid Eisermann of Toronto, who will be visiting our society for the first time. Stay tuned for more details.

Our programmes, we think and hope, continue to be marked by a rich diversity of material, somehow centering around what we think of as the Self.

Toronto analyst Daryl Sharp makes a similar comment in his latest book, published this year by the Toronto publishing house he heads, Inner City Books, with the title Living Your Nonsense: Halfway to Dawn with Eros. It’s the latest in a series of books in which some profound ideas are wrapped up in a light-hearted romp through Jungian psychology and Sharp’s own autobiography.

He writes:

I am writing this book, or maybe just typing, but behind it all is the guiding hand of a guiding centre in my psyche, playing me like a puppet. I am not master in my own house. I am a renter at best, my ego sharing space with the panoply of saints and knaves, nobles and villains, with a landlord more or less indifferent to the lot. I mean to say, we are answerable to a higher power whether we like it or not. You might call it God, Gnu or what have you. I call it the Self, because it’s part and parcel of my mental infrastructure as a Jungian analyst. (p. 30)

It’s a book you may well enjoy.

Please don’t forget to renew your society membership if you have not yet done so. Our society depends on your support.

—Harvey Shepherd