With the moral authority of both church leaders and politicians at an all-time low, people now look to psychology for guidance concerning their interior lives as well as their public lives. A rich source of such guidance is Erich Neumann, one of C. G. Jung’s most prestigious student associates, who fled Nazi Germany to live in Tel Aviv in the 1930s. Surviving two world wars and the Holocaust, he published his first book in 1949 to help avoid even worse disasters in the future. His explanation of shadow projection as a central ingredient of war and racism sheds important light on today’s global disasters and suggests some possible solutions.

Father Otto Betler OSB studied theology at The Catholic University of America in the 1980s, was for seven years Novice Master of Europe's largest monastery of men, practices analytical psychology in Bavaria, and teaches at the C. G. Jung Institute of Zürich, Switzerland. His coming book, Analyzing the Church's Shadow–and Ours, revisits Neumann's "New Ethic" and will appear in 2024 from Texas A & M University Press.

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Anthology of Contemporary Theoretical Classics in Analytical Psychology: 

The New Ancestors

    A Four-Week Interactive Reading Seminar

This is a ZOOM event.
Registration Links:

April 18:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIufuirqTgoGtza2WMmZ7RRdBb0SYeM7FZg

April 25:https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZItfu6qqT8uH9SscljY9ip_ebKSRFnIte3L

May 2: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZErc-GrpzwuH9zTPvbuuMH8QklZ1WH_g-xl

May 9: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUvcOGpqj8rG9cPsjGJVUqCoWXC25JPNOuv

Thursdays: April 18, 25, May 2, 9

7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. (EDT)

FREE ADMISSION

Readings will be sent upon registration.

Please read the materials before each session to enhance the conversation.

  April 18

The Dao of Anima Mundi

Heyong Shen, draws our attention to the “mysterious heart of Dao” which expresses his understanding of ““the world soul”—anima mundi”.

The Dao (the Meaning and the Way) is called “Great”. The Great “conveys the symbolic meaning of transforming and attaining what is beyond man.” This, Shen states, “has profound implications for our understanding of individuation …”

Carol Knowlton-Dority is a Toronto based Visual Artist whose practice brings together contemporary visual art, meditation and interactive experiences Carol’s work offers ways of exploring and developing compassion for the deep parts of oneself and of others.

April 25

Hesitation and Slowness: Gateway to Psyche’s Depth

“He who hesitates is lost,” warned an old adage. However, according to Stanton Marlan and a myriad of other sources, quickness often betrays psyche. “Hesitation follows the curve of psyche into empty spaces … that the direct path ignores or covers over.” In other words “it is a deepening of interiority and psychological space.” It might even foster curiosity and wonder.

  This essay may well propose an antidote to contemporary society’s rush to the newer and faster model.

Murray Shugar is the editor of the Montreal Jung Society newsletter and website.

 May 2

On Jung’s View of the Self:

An Investigation

This evening’s text is a challenging read that may prompt lively debate like the testy exchanges between Jung himself and the theologians Martin Buber and Victor White. Based largely on  Mysterium Coniunctionis, Jung’s late treatise on the self, the chapter, by the eminent Jungian analyst Murray Stein, grapples with an issue even more challenging in today`s secularist climate: whether the “self” is a psychological or a theological concept.

Harvey Shepherd is a retired newspaper reporter and editor, whose specialties sometimes included religion. He has been a member of the C. G. Jung Society of Montreal for a large part of its half-century of existence. He was president for a while. He has read bits of Mysterium Coniunctionis and hopes some day to do a deeper dive into the book itself.

May 9

From Neurosis to a New Cure of Souls

The original medical aim of psychotherapy was the removal of pathology and the return to normal living. Jung departed from this when he opened psychotherapy to a spiritual attitude. The development of the personality became a new aim and also a way of recovering a sense of meaning and creating a new way of life grounded in psychology.

Susan Meindl is a psychologist and Psychoanalyst in private practice in Montreal.