Is Narcissism becoming normalized in our culture?  Explore the psychological roots and behaviors of those dominated by this personality disorder.  How does Narcissism relate to Envy?  What is the relationship between Narcissism and low self-esteem?  Narcissists frequently use manipulative tactics to maintain power over others. A heightened awareness of such psyche phenomenon is a person's only protection against victimhood.  

          A person with strong Narcissistic tendencies is unable to enter into the Individuation process and is thus blocked from further psychological development.

          This presentation aims to answer many questions that surround Narcissism, including is the mother to blame and why a Narcissist is often idealized.  Since everyone is a bit narcissistic at times, participants will certainly become more aware of their own behavior after this review.  Also, participants will be reminded that psychic infection is real:  what is going on in one person cam immigrate into another.  This is an unconscious process that much be realized and addressed.

For 34 years Kaye Lindauer, MS, MLS, M.DIV,  has taught classes at Chautauqua Institution on Jungian psychology, literature, poetry, and mythology.  In addition, she teaches adult education classes for OASIS EVERYWHERE ( including a class in March, " From Medieval Alchemy to Jungian Psychology"). For the past 32 years, Kaye has lectured for Road Scholar and will present a program on Emerson in May.  Recently, she gave a presentation on Emily Dickinson for the Western Massachusetts Jung Society which is available to view on their Web site.  Kaye taught graduate courses at Syracuse University for twenty-five years while speaking widely at conferences and coordinating retreats.  Kaye has studied at the Jung Institute and at ISAP in Zurich. 

"Many people face a late-life identity crisis with the transitions to retirement, illness, loss, care giving, or simply advancing age. They may ask again, Who am I? as the ego’s lifelong identity of Doer disappears, and heroic values of success and image lose their grip. This can feel disorienting and frightening and result in a loss of meaning. But there is a deeper call if we tune in and listen: the call of the soul. If we deny this call to make an inner shift, we won’t cross the threshold from role to soul and discover the spiritual gifts of age.
This presentation will explore the psychological and spiritual potential of this passage, as we learn to use shadow-work to shift our identities from ego to Self, from what we do to who we are -- from role to soul. With this inner shift, we find renewed meaning and vitality and a sense of freedom to become who we truly are."

Connie Zweig, Ph.D., is a retired therapist, writer, Climate Reality Leader, and Citizens Climate Lobbyist. Known as the Shadow Expert, she is co-author of Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow and a novel, A Moth to the Flame: The Life of Sufi Poet Rumi. Her award-winning book, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, extends her work on the Shadow into midlife and beyond and explores aging as a spiritual practice.  Her newest book, Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening, explores shadow-work in the religious and spiritual arena. She is a wife, stepmother, and grandmother. After all these roles, she’s practicing the shift from role to soul.

In Martin Scorsese's 2023 movie, Killers of the Flower Moon, archetypal energies of senex and puer collude to bury the feminine in oil-rich, post-World War I Oklahoma. In this presentation, Dr John Bebe will explore how these phantomatic complexes can shadow individuals' psychic development and how they undermine relatedness in the politics of our own time. Participants are asked to see the movie in advance of coming to the presentation.

John Beebe, a past president of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, is co-author, with Virginia Apperson, of The Presence of the Feminine in Film. John has spearheaded a Jungian typological approach to the analysis of film. He was founding editor of The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal (now Jung Journal and is the author of Integrity in Depth and Energies and Patterns in Psychological Type.

For the first presentation of 2024, noted teacher and director of the Depth Psychology Alliance, Dr. James Newell, will present a talk on general principles of Jungian psychology, ideal for newcomers as well as those familiar with Jungian concepts. 

In this presentation, Dr. Newell will introduce aspects of Jung’s life along with specifics of Jung's lifelong project of helping others to make the unconscious conscious. Some topics covered will include the process of individuation, the mythic imagination, complexes, the collective unconscious, archetypes, dreamwork, the Red Book, and Jung’s own innovative approach to the unconscious: active imagination. Below is Dr. Newell's description of his talk:

"Psychologist Carl Jung is one of the twentieth century's most innovative and influential figures. Jung’s theories were so far ahead of their time when he formulated them that they are still ahead of their time today. Over a century has passed since Jung presented some of his most important ideas, and still scientific and academic psychology have yet to catch up with his visionary achievements. It is no exaggeration to say that his work has produced a Copernican revolution in psychology, the development of personality, as well as Western culture at large."

James Newell, PhD, is an educator, professional musician, and the director of the Depth Psychology Alliance. He earned his master’s degree in Pastoral Counseling and Theology from Vanderbilt University Divinity School, with a focus on Jungian psychology, and earned a doctorate in History of Religions from the Vanderbilt University Graduate School of Religion. James has taught courses in world religions for various universities and teaches online courses in Jungian psychology.  For the past several years he has been developing a certification program in depth psychology offered through the Depth Psychology Alliance

Sunday, November 12, 2023, 3-5pm CST

Nonnie Cullipher, M.Ed., is an educator and former Executive Director of Journey into Wholeness, a southeastern-based organization that offered national and international conferences, vision quests, and workshops on Jungian psychology. For this book she selected from recordings of myths and fairy tales told by Robert Johnson at Journey into Wholeness events, asking noted Jungiananalysts who were friends of Johnson's to introduce each story. This discussion will include personal stories about Robert Johnson and audios of him telling two of the stories. 

Storytime with Robert: Robert Johnson Tells His Favorite Stories and Myths is recommended reading, but not necessary to join the discussion. To order the book, you can find it here.

Dr. James Hollis, esteemed author, teacher, and Jungian analyst, is a favorite speaker of Jung groups around the world, including our Nashville Jung Circle. We were honored to host Dr. Hollis in person in 2017 and 2018 and via Zoom in 2021. Dr. Hollis returns online in October, 2023, to discuss the personal stories we each live by, based on his recent book, The Broken Mirror. In describing this upcoming talk, Dr. Hollis says:

We are creatures who need to understand, at any cost. And so we 'story' our experiences, and those stories, provisional, localized, and often created at an early stage of our history, become defining narratives. The disarray of our histories nevertheless can be a powerful clue to the “meta-stories” to which we have been in service to for many years. Until these “narrative interpretations” can be smoked out, we remain their captive. In a series of questions, we will be invited to examine the stories we have been serving, and then engage stories that honor what wants to unfold from within us.

The Broken Mirror: Refracted Visions of Ourselves is recommended reading for this event.

“CIRCLING THE LABYRINTH” IS NOW ON ZOOM!

3:00pm-5pm CST

For some months our group has been“circling the labyrinth,” (excuse the pun), going round and round with plans for an in-person labyrinth workshop.  Are some mysterious energies at play – the Trickster? Mercury in retrograde? In all seriousness, due to a resurgence of Covid cases, we havecancelled this as an in-person event.  As Jungians we acknowledge that the unexpected is always emerging, and keeping everyone safe must come first.

The good news is that we have reconfigured the event to be a free Zoom presentation. We will discuss the labyrinth’s history and relationship to Jungian psychology, how to use a labyrinth walk as a meditation, and a discussion of the fantasy films “Labyrinth,” and “Pan’s Labyrinth.” There will also be time for visiting with old friends and meeting those new to the Nashville Jung Circle.

In preparation for this fun and free event to begin our new season of programming, you may enjoy watching one or both films, which are available on multiple streaming platforms. Also, if you have had a meaningful experience with a labyrinth walk, please consider sharing this during the meeting.

Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Practice by Lauren Artress is wonderful companion book for this process.

The intractable nature of the gun violence problem in the United States resists meaningful analysis. Even more so, the problem resists effective solutions. Perhaps this resistance itself is meaningful, pointing to the cloaking of deeper problems in the American psyche.

Pushing beyond the usual historical background of the so-called gun culture, this presentation will examine both the psychology of homicide by firearm and the collective myths and complexes that make this violence so prevalent. These myths and complexes both heighten the propensity to target and shoot others and lower the capacity for the soul-searching necessary to effectively change this propensity. 

This Zoom presentation will conclude with a discussion of where responsibility for this violence lives, and where transformative possibilities may lie.  

Glen Slater, Ph.D. has taught for over two decades at Pacifica Graduate Institute where he currently chairs the Jungian and Archetypal Psychology Program. He has written articles and book chapters for Jungian publications, edited the third volume of James Hillman’s Uniform Edition, Senex and Puer, and co-edited the essay collection, Varieties of Mythic Experience. His research and writing interests concern Jung and film, the psychology of religion, and depth psychology and technology. His book on Jung and posthumanism will be published early in 2023.

Jung wrote that the primary purpose of life is the development of "more and more consciousness." Becoming a conscious elder takes a lifetime of psychological and spiritual development, with plenty of pitfalls and faux arrivals along the way.

This 90-minute Zoom retreat, led by author and life stage expert Carol Orsborn, Ph.D.,  is situated at the intersection of adult and spiritual development, drawing upon the work of scholars and mystics from Erik Erikson and Carl Jung to James Hollis and Pema Chodron. The workshop will be a gentle weaving together of life stage theory, journaling and group discussion.

Carol Orsborn, Ph.D. is the author of 35 books on conscious aging, spirituality and life stage development.  She received her Doctorate from Vanderbilt University in the History and Critical Theory of Religion and is curator of the Fierce with Age Archives.

This Zoom lecture will contrast Jung’s notion of the Self as the God within with traditional theistic approaches to the divine and describe the range of ways in which the Self may appear within the psyche. Dr. Corbett will also discuss how Jung’s approach allows the development of a personal spirituality rather than one based on doctrine and dogma.

Dr. Lionel Corbett trained in medicine and psychiatry in England and as a Jungian Analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago. Dr. Corbett, the author of six books and numerous articles, is a professor of depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute, in Santa Barbara, California, where he teaches depth psychology. His primary focus is on the religious function of the psyche.

You asked, we heard! In January, we are launching our first Nashville Jung Circle dream group. Join us on Zoom with Laura Hillman for a free introduction to the art and soul of group dreamwork. This 90-minute session will offer lively and insightful ways to work with metaphor, symbol, and dreams. You will learn ways to work with your own dreams and practice some group dreamwork skills.
 
After this introductory meeting you may want to join the dream group.  There will be 8 sessions, on 2nd and 4th Thursdays from January 26th through Mary 11th. There are spaces for 6 dreamers. 
 
Note: Projective group dreamwork is quite different from personal dream analysis. We focus on the dream, not the dreamer, and we approach the dream as we would a soul poem or a fairy tale from the Self. You will find each dream to offer deep significance for you, and you will learn ways to continue creative dreamwork on your own. However, this is not a therapeutic circle, and we honor good personal boundaries in our work -Laura Hileman

The group will be facilitated by Laura Huff Hileman, M.A., M.S., a former NJC Board member and a longtime dreamworker certified at the Haden Institute, where she now mentors. She offers other groups and dreamwork opportunities through her practice, Fire by Night Dreamwork.

Zoom presentation with Tony Caldwell, LCSW

Join us as Jungian psychotherapist Tony Caldwell, LCSW, delves into the complex topic of masculinity. Tony will lead a discussion that explores the concept of masculinity through a Jungian lens. We will address the constellation of factors that inhibit human flourishing, starting with the socialization of boys and making our way through the lifespan.

In this presentation we will explore masculinity as a philosophical and psychological concept, as energetic expression, and as the product of familial considerations in the nurturing system, socialization experiences in the sustaining system, and social sanctioning on the regional and societal levels. We will also address aspects of masculinity as they relate to, are informed by,  and often perpetuate, transgenerational trauma, violence, oppression, repression, splitting, and the accumulation of collective shadow.

Drawing from the works of Jung, Von Franz, Woodman, Hillman, and including a recording of a conversation Tony had with James Hollis about the socialization of men, we will explore developmental and archetypal considerations at the intrapsychic, interpersonal, and collective levels

Zoom discussion led by
Dr. Karen Harper and Alan Scalpone

UFOs, ghosts, faeries…such liminal, uncanny phenomena have been a part of humanity as far back as the record goes. C.G. Jung had a life-long psychological interest in the paranormal and documented many fascinating experiences of his own. Jung came to understand the rich field of strange occurrences as indelible parts of reality. They are “psychic facts” pointing the way to a deeper understanding of the Self. The paranormal can be eerie and unsettling; quite frequently it is thought-provoking, numinous and transcendental.   

 Please join Karen Harper Ph.D., LCSW, and Alan Scalpone for an online conversation about these strange borderlands of reality and the captivating stories that live there. Participants will be encouraged to share their own thoughts and experiences in discussions and breakout rooms.

Jung and Creativity
For C.G. Jung, creativity is a natural process of the psyche. Creative activity can be healing for the individual and even transformational for both the individual and culture. In this presentation Dr. James Newell will discuss the distinction between creativity as a healing practice, creativity as craft, as art, and as high art. Any discussion of Jung and creativity must be understood in the context of Jung’s understanding of psychological maturation, or the process of individuation. As such, Dr. Newell’s presentation will include a discussion of individuation and its relation to the creative process. This presentation will also serve as an introduction to an eight week college-level course on Jung, Creativity, and the Arts offered this fall through the Depth Psychology Academy. 

James Newell, PhD, is an educator, professional musician, and the director of the Depth Psychology Alliance. James earned his master’s degree in Pastoral Counseling and Theology from Vanderbilt University Divinity School, with a focus on Jungian psychology. He earned his doctorate in History of Religions from the Vanderbilt University Graduate School of Religion. James has taught courses in world religions for Western Kentucky University, Central Michigan University, Excelsior College, and other schools. For the past several years he has been developing a certification program in depth psychology offered through the Depth Psychology Alliance.

Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey
led by Mark Winborn, Ph.D., NCPsyA

This presentation by author and Jungian analyst Mark Winborn, Ph.D., NCPsyA, will explore the archetypal journey of the human psyche through an examination of the blues as a musical genre. The genesis, history, and thematic patterns of the blues are examined from an archetypal perspective and various analytic theories – especially the interaction between Erich Neumann’s concept of unitary reality and the blues experience. Mythological and shamanistic parallels are used to provide a deeper understanding of the role of the bluesman, the blues performance, and the innate healing potential of the music. Universal aspects of human experience and transcendence are revealed through the creative medium of the blues.

The presentation will be augmented by visual images, audio recordings, and video to deepen the audience’s involvement in the themes explored.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will:

• Learn to identify archetypal patterns in blues music.

• Learn how the experience of blues music can be understood through
  Jung’s concept of participation mystique.

• Will develop greater awareness of emotional themes permeating daily life and the process of psychotherapy through blues music.

• Will develop an understanding of psychological and cultural influences which led to the development of the blues as a distinct genre of music.

Suggested Reading: Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey (Fisher King Press)

Mark Winborn, PhD, NCPsyA is a Jungian Psychoanalyst and Clinical Psychologist. He received his MS and PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Memphis in 1987 and his certificate in Jungian Analysis from the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts in 1999. Dr. Winborn is a training/supervising analyst of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts, the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland, and the Moscow Association for Analytical Psychology. He currently serves on the American Board for Accreditation in Psychoanalysis and the Ethics Committee of the International Association for Analytical Psychology. Dr. Winborn is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Analytical Psychology and the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, as well as being a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis.

Dr. Winborn is the author of Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey (2011) and Shared Realities: Participation Mystique and Beyond (2014) and Interpretation in Jungian Analysis: Art and Technique (2018), as well as journal articles, book reviews, and two books forthcoming from Routledge Press. He lectures nationally and internationally and maintains a private practice in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was the Training Coordinator for the Memphis-Atlanta Jungian Seminar from 2010 - 2016. https://drmarkwinborn.com/

What are You Dreaming?
led by Laura Hileman, M.A., M.S.

In this time of increasing crisis and instability, what are you dreaming? We know that our nightly dreams wake us up to our personal individuation process. Jeremy Taylor writes that our dreams generate creativity and wholeness on collective levels, too: they mirror society as a whole, as well as our relationship to it. Furthermore, he claims that our dreams, and our conscious dreamwork, “foster and reflect the evolution of human consciousness.”

This possibility offers a wild hope in a time of looming despair. Join Laura Huff Hileman, a Jungian-oriented dreamworker, for a conversation about the power of dreams in personal and collective individuation, then join a breakout group for optional sharing of your own dreams. We’ll conclude with a creative exercise to deepen your own dreamwork practice.

Laura Huff Hileman, M.A., M.S., is a Jungian-oriented dreamworker and spiritual director, formerly on the board of the Nashville Jung Circle. She trained at The Haden Institute, where she now mentors in the Dreamwork Program. Since 2000 she has facilitated dream groups and individual dreamwork through her practice, Fire by Night. She lives and works in Jonesborough, TN, where she enjoys family, mountains, and new challenges in dreamwork as a resilience resource for environmental activists. Be in touch at laura@firebynight.net and www.firebynight.net.

The Earth Has a Soul: C.G. Jung on Nature, Technology, and Modern Life Two-part Book Discussion
led by Karen Harper, Ph.D. and Adele Tyler, M.S.S.

On February 20th and March 20th, 2022, the Nashville Jung Circle will host a two-part book discussion of The Earth has a Soul: C. G. Jung on Nature, Technology, and Modern Life, a compilation of Jung’s writings on Nature, selected and edited by Meredith Sabini from Jung’s published works, speeches, seminars, interviews, and letters. The book shows a more intimate, poetic side of Jung than his academic writings reveal and is a personal testament to his living out his theories through an embrace of the natural world.

This compilation is divided into chapters based on subject matter, with a brief introduction by the editor in each section to provide context. The book opens with excerpts from Memories, Dreams, Reflections and personal letters, where Jung tells of formative childhood experiences in nature, experiences with indigenous peoples in Africa and the American southwest, and stories of building and utilizing his Bollingen tower retreat. The overall theme is Jung’s concern for modern man’s loss of connection to Nature. Stating that civilization took a “wrong turn” as it evolved from a religious to a scientific viewpoint, Jung argues that advancements in technology have left humans with an estrangement from the natural world, which he equates to losing a part of one’s soul.

In the Preface, Sabini explains that she organized Jung’s extensive writings on this subject by imagining posing a series of questions to Jung: “How did our loss of connection with Nature come about? Was it ever any different? What are the consequences of this loss? Have we really “conquered Nature? How might this rupture be healed?” (Preface, xi).
A review of the book by Richard Reese relates Jung’s thoughts on the evolution of consciousness. Beneath the newly rational mind of modern man, the mind of the “archaic man” still exists, buried in the unconscious :

“Our conscious mind was new, infantile, incomplete, unstable, and easily injured. Jung saw it as a tiny boat floating in a vast ocean of unconscious knowledge. Like a fish out of water, we were separated from our ancient oceanic home, an unpleasant traumatic shock. In the good old days, we lived in an enchanted world where everything was sacred. But science and technology have dragged us away into a miserable manmade world where nothing is holy, and everyone is restless, anxious, and neurotic.”

Jung had a distinct mistrust of modernity. Much of what he says seems prophetic, more true some sixty years after his death than when he was expressing these views: “we have plunged down a cataract of progress which sweeps us on into the future with even wilder violence the farther it takes us from our roots.” Writing in 1961, the year of his death, Jung said: “Civilization is a most expensive process and its acquisitions have been paid for by enormous losses, the extent of which we have largely forgotten or have never appreciated.” Close to his death he had visions of catastrophes occurring in fifty years.

As remedies to this modern dilemma, Jung suggests that we turn inward, exploring our unconscious through dreams and reflection, and turn outward to spend time in nature and live in communion with the natural world. Jung himself did the latter through building his primitive retreat on Lake Zurich at Bollingen, a stone tower with no running water or electricity, both of which he thought would alienate the souls of his ancestors that he sought communion with. There he spent extended time alone, cooking on a wood stove, drawing water from a well, and raising food in his garden.

But Jung did not believe a return to primitive living was the solution, saying “the wheel of time cannot be turned back.” In excerpts in the final chapter, he suggests that our task as moderns is to retain the level of consciousness we have acquired while enriching it with experiences of the primordial world, with the goal of a balanced relationship between the conscious and the unconscious minds. The book ends with a quote about the need for cooperation between mankind and the natural world, rather than domination from either side – the union of opposites, which Jung wrote about extensively: “Nature must not win the game, but she cannot lose.”

Note: the book is available through Amazon at https://amzn.to/3E92Z0a

and also may be ordered through Parnassus Books: https://bit.ly/3q3bk0m

The Earth Has a Soul: C.G. Jung on Nature, Technology, and Modern Life Two-part Book Discussion
led by Karen Harper, Ph.D. and Adele Tyler, M.S.S.

On February 20th and March 20th, 2022, the Nashville Jung Circle will host a two-part book discussion of The Earth has a Soul: C. G. Jung on Nature, Technology, and Modern Life, a compilation of Jung’s writings on Nature, selected and edited by Meredith Sabini from Jung’s published works, speeches, seminars, interviews, and letters. The book shows a more intimate, poetic side of Jung than his academic writings reveal and is a personal testament to his living out his theories through an embrace of the natural world.

This compilation is divided into chapters based on subject matter, with a brief introduction by the editor in each section to provide context. The book opens with excerpts from Memories, Dreams, Reflections and personal letters, where Jung tells of formative childhood experiences in nature, experiences with indigenous peoples in Africa and the American southwest, and stories of building and utilizing his Bollingen tower retreat. The overall theme is Jung’s concern for modern man’s loss of connection to Nature. Stating that civilization took a “wrong turn” as it evolved from a religious to a scientific viewpoint, Jung argues that advancements in technology have left humans with an estrangement from the natural world, which he equates to losing a part of one’s soul.

In the Preface, Sabini explains that she organized Jung’s extensive writings on this subject by imagining posing a series of questions to Jung: “How did our loss of connection with Nature come about? Was it ever any different? What are the consequences of this loss? Have we really “conquered Nature? How might this rupture be healed?” (Preface, xi).
A review of the book by Richard Reese relates Jung’s thoughts on the evolution of consciousness. Beneath the newly rational mind of modern man, the mind of the “archaic man” still exists, buried in the unconscious :

“Our conscious mind was new, infantile, incomplete, unstable, and easily injured. Jung saw it as a tiny boat floating in a vast ocean of unconscious knowledge. Like a fish out of water, we were separated from our ancient oceanic home, an unpleasant traumatic shock. In the good old days, we lived in an enchanted world where everything was sacred. But science and technology have dragged us away into a miserable manmade world where nothing is holy, and everyone is restless, anxious, and neurotic.”

Jung had a distinct mistrust of modernity. Much of what he says seems prophetic, more true some sixty years after his death than when he was expressing these views: “we have plunged down a cataract of progress which sweeps us on into the future with even wilder violence the farther it takes us from our roots.” Writing in 1961, the year of his death, Jung said: “Civilization is a most expensive process and its acquisitions have been paid for by enormous losses, the extent of which we have largely forgotten or have never appreciated.” Close to his death he had visions of catastrophes occurring in fifty years.

As remedies to this modern dilemma, Jung suggests that we turn inward, exploring our unconscious through dreams and reflection, and turn outward to spend time in nature and live in communion with the natural world. Jung himself did the latter through building his primitive retreat on Lake Zurich at Bollingen, a stone tower with no running water or electricity, both of which he thought would alienate the souls of his ancestors that he sought communion with. There he spent extended time alone, cooking on a wood stove, drawing water from a well, and raising food in his garden.

But Jung did not believe a return to primitive living was the solution, saying “the wheel of time cannot be turned back.” In excerpts in the final chapter, he suggests that our task as moderns is to retain the level of consciousness we have acquired while enriching it with experiences of the primordial world, with the goal of a balanced relationship between the conscious and the unconscious minds. The book ends with a quote about the need for cooperation between mankind and the natural world, rather than domination from either side – the union of opposites, which Jung wrote about extensively: “Nature must not win the game, but she cannot lose.”

Note: the book is available through Amazon at https://amzn.to/3E92Z0a

and also may be ordered through Parnassus Books: https://bit.ly/3q3bk0m

It wasn’t long ago that fortune telling with cards was an underground art, shrouded in mystery, practiced by the marginalized, notorious, or eccentric. Today, tarot has gone mainstream and there is a proliferation of decks and a wide-spread resurgence of interest in divination. Is this a passing fad of uncertain times, or is there something deeper going on? In this lecture, Alan Scalpone will illustrate how the standard 78 card deck of tarot is indeed a highly useful tool for deep self-exploration, creative insight, and so much more. Tarot is, just like dreaming, “a royal road into the unconscious”and a way to pragmatically engage with the mysteries of the psyche to form a more durable relationship to the Self. This talk will include a discussion of the history and theory of tarot cards along with hands-on practical instruction about how to develop one’s own relationship to the cards. Most importantly, we will see how tarot divination praxis strongly resonates with the ideas and principles of C.G. Jung and Depth Psychology.  

Originally hailing from Chicago, Alan Scalpone is a multi-instrumentalist musician and composer who has played in dozens of bands and toured extensively in America and Europe. His eclectic musical career includes performance art, large scale theater works, film soundtracks, and studio work. Parallel to his music, Alan has maintained a life-long interest in the psychological, paranormal, and esoteric. Since arriving in Nashville in 2012, he has pursued this passion through the discovery of tarot and has subsequently given hundreds of readings at metaphysical shops, private gatherings, and school fairs. Alan has been lucky to have some very capable tarot mentors including T. Susan Chang and Nancy Antenucci.

"Accessing the Somatic Unconscious" is a PowerPoint presentation combined with modest movement experiences for zoom viewers. This concept of the somatic unconscious, developed from Jung himself and current somatic movement therapists, is that the body holds many repressed memories, injuries, insults, and traumas, which are not easily accessed through talk therapy. Accessing the somatic unconscious can be an important step in one's individuation process.

For 23 years Dr. Jeanne Schul taught dance at Berry College and sereved as a choreographer for and Artistic Director of the Berry College Dance Troupe. She is also a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist with ISMETA and a trainer for Eastwest Somatics Institute. She received her doctorate in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute, where currently she is an adjunct professor. Jeanne has more than 30 years of experience making connections between soma, soul, and psyche in her teaching, choreography, and therapeutic work with dreams, dance, and yoga. In her private practice, she leads dream groups, Reiki and somatic movement therapy sessions, along with therapeutic yoga classes. Jeanne has also published numerous articles and national presentations on dance, dreams, and yogic chakras.

Jungian analyst, author, and speaker Kathleen Wiley will lead a discussion on embodiment from a Jungian perspective, with the title and details of the presentation to be determined. Speaking on embodiment from a variety of perspectives, some of her past presentations have included "Embodiment in the Virtual World," "Human Being: The Interweaving of Spirit and Matter," and"Embodiment: Honoring the Divine Feminine." Kathleen Wiley is a Jungian analyst, author, and speaker living in North Carolina, where she maintains a private practice with individuals. She is known for her accessible spirit and language in exploring complex Jungian concepts. She has a passion for illuminating stories of the Holy Bible with understandings of how our body, mind, and soul take shape in us. Her work focuses on empowering people to live from a conscious connection to the larger Self, also known as God Within. She is currently working on a new book, New Life: Emerging from the Darkness, Alchemical Transformation through the Scriptures.

What is comedy? Why is it so often paired with its dark twin tragedy? Why do we laugh? Is comedy healthy, or pathological? (Freud, who was rather dour, wrote a book on the subject, and Jung, known for his earthy humor and voluminous laugh, did not). How does comedy reveal both the admirable and repulsive in our nature, our vulgarity and our sublimity?

We are excited once again to host popular author and speaker, Dr. James Hollis, who presented two memorable events for the Nashville Jung Circle in recent years. Dr. Hollis will discuss the fresh topic of comedy through a Jungian lens, as described above.

James Hollis, Ph.D., a beloved speaker on Jungian topics, taught Humanities 26 years in various colleges and universities before retraining as a Jungian analyst at the Jung Institute of Zurich, Switzerland (1977-82). He is presently a licensed Jungian analyst in private practice in Washington, D.C. He served as Executive Director of the Jung Center in Houston, Texas for many years, as Executive Director of the Jung Society of Washington, D.C. until 2019, and now serves on the JSW Board of Directors. He is a retired Senior Training Analyst for the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts, was first Director of Training of the Philadelphia Jung Institute, and is Vice-President Emeritus of the Philemon Foundation. Additionally he is a Professor of Jungian Studiesfor Saybrook University of San Francisco/Houston.
He has written a total of seventeen books, which have been translated into 20 languages.

Zoom presentation and discussion led by Dr. Jerry Wright, D.Min.

Jungian analyst Dr. Jerry Wright will lead a discussion based on his newest book, A Mystical Path Less Traveled. Drawing on his personal journals, the Analytical Psychology of C.G. Jung, and on various mystical traditions, Dr. Wright will propose a psychological mysticism that preceded, and now replaces, the historical theological mysticism that has been dependent on theistic images of god. Such images are no longer meaningful for many people – or necessary. He will explore an alternative spiritual path that has the character of a grounded, embodied mysticism that honors the universal experiences of the numinous. Such a perspective could contribute to the healing of the deep divisions that tear at our cultural and political fabric, and which threaten our species and global nest.
The two-hour ZOOM event will include opportunity for questions and dialogue.

Jerry R. Wright, D.Min. is a Jungian psychoanalyst, teacher, and writer who lives in Flat Rock, North Carolina. He is a training analyst with the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. An experienced conference and retreat leader, he has also led pilgrimages to sacred sites in Iona, Scotland; Ireland; Peru; India; Vietnam; Thailand, Cambodia; and Laos. He is the author of A Mystical Path Less Traveled: A Jungian Psychological Perspective (Chiron, 2021) and Reimagining God and Religion, Essays for the Psychologically Minded (Chiron, 2018). Related works integrating Jungian psychology and religion/spirituality include his doctoral dissertation, Symbols for the Christ in the Gospel of John and the Archetypal Self in the Psychology of C. G. Jung, and his Jungian thesis, Archetypal Thin Places: Experiencing the Numinosum.

Zoom presentation presented by Adele Tyler, M.S.S.

What is this large, mysterious book, written and illustrated over many years in the early 1900’s by psychologist Carl Jung as a personal record of his “voluntary confrontation with the unconscious?” Is it a work of genius or the record of a descent into madness? Why was it locked in a bank vault and not published until 2009? And why did Jung, one of the founders of modern psychology, call his years working on this red leather-bound volume “the most important years in my life,” and the source of all of his later work until his death in 1961? We will explore these questions, disucss the newly published Black Books as the source material for the Red Book, and view the beautiful color illustrations and calligraphy that make the book a work of art.

Presented by Adele Tyler, a founding member and past president of the Nashville Jung Circle and student of Jung’s work for thirty years. With a master’s degree in sociology and life coach certification through the Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara, she has worked as a personal growth life coach and Myers-Briggs consultant. In addition, Adele has led workshops and taught USN evening classes on various aspects of Jungian psychology.

Join us for discussion and to watch the pre-recorded panel discussion hosted by the Pacifica Graduate institute Alumni Association on December 31st, 2020. In this hour-long video, four depth psychology scholars examine ways of processing and integrating feelings of grief and loss in this time of pandemic and social unrest. This panel includes psychotherapist and author, Francis Weller; Jungian analyst and senior climate scientist, Jeffrey Kiehl; soul-centered coach and depth psychology alliance founder, Bonnie Bright; and educator and Depth Psychology Alliance Director, James Newell.

The Nashville Jung Circle will watch the video together and follow up with our own discussion and time of sharing.

Sunday, February 28th
2:30 - 4:30 pm
Zoom workshop
led by LeAnn Nesbitt

In this experiential workshop we will explore the main concepts of the SoulCollage® method and its applications, then create a SoulCollage® card, using the “quick card exercise” and practicing the “I Am One Who…” method of giving voice to our card(s) and listening for inner wisdom to emerge.

What to bring:

• 1-3 magazines of any kind – just make sure there are plenty of images within

• Glue Stick

• Scissors

• Pen and paper

• 5 x 8 inch somewhat sturdy substrate on which to glue images. Some ideas are 5 x 8 index cards, file folder or card stock cut to size, or mat board. You may supply your own or order supplies through the links below:

https://hanfordmead.com/product/card-making-supply-pack/

https://hanfordmead.com/product/soulcollage-card-pack/

From LeAnne Nesbitt : "SoulCollage® is a creative process of self-discovery that uses imagination, intuition, and images as a pathway to your own inner wisdom. This gentle yet transformative practice is accessible to everyone—even those who feel they have no artistic ability. Getting started with SoulCollage® is easy and fun. We begin by intuitively choosing images that we assemble on to cards. While we may not immediately understand why we are attracted to the images we choose, as we work with the cards they begin to reveal their meaning.

Seena Frost, author of SoulCollage® Evolving, began developing this process in the late 1980's. Today, people all over the world now practice SoulCollage® as a means of gaining deeper self-understanding and guidance for their lives."

LeAnne Nesbitt credits her first SoulCollage® workshop, in 2012, with helping her navigate a difficult mid-life passage and recognize her vocational calling. Since that time she has completed certification through the Haden Institute in both spiritual direction and dreamwork and trained as a SoulCollag® Facilitator. Her training is deeply rooted in Jungian psychology and mystical Christian tradition.

The author of an e-book entitled Three Ways to Explore Your Dreams with SoulCollage®, LeAnne has worked with SoulCollage Inc. as an editor and consultant. In 2020 she completed her career transition, resigning from a corporate job of fifteen years in financial technology management to devote more time to SoulCollage Inc. and her own creative projects and inner work. For more information, go to www.dreamersandmystics.com or www.thecreativecontemplative.com.

2020 as an Alchemical Year
led by Karen Harper, PhD., LCSW

Jung considered alchemy to be an ancient psycho-spiritual process with the Philosopher’s Stone as its goal, which according to Jung, parallels the individuation process of becoming whole. The transformation process occurs in an alchemical vessel: “The vessel is a symbol for the attitude which prevents anything from escaping into the outside world” (van Franz, 1980, p. 87), and it can be argued that 2020 was such a vessel, both collectively and individually.

This experiential presentation will link significant alchemical processes and symbols in a review of 2020 including coronavirus, death, quarantine, and working with the opposites such as political and racial divisions.

Karen Harper PhD., LCSW is a Jungian therapist in private practice in East Nashville. A depth psychology graduate of Pacifica Graduate Institute and current President of the Nashville Jung Circle, Karen has presented in the U.S. and Canada at Jungian conferences. Her areas of interest are the natural world, Artemis, the archetypal Feminine, and in general, all things Jungian.

Please join us as filmmakers and brothers Michael Whitney and Mark Whitney discuss the making of "Matter of Heart," the classic documentary about Carl Jung. The Whitneys will share stories of experiences with Jung's family, close associates, filming at Jung's home and the tower of Bolligen, and more. Details to follow soon. Please sign up for our newsletter here to receive event details.   

If you’re remembering wild dreams…scary nightmares…or an overwhelming number of dreams, you’re in good company.   
 
“COVID dreams” are a global phenomenon.   While experts offer different theories about what is at the heart of these dreams, it is clear that the pandemic has created a rare opportunity for dream awareness.  A Jungian sees both the personal and the collective unconscious at work. Not only are our dreams processing our feelings about the pandemic; they are also helping us face our truths, integrate our shadows, and grow toward wholeness.
 
Join us Sunday, September 20th, for a Zoom meeting, as Laura Huff, a Jungian-oriented dream worker, updates us on COVID dreaming. You’ll have ample time to share your experiences and discuss what we are all “waking up” to – individually and together.
 
 For some interesting leads, start with: 
http://www.Idreamofcovid.com

Book - Pandemic Dreams, by Deidre Barrett

bit.ly/DBdreams